301: Five Gentle Productivity Tips for Chronic Illness, Autism, and ADHD

301: Five Gentle Productivity Tips for Chronic Illness, Autism, and ADHD

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Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: [00:00:00] One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes down to listening to a productivity expert or reading one of their books is that there's this presumption of what the reader is like. The reader is typically expected to be non disabled. They're expected to be white. They're expected to be middle class.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: They're expected to have access to a lot of different types of resources. And I often don't find myself relating to the author, nor to the tips that they offer because they don't seem flexible enough or customized enough to meet my needs. And so over the years, as someone who is disabled, who is neurodivergent, who is autistic, who has several chronic illnesses, I have had to learn to adapt these strategies to make sense for me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so for today's episode, I thought I would share some of my top productivity tips [00:01:00] that are neurodivergent friendly and that are spoonie friendly. And I hope that at least one of them is one that works for you. So listen up and tune in because I have a lot to say.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: to the award winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place for first gen BIPOCs to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, and author, and I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Welcome back everyone to another [00:02:00] episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, I'm a grad school and productivity coach, consultant, author and speaker, and I just want to say Happy New Year to everyone that's listening today. I appreciate you taking your time to tune in, and I hope that what I have to say today will be helpful for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: As you work on your goals, whether they're brand new goals that you just set or their continuation of last year's goals, I hope that you can find something valuable today. So before I go into sharing my top five tips, I want to share a couple of caveats. So the first warning is that even though I'm sharing spoonie and neurodivergent friendly productivity tips, this doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to work for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I don't believe that there's a cookie cutter approach to how you do your work, how you live your life. I [00:03:00] also don't believe that something that works for you right now may necessarily work for you in the future. I think that this process of figuring out ways to work and live your life that work for you is iterative.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And because it's iterative, you have to keep trying and testing new things out, keep what works, change what doesn't. And over time, you'll slowly pick up more tools and tips for your toolkit to help you to hopefully make your life more manageable, more sustainable. And that is the goal. The other thing I want to say before I go into the tips is that even though I say that these are spoonie and neurodivergent friendly tips.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: When I'm referring to neurodivergence, at least for this episode, I'm referring to ADHD and Autistic or Autism friendly tips. I am not referring to other forms [00:04:00] of neurodivergence. neurodivergence is an umbrella term that applies to all different kinds of conditions and identities that can impact the way that your brain works, that it just works differently from neurotypical people.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And because my experience has been working primarily with folks who are autistic or ADHD, those are the two forms of neurodivergence I'm explicitly talking about and those are the ones that these tips might be applicable or helpful for. And same thing with spoonie. If you are a spoonie and you have chronic illnesses, I don't know the extent to which your chronic illnesses are impacting your life.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You might be able to do a lot of things, even with chronic illnesses, or you might need a lot of additional supports. And even my tips might not be applicable for you. So, take it with a grain of salt if [00:05:00] something works great, if it doesn't, find other alternatives. And then the last thing I want to say before I get into it is that this episode was inspired by a moment of inspiration and hyper focus that I had over my holiday break.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I took some time off from work and of course, even though I say I'm not going to work, I have a lot of fun with learning about productivity. It's one of my special interests. And I just had this moment where I wanted to work on a spreadsheet to write down all of the different productivity tips that I have learned and that have worked for me.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And I actually categorize them by which of them could be helpful for folks with chronic illnesses, which of them could be helpful for folks who are autistic or who are ADHD. And [00:06:00] I also included the different executive functioning skill that it could assist with. So is it going to help you with task initiation?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Is it going to help you with working memory? Is it going to help you with motivation? , That way, when I have my moments where I'm struggling, I can refer back to the spreadsheet with several different tips and find one thing that I can try. And if you're interested and curious, this is actually part of a productivity resource bundle that I have on my shop.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So you can check it out. I'll link it in the show notes. But in any case, I'm sharing my top five. And if you want more, go check that out. So let's dive right into the first productivity tip that I'm sharing today. And this is one that I have talked about before and dedicated an entire episode to. And this is to complete tasks by energy in [00:07:00] episode 144 of my podcast, I actually talked about the ABC method of productivity, and that is an energy management strategy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So by energy management, it means that you want to take a look at your task list and identify which of the tasks take up the most energy, which ones take up less energy, and which ones take up the least amount of energy. And then you can rank them A, B, and C. A takes the most, B takes less, C takes the least amount of energy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You want to match that with your own energy levels, thinking about the time in the day when you have the most energy, when you start to run out of steam, and when you have the least amount of energy. It can be helpful to also figure out what your circadian rhythm is like. And whether or not you're a morning person, afternoon or evening person, as that will help to indicate when are the best pockets [00:08:00] of time you may have during the day to do the work that takes up the most energy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So that is the first strategy or the first productivity tip, complete tasks by energy. And if you want to learn more again, check out episode 144, which will also be linked in the show notes. The second tip that I love. I use this all the time. I know that my coaching clients will be very, very familiar with it because I say this at the end of every single session.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And that is that I want to encourage you to start setting minimum and maximum goals. I know that I've mentioned this in productivity related episodes in the past. I don't think that I have dedicated an entire episode to it, but this is why I love this tip. When you encourage yourself to set minimum and maximum goals, you're giving [00:09:00] yourself a range.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: When I'm referring to minimum goals, I'm thinking about If the world falls apart, if you have a really rough week, if life happens, what's the bare minimum that you can do to still push the needle forward on one of your goals? And then by maximum goals, I mean, if everything goes well in an ideal world, you have a great week, everything's working in your favor.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: What is the most that you can get done toward this goal without burning yourself out. And that's really, really key is figuring out what is the most that you think that you can do without feeling like you're gonna run out of steam and make yourself sick in the long run. It has to be a sustainable amount of work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So if you haven't tried this out before, you can do this when you set your weekly goals or if you, if you prefer to [00:10:00] set monthly goals. You can do it that way. You can even use it for daily goals. I know that I write down my daily goals on a post it. I also have this other resource called a daily focus planner that I offer for free in my grad school femtoring resource kit.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And there I'm able to write down what my daily goals are for work and for my personal life. And so for me, it's helpful to have a range because no day is the same. There are some days that I'm flaring up. There are some days that I'm very, very tired, fatigued, low energy. And so it helps to not feel like I'm never reaching my goals and instead give myself some grace and some wiggle room in terms of how I reach my daily, weekly, or monthly goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Now the third productivity tip [00:11:00] is to identify a focus or a theme of the day. And I'm going to mention my daily focus planner again. It's a one page sheet. I think I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but if you haven't heard about it, it's a one pager and it has different areas that you can fill in.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's a handout. , on the top left, you can see that it says today's area of focus, and you have to write down one word or phrase, and then it gives you a section on listing three work priorities, a section on listing three personal priorities, and a section on listing what you got done, your got done list, instead of a to do list, you're focusing on giving yourself credit for all the things that you did.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And so what I like about this daily focus planner, it's called the focus planner because it's forcing you to identify what are the things that are most important to you today. [00:12:00] And so what is today's area of focus for me? Today's area of focus was making sure I got this podcast episode recorded. Even if there were hiccups, even if I'm feeling out of practice because I took a bit of a break, that's okay.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's the goal for today. And so my minimum goal is just to record it. My maximum goal is to record, edit it, do all of the backend work that I need to do to upload it and get it ready for, releasing it. But in any case, , going back to that productivity tip of , identifying one central focus or theme of the day, this can be incredibly helpful because some folks don't do well with time blocking or with listing out every single thing that they're going to do on a planner, on a calendar.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It feels restraining. And if that's you, then if you can identify a focus and say, you know what, if I [00:13:00] at least touch this area, because that's the focus for today, that can help you to make progress without feeling so limited and constrained by again, time blocking or writing down what you're going to do

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: every single hour.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Now tip number four has to do with organization. And I'm a big fan of using folders and baskets to store everything. When I'm talking about folders, I'm thinking more about digital organization and making sure that you store things in folders with umbrella terms that your future self will remember.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So think about breaking up your materials, whatever you have on your computer or on your drive of any kind, , break down the folders based on major categories of your life and of your work. And when you write down the titles for each of those [00:14:00] folders, think about the key words you're going to remember in the future.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: How are you going to search for this in the future? Are you going to search based on year that you worked on this. Are you going to search based on a particular term? Are you going to search based on certain key phrases? And if so, then use that for titling your folders. And then baskets. By baskets, I'm referring to actual baskets.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Like, get yourself a bunch of baskets, go to the dollar store or go to your local Ross, TJ Maxx, whatever store is available to you that is within your means, that is accessible to you and get yourself a bunch of baskets and wherever you find yourself naturally leaving things. Add a basket there. So if you show up at home, you're like, I keep leaving this pile of my stuff right in front of my door, then maybe you should add a basket there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: If you find yourself leaving a pile of [00:15:00] dirty clothes right next to the shower, then there might need to be a basket there. So just take advantage, buy as many baskets as you can and have fun with it because you don't have to have a home that. And even a workspace that looks exactly like everybody else's.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You want to make it your own and what works for you. And so if you, are thinking about, okay, this is the year that I want to be a little bit more organized and set up my office in a more organized way. Don't think about these, normative notions of what an organized and tidy and neat space looks like and instead think about where do I naturally want to leave stuff, where do I naturally want to grab stuff, where do I naturally want to sit down, where do I naturally want to work, and rearrange things that [00:16:00] way.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So if you, if you're curious about this topic, there's this book, I don't even have it on me right now, but it just in my head, let me see if I can pull it up really quickly. I think it's called how to keep house while drowning. By KC Davis, but I just want to make sure that I actually give you the real

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: title. It is called how to keep house while drowning by KC Davis. So my memory is not that bad in any case , the whole point of this is that. You want to set up little mini systems that work for you. So another tip related to this, related to folders, baskets, putting things in places that are accessible to you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: If you're able to get multiple options of the same thing that you use. So for example, one of the things that was bothering me [00:17:00] is that I only had cleaning products in one of two bathrooms. And so I had to keep moving them from one bathroom to the next. And then I thought to myself, I think I can afford to get two of these spray bottles.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I think I can afford to get two of these towels and have one of each under each bathroom sink. And so now every time I go into a bathroom and something bothers me because it's dirty, instead of then not doing it because I'm annoyed that I have to go to the other bathroom. I can just do it right then and there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: That's not to say I always have the energy to do it, but at least it is one less hurdle. So that's what I'm thinking about in terms of how you organize stuff. You want to make things accessible and you want to minimize hurdles that get in the way of you doing the things that you want to do. Okay, so now we're getting to the fifth and last tip, and [00:18:00] this has to do with rewarding ourselves.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: If you're someone that struggles to celebrate yourself, to reward yourself, please know that you're not alone. I still kind of sort of, , struggle with this is something that I'm actively working on, but I used to be the type of person that felt guilty that every time I worked, I needed to snack on something, or every time I worked, I needed to you know, do something to kind of lift up my mood.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I didn't realize that it was just me needing extra dopamine. And so I'm not telling you that you have to go ahead and pack yourself a bunch of snacks while you're working , you get to decide how you reward yourself, but, , figure out what works for you. Cause I know some folks who like me make themselves feel bad for wanting to reward themselves during the process of doing something instead of after.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And let me [00:19:00] just tell you, for those of us that need a little bit of extra dopamine, especially those of us with ADHD, it is completely okay to reward yourself while you're doing something. It is also okay to reward yourself after doing something, you can do both. Nobody's stopping yourself. You just have to figure out the ways that you can reward yourself that are available to you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: So obviously I'm not telling you, go and break the bank and get all the things that you want to reward yourself all day, every day. What I'm saying is find ways, whatever works for you to reward yourself. Maybe it means, you know, telling a friend that you got through this very difficult task on your to do list as you are transitioning to the next task.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Maybe it means getting yourself a sticker chart and giving yourself stickers every single time you get through a difficult part of a task. Maybe it means getting [00:20:00] your favorite snack and having it available to you. And eating a little piece of your favorite snack as you're working on something. I don't know.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: You decide. And if you can't figure out ways to reward yourself, go ahead and experiment with Google or AI to find options to figure out, okay, , what will work for me? There's so many tools nowadays at our disposal. It's almost overwhelming, but find one and , create a little list of rewards and go ahead and

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: give yourself permission to celebrate yourself for all the progress that you're making. Now, those are my five tips and I know they might not work for everybody. And I also want to mention that for me, another thing that has helped me a lot, this is not one of the five tips, but I just want to be completely honest with you that at the end of the day, some [00:21:00] of us are just doing way too much.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And at the end of the day, capitalism is really, really hard on our bodies. And sometimes no matter how many tips and tools and strategies you have access to, it is still too much. And the demands on life are too much for you to handle. If that is true for you, I just want to say I am so, so sorry. And I hope that you can find ways to do less, even if it means disappointing others.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I hope that you can find ways to pace yourself. I hope that you can find ways to rest without feeling like you need to earn it. Because yes, I use all these productivity tips. I really like them. I like that they helped me to do work sustainably, to do work in a flexible way,

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: but at the same time, a lot of it has meant me completely changing my life so that I can do [00:22:00] less, that a lot of it has meant me shifting the way that I am in relationship with others. I know that some people would rather see me the way that they once saw me back when I wasn't accommodating myself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: They would rather me be the person that was at everyone's call, the person that was always answering emails within minutes of receiving them. The person that never took time off, the person that you knew you could count on because my entire life and identity was built on achievement. My entire life and identity was built on people pleasing, perfectionism, and this deep seated fear of what would happen to me if I disappointed others.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Because at the end of the day, I had not been taught [00:23:00] how to love myself enough to be okay with disappointing others. So all this to say that these are just a few tips. Take it with a grain of salt. They may or may not work for you. If you want access to more tips, feel free to check out my resource bundle.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: It's two spreadsheets. One of them has a collection of over 30 tools that can help you to boost your productivity. And again, tools can help, but , we need to work on ourselves and we need to get to the root of why we are struggling so much. And then, yes, if you want to add a tool here and there, great.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The second sheet from this resource bundle is a guide. That includes the specialized productivity tips for folks with chronic illnesses, autism, and ADHD. So if you want to have access to these spreadsheets that can help you to adapt your productivity tools [00:24:00] and tips to best meet your needs, check it out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: And if not, I hope that you will continue to make time for Reflection, trying things out, and figuring out what works best for you. So if you like what you heard and you want more, the other thing I have to say is that I would love for you to invite me to facilitate a sustainable productivity workshop for you and your group for your events.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: I am available for speaking engagements this year and I would love, love, love to speak for more nonprofits and more mission driven companies. That is my goal for 2025 is to expand the reach of my work beyond academia into other spaces, because I do think that this work is needed. And I do think that, you know, we all deserve to do work that feels good for us.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: All right, y'all that's it for today. And I hope you'll have a good rest of your [00:25:00] week. I'll talk to you all next time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and podcast playlists on all things grad school, productivity, and personal development.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening. And until next time.