Hey Team!

This week, I’m talking with Rita Ramakrishnan, a seasoned strategic executive and leadership coach with over 15 years of experience. Diagnosed with both ADHD and Autism Spectrum during her undergrad years, Rita reframed what could have been limitations into strengths and now looks to uplift other neurodivergent women in leadership roles.

Currently, she is pursuing a master's degree in neurodivergent leadership at the University of Pennsylvania, intensifying her expertise in coaching and organizational strategy tailored to neurodivergent individuals.

In our conversation, we cover everything from identifying when you’re dysregulated (and what to do about it) to designing teams that play to everyone’s strengths. Rita walks us through practical tools like outsourcing strategically, tracking your energy to uncover strengths, and building a leadership charter so teams can work more effectively together. It’s a conversation about leading authentically, creating systems that work for your brain, and how to advocate for your needs without falling into people-pleasing traps.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/243

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. Try creating a Minimum Viable Routine - your baseline routine that consists of the bare minimum you need in place to function. The point of an MVR is to take those non-negotiables and lock them in, either with automation, outsourcing, or simple systems. That way, when ADHD throws a curveball, you still have the essentials covered.

2. Instead of only measuring productivity by what gets checked off a to-do list, try looking at how you feel after activities. Track when you walk away from a meeting or task feeling energized, and when you walk away feeling drained.

3. Rejection sensitivity hits hard for many folks with ADHD. A short email reply, a period at the end of a text, or even a coworker sounding rushed can feel like a personal rejection. Rita’s advice is to deliberately separate yourself from the situation and try to depersonalize feedback. This reframing can help shift from identity-based thinking (like “I’m the problem”) to more situation-based thinking (“this may be tough, but it’s fixable”).

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD Brain.

Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson for our research recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Effects of Physical Exercise on Anxiety, depression and Emotion Regulation in Children with ADHD, a systematic Review and meta analysis.

Yep. Lot, lots in there, but we're gonna get into all of it, so don't worry.

Now before we get started, I do wanna mention that this is still a new series, so we're going to be figuring out what works and what doesn't, and I'd love to hear what you think of it all. So if you have any thoughts, head on over to hackingyouradhd.com/contact and let me know.

I appreciate all the feedback I've already gotten and we've definitely got to work on some things to make sure they're a little bit more organized and so we'll see how that goes. We've been already implementing some of that and I am sure you're gonna love it. New episodes of Research Recap come out every other Friday.

All right, let's get into it.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at https://HackingYourADHD.com/242

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD - Patreon

Today I’m talking with Danielle Elliot, a health and science journalist, documentarian, and host of Climbing the Walls, an investigative podcast from Understood.org digging into the surge in ADHD diagnoses among women—especially since the pandemic. If that sounds familiar, it’s cause I did a number of ads for her show a few months back, and I just wanted to make sure that I mention that, since while I’m not getting paid for this episode, I have done work with Understood before and probably will be promoting more of their stuff in the future.

Anyway, in our conversation today, we cover a lot of ground, from debunking the idea that no one knew women could have ADHD until recently, to how social media has reshaped the conversation, to why research on hormones and ADHD is still way behind. We also get into the everyday realities of living with ADHD, the default mode network, and why we need far more research into how ADHD shows up in women. It’s a mix of science, lived experience, and the kind of practical reflection that can help you rethink how ADHD fits into your life.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at http://hackingyouradhd.com/241

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. Instead of guessing when you’ve overbooked yourself, start tracking it like an experiment. For a few weeks, note each day you have social, professional, or mentally demanding activities beyond your baseline, then try and figure out how many consecutive “on” days it takes before you feel fried.

2. Downtime doesn’t magically appear and needs to be scheduled on the calendar, or it often just gets eaten by other people’s needs or whatever’s loudest in the moment. If someone asks you to do something during that block, you can truthfully say you already have something scheduled. Treating self-care time as a legit appointment protects it from getting deprioritized just because it’s “only for you.”

3. A common ADHD trap is overestimating how awful or time-consuming a task will be, which makes it easier to avoid it. Try timing your tasks to give yourself actual data to challenge your brain’s “this will take forever” narrative and can turn a dreaded job into something you knock out in a couple of minutes.

4. Consider hormonal factors when tracking ADHD symptoms, as hormones have a big influence on your ADHD symptoms, yet are often overlooked. Hormonal changes can affect focus, energy, mood, and even how well ADHD medication works. Tracking your symptoms alongside your cycle or other hormonal shifts can help you spot patterns and adjust strategies accordingly.