The age of chimpanzees.

I was a monkey.

I will say this

even though it's never the same.

Always sound the same,
we always look different.

There's always like some editing tweaks
that have to happen.

This feels like coming home.

Like, I know I've missed you.

I know. Just the two of us.

The two of us can make it if we try.

what?

One of the beautiful parts of ADHD
is that even though I've experienced

something before, experiencing it again
feels like the first time.

It really.

It feels like the first time?

Yeah, it really does sometimes.

Yeah. Watching movies again.

And you love watching movies
over and over,

and I don't, but when I watch a movie
and Lindsay's like, “No,

we saw that one”, I'm like,
I don't know that I did.

You must have watched it without me.

And then I just can't, I can't remember.

And then there will be one tiny thing
right at the very end and the climax.

I'm like, I know who has seen this.

This happened to me more times.

Than I am comfortable.

And then and then you get into
like an existential crisis of like,

do I say anything?

Because we've gone the whole movie
and I just cut on, the last 15 minutes.

Or do I just play dumb and be like,
that was a really good first time

I've ever viewed that fine
cinematic feature.

Yeah, I know, but yeah.

So that made me want to go back
to the beginning of ADHd20.

I bet I would learn
some things all over again.

We would probably relearn some.

Well, you're kind of in luck,
because the topic

that I wanted to speak about today
is definitely a re addressing

of, of

topics
that we have gone through in the past.

So maybe this is the beginning of
of that journey for.

You a better.
I love this journey for both of us.

let's do the one thing

that we have consistently been able
to remember every single show.

Yeah. Since we.

And part of the episode
with our sweet friend Tay,

who we got to hang out
with over the weekend to film

the finale of The Adventures of Blood
and Herbs Season one.

for our bestie’s forthcoming podcast, I'm

going to go ahead and say this publicly
right now.

Anna Fitzgerald is the number one
fan of ADHd20

I, Alison Leigh Kendrick, and the number
one fan of The Adventures of Bud and Herb.

There it is.

You will not unseat me.

That will not unseat me.

Roll me that beautiful…
What dice you're rolling with today, sir.

What you got there today?

Today?

I've actually got quite a few options.

Today I'm going to use my wooden dice.

And I'm going to use my dragon scale dice.

Oh, you're. You're mixing.

I've never been mix and match.
I've never done that before.

Oh. That's dangerous.

Yeah,
I guess I shouldn't do that, should I?

I think I love the energy
I'm going to start inspiring me to, like,

okay, this match sets.

What did you get?

[sound of dice rolling] I got a 67.

Okay.

I love how the universe is always, always,

always listening to us getting woo
woo early today.

We just had a conversation

about like, how did people not know
earlier in our lives?

And today's question is
what's your biggest ADHD AHA!

moments

in life?

Yeah.

Oh, the biggest one.

Yeah, the biggest one.

I mean,
this podcast has made that so easy,

but I really think that the.

Okay a little bit of clarification.

So by AHA,

we mean.

Oh my gosh I didn't realize explains that.

I, I think it's asking for me.

Is there like a specific because
it's saying the biggest AHA moment.

Like is there a moment
that you can think of.

We've both lived a lot of moments
where like you were like, oh my God.

And that's masking.

Or now that you look back,
you were like, in that moment

I was masking hard core
and I wasn't aware of it.

Okay.

Well, I guess then I should step back
and say, I have told this story before,

but my moment,
the moment where I was like,

oh no.

Was when I was reading ADHD: A Hunter

in a Farmer's World by Tom Hartman.

Oh, I don't know.

And I was I my roommate had ADHD

and this was on our joint book

shelf, and I just picked it up,

started going through it, and

stories started freaking out.

What?

Yeah, I, I, I think I, you know,

I say this a lot, but I, I,

I very specifically

remember literally dropping the book.

In in shock and and knew

knew that my life was changed forever.

How about you.

I know that I've shared the ones before
about like

finally figuring out
how to tether my inability to do

certain tasks by myself to ADHD from like,
I need someone to come over and like,

just sit on my couch and watch my TV
while I clean the house.

That's a good one.

Good one. You know, my inability

to walk into a restaurant alone,
my friends have to text me.

Those are all big. Just glass shattering.

But I think for me,
the biggest moment around ADHD

has definitely been
around the conversations

we've had about rejection,
sensitive dysphoria, and learning.

Because this is something
like I was a highly sensitive child.

I was always labeled melodramatic,
overdramatic, dramatic, like.

And I remember
like, friends in high school and beyond,

like,
why are why are you so much? Why just,

you know, can't you just be a duck
and let the water roll off your back?

And so learning that this is that RSD
first of all is a real thing.

And I'm genetically predisposition for it
with my ADHD

was definitely my biggest like it's not
yeah there's nothing wrong with me.

This is just the neural pathways
that information takes around my brain.

I think that's so big and beautiful. Yes,

we at
ADHd20, which by the way, is a podcast

that finds the intersection
between ADHD and TTRPGs.

Yes, we believe ADHD in
many ways is a disability.

We believe this
and we try to speak that truth.

we do not feel that
anyone should abuse this thing.

So it's one thing to say my brain works
this way.

It's another thing to hide behind. Yep.

My brain works this way.

Yes. And, it is oftentimes
a very fine line, but I did just kind of

want to say that because it does somewhat
fit into the topic of today,

but I think it fits into

our personal voyages.

Our fantastic voyages, if you will.

Fantastic voyages that we that we want

to understand and appreciate and use

that understanding for forgiveness,
but mostly for ourselves.

Not to ask other people to.

Well, I can't do that.

Ain't engineers.

Leave me alone and I'm not going to know
what you want me to do.

Go to Hell. …that.

we've talked about this.

Could you not do your impressions of me
on the episode?

[laughing]

I'm sorry.

It's just an old habits die anyway,

so I love that.

I love AHA moments, and.

Those are good ones.

So we had a question
chosen at random from a table of 100

talking about our favorite ADHD
one moments. Yes.

Leading into a topic of an AHA moment
that you have

both had and continue to have.

Gosh, that's a good segue.

Wow, master.

Full. Masterful.

Yes. I have recently had an AHA moment.

It's not like I have not been aware.

That's what's so interesting about
moments sometimes to me,

there's
always a part of me that knows, right?

There's always a part of me deep down
and it's like

Yeah, that is a thing.

And it just depends on how much I want
to give energy

to that thing or, or ignore that thing
or forgive myself for that thing.

This is

something I've talked about before is my

inherent

ability and desire to learn.

That's really what it is at the core.

I want to learn new things all the time.

I want to experience new things.

Now, this is not a surprise
to anyone who has ADHD

or anyone that's ever heard about
ADHD that ooh,

shiny or ooh, squirrel,

ooh thunder.

Or just like big crack just now.

Oh, duh.

Yeah.

You're going to get washed away. Goodbye!

Sea a voyage.

fantastic.

So, yeah.

I get to be a Pirate apparently…yar!

I go so

the thing where.

Ooh shiny, ooh squirrel gets

people with ADHD in trouble
is, when you are actually able

to wrap the concept of work around it,
you can.

Case. Is that right? Case.

like the sausage casing.

Yes. Just like sausage case in case.

Basically, the thing is that

I love learning. I love new things.

I love software,
I love technical difficulty.

I spend time doing it.

I brag about watching

YouTube videos, not about Taylor Swift.

No, there's nothing wrong about that.

But I watch YouTube videos on

project management systems

and database applications.

That's what I do for fun
and I take that knowledge

and I say, well,
this is going to apply to my work

or this is going to apply
to my game world building,

or this
is going to apply to anything in my life.

Okay.

And my moment recently was that

that can often be misguided.

In my world it's just what I want.

What I want to do is what I like doing.
I love doing that.

It makes work fun for me to think about
new things and to come up with new things.

And, and it's also a way
that I find a community.

Right?

I love this app called Tana.

It's incredibly complicated.

I'm part of their slack channel.

I have new friends
that have ADHD and use Tana.

You have?

Yeah, and I've totally forgotten
all of my old friends. Friends?

No new friends. That I.

See. Agreement or no new friends.

So there are many benefits to this over
tweaking this.

But this learning, this

impetus, this limitless

quest for

knowledge nerdery.

But the problems are

that it can take time away from things
I really want to do.

Period.

That's the bad news
that I have to share with everybody today,

that if you are similar to me, which

you are blessed arc,

because this does not seem to be an issue
for you at all.

And I'm so envious.

If there's one thing

I could change about my brain,
it would be to have a little bit of that.

My brother also has no need.

He can futz and tweak on
lots of other things. But.

But not in this way.

So the story is
that I was tasked to build a project

management system for our team,

and it has been half a year or more,

and I still have not deliver that
because I have rebuilt a notion.

Project management system at least
five times in the last six months.

Yeah.

And that's just that becomes a problem.

You know, it's
not like I do it all day, every day.

And it's not like work doesn't get done.

It's really the issue with it really is
that I have a whiteboard here

of the things that I really want to get
done, which is be a better game master.

Put out more videos about

the tabletop
role playing games that I love.

Make videos about software
concerning tabletop role playing.

But if I don't,
if I'm just fussing with notion,

it's it's me just wasting time.

It's just wasting time.

So I had this moment and I just said,

oh my gosh,
this is such a problem in my life.

And I just decided to get serious about it
and get real about it.

So that's what we were talking about today
is just that feeling.

Whether you have any of this,

Alison, and also, of course, how

that has applied to my being a game master
and the tools that I use

because recently you have introduced me to

arguably the most simple

virtual tabletop,

Albert Rodeo.

And we
used foundry yesterday and I was like,

damn, I wish this was out there
because I am clicking

and cooking and clicking
and setting up all this beautiful stuff.

And it's not making it better for,
for anyone.

It's just not making any. It's
not making it better.

And I want to do the things.

I mean, look, I've overcome a lot of this.

Yeah.

In the last two years
since doing this podcast.

Like I've overcome a lot of this need,
but it's still there

and it's probably going to be
something I have to fight. So.

Do you think.

Alison.

I'll.

I'll talk in my nice,
soothing voice for a moment.

Okay. Thank you. Welcome to therapy, Matt.

I'm proud of you.

These are big,
important steps you're taking.

I don't say that.

I mean, I'm talking in jest,
but I almost feel like

I should have walked in here
to, like, a banner, you know, like

this is an intervention. Yeah.

but but a self-imposed intervention,
to be very clear.

I, I yeah, I, I was as I was thinking
about this episode before we hit record,

you know, there was a,
there was an episode last season where

Matt basically felt like I called him
to the principal's office to have a word,

please, Mr. Bivins.

And I feel like Matt has called himself
to the principal's office.

I have, I have actually done I've called
myself to the to the principal's office.

And and even though this is a topic
that we have talked about

one on one with our team,
with this community, over and over again,

there still is something
new about this discussion to me today.

And that is
because you have said many times

now that that my lack of desire

to futz is something that you envy.

So I'm almost wondering
if maybe the thing to do here,

the thing that we're solving for
is like how to pull us

both closer to the middle,
because I am so staunchly opposed to you

that I don't even start.

And that's also a big problem
in and of itself.

And I think that that my inability
to begin

and my utter just panic and shut down the.

Yeah, during Stacy's,

when I see a blank page.

Is. Just as deeply problematic
as I'm going to flex and fonts and fonts

and fonts forever
because because at the end of the day,

neither like the problem is
we don't know what Dun looks like.

We don't know what Dun looks like.
We don't know what Dun looks like.

We don't know what it looks
like. So if I never start it.

You know,
and I never finish, you never finish it.

Either way, we never get to check the box.

and that's
that's problematic for ourselves

as people, for ourselves, as teammates
and for everybody

that has to work with us and our our

our team and our clients alike.

It's interesting. Yeah, it's.

And I've had a lot of conversations

to that tune of like,
why do these, like, seemingly

small things just, like, shut you down,
you know, and you just can't take

and then I can,
but I can do, like, other big things.

you know.

Yeah.

So it's it's a problem.

I guess what we're going
to. We're going to try and solve for it.

okay.

So, you know, I began that that
little diatribe there in jest, but, like,

I am proud of you.

It is a big step that we do need to like,
continue to go to therapy

about these things. Yeah.

and so even though that was a little like,
you know, flippant approach to it,

I mean it too.

and. I am I am going to coaching
and therapy about this.

Yeah.

And it is, it is, you know, my my,
my coach who we who've all met Brittany.

She's a she's a gear, not a tool not to.

And so when we talk about
it, she understands it.

Yeah.

and but
but her job is to try to just minimize it.

And I think I think a part of it, too,
is that

it has been so long.

Is that thunder?

Can you hear. Me?

it's.

Like shaking my house right now. Yeah.

Oh, man. Yeah.

So if I.

If you lose me, I lost power.

Okay. Okay.

I'll never lose. You know?

But first I go back.

Oh, well.

But here's the thing.

Thanks in part to Brittany's help,
I now have things

that I genuinely care about a lot.

A lot.

You know, and I've narrowed them

down to just a couple of buckets.

Just a few buckets.

Yeah. And.

Wow. It's so loud.

And I'm recording a podcast
for God's sake.

Come on. Rude.

So rad.

So, you know, the problem
with me doing this now

is that when I have been working on things
I did not actually enjoy.

Yeah. It was an escape.

I'm not saying that's better.

But I'm saying
at least my brain was working.

At least I was doing stuff.

I mean, if somebody walked in
off the street and said, hey, buddy,

I need a notion template
for project management.

Yeah.

By end of day today, I got that.

I can do that.

That's wonderful.

A lot of people can't
do that. So that's great. But

it's not helping my situation.

And now.

Now that I care way more

about things in my life,
I want to move forward.

Way more than notion.

Then I need to stop
doing things like that.

Or at least be curtailed.

Or at least be hand-held.

Yeah.

Had someone hold my hand to stop me.

Or just check it before I record.

Check before you record.

And it's interesting because as you were
trying your damnedest over the past

honestly longer than six months
because you start to know it's like here.

It's like oh.

All you are ever doing was trying to give
everybody everything we ever wanted.

That's all a simple request,

like just just make four people
with four very different brains.

Plus, futureproof it for anybody else
who's going to need to put their hands in

on and around it.

Perfect, Matt.

That's all.
Why are you being dramatic here?

but to that extent, to that end.

That's why I love a template.

That's why I always wanted a dashboard.

Because in my brain,
when I come to a screen and go,

yeah, I don't know what to do.

Like, I don't know where to go.

And then I get, you know, about it.

And so that was what
I was always asking for.

So you were trying to, you know,

and that's where Evan
and I both kept saying, like, isn't

there just like a template of this
we can use?

Like,
why does it have to be built from scratch?

Yeah. You know,
but and things like that. So.

Right.

And every single person
I've talked to about this

says that mentions that the, the thing
my response is,

I heard you and I went back once again

to the drawing board
and I pulled out pure notion

templates, not even a third party,
just pure notion branded templates.

we're talking about notion here.

If no one knows what notion is.

just look it up.

Sorry, we don't have touch. So if, like.

It's out on and already.

Sorry. Yeah, forget about it.

But but, you know, it could be notion.

It could be tonic. It could be clickup.
It could be literally.

It could be.

It could be foundry virtual tabletop.

It could, you know, interchangeable.

As far as as far as what
we're actually talking about.

Well, and the bigger question is how do
for people with very different brains work

together effectively and deliver things
in a client facing world?

That's ultimately the thing
that we're solving for here. Yes.

And that that is tough.

That is tough.

But but the
the response that I would give to people

when they said, hey,
can't you just use templates?

I went out and I got these templates
and I and I, I put them together.

But yes, like you say, we've got content
creation.

We've got we've got things

that heavily involve
a calendar, we've got tasks we've got

we've got a client project
and then we've got a not client project.

And how do they all fit together?

But but the even bigger problem for me was

even if I had the actual ability

to just hook together
a few notion templates,

call it a day, my love of watching people
like Thomas Frank

or this German fella named Matthias Frank,

they're all named Frank.

I guess I am. I'm not kidding.

I know or or Ali Abdal

or these, these people who are, like,
putting out productivity.

It is porn.

I'm not the first person to say
that it is porn.

And they've come up with beautiful, genius

ways of using this stuff notion itself.

Next week or a month later, or the month
after is going to come up with a mind

blowing new feature that will fix dozens

of little things that that bug me.

And it's always about that,
isn't it's always about this, this.

You get to a point
and you're given all of these tools,

but then you hit a little snag
and it's just the snag that is

it just it just drives me insane.

That is ADHD as well, right? That is the

that is that is the

the inability for me to use an an app
that is not esthetically pleasing

to look at
or has a terrible user experience.

I can't do it, I won't, I won't choose it,
I won't do it.

It's just how my brain works.

And so I'll hit a snag
and try to work and hack that snag.

This applies
to everything in my work life,

and it definitely applies
to Dungeons and Dragons.

And it definitely applies to ways
that we play

Dungeons and Dragons
and other games. Right.

I do it all the freaking time.

Yeah.

And so I have two choices.

I can beat myself up,

which I'm not going to do
because we're not doing that no more.

Not we're not doing that.

We you're not doing
people who are listening right now.

You're not going to do that no more.

We starting today taking that away.

But that we we've done a lot better
about beating ourselves up.

And so that's wonderful.

But I could either do that or I can just

say, look,
let's keep the eye on the prize.

How can I make things easier?

How can I get what I want?

And just

learn to be okay with simpler things,

simpler tools?

I'm not saying I'm there yet, but I

it's just on my mind so much these days.

And I just would love to be on a journey.

I looked up on the internet.

What was my search?

Why notion?

Again, I'm not picking on notion.

Notion is incredible.

It is truly miraculous.

I have loved notion since

the year it came out, literally,
but for my brain is very hard.

Why notion is bad for ADHD.

000, there's documentation
on this so much.

There's so much.

Oh, and and I will say this,

it is it is somewhat mixed.

Okay.

But the general
I would say the first page page

of Google results, there's one,

23456, seven

out of the what
ten in the list that are negative.

But then there's some people who are like,

I use notion to improve ADHD.

So I'm not saying
that isn't isn't impossible,

but I, I want to find that place. Yeah.

Where I can have fun
but also get get the job done

and not fall into little holes.

And so questioning our whys of things.

I love, love, love
that you kind of came into this with.

Like I have this master list.

I have the things that matter most to me.

the one that you started out this episode
talking about, like being a great dungeon

master, being a great, you know, partner.

our kind of shared success with
our business and with Pocket Dimension,

all of those things. Right.

Because when you can find
the whys that can help you then.

And motivation is something that obviously
we struggle with not necessarily

having or lacking motivation,
but correctly distributing it.

So that way we don't put all of
our motivation in one bucket.

I have realized, you know,

you called this affliction,
it's an addiction,

you know, that's why you called it,
you know, organizational porn.

And like I am the same way
with like my addiction

to social media
and like it's a cortisol response.

It is like the way that I am just,
just trying any thing

to dump dopamine into my system.

Yeah. To feel better.

Even though I know
that it never makes me feel better.

Scrolling on TikTok or Instagram
or Facebook for hours

doesn't make me feel more connected.

If anything, I'm learning,
it makes me feel less connected.

So lately I've been trying
to get to the root like so.

When I am scrolling and scrolling
and scrolling, what am I really needing?

Am I needing to be entertained?

Could I get that same
feeling through a book?

Could I get it through watching a movie?

Am I needing to feel connected to
somebody?

Is there someone specific
that I'm lacking that connection with?

Could I just reach out to them directly?

you know,
like all of these different things.

So it makes me wonder what like,
the underlying issue

is here of this.

It's not perfectionism.

I know that it is, but but the fussing,
the tinkering, the like,

you know, like,
what is the underlying issue?

And if we can solve for that

here and now, right now, today,
let's let's do it.

Let's just
let's just figure out what it is.

But but that like but I say that to say
that like I know I'm addicted to my phone.

I know that
I am constantly looking at my phone

and I'm wondering
when I'm going to get a text

or when someone's going to post something
so great

that I'm going to be the first one
to share it, or that some new

something is going to drop
and I'm going to see it.

Like, I know this about myself,
and I am actively in a place right now

where I am trying to kind of
do what you're doing and lay down my arms,

white flag up, surrender,
because social media does interest me.

So it's just like this, you know, like,
do I need to put like,

you know,
do I need to time timer myself there?

I know people who have recognized
an addiction to social media

who have timers on their phone
and so like, yeah, iPhone.

Okay.

You've
now spent your hour a day on TikTok.

You can spend no more.

I have other friends who have just,
you know,

taken these apps off of their phone.

So that way only, like in front of.

And I feel like I've been able

to, to do that
successfully in my life in other ways.

But social media is just the one
I keep coming back.

So like it's tough.

My name is Alison
and I used to be a workaholic.

I worked

around the clock and was very cranky
and very miserable a lot of the time.

It was not a happy place for me to be in,

and it was not a happy place
for any of my loved ones to be in with me.

And so when I moved to exclusively
working from home,

I developed two or rules for myself
that I have stuck by

and that have served me incredibly,
incredibly well.

One I have to put on different pajamas
and the ones I woke up in.

I have daytime pajamas and nighttime
pajamas now.

Great, right?

I can't go about my day
in the thing that I woke up in.

It's not healthy for me,
and it just leads me

down a path of, like, unraveling.

Two I can only work in my office.

I am so delighted that now,
thanks to you, Matthew, I have a desktop.

This baby, it's not going anywhere
and I can only work in here

because I was at a point
where my laptop just came everywhere

with me and all over every surface,
and it was never productive work.

It was never it was never good work.

And I was, as a result of me, like

forcing myself to feel better by working
hard.

Look how productive I am.

I wasn't big,
but I had that illusion of I'm

getting stuff done
because I'm always plugged in right?

And so once I like shattered
that and said, no, you're

working hours are relatively 8 to 5,
give or take.

I'm a freelancer.

Sometimes it takes more than that,
sometimes it takes less.

I get up in the morning
and I come into my office.

I do my work here
and then I leave this room.

I mean, that's
even why I got rid of the bed

that used to be back here,
because that was my guest bed.

And I was like, no,
this is officially like a dedicated space.

It is only for
working and creating content.

I'm not going to share

its energy with people who sleep here.

not to say like, okay, well,
I figured everything out, like journey

done, but like,
but I am speaking from a position of

experience with this,
that when I put those two rules

into place for my work life,
it made everything better

because I was dealing with it
from a very holistic way.

So it made my work life better,

it made my personal life better,
and those two things.

So that's what I'm wondering
here, is like, and you came to to me and,

you know, kind of initially
telling me about this and saying, like,

we have to figure out a system where

I, I am locked down,
where I'm locked out of nothing, where.

Yeah. And that's what we start to talk
through is like, okay.

Because right now the, the

you guys have been listening to us
talk about notion for so long now.

And right now we're at a decision point.

Do we start with notion and the past
eight plus months of work

that Matt has poured into it,
along with Fitz and along with it

a little bit me and Evan
like trying to get our bearings in there.

Right.

You know, and that was where earlier
Matt and I were talking,

I was like don't
let's not baby with the bathwater.

This situation
like there's good stuff in there.

But I understand there it will always be
the desire you know to to keep fussing

or do we just go with something
so dumbed down.

Yeah that like we can't hack it.

We can't, we can't, we cannot.

But that because of its lack of basic
functionalities

in the year of our Lord 2024, you know, is
going to make our life harder.

Like there's already been
gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet

in the last week of using it,
which is a lot.

Yeah, we're not going to mention the app,
but it is shocking.

It's there with literal teeth
gnashing, like actual tantrums.

Yeah.

But it's glorious.

And it's in unhackable, right?

It's glorious
and that's why I sort it out.

So, so, yeah.

So decision point
that we'll make as a team.

But then, like,

I guess this is your homework, Matt
is that like,

what are the, like,
two rules that we can put on you

to help you feel empowered
to take this power back?

Because that's okay.

This is at the end of the day,

this is feeling like a losing of grip,
a losing of control.

I'm I'm, you know, I'm going to fight,
so I'm going to fight.

So I'm going to fight.

But you're also saying
I recognize that that's not healthy.

So you're saying I like
I want the change right, right.

Right, right.

And okay, so there's a couple of things
I don't have the full answers to these.

I know that we don't actually we're
not going to we're not going to solve.

We I, I was getting.

I know you're joking but but

food for thought.

I've got a couple of things because I have
been working with Brittany about it.

One thing that we're trying,
which seems to be

kind of working really well,

is that I have a whiteboard in my office,
this whiteboard

every week, every every but every check
in that I have with Brittany.

We go over four buckets,
four buckets right now,

and we've broken them down into roles.

and so I've got,

I've got media producer,

I've got digital strategist,
I've got captioner.

And then because we know
that it's a thing in my life

and we don't want to punish me,

I have optimizer.

All right.

So we're putting a positive spin on it.

Yeah.

Sometimes I look at that word

and I and I just see tweaker.

But it's tweak it on good days.

his twinkle

so, so if I

look at it and I see tweaker
but but on good days I think optimizer

and basically every week I'm allowed like

three things for each bucket.

An optimizer,
only one, only one, one thing.

It has to be very specific.

And I have to get it done
in the same way that I have to get all

those other things done.

And it does. This doesn't live.

This doesn't live in task management world
or project manager world.

It doesn't it
I don't share it with you all, but

I take it from work tasks and projects.

I take it from captioning things.

I take it from D and stuff.

World Builder is in there as well,

but she just kind of knows
that I'm going to be able to handle that.

And sometimes World Builder
is also a part of media producer.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

And hopefully more and more
so just trying to keep it simple

and trying to do that
and then just the accountability.

Yeah. So that's one way.

That's one way
I would suggest to everyone that possibly

you if you're
if you're going to do the same thing.

And I know that a lot of you are,

because I've had these conversations
in our beautiful discord server,

the pocket dimension,

I've had these conversations.

So I would suggest that you really find
a pal and you could meet once a week.

I mean, first, first hire Brittany Smith,
my my ADHD coach, number one.

Number two,

if you can't just find your friend
and say,

these are the things I'm going to do
today.

Yeah.

And you're going to get some of them done
and you're going to fail

and you're going to get distracted.

But if you just put it in a place
where you see it all the time,

you'll at least see it and go,

yeah, yeah, these are important.

This is the no bullshit list.

These are the important things.

So this is not what's a good example.

So there is a captioner list,

but currently there is not a build

a wireless system for theater X okay.

That's

not on
there right now I do want to do that.

I've always wanted to do that.

But it shouldn't be on there right now
because I've got very specific things.

optimizer could be completely redo

the office.

but I shouldn't do that.

You know, I shouldn't.

I shouldn't
have that on the list right now.

There is no need. Yeah.

So that's the way it works.

And we're trying it out.

And so far it feels good.

And I know that seeing these things

every day when I come into the office
and seeing them just in my face

and because they change to right, like
these are not like

these are things I want to live by.

These should be deleted next week and
and it just kind of makes me say, okay.

Yeah.

in order to get these

important things done, I gotta stop
McPherson, stop.

McPherson, start. McLovin

and that could be on the list, too.

These are just ideas, you know?

I mean, Lindsay and I are going to Mexico
the end of the year.

I bet that Mexico will make this list.

It's as if we get closer to that. Or.

I mean, could be anything.
It doesn't matter. It's I see it.

It's vital. These are vital things.

Boom, boom.

I am trying to do the same.

And world building.
I'm trying to do the same.

And thinking about prepping for games,

trying to cut all the things that I know

are just rabbit holes.

Can I tell you the thing that you've said
so far today that just fills me

with utter glee, joy and delight,
and you're going to laugh at so hard?

I already know, but go ahead.

What do you think it's going to be

that I am enjoying using our audio?

That is exactly
is that you gave it the edge. Man.

I've given it the edge.

And I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why.
I've given you the edge.

It also frustrates me sometimes,
but it does enough.

Yes, it's like it.

Can you handle foundry VTI?

And what I mean by that is

there is no question
that foundry we can do

every single thing
that you want for a virtual game.

There is no question.

It is gorgeous software.
It's incomparable.

It's just the top tivity
top of the things is

if you've got that ability and you've got
a little bit of of nerd skills and you're

not afraid to kind of really deep
dive in there, like I have in the past,

you can't beat it.

But if you want to get down to the
what is the story?

Who are you playing with?

How much fun can I have
without juggling tools?

And the reason I used foundry yesterday
is because someone has.

Someone
did all of the hard work for me, right?

They put it together in foundry
and that's that's nice.

And I, I do like that.

I, I love them all.

I love and counter plus and counter
plus for me,

was sort of my nerdy
version of Albert Rodeo.

but even that
sometimes gets to be too fussy.

Yeah, there's just too there's
too many good people making it better.

Sometimes I'll share because I
and I love how this is coming together.

I love how the like the Personal Knowledge
Manager database

is coming into a fold with the talk
that is ADHd20 right there in a nutshell.

Like there's so many threads we can pull
between so many of the things that are

both the way we wired and we are wired,
and the things that we enjoy,

and to

kind of start
to then close the loop on the question

we asked at the beginning of this episode,

which is like,
what was your biggest moment?

I think moments that I had recently

in my life
that I instantly applied into my game

master practice is questioning
when my anxiety spikes.

Who told you that?

And I think we've talked about this
before here

where like in my head, for the first year
that I was a game master,

I thought that I had to cram action
into every second of any session.

I thought that I had to write four
straight hours of a Steven Seagal movie.

I don't know why. I just did. Didn't
Steven Seagal felt good at the time?

That's a weird choice now. Anyways.

You know what I mean
though? Like I thought I did.

I thought that was the expectation being
put on my shoulders as a game master.

And then I learned the question,
who told you that?

And I realized not one single person
that I have ever played,

and especially not one single person
I have ever DM for, has ever said.

Alison, my expectation of you as a GM is
it is your job

and your job only to entertain me
for four straight hours.

And I realized that because I was planning
for four straight hours,

I was not giving myself
or any of the players any room to explore.

And that is why a lot of people play D

right?

Because I'm not a fuzzer
and I don't enjoy high tech things

nearly to the I love it when they work.

I love it when you can take me by the hand

and show me easily
and then like I feel and look cool.

But when I don't get it, my brain
shuts down and I was spending six.

Okay, behind the DM screen peek forward.

I'm running an eight level dagger
heart one shot this weekend.

Yes, I haven't even started
prepping for it.

but I'm no longer worried because
I now know because of tools like owlbear

rodeo that just allow me to like,
just get to the point faster.

it's not like I'm in for a couple of maps.

I went and bought a couple of tokens,
and then

the whole reason that I think I like
Dagger Heart so much, both as a player

and as a GM, is because, like it is,
the onus is as much on the players

to create the world and inhabit
it fully as it is on me to run it.

So while I want there to be very,
you know, flavor text that draws you in

and a really good hook
and a really ferocious monster

that you're going to have fun
beating the shit out of.

Like, I want all those things for you
as a player.

Like stripping it down

back to its brass tacks and just like
letting other people help you build it.

And I think that is a little bit of,
you know, metaphor

to what you're going through
with the notion of like, yes,

who told you

it has to be perfect, that it has to beat
every other project management

and in your defense, we did tell you that
we wanted all of these things.

Yeah. So now is the time to say, okay,

but what's the owlbear
rodeo version of notion?

Yes. That just gets us
the map that we need because

we are all professionals who have brains,
who know how things work like

and. And
so the fact that you have gotten that

with owlbear rodeo
and have because I had to drag you,

I won't say

kicking and screaming into owlbear rodeo,
but there is a little resistance.

Well, also it it grew up.

Oh yeah it did. Yes.

I was aware of owlbear from,
from day one as well and it was not.

Well, it's not even fun for me.

Yes, but it is very, very solid.

It's frustrating
that I can't do beautiful,

lighting effects when you token
go through the hallways and,

but I also don't have to sit there and add

walls for

an hour.

And that's exactly it.

Like with counter plus I have now,

I'm still spending honestly
about the same amount of time prepping,

realizing my players don't give a shit
about things like fog, right?

I could just put a big gray box over it

and then delete it
when they need to walk into that room.

Yeah, the bells and whistles are cool
when you can do them seamlessly,

and if that's how
you want to spend all your time,

and if we can get to a point where
we can crowdfund a life for ourselves.

We were paid millions a second
just for breathing and building worlds.

Cool. Yeah.

But in the meantime, I would much rather

give my players
a satisfying story and like, fun NPCs.

And I realize what I was doing is what
I was using and, you know, tools I can.

I've never touched foundry.

I probably never will.

And again,
until you kind of get through it.

No I yeah yeah.

No you're limits right.

But like with encounter

plus I was spending

so much time in the set up
that I was writing these very thin stories

and these very uninteresting
NPCs and baddies.

And now I feel like

I can write juicier things because
I've just reallocated my time back.

So I want you to write juicier things
and reallocate your time.

I will, and you're right,
it is all about priority.

I will say one last thing for those
listening going yeah, ba ba ba ba.

But I, I'm imagining that your
butt is the same as mine.

Nice. No.

I'm kidding.

like the.

It's so weird.

I reference Steven Seagal.

So you're just getting on my weird
level again.

You're saying he does have a nice ass?

He does.

So, yes.

To what you just said.

Your players do not care about fog of war,
however

I do. Yes.

I love I love the lighting effects.

I don't like the way owlbear
does it as much.

I want it to look cooler.

I play, I've played video games
all my life.

I want it to look like that.

But here's the thing that I can suggest.

Find a way, find a time

and definitely find the right application.

Yeah. For that.

And in my, you know, in my case, someday
I would love to

make videos on every single virtual
tabletop out there.

I really do want to do that.

In my mind.

I'm now taking all of the things
that I love to learn about,

and I'm going to put them in a bucket,
and I'm going to say,

I'm going to have a series on this,
I'm going to talk about it.

And that is a much better use of my time.

As far as as far as that stuff goes.

Because yes, you get into this thing

where like, but I want this,
this is what is part of the fun for me.

But look, what is the bigger fun?

The bigger fun is the fun that I have
with all of my friends.

And you're right,
my friends don't give a damn.

What is your priority of fun?

You have to like.

Yeah, with an ADHD brain, you have to

qualify.

Quantify it to that degree.

Yes, you have to say yes. Yeah. Fun.

But you're still going to have fun
just playing with your friends.

Matt. So.

And you can eat apples and cake
and have them too.

Yeah, but choose your battles.

Choose exactly.

And that's like,
I am not like, yes, I absolutely agree

that the merit of Fog of War
and a really cool, interactive,

so cool.

There's no part of me
that's trying to rain on that parade.

And if we were playing in one game
and this was just like your, like,

side project and you were just over here
on the side tinkering and making it great,

and that's the thing that you did fine.

But the truth of the matter
is we're running a full time business.

Yeah, we have all of the pocket dimension
things going on.

We are now, you know, you are now running
a campaign for us as friends.

You're running a campaign
for Pocket Dimension.

I'm running monthly one shots.

You're also running monthly one shots.

Like at some point we have to prioritize.

Right. And that's all that
this conversation is about.

It is not.

Yeah. Please.

Gremlins of the internet do not walk away
from this episode being like, well,

Alison says anybody who spends any time
tinkering on any team sucks.

Yeah. Yeah.

If that soundbite gets out
that I've been taken

grossly out of context,
that's not what I mean.

And yes,

I understand and appreciate the fact
that you enjoy it as much as you do.

Yeah.

But in the grand scheme of things
like when when we don't have time to do

everything we want,
we just have to get better at saying,

okay, so what's the most important
little amount of time right now?

And I would rather give a satisfying
one shot

than have a super satisfying personally.

And if you disagree with that
and would rather have a great,

that is your prerogative.

And I will not talk you out.

Exactly, exactly.

Perfectly said, perfectly said.

I feel like we could also, on a meta
level,

apply this to this very podcast.

as we have

not adhered to a schedule

that we have and in previous years.

Yeah.

And I'm not going to make us feel bad
about it, but I will say this, that,

I'm very happy
with the work that we've done this year.

Season three.

This podcast is important to me.

These these talks are important to me.

It's important to me
that we have them on a microphone. Yeah.

For some reason. Yeah.

So yeah I say while we haven't

fixed the issue, par for the course 20.

I would like to also say yes.

And let's,
let's make sure that, that we in our many,

many, many, many things that we have to do
now with the pocket dimension,

remember that, that this is easy
and this is fun, okay.

And this is, this is this is important to.

Us and worth prioritizing, if you will.

Yeah. Yeah.

Prioritizing.

It'll never get easier. Yeah.

I mean,
I won't say that it's easy for me now.

I will say that I am more skilled at it
than I've ever been before.

I can even learn skill.
You can learn like, I.

I can look back on times
where I just was all over the place.

And I have realized in recent years
that when you do that,

when you have 18 projects
that you try and start

and work on all at once,
the the progression is very, very slow.

It's it's everything.

To tie it again back to, to D and D.

It's what I realized
with my chemical build when I multiclass,

I was going half as fast in my progression
of levels as the rest of my brain,

so I constantly felt behind them.

I was like, wow,
they're really skilled and I'm

even though
I was at the same level of them,

I was only half good at two things.

I also think that one of the moments
that we have been speaking about this

episode for me, has been
I will get more skilled,

I will develop more tools, but

unfortunately that is broken in me.

The prioritization, it's truly broken.

It doesn't work.

And I think that if I remember that,

and I and I call upon my friends for help.

Exactly.

And I and I continue to make this podcast
that I have things to talk about

so that I am aware of these moments.

But it doesn't mean
that I can't get better.

That's the difference.

It's not going to get better.

I will get better. And right.

What you just said
then sparked something else in me.

We're just going to do this
for like the next two weeks.

The longest episode ever was like, yes,
and to each other,

everything that the other one says
is like, yeah, we piloted that.

In your

defense, yes, there are like hard
and soft skills

that like are never going to sit well
and are just same with me.

You probably could sit with me for hours

a day and teach me how to code, you know,
but like it would be a lot. And.

But nobody's asking me to write.

You're asking me to do the things
that I'm good at,

while I'm asking you to do
the things that you're good at.

Yeah, you are our warlock.

You are our artificer.

And, like.

So then stop trying to be the wizard,
the bard, the fighter, the barbarian,

you know, like and same thing for me.

Like, like getting into our classes,
getting into our lanes, knowing our roles

and then knowing like, okay,
so I'm doing warlock and artificer things,

that other thing over there
that really feels like a sorcerer.

I need some wild magic in order to feel
that I'm going to call my sorcerer in.

Yeah.

That's why even with the one shots,
when I kick them off,

everybody's always interested
in what everybody else is playing.

Because, yes, a party full of bards
or a party

full of barbarians
or druids can be funny and sticky.

But like for the most part, in most
even one shots you want,

you know, the hand-to-hand combat
specialists and the ranged specialists

and the healers and that's all any of us
are being called to do.

That's it.

We fix everything.

That is in.

Yeah,

I think that's it.

So let's do it.

Yeah.

And let's do this more often.

Yeah.

Couple nerds turned on some mics, talked
about their problems,

and discovered that a lot of other people
had the exact same problems.

And I still have more problems.

So don't you worry.

Season to see if it's worth
the problem set up for you guys.

So that is the ADHD promise.

We're going to keep repeating things,
but as we've already

mentioned, we're not going to remember
and y'all are not going to.

It's going to be really funny
when we're old and have ADHD.

Like if it's like.

[laughs] I mean sink into senility,

just it's it's, it's going to be.

A like, buckle up, everybody.

Yah, Seriously. That is a weird thing.

Y’all think that I repeat myself
now just wait until 84 year

old Alison’s in the house.

Oh, man, I can't wait to know 84 year old.

I know she's going to be great.

I can't wait,
you know, 84 and 94 year old Matt.

Yeah, exactly.

Died for you. Know.

He's going to be great.

I'm so excited. He's going to be.

Like, Lord of the dinner table,
just holding court every night.

It's nice all on the stack.

Them?

Yeah, that's probably true I love it.

I all the time.

We train stations.

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