Nobody agreed on what done looked like. The handover happened anyway. That is where it fell apart.

This episode is the practical follow-up to Wednesday. Skye and Robbie walk through the specific hiring and handover process they use with ADHD founders, including what they have lost money figuring out so you do not have to.

The hiring side covers why video applications and paid test projects replace interviews, how to write a role description that filters for initiative rather than compliance, and what it looks like when you have found the right person versus when you are about to make an expensive mistake.

The handover side covers the 10-80-10 rule, writing a one-sentence definition of done before anything starts, naming your re-entry triggers upfront, building a decision boundary so the team knows what comes back to you and what does not, and scheduling check-ins so the anxiety has somewhere to go other than a late-night message.

They also cover the two failure modes when none of this is set up: the founder absorbs everything back, or the team stops trying.

What We Cover:

• How to write a role description specific enough to attract the right person and filter out everyone else
• Why paid test projects show you more in two hours than an interview shows you in two rounds
• The 10-80-10 rule and how to use it to stay connected without pulling work back through the middle
• What a definition of done actually looks like in writing, and why naming your re-entry triggers before the project starts changes everything
• How scheduled check-ins replace anxiety-driven re-entry and give the founder's worry somewhere structured to land

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

You hired someone good. The work was fine. You still sent the late-night Slack message, redirected the task, and checked in on something that had already been handled.

This episode looks at what the research suggests is actually driving that pattern. Not trust issues. Not a bad hire. A specific kind of perfectionism that shows up differently in people with ADHD.

Two studies help explain it. A 2016 study found perfectionism was the most common cognitive distortion in adults formally diagnosed with ADHD, endorsed by 55% of the sample. It was not close. A 2023 study then looked at what kind of perfectionism. Their findings indicate ADHD founders are not setting impossibly high standards. They are feeling the gap between what they expected and what was delivered more intensely than others. What drove avoidance most strongly was not perfectionism in the traditional sense, but the persistent feeling of falling short, even when the original standard was reasonable.

Delegation becomes the thing most associated with that painful shortfall. So the brain starts treating it as a threat.

Friday's episode covers the practical side: how to structure delegation so the gap is smaller from the start and your perfectionism has less to react to.

What We Cover:

• Why ADHD perfectionism research suggests it is not about high standards but about feeling any shortfall more acutely than others
• How the discrepancy between expected and actual output drives avoidance in ADHD founders specifically
• The two scenarios where delegation breaks down even when the team is competent and the work is solid
• Why the founder who re-enters delegated work is not micromanaging but responding to a learned pattern of emotional pain
• What Friday's episode will cover on structuring delegation to reduce that gap from the start

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

The school sent her daughter to a desk with her head down because she could not sit still during circle time. That was the moment Jessica stopped waiting for someone else to figure it out.

Jessica Shaw is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Vanity Fair. She is the host of Everyone Gets a Juice Box, Understood.org's podcast for parents raising neurodivergent kids. She is also a mom of two teens who think differently, and someone who recognized her own ADHD only after researching her children's.

Skye and Jessica get into what the detective process actually looks like. Why parents are often dismissed first and believed later. How the school system's default response to a kid who cannot conform is to remove them rather than support them. What guilt sounds like when you feel like you should have seen it coming sooner. And why the window between noticing something and getting real support is longer, more expensive, and more isolating than it should be.

What We Cover:

• Why parents are often the last ones taken seriously, and what it takes to keep pushing anyway
• How school systems send a conformity message to neurodivergent kids and what it costs them long-term
• The financial and time barriers to evaluation, and why they fall unevenly across families
• What the detective process looks like when the parent doing the investigating also has undiagnosed ADHD
• Why one parent's decision to reduce work hours for her neurodivergent child was called "trad wife" by colleagues, and what that reveals about the support gap

Connect With Jessica Shaw

• Podcast: https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxec!podcast_guest
• ADHD Articles: https://www.understood.org/en/topics/adhd
• ADHD & Women: https://www.understood.org/en/topics/adhd-women
• Understood.org's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/understood/
• Understood.org's Instagram: @Understoodorg

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Understanding why ADHD happens can feel like chasing a moving target. This study adds a biological angle most people haven't considered.

We discuss a prospective study examining whether maternal inflammation during the second trimester is associated with ADHD symptoms in children later in life. Researchers measured cytokine levels in 62 pregnant women and followed up on ADHD symptoms in 68 children using teacher and parent reports.

The study suggests there is an association between those inflammation markers and later ADHD symptoms. It does not establish cause. The sample was small, blood draws were not standardized by time of day, and the researchers framed this explicitly as preliminary work to identify what warrants deeper investigation.

What We Cover

• What cytokine levels are and why researchers used them to measure maternal inflammation
• Where the methodology falls short and why the researchers themselves framed this as preliminary
• Why future research in this area needs a systems-based approach rather than adding more pressure to mothers

 Want more of Will’s work? Go check out HackingYourADHD.com or subscribe to his YouTube channel

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Description:

Presented by Understood.org

You don’t have a lack of focus. You have too many ideas pulling it in different directions.

This episode builds on Wednesday’s breakdown of ADHD novelty bias and shows you how to actually manage it without shutting it down.

Because the goal isn’t to stop having ideas. It’s to stop them from constantly disrupting execution.

You’ll hear how to treat novelty as input instead of immediate action, how to capture ideas so they stop feeling urgent, and how to create a buffer between what you’re thinking about and what your business actually does.

Right now, every new idea feels important. And when your attention shifts, everything else follows.

This is about keeping the ideas, without letting them take over.

What We Cover:

• Why novelty needs a system, not suppression
• How capturing ideas reduces the urge to act on them
• The “novelty as input, not strategy” approach
• Why your team follows your attention automatically
• How to create a buffer between ideas and execution
• Why most ideas lose urgency if you don’t act on them immediately

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Presented by Understood.org

You keep switching direction mid-project, and now nothing in your business is fully built.

In this episode, we break down ADHD novelty bias and why new ideas don’t just feel exciting. They feel urgent, important, and hard to ignore.

You’ll hear how this shows up in real businesses. The team is aligned, work has started, and then a new idea comes in. It sounds better, feels right, and within days everything shifts. Six months later, you’ve got multiple half-built projects and no clear direction.

This isn’t random. Research shows ADHD brains assign higher reward value to novelty, even when it works against long-term goals.

We also look at the other side of it. Why boredom feels almost painful, why sticking with one direction gets harder over time, and how this pattern quietly impacts growth, team focus, and execution.

This isn’t about lack of discipline. It’s about understanding the pattern that’s driving your decisions.

What We Cover:

• Why new ideas feel urgent instead of optional
• How novelty bias overrides long-term plans
• The “half-built business” pattern many founders fall into
• Why teams follow the founder’s attention automatically
• The link between boredom, disengagement, and switching
• When novelty is useful and when it starts breaking the business

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Presented by Understood.org

Getting diagnosed with ADHD explains a lot. Then it starts explaining too much.

In this episode, Nir Eyal breaks down what happens after that initial relief. When ADHD stops being useful information and starts becoming your identity.

He shares how that shift can quietly limit effort, create anxiety loops, and turn every struggle into “this is just how I am.”

This isn’t about ignoring ADHD. It’s about understanding the difference between what’s real and what you’ve started to believe about it.

Because those beliefs don’t just describe your behavior. They shape it.

You’ll hear how to separate facts from interpretations, why beliefs are tools not truths, and how small shifts in how you think can reduce friction and make action easier.

What We Cover:

• Why ADHD diagnosis brings relief, then can create new limits
• The difference between a label and an identity
• How “this is just my ADHD” becomes a stopping point
• Why beliefs increase or reduce effort before you even start
• The difference between pain and suffering in focus and work
• A simple way to question beliefs that aren’t helping

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

Connect With Nir Eyal

Book: geni.us/beyondbelief

Website: nirandfar.com

Instagram: instagram.com/nireyal

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Presented by Understood.org

Bad environments can train ADHD entrepreneurs to second-guess themselves long after they leave those environments behind. Brandon Smith shares how years of struggling in school, standardized testing, and constant negative feedback shaped the way he saw himself, and why finding practical work completely changed how he viewed his ADHD brain.

In this conversation, Brandon breaks down how environment affects confidence, self-trust, business growth, and leadership. He also shares lessons from building a construction company, learning to delegate, and realizing that many ADHD business owners stay stuck trying to perfect systems long before they actually need them.

What We Cover

• Why ADHD people often confuse environment problems with personal failure
• How Brandon rebuilt confidence through practical work
• Why school experiences still affect ADHD adults years later
• The mindset shift that helped him hire and delegate
• Why unfinished systems can still move your business forward

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Presented by Understood.org

You feel seen by something that wasn’t meant for you.

Skye and Robbie explore whether Bluey reflects ADHD patterns or just captures behaviour accurately.

Using DSM criteria, they break down distraction, unfinished tasks, and how patterns are identified over time.

This episode sits right on the line between observation and diagnosis and shows you how to think about both.

What We Cover:

• Where observation stops and diagnosis starts
• Why realistic behaviour can feel diagnostic
• How ADHD criteria actually gets applied
• The risk of over-interpreting behaviour
• Why this conversation matters beyond the show

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Presented by Understood.org

You build a new system, follow it for a few days, then quietly stop using it.

Craig Ballantyne has coached high performers across multiple industries and his approach focuses on building systems that survive real life, not perfect conditions.

This conversation looks at why most systems fail for ADHD brains. Craig explains how self-awareness, environment control, and honest constraints matter more than motivation.

You will leave with a different way to think about systems that actually hold when your brain resists structure.

What We Cover

• Why most systems fail when they rely on motivation
• How to design systems based on how you actually behave
• The role of environment in making systems stick
• Why honesty about how you learn changes everything
• How to remove friction instead of adding more structure

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

Connect with Craig:

Craig Ballantyne Coaching: https://craigballantyne.com/

Instagram: @ realcraigballantyne

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Presented by Understood.org

You get a new idea and immediately want to drop everything else.

This episode builds on Wednesday’s research around ideation bias in ADHD. The research suggests people with ADHD prefer the idea phase and are more likely to move on before execution is complete.

We break down how this creates the “never-ending pivot” and why projects keep getting abandoned halfway through.

You’ll learn how to use minimum viable product thinking to actually finish things, even if your brain keeps pulling you toward the next idea.

What We Cover:

• Why ADHD brains prefer ideation over execution
• How constant pivots destroy momentum without you noticing
• Turning new ideas into small, testable outputs instead of full pivots
• Finishing projects without suppressing creativity
• How to make ideas small enough to complete before switching

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co