🌟 #1 - Becoming an ADHD Pro with Robert Merki
Robert Merki is the author of ADHD Pro, one of the leading books on productivity for ADHD professionals. Join us as we dive deep into the obstacles related to productivity.
Welcome to edition #1 of a new series called 🌟 ADHD Stars. A series of articles where I dive deep into the lives of entrepreneurs, artists, and creators that have ADHD.
Our first special guest is Robert Merki. Robert is the author of ADHD Pro, one of the leading books on productivity for ADHD professionals.
Robert was diagnosed with ADHD shortly after finishing university. Despite his ADHD, Robert was able to build a successful career in tech, and he served as the Director of Product at a VR startup for five years.
After his time in the startup scene, he quit his job to help other people with the disorder he struggled with his whole life - and so ADHD Pro was born.
ADHD Pro is a book about achieving sustainable and happy productivity for people with ADHD. The book provides a 5-step framework for building a new strategy for tackling your ADHD. It doesn’t give you an overnight fix, but the principles in the book are critical for tackling your ADHD the right way.
I decided to start this newsletter because I think I can manage this disorder pretty well. Reading the book forced me to put my ego aside and admit that my approach towards tackling my ADHD was fundamentally wrong. I've made modifications to my strategy using learnings from the book even after researching this disorder for years.
The biggest takeaway for me was focusing on sustainable productivity and I consider the book essential reading for professionals with ADHD.
If you’re keen to check out the book, then you can grab a copy (it’s on sale!) or snag a preview below 😀
Alright, let's get onto the interview. Here's what you'll find:
Robert Merki's background and his journey reaching success while dealing with ADHD
Overcoming the "bad feeling": the idea that you will never be good enough because of your ADHD
How to get over the fear of abandoning projects: Most ADHD'ers don't abandon projects. They burn themselves out.
How you can grow sustainable productivity and a theory for applying weightlifting principles to productivity
Why most ADHD tips suck and how to treat them as tools for a broader strategy that you need to adopt.
Robert Merki's Journey
Pre-Diagnosis
Robert:
As a child, I was the inattentive and not hyperactive type of ADHD. Things were okay until I got to university, and that's when the struggles turned very real. It wasn't just doing homework the night before - it was me doing poorly, failing papers, and feeling horrible about it.
During high school, you can grind it out at the last minute and still get good grades just because you're clever. That was my experience, at least. And then you get to university. You can't do it anymore, so I struggled, and it wasn't a fun time for me.
But even in my business degree, I knew I loved technology, and I loved tinkering with programming and web design. So, I decided I wanted to work in tech. After I graduated, I was fortunate to have a decent resume of totally incomplete and abandoned projects, but they were good enough to get me a job that used the skills I'd gained.
I was the first employee at a VR startup, which was what I wanted. I wanted to be able to jump from task to task and focus on different things. But I had a lot of trouble with actually starting, completing, finishing, and organizing tasks.
The quality of work I was doing was good - well, it was excellent. But the meta-organization around that was awful. Some days my energy levels were off the charts, and then sometimes I'd be burnt out. And I didn't really know what burnout was.
Finally, I started googling my symptoms. I probably did an ADHD Quiz or something, and that's when I suspected I had ADHD.
My doctor referred me to a specialist, and they said: "Yep, you definitely have ADHD”
I started taking medication, and most of them were awful for me. I finally found one that worked for me, and I felt way better, but I was still unproductive.
💡 Tip: It can take a long time to find the medication that works for you. If your medication isn't working then you need to stop suffering. Talk to your psychiatrist and switch medications.
BeatADHD: I stuck with medication that didn't work for over two years. I thought I could hack my way through a neurotransmitter deficiency with coping mechanisms. Don't do that. Find the medication that works for you and everything will become 10x easier.
Post-Diagnosis
Robert:
After my diagnosis and getting medicated, I still didn't know how to be organized. I had never practiced being productive, and it's a skill to build, just like anything.
And that's what started my long journey of talking to people like you and other people in the ADHD community—having conversations like this where it's going over "What works for you, what doesn't?".
As I was doing these interviews, these successful people just kept saying the same strategies, and I was doing similar things. I realized: "Okay, everyone is rediscovering this framework by themselves every single time. Why don't I just write a book about it?"
So I quit my job in May, and said "I'm going to write a book".
And so, I started writing, and I did more interviews along the way to make sure my book was accurate. I ended up releasing the book on August 18th, so it took just over three months to write.
How do you overcome the "bad feeling" that you will never be good enough?
BeatADHD:
I want to talk about a topic you mention in the book. The bad feeling: The idea that you'll never be a focused person. That you'd spent the rest of your life struggling to overcome basic organization tasks, and that you'd always be fighting against motivation.
BeatADHD:
But you've overcome this feeling. You became the Director of Product at a VR company. You had the confidence to quit your job and write a successful book on productivity with ADHD. Tell us your secret to overcoming that bad feeling?
Robert:
I think that I overcame that bad feeling by divorcing my identity from the work I do.
Let me explain: I still feel like I'm an unproductive loser, but I know that's not true. I know it's not true because I released a book, I used to have a good job, and I could get another good job if I wanted. I have friends that I admire and talk with. I know I'm not an unproductive loser. There are so many logical and objective truths to dispel that bad feeling.
So when it comes up, I can vanquish it by taking a second to think about it: "Yeah, this is stupid. I know it's not true. This feeling is here, but it's irrelevant".
The feeling doesn't necessarily go away, but I was able to deprioritize that feeling in my mind.
💡 Tip: The "bad feeling" is the idea that you'll never be a focused person; That you'll spend the rest of your life struggling to overcome basic organization tasks; and that you'll always be fighting against motivation.
Eliminate the bad feeling by divorcing your identity from your work. Take a step back to objectively review the work you've accomplished. And realize that feeling unproductive is not the same as being unproductive
How do you get over the fear of abandoning projects due to ADHD?
BeatADHD:
A lot of people with ADHD have this fear that our unproductivity or inconsistency makes us incapable of achieving great things.
There's this voice at the back of my head "How are you going to accomplish this?", "What if you abandon this like every other project in the past?".
But you took a massive step and quit your job to start a full-time project. How did you get over that fear?
Robert:
So I had that same fear. Exactly the same thing.
It's important to realize why you're worried about abandoning projects. It sounds like you're doing something I was doing. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. You get hyperfocused on a particular project and then that hyperfocus eventually ends, and then you don't want to do that thing anymore. Is that correct?
BeatADHD:
Yep, hundreds of times...
Robert:
And then you've counted that as abandonment. But I don't think you abandoned that project. I think you went at light speed, got obsessed with it, and then got burnt out, and you didn't want to touch anymore because it makes you sick to look at it.
I've been way more motivated by projects in the past than my book. But I finished my book. I think that there's a whole mindset you kind have to have towards being productive.
You need to accept that it doesn't have to be amazing every day.
You've been exposed to extreme levels of motivation, and you think that's where you need to go if you want to work on something.
The truth is that if you treat your job like something you're not obsessed with and you're not hyperfocused in, then you do stay motivated, and you do good work.
You don't have to stay up working for 18 hours a day. You need to make sure you're healthy in the long-term, and then you're going to do well.
And if you keep that up, then you won't abandon it, and you won't feel like quitting after a month.
💡 Tip: Understand that you probably aren't abandoning all your projects. Instead, you get hyperfocused, obsessed, and you burnt yourself out.
Tackle projects using a sustainable approach and keep your hyperfocus under control.
How do you grow sustainable productivity?
BeatADHD:
Now I've got some tough questions for you. Some things I thought were missing from the book, and I'm keen to hear your answers.
In your book, you talk about people with ADHD finding "sustainable productivity" quite easy. And I agree with that completely. Since reading your book, I've adjusted my goal from 5-hours per day to 4-hours. 4-hours seems easy to me, I'm not losing much productivity, and I'm not miserable.
But sustainability means starting small, and I'm not happy with 4-hours long-term. So, how do we increment sustainability to a point where we can achieve our goals and aspirations?
Robert:
I've been thinking about this ever since I released the book. The reason I didn't go over that is because, well, I didn't know.
You’ve hit a point that nobody talks about. I haven't found a single article, blog post, or research paper about this.
It's easy for me to work 5-hours per day; it's easy for you to work 4-hours per day. Someone else might be 3-hours, and someone else might be 7-hours.
So is it an intrinsic trait of someone to be able to work 7-hours per day?
Or is it more of a learned skill that you can practice, the same way you build up muscle. I suspect it's more on the muscle side.
For example, If you're an accountant in Canada and you join a firm, one of the big four (Deloitte, KPMG, etc...), then you have to work for garbage pay, and you're working long hours.
They grind the young fresh graduates into the ground, and tons of them quit. But they have older accountants who have been there for years, and they work these long hours, but they don't quit.
So is it that they've weeded out the people that couldn't work those hours. Or is it because they've done exactly what you've come onto, which is building that muscle. They've gotten used to it, and they've gained the ability to work those hours through practice.
So how do you increment your work ethic over time?
It's tempting to say you could go linearly from 2 hours to 3 hours or 5 hours, but I suspect this isn't the most efficient way to do it. And I’ve got a theory on what could be the best way.
Do you know much about weightlifting or powerlifting?
BeatADHD:
Yeah, I know a little bit, but I don't really know the most effective way to train or anything like that.
Robert:
I don't either, I'm not an expert, but I've done enough research to understand there is a common idea of how much to rest based on how intense you're going.
Let's say I'm squatting 600 pounds; my rest is not going to be more than someone who is much weaker than me and can only squat 300 pounds. We're going to have the same amount of rest, assuming we work out at the same intensity.
So if 600 pounds is my absolute maximum, then I need to take two weeks off from squatting, and if someone weaker than me squats their absolute maximum of 300 pounds, then they also need to take two weeks off.
Now that's easier to figure out in weightlifting since it's just numbers. They have a scale called Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE). All that means is "how hard it was”
If I'm squatting my absolute maximum, then I've ever squatted in my life, then that's RPE 10.
There’s an early but growing understanding of how RPE works with powerlifting. My theory is that you can take that RPE scale and apply it to productivity. And like I said, it's just a theory, which is why I haven't written about it yet.
I think it's going to be more complicated than just a linear progression. But to answer your question:
"Start small and slowly grow it over time" is the simple and easy answer. That's what worked for me and that's what works for most people.
I haven't figured out the actual process of how to do that effectively. But I suspect that there's a way out there that feels good and gives you guaranteed progress.
💡 Tip: Treat your capacity for productivity as a muscle that you need to train over time.
You wouldn't squat 600 pounds on your first day at the gym - why would you try and do 7 hours of work?
Add rests to let your body "regenerate" your productivity muscle so it gets stronger over time
Why do most ADHD tips suck?
BeatADHD:
One last question which is relevant to my viral Reddit thread with ADHD tips.
In your book, you talk a bit about tools and lifehacks, and you took a bit of a negative stance towards them saying that they're not that useful.
But later, you do acknowledge they have a place. You say:
"Those failed tips are not failures. You just found 100 different methods that don't work for you. Not only that but you also tried 100 times harder than the average person does to keep organized."
I thought that was a fantastic point - how do you suggest people best use these "ADHD Pro Tips"?
Robert:
I'm interested in your Reddit thread because I can look at it and try certain things that I think might work for me.
But I'm going into the thread with the knowledge that none of these will guarantee success. The tips aren't going to be perfect fixes, but they might be cool little tools that I can use that might help me, and they might not.
You have to realize that the tip works for some people, but it might not work for me.
I know a thread on "how to sleep better with ADHD" might not work for me, but it's still worth a try. You have to take that mindset with any tips, brain hacks, or apps, and I think that's much more healthy.
If someone ever says: "this is a guaranteed way to stay organized with ADHD" - then I get skeptical immediately. But if someone says "Hey, this worked for me, you could try it" then it's like "Oh awesome, I'll try that."
And that's exactly what I teach in ADHD Pro, a proper strategy is so much more important for the long term. Those tips can help you but they need to be incorporated into a long-term plan.
Tip: Treat ADHD tips and advice as tools that you can use in a broader overall strategy.
And that’s all folks. This post has been the most time-consuming post I’ve ever made so if you liked it, show the Twitter and Instagram posts some love ♥
And if you want to check out Robert’s book on sustainable productivity, then you can grab a copy here. (Discounted for a limited time!)
Cheers,
BeatADHD