Going Paperless w/ ADHD Coach and Podcaster Morgan Dodson

I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it! —— Morgan Dodson is a life coach for people with ADHD. She helps them go paperless, and digitally organize their lives into simple tools they can use forever, not Pinterest perfect strategies that fall flat after a few weeks. In 2018, she started a professional home organizing business, but after hiring her first life coach, losing seventy five pounds, stopping drinking, being diagnosed with ADHD, and overcoming her hyperthyroidism, she decided to become a coach herself. Ever since then she’s been working online with ADHD-ers from all over the world to simplify their lives by going paperless for the last time. Today we learn about her journey and how she’s now helping fellow ADHD’ers -enjoy! In this episode Peter and Morgan Dodson discuss:   2:35 - Intro and welcome Morgan!  3:50 - How Morgan got her start and her back story 4:40 - How she started her own coaching business 5:40 - On the concept of using paperless systems to work your ADHD 6:44 - What to do when we can’t go paperless 9:35 - What else are you helping people with other than becoming paperless? 12:00 - On prioritizing  12:23 - What are some of your other go-to tricks?  Ref:  Apps Trello  Asana  Notion 16:50 - How can people find you? https://www.morgandodsoncoaching.com Going Paperless with ADHD Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/3HaY1LdDbiJLjA6Jqo9pfq Apple Podcast Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1543950427 Subscribe to Morgan’s email list HERE [At the time of taping Morgan does not appear to be on any Social media other than @morgandodsoncoaching on Facebook] 17:04 - Thank you Morgan Dodson!  Guys, as always, we are here for you and we love what the responses and the notes that we get from you. So please continue to do that, tell us who you want to hear on the podcast, anything at all, we’d love to know.  Leave us a review on any of the places you get your podcasts, and if you can ever, if you ever need our help, I'm www.petershankman.com and you can reach out anytime via [email protected] or @petershankman on all of the socials. You can also find us at @FasterThanNormal on all of the socials. It really helps when you drop us a review on iTunes and of course, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already! As you know, the more reviews we get, the more people we can reach. Help us to show the world that ADHD is a gift, not a curse!    17:35 - Faster Than Normal Podcast info & credits   TRANSCRIPT:  — I want to thank you for listening and for subscribing to Faster Than Normal! I also want to tell you that if you’re listening to this one, you probably listened to other episodes as well. Because of you all, we are the number one ADHD podcast on the internet!! And if you like us, you can sponsor an episode! Head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ It is a lot cheaper than you think. You'll reach... about 25k to 30,000 people in an episode and get your name out there, get your brand out there, your company out there, or just say thanks for all the interviews! We’ve brought you over 230 interviews of CEOs, celebrities, musicians, all kinds of rock stars all around the world from Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Keith Krach from DocuSign, Danny Meyer, we've had Rachel Cotton, we've had  the band Shinedown, right? Tons and tons of interviews, and we keep bringing in new ones every week so head over to https://rally.io/creator/SHANK/ make it yours, we'd love to have you, thanks so much for listening!  Now to this week's episode, we hope you enjoy it!   — Heeey- Faster Than Normal you're here, I'm here. Our guest is here. Everyone's here. Which for someone people with ADHD thing, you know, I'll take that as a win. My name is Peter Shankman. You are listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We love when you were here and it makes us very, very happy. It is a grey gloomy afternoon here in New York city, but we are persevering and pushing through my daughter is back in school. I'm hoping that will last. That gives us some freedom. Uh, I was all, we were all like, you know, worried about the tears this morning when I dropped her off. Not, not so much from her,, rather from me. Uh, uh, it turns out she was happy to get rid of me. So, you know, Hey, everyone wins. We are talking to Morgan Dodson this morning on America’s number 1 ADHD podcast. We're going to welcome to faster than normal. I will give you a, I'll give you a second to say hello, and they will give you, I'll give you the audience are your bio and all of that cool stuff going on there. So welcome to Faster Than Normal!  Amazing. Sorry to hear that it's gloomy. I'm experiencing a very bright Southern Illinois day, so it's just starting to feel like fall down here. But, um, thank you for having me. I have to tell you first, a, um, a quick story years ago when I found your podcast. I remember just listening to one after another classic, you know, binge consuming, a podcast, ADHD style. And I said to myself, I will be on his podcast one day; and it was, it was, and I don't even remember, like if I was a coach at that time, but I just knew I would be here someday. I didn't know how, I didn't really know but here I am. So that's super fun, but, um,  Manifesting your dreams. Well done.  Exactly, exactly. Nailed it. So, yeah, so I'm sure you will have read my bio by now in the podcast, but my name is Morgan Dodson and I am a digital organization coach for people with ADHD. I would say if you will. I suspect you have ADHD or you have it, and you're anywhere on the planet with the internet and a pulse. I can coach you. So, uh, growing up, I didn't even know I had ADHD until age 22 when it kind of fell in my lap. Um, my therapist casually mentioned, Hey, I think you have ADHD. And I said, no, I don't. That's ridiculous. Cause I was so organized at the time. Right. So growing up. Kind of to navigate and kind of to compensate and accommodate my, my undiagnosed ADHD, which I thought just was the normal to have a very, very fast brain. Right. I would obsess if we organize everything because I was a hot mess. Right. Like even growing up, everything was so messy. Growing up and even into college, you know, I learned a thing or two about organizing. And after, after college I used none of my, my agricultural communications degree that I just graduated with and I started a professional home organizing business, which has evolved into what is today, which is just online. COVID. Right. So instead of going into people's houses, which was difficult because I could work with them and they would get the result of, you know, an organized kitchen or closet, but then it wouldn't even be maintained. You know, I'd come back a couple of weeks later and really be frustrated with them and maybe frustrated with themselves, but throughout my own journey, with, you know, therapy and then kind of outgrowing the therapy model, I found coaching life coaching and using those tools too of course, to learn about my ADHD and navigate all of that and to lose over 75 pounds and stop over drinking and completely change my whole life. So. I definitely believe in those tools after really having to change my mind about them. You know, I used to believe a life coaching that's cute. Right. Get a real job. Right. And so after being a product of that product, like I said, I had to change my mind. So here I am today and I help people with ADHD go paperless. And really we focus on three main areas of calendaring and following. Project management and all of the scheming and saving of all the things..  I'm going to interrupt you just because I want to, I wanna make sure we cover as much as possible let's turn to the concept of paperless. Right? So one of the things that's given us is the ability to almost no, almost entirely go paperless. That, uh, one of the things I dread now in my life is actually one of the mailbox, right? I'm getting, you know, 99% of it. I live in an apartment, unfortunately in our building we have a recycle bin right next to the mailboxes because, you know, we dump all our junk down there. And maybe once a week I have to actually bring something upstairs. And then I look at it like, what the hell does this have to go? Right. I sit at my desk and do whatever. So paperless is a wonderful thought. It's a wonderful idea. You know, real-world scenario in a practical scenario, we can't all be paperless all the time. I'm sitting here looking at a tax bill, um, you know, a quarterly apartment tax bill that I have to pay and, and it doesn't, you can't go tax, you can't go paperless in New York state. Right. So talk about for a second as basically its competitors in many ways as possible. Talk about what we do or those points where we can’t.  Yeah. And I think that's an important thing to mention too, right. Is like even in my life that living in very rural Southern Illinois, where I think a lot of places are lagging in the option to go paperless. Right. And I think it's important just to know that it's not about going paperless for paperless sake, right? It's about how can I save all the information in my life, all the data in my life, to where I have systems to maintain them. Right. Versus. You know, getting rid of paper, isn't the problem. I think it, a lot of times it comes down to a lack of systems problems. Right. And even for me, like, I still purposely keep a good amount of paper. Right. Like it's more about, do you know your reasons for keeping it and do you like them? Right. So always on my desk, I have this just boring and plain notepad that I dump ideas in and it's kind of just like my inbox. Right. And then I also journal on paper.  Right. And so I know how those tools give me value versus I wouldn't just, you know, not, you know, like without really considering my reasons for keeping lots of paper. Um, does that make sense?  It's way more about, do you know your reasons, unlike your reasons, right. That, you know, a lot of people find is that they get used to a certain way. Like for instance, in, in, you know, most of the stuff that I do, I can go pay for this in so many ways. And then when something comes in that doesn't allow that when something comes into that, that, that messes with that. Uh, sort of rhythm.  Yeah. Yeah. And I can relate to that too. Especially, you know, with the example of, you know, auto billing and even just having the bill emailed to you. Right. And it's like, oh, this is so annoying. Even for me, like my insurance, my health insurance is a cost share insurance. So it's not like, regular insurance. So they have to reimburse me with paper checks in the mail. It's like one of the few things I actually get in the mail now. And I'm, it literally does throw me off a little bit when you know, I'm budgeting or doing any kind of money things. Right. It's like it would, it would make too much sense. Right to do it electronically, but nonetheless, I think it's more, you know, for me about how can I accommodate this way of doing things that they have allowed for and not making it a problem that they do this right. Cause that could be mad at them and like begrudgingly cash, this check and, um, thank God for, you know, having a bank app that can let me deposit it. Right. You know, or it can just not make it a problem and, you know, I have everything else as digital as possible. And I know that that makes it easy for me. And also I can accommodate those other things that maybe hasn't quite caught up yet with the digital life that I want to live, you know? Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it really is about balance and finding out, you know, sort of what works and how to make it work. What else, what else are you helping people with other than paperless? Because I know that as much as, as much of a bonus is to go, you know, to make your life easier and that there's still a lot more. Yeah. Yeah. So we talk a lot about calendaring, right? There's kind of two sides to it of it's one thing to put some plans on the calendar, right. To map out all the things you want to do and get in any given day in any given week, but then it's a whole nother side of things to follow through. Right. I can't tell you how many times when I was trying to transition from my paper planner in college too and the grudgingly transfer from a paper planner to iCal right. A digital calendar and I'd have all the best laid out plans and then come time to do it, I could not get myself to do it. So a lot of the work is figuring out the right those reasons and those obstacles you have to yeah. Putting the plan on the calendar and then to follow through on it. That is a lot of what I coach on that. And then project management, right. Those are kind of like two sister skills of it's. One thing to put things on the calendar, but. To have a place organized enough kind of like your external brain where I can put my ideas in. And I know exactly where this kind of idea would go or this to-do list or this thing I need to buy. Right. And then having that kind of personal database to pull from, to then put your whole life on the calendar. And really, I love thinking about it. Like if I can map out any project or goal into doable chunks and put them on the doable calendar. And then if I can follow through on those things, even if they suck, even if they're like, I want to put my eyeballs out or it's scary. If I know I can overcome those obstacles and do anything on the calendar, like my dreams are as good as done.  Right. I totally understand that. And that definitely make, you know, it makes it interesting to one of the things about ADHD. I find that is if you can block things out into small manageable chunks, as you start giving them. You know, the dope mean kicks and the adrenaline kicks in and you start wanting to do more of them. As the adrenaline and dopamine kicks in And so sometimes getting that big project done is as easy as just getting the first small one.  Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And I used to kind of begrudgingly like almost get mad at people who gave me that advice of eat the frog first thing in the morning. It's a no. Right. So even in the mornings, you know, on any given day, I will do certain small things kind of just to get them out of the way and to get some momentum going, but even with small goals or, or even big goals. Yeah. Like you said, like you kind of have to get the ball rolling in that way and do some small things and get that dopamine going. Y’know? Definitely. What else do you advise people to do? I mean, what else, what else are some of your go-to tricks?   Yeah. I mean the one main thing I always start clients with is, and I see this a lot too, because it also used to be me, right. Of people, whether, you know, in Facebook groups or people coming to me and saying, what apps should I use? Right. Like, what are the best apps for organizing or for ADHD in general? And I'm like, listen, You can digitize and organize your entire life. Even for us ADHD’ers. Right? We like the, we like the fancy apps. We like the ones that have all the bells and whistles. Right. But you can digitize your entire life into three simple apps and they don't have to cost a lot of money. Right. They could be free if you wanted them to. Right. So I always recommend, instead of kind of just looking at all the apps like a buffet, and then you can pick all the ones you want. Right. Just pick three. And I always recommend in three categories, right? You pick a calendar app. It literally doesn't matter which one. Right? Pick a project management app that is a little bit more robust than just the notes app on your phone. Right? Some popular ones are Trello, Asana notion, those kinds of ones, [[ Trello  Asana  Notion]] and then pick a place to store your files. Right? Some people love Google drive. I personally use Google drive. You know, you can use Dropbox. It literally doesn't matter, pick one in each of those categories. And then really the magic is A- you have to pull and kind of take inventory of all the other apps you have. Right. Okay. It turns out I've got three Dropbox accounts, two Google drives. Oh, I have this other, you know, Reminders list at like there's all kinds of apps we have stuff in. Taking that into account, consolidating into these three places, and then taking all of the physical paper and data you have and putting it in those three things. And I will tell you, like, this was magical for me to kind of finally figure out for myself, because if I'm going, looking for something, whether it's a file or a picture, it doesn't even matter. I'm not looking across 12 different apps. I know for sure it's at least in one of those three. Right. So then that completely constrains losing things. I can't tell you how little I lose things now, just because of that simple structure for it. And that, you know, that kind of protocol for laying things out. I think one of the interesting things about, about, um, you know, what I've discovered in terms of keeping things online digitally is your work in the ecosystem you enjoy. Right? So for me, I'm, I'm both in Apple and Google. And so across my phone are spread out the apple and Google apps that allow me to get to whatever I need based on wherever I am, whatever I'm doing.  You know, it seems like, oh, use, use this one. I use that. And I'm like, well, if they don't live in the ecosystem, I'm already in, that's an extra step. Right. And what we're trying to do is eliminate those extra steps, right? Yeah. And I think you brought up a good point. It's like, yeah, you have Apple stuff on your phone. I would guess you maybe have an iPhone. I do have an iPhone. I'm an Apple girl. Generally. I use I Cal. Right. But I also use a lot of different things that Google offers. And so not making it wrong if you're like in both camps. Right. And a lot of times I find that clients and I used to do this too. Right. So I'm totally guilty of it, of kind of using the indecision and the confusion about, oh my gosh, which apps should I choose? Which ones are right? Which ones are wrong? Like and using that as a distraction to not necessarily avoid digitizing things or organizing them. But I think it's more so about, I think unconsciously, our brains know if we are organized, if we can find things and have an organized to-do list, and we know we can put it on the calendar and follow up through our brains thinks that means we actually have to do things that might be scary or uncomfortable. And I think a lot of times we use the, the kind of distracting confusion of in, you know, not deciding on which apps to use or, or you pick them. And, oh my gosh, I don't know how to use it or let me go. Look up for hours on YouTube, right? I used to do this, like scrolling up and down YouTube, Pinterest, whatever of like, best way to use Evernote or what are, what are the best ways to lay it out? And really it's more about how can I use this system and make it simple. And then how can I get to work doing work that matters, right? That's what it's all about. Definitely. Awesome. How can people find you if they wanna learn more? Yeah. So there's a couple of ways you can go and find my podcast going paperless with ADHD, and you can also go to my website, which is Morgan Dotson coaching.  https://www.morgandodsoncoaching.com  Going Paperless with ADHD Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/3HaY1LdDbiJLjA6Jqo9pfq  Apple Podcast Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1543950427 Subscribe to Morgan’s email list here: https://morgandodsoncoaching.ck.page   Awesome guys, you’ve been listening to Morgan Dobson on www.FasterThanNormal.com My name is Peter Shankman. Thank you so much, Morgan. Thank you so much for taking the time and we will see you next week. We're going to have you back at some point in the future. Definitely. One-hundred percent! This was a lot of fun! Guys, ADHD is a gift, not a curse, you know, that make sure you are telling your friends about that. Make sure you were standing up for who you are, what you believe in and in who you are and understanding that you have the, both of you be the best you can be. Don't listen to what anyone else says, except for us because we know what we're talking about; ADHD is a gift, not a curse. We'll see you next week, byee! — Credits: You've been listening to the Faster Than Normal podcast. We're available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google play and of course at www.FasterThanNormal.com I'm your host, Peter Shankman and you can find me at petershankman.com and @petershankman on all of the socials. If you like what you've heard, why not head over to your favorite podcast platform of choice and leave us a review, come more people who leave positive reviews, the more the podcast has shown, and the more people we can help understand that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. Opening and closing themes were composed and produced by Steven Byrom who also produces this podcast, and the opening introduction was recorded by Bernie Wagenblast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.