Latest / Hook,Line,&SinkHer / Season 1 Episode 9 Fishing for Focus: Technology and ADHD
Transcript
- Jayson St.Croix: Welcome back to Hook, Line, & SinkHer Her, the podcast where we cast out big questions, real and honest conversations, and occasionally get distracted by whatever shiny object just floated by. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: I'm Jayson,, and joining me as always is Dr. Amy St. Croix. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I usually say good morning, but today it's good afternoon. Jayson St.Croix: Right. Even though it's the afternoon, do you still have your customary beverage of choice in hand? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Always. Jayson St.Croix: And I I ask you that for a reason because I know you are busy in your weekly assignments and your weekly tasks and jobs and stuff like that, but they actually reached out to us on social media this week. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Stewart's did? Jayson St.Croix: They started liking our post. Yeah. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: No way. I I'm I'm dead serious. Somebody asked me about this like after the last podcast that that you know went on. And I literally said to them, I think probably somewhere around 355 days a year, we probably get Stewart's The only Stewart's coffee. The only time I could think that we didn't was like on major holidays or if we're out of town on vacation. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah. I I saw that. It was a comment on one of our posted and I think it was from one of our science friends. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Okay. Jayson St.Croix: Last time we talked about tackle boxes and the systems that actually stick. Today we're talking about the shiniest lure of them all, that device that's usually in your pocket. Technology and ADHD have a complicated relationship. The same phone that holds your calendar, your reminders, and your maps can also hold your attention for 45 minutes while you're just checking that one thing. So today's question is a fishing question. When it comes to technology, are you the one holding the rod or are you the fish? And how do you get a little more of the first one? Dr. St. Croix, let's start, let's start with the big question. When people talk about when people talk about ADHD and technology, what are they usually most curious or concerned about? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I think just simply from the world that I came from, right, as an administrator, it's about the appropriate or inappropriate use of technology. That seems to be a big piece. I think the amount of time that kids specifically, but people in general spend on technology is is another really big one that comes up. Jayson St.Croix: right. So where does technology genuinely help people with ADHD? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I it has to be executive functioning. that's you know, an enormous part of the challenges that come with ADHD are specific executive functioning skills. And I think that that's really where if we can have some type of boundaries or control over our technology use, that's where I think that it can really, really support us in our daily lives just based on those executive functioning skills. Jayson St.Croix: Do you happen to have a tech guy that works at your firm? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yes. Jayson St.Croix: Do you know that tech guy does professional development for a living? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: He does? No way. Jayson St.Croix: He he might. Do you know he might know of a tool or two to help with those executive functioning skills? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I would think if he did have one, he may have wanted to share it before now. Jayson St.Croix: So here's what I would suggest for you to try at some point in your leisure, is there is a tool called Goblin Tools.ai. And what Goblin Tools does, and I briefly mentioned this when we had Jennifer O'Malley on our episode a couple of episodes ago. It will take an executive, it will take a scenario, say peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Okay. And it will break it down step by step how to create a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And it does it based on spicy peppers. If you have one spicy pepper, it's fewer steps. And if you take that slider and slide it over to five, it breaks it down into the most minute detail, take the bread out of the cupboard, take the knife out of the drawer, take your peanut butter out. And it literally gives you a step-by-step list of executive functioning skills like the checklist that we often use with some of our employees here. But it breaks it down into each single step along the way. And how that's relevant towards a school would be: I don't know, maybe maybe you're trying to teach your students to write a paragraph. You need what a topic sentence, you need supporting evidence, you need a body, you need a conclusion, something like that, right? You're the ELA teacher. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Well, I would ne that's an essay. Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: An essay, but it it would break it down, and you can break it down into those that might not need as much help with those executive functioning skills into fewer steps to those that do require the most, which we can differentiate easily with just the click of a slider into the five, and it would break it down into more steps for those students. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: So let me ask this question. Does it have to be something that is universal? What I mean by that is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a paragraph, an essay, or can a person who's utilizing this app or this tool put in like a bedtime routine, let's say, that's specific to them, or maybe a specific homework assignment and they want it to be chunked. Can you, does it have to be something that's just generic or can it be really specific? That you can personalize. Jayson St.Croix: That's a great question. You wanna know what my answer is? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yes, please. Jayson St.Croix: It can be whatever you want it to be. Because as you're going along, you have the choice to edit what you want for each step. So if you're thinking about your bedtime routine and that step doesn't fit in your typical bedtime routine, then you can just personalize and edit that step. Not only that, it will then give you the option to break that step down even further into sub steps. So if you want it. So yes, it does not have to be school related. I gave you the easy peanut butter and jelly analogy, but it can be something for like a bedtime routine. How to get ready for school in the morning. It could be something along those lines, yes. Yep. Yeah. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: So you can personalize it. awesome. So what it r repeat it again. Goblin. Yeah. Goblin Jayson St.Croix: Goblin Tools dot AI. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Tools.ai. Okay, we'll have to try that one. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, I got a better one for you too. Or I got even better news for you on that website. It's free. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Okay. Woo, I like free. Jayson St.Croix: They do offer a paid, but you can get done what you wanna accomplish and it's free. And I may or Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I love free. Jayson St.Croix: may not have used it once or twice with our director of operations here at the firm. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, yeah. She she loves checklists. She's super productive with them. Jayson St.Croix: Yep. there and there are other tools that we're gonna talk about later when we get into that segment where we there are some tech tools that can help with ADHD and that neurodivergence. But we'll talk to that talk about that in a little bit. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I'm I'm just curious why I've never heard of that before when we do have a tech guy here at the firm who does offer professional development in that area. How am I just hearing about that? Jayson St.Croix: There's a lot of fish in the water that we have to fish for, honey, and sometimes we just can't get on the same boat to go after those same fish. How's that? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: You're holding out on me. Jayson St.Croix: I am maybe a little bit. So it sounds like that same device that can be a lifeline in one moment, maybe a black hole in the next. What separates the two? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I think it's really intentionality and self awareness I really think that, you have to be able to recognize an intention with the use of the tech, right? We've talked, Jayson St.Croix: Purposeful. It has to be purposeful. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, it has to be purposeful. Because the thing is, is like we'll use my favorite app. That I refer to as my ADHD app, even though it's really not. Maybe it is, I don't know, but it's not presented in that manner. So when I get on that app and I'm scrolling, I have absolutely no intentionality of being productive in any way. And I know that you possibly can, right? if you were going to the app and specifically looking for a recipe, for example, or something to do with a vacation, it definitely could have intentionality behind it. It's just I don't. For me, that's the space that my brain can turn to mush and it's okay. But I think that, when I think about the ways that we utilize technology within a day and how the brain can get off course with that, I really think that that what separates you know the rabbit hole versus the productivity is really intentionality, being self-aware. And I'll give you a perfect example for this one. Our PR agent is asking me to write down what I do every day, every minute essentially of every day, because for a week, because she's gonna take that and analyze it to see where I'm spending the most time within my day, and how can we make things efficient or productive or more efficient or more productive based on what I'm doing? So obviously, when she first asked me to do this, I was like, man, am I gonna have to write how many times I'm distracted on my phone, right? So I already tried to be proactive, knowing that this was going to be an issue for me. And to just remind myself that I shouldn't be on the phone, like that's not enough for me. We talk about supports and we talk about strategies. And I know you've often heard me talk about how essential visual supports are to people with ADHD, and I'm definitely one of them. So I took a post-it note and then I made grids, and each day I listed the date. And then every time I caught myself on my phone, I put a tally because I needed to be able to see how many times in my mind I had failed, right? And you know this about me. I'm never gonna fail. Like that is not my personality. Ever! You could put every barrier possible in front of me and you can challenge me and challenge me, and I'm not gonna fail. I just won't let it happen. So for me, it was super duper competitive against myself. So the first day, I had all these tally marks from the morning, and then they started to wean off in the afternoon as I became more aware of how much time I was on my phone. And then literally, I only had to do that four days. Each of the days it became more minimal, more minimal, more minimal. And then I had a day that didn't have any tallies on it at all. None. And I was like, but it like, it literally just became being intentional. And having self-awareness, and for me, I created a visual that that was able to allow me to kind of be competitive with myself, but I've been a lot better since she asked me to do that with that intentionality of I can't use this as a distraction. Jayson St.Croix: Okay, I got three things for you. three I do, and I had to write them down because I didn't want to forget them without elaborating, because I want to ask you about this later on in this episode when you talk about visuals. Do you use visual timers without elaborating? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Sometimes. Jayson St.Croix: Okay. Number two. Recently on your professional LinkedIn page, you had someone reach out to you and ask you about appropriate use of AI throughout the course of your day. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: Okay. So what I wanted to ask you while you were talking about going through what you do on a daily basis and tracking it for a week. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Mm-hmm. Jayson St.Croix: How much of the AI do you use for administrative tasks that don't require your personal stamp or your personal opinion on things? And how much do you use AI just to take care of those? I don't want to say tedious, but those tedious administrative tasks that don't deserve your attention when your attention is so valuable and could be better spent somewhere else. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, so okay, so this really ties together. So this past week, I had coffee with the CEO of a law firm and he specifically asked me, like, if he had an employee or a staff member who was using AI for large portions of a project. How do you determine when you should and when you shouldn't, right? And that's really what the comment was about as well. Mia specifically asked in the comment, how do you decide which of the small steps that I had mentioned to kind of take hands off to AI and then which ones still either need a person or I gotta bring someone in? Like, how does that all work? And and those two parts and pieces fit together. One for our daily lives, but two in the workplace, right? For for people that are in leadership positions, and and what do we allow our employees to do, not do, and and how do we make it most effective? So with ADHD for myself, I only have so much focus available. And when I'm done, I'm done. And it's not necessarily like for the day per se, but like within a topic. So I am never never going to waste my time with foundational minimal skills myself, right? My zone of genius is that intellectual analysis, that intersection right of the of those worlds of medicine and law and education. So for me, that's where I want to be able to be the most focused is during that space. For me to be focused on the foundational pieces of a project, or you know, anything like that, that's an absolute waste of the amount of attention that I have available to me within a project, within a day, whatever we happen to be talking about. So when I was speaking with the individual this past week, that's exactly what I said to him. You know, think about it like a bucket. Why would you waste space in the bucket to fill it up with things that aren't where your expertise is, right? Or you know, obviously, there are certain spaces. I say the zone of genius, but there's certain spaces that I am an expert in, right? That's where my energy needs to be. That's where my focus needs to be. not in those areas that are building that capacity to get to there. Jayson St.Croix: Okay, so here's the third thing that I wanted to circle back when you were talking about your intentional use of technology. And it's interesting that you brought up TikTok again with the recipes, seeing how I've yet to see those recipes being utilized at home. But Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I have never even seen one on TikTok. that's how much it's out of my algorithm. I have never once ever seen a recipe or cooking ever on TikTok. Jayson St.Croix: Do you why? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Because it's not in my algorithm. Jayson St.Croix: Because these apps and these feeds are built to keep us hooked. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Well they're not g Jayson St.Croix: So Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: they're they're clearly doing their job because because mine is like Disney infiltrated. ADHD infiltrated, right? I I know this is sick and twisted, but mine are f filled with people who are getting scared or falling down. And I think it's because I watch them because I'm laughing like a jerk. And so I'm on that space for longer. So the algorithm is reading that that I like that. So yeah, that's that's what I'm doing. Jayson St.Croix: And we we know because it's been in the news, with the lawsuits and things that are being settled out west, these apps and feeds are built to get us hooked. So how much Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: how much of this is about us? And I by us I don't mean me because I'm not an imposter, and how much of it is about the design of the app? Are are you looking for that escape to go into your technology or are you Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Well, okay, I'm shaking my head no, but the I guess now the answer is maybe. So that I'm not a big tech person in the sense that I'm never gonna play a video game. And if I do, it's gotta be like I don't even know. I only have one on my my phone. Like I don't I don't do that, right? I don't play the Xbox. I don't play the three. None of those things, right? That's just not my thing. So the tech piece for me was never about mindless just passing the time, right? But in matter of fact, in the beginning, I never even wanted to use TikTok because I had heard so many negative things about it that I was like, that this is this is awful. Both in the news and from other just people that I know, right? And how we could never allow our kids on TikTok and how it was bad and all this stuff. But I think now, honestly, I think I do look forward to it because I keep myself off of it all day long. I don't allow myself to go on it during the day because I know the rabbit hole that I'm gonna go. And I don't even in the evening. It's not until I'm done with the day, and it's that reward I give myself right before I go to bed. And that's how I so now I guess I do look forward to it, but I didn't initially, and that's not why it came to be. Jayson St.Croix: Again, you we've talked about this before as you you have a tough time shutting your brain off at night. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: But yeah. Jayson St.Croix: Does it help you to do something like for you it's TikTok, but for other people it might be Pinterest, it might be Facebook, it might be Insta, it might be whatever. Does that help take that ADHD brain and settle it down? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, because I don't even I don't have to think, right? even if I watch TV, which I don't really focus much on TV. even when I watch TV though, like I'm not focused, you see me s on my laptop when I'm watching TV. Like I'm doing work. It's just kind of over here. So there's no real relaxation for me or an attempt to turn the brain at least down, even if it's not off, until I kind of have that mundane scrolling. And I don't have to think. I'm not, and I'm not forcing myself to pay attention to details like I do throughout the rest of my day. I just don't, there's no responsibility in it for me. Jayson St.Croix: Gotcha. All right. So we've talked about hyperfocus before, and the screens are one of the easiest places for it to show up. A game, a video series, a deep dive into a topic that wasn't even on the agenda, right? So what's going on when someone looks up and you know what? Three hours have vanished. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. So I think I think this question is actually far more complex than than you probably intended it to be. Because ADHD is not a deficit about attention, right? Like we've we've already talked about that. It's Jayson St.Croix: It's a huge misconception. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Right, right. I think that might have been the podcast that we talked about it on, right? Is that Jayson St.Croix: Yep, correct. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: it's a misconception that we have a deficit in it in attention. We can't be focused or or attentive to anything. And it's actually the difficulty of regulating that, right? Regulating attention, regulating focus. And we we definitely spoke about that before. But when someone with ADHD becomes deeply engaged in like a game or a video game or a video, right? I think about like, you know, YouTube or Netflix or something like that. Or even researching a topic, it doesn't have to be something that's, you know, fun, though I do find researching a topic fun. Their brain is responding to stimulation. It's responding to the novelty of it or immediate feedback. And honestly, it's like a reward, right? So those experiences can be like absolutely compelling for a brain that struggles to regulate motivation and attention. So what's happening is we get what I think we've actually talked. this time blindness, where you just have no idea of how much time has passed, and typically you don't sit down thinking, I'm going to play this video game until it's time for me to wake up tomorrow morning, right? Which we we oddly hear a lot within the school setting that a child has been up all night playing video games. It's really important to understand that and and I think if there's anything I'm gonna say today, this is probably the most important thing that moms and dads should listen to or parents should listen to because I hear this all the time. I absolutely am always hearing well, no, he doesn't have ADHD or she doesn't have ADHD because they can they can sit still and play their video game for hours and hours and hours. That is like not. True at all. So three hours focused on a video game, that doesn't mean that you can simply choose to apply that same level of attention to like homework if you were a kid, or paperwork if you were, you know, in in an adult setting, or any other responsibility, it doesn't matter what it is. Those activities they place a totally different demand on the brain. So Okay. That piece about because you can pay attention here for a long period of time means that you know you don't have trouble focusing, or these potentially are chosen behaviors, you know, like you're choosing to not get off the video game, like those kinds of things. It's it's not that simple. Now, please don't think that I'm saying that that excuses all behaviors for not wanting to get off the video game, right? But it's not. The challenge Change is not just about paying attention. It's about being, it's about being able to direct that focus and attention to sustain it, to be able to shift it, to disengage it whenever something requires it. So I know in a past podcast we talked about like how difficult it sometimes is for transitions, right? Or disengagement. Absolutely constantly I'm reading IEPs that indicate that a student has a challenge with transitions. And that's because it's a skill to disengage from one activity and move or transition to another. So, you know, I think that that question's probably much more complex than you even thought that you were asking. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, and that's actually great because let's stay in that same arena and that same train of thought. How do you help someone transition out of something engaging without it turning into a fight? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, so okay, so that's something that we experience every single day in schools, right? And I know you know this, but we have a big contract with a preschool, right? So I'm in the preschool working with that age group, you know, supporting teachers at that level, supporting one-to-one aides and and administrators. So in that work, I actually see that absolutely constantly at that age level. Because it's even though we struggle to do that in like middle school, heck, we struggle to do that as adults, but we also understand why we have to transition. When you're in a preschool age, you you just want to do what's fun. You don't necessarily want to transition because it's from a task or an activity that you prefer to one you might not prefer. So when just going back to you asking me how do you support that? It's it's things like forecasting. So knowing what's coming. That's why we give students a visual schedule so they know, you know, what's one after the other after the other. I just had a conversation the other day with a professional who had said that they were struggling with an employee in meetings, and he didn't feel like the employee was necessarily being rude or disrespectful purposefully, but they were shouting out at particular you know pieces of information that were being shared. And he's like, How could I stop that or how can I minimize that? And I'm like, forecasting! If you provide an agenda prior to the meeting, then they're gonna have a minute to internalize what's coming and those impulsive interruptions will decrease. And the same thing happens with transitions. That's why if we can see what's coming, use a visual schedule, that's really helpful. The other thing is using like timers. So, you know, we can say to it doesn't matter if it's in a kid or an adult, because I have to be honest, I kind of use this technique with myself a lot. 10 minutes. until we're gonna do this. Five minutes until we're gonna do this. So my brain knows what's coming and it knows that I need to like sum it up and it's time to move on. So it almost like kicks that in that executive functioning skill into gear by using the timers. So there's definitely strategies that you can use for transitions. If you have the ability to kind of select, and some people do and some people don't, right? My day is a little bit more flexible than your day is. So for me, I try to make like a sandwich. So I put some. something that I like, something that I don't like, something that I like. because I can manipulate and regulate my day. If there's a meeting I don't want to do, it goes first thing in the morning. I had to go to court last week and I had to be there at 11 o'clock. And I did not like that at all. I had prepped for the case, I was ready to go, and I just felt like I couldn't focus on anything else until it was time to head over to that courtroom. And I like to do those things early. I like to get them over with. So that would be how I would help myself transition. Jayson St.Croix: And being the professional you are, you were still successful in that court case. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Thanks. Jayson St.Croix: You're welcome. So let's let's transition into how we can make technology work for us because you've actually mentioned a few of my tips and tricks that maybe if you were to ask your tech guy at the firm this question, he was gonna suggest. Used well, technology can do a lot of the heavy lifting for us. Reminders, calendars, timers, voice notes, shared lists. What are the tech tools or settings that you might see make the biggest difference for people who have ADHD? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Well, I think I think there's two different pieces here, right? and we don't even think about one of them, I bet. Ma maybe you do, but there's there's a proactive piece that I think we sometimes don't think about. So, for example, if you can be proactive knowing that you're gonna get distracted, or your the next task that you have, you have to be able to focus. You can use strategies like putting your phone on do not disturb. So Jayson St.Croix: Focus mode. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: yeah. So that would be like a proactive strategy that I utilize when I know I have to get something accomplished. I can't be distracted. And honestly, for me, it's not even just I have to get it accomplished. I can't come out of it. So, like when I'm cross-analyzing documents, I can't come out of that. As soon as my train of thought is changed or tweaked, it's over. My awesomeness is gone. So those are times when I would use that strategy of the do not disturb. I think the other thing, like you mentioned, is timers, alarms. really, for me, it's anything that supports those executive functioning skills. And you know, this kind of ties in not using all my focus kind of in one area, and I know you're gonna laugh about this, and now I kind of like letting the cat out of the bag. You're gonna think every time I text you that you know it wasn't really me, but sometimes if I want to tell someone like a story or it has multiple layers, I'll go to ChatGPT, I'll voice text it or voice, record it, whatever they do, and then I ask it to create it in a text message tone for me, and it happens that quickly. So I don't have to sit there and type it out and waste time and whatever. I just go, and of course, because we use Macs, I can easily just take it from my ChatGPT. Jayson St.Croix: Is that gonna hold up in divorce court? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I knew you didn't know I did that. So it's not so much when like I'm having a one-on-one conversation, except for if I do have something that happened, and I want to tell Jen O'Malley, right? You know how she and I are, it then I might do that because it's usually some long strain of information that I want to tell her. But it happens a lot in the group chats. when I have a story that I want to tell, or I have to catch someone up on something, that's when I'll use that strategy. Jayson St.Croix: I can literally see people out there who have no idea what kind of relationship we have saying that their relationship is so bad that she has to Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Ha ha Jayson St.Croix: communicate to this guy that's running this podcast through AI because she can't even be bothered to text him. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I don't usually do it to you, usually. Like, it's just if it's gonna take too long to type it out, and I'm gonna lose focus and I need to get it done. I got other stuff to do. I'm managing my time. I'm Jayson St.Croix: So Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: organizing my time. Jayson St.Croix: Again, go back to that answer that you gave me at the top when I asked you when is an appropriate time to use AI and when is not an appropriate time. Is that a Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: It's very appropriate. Jayson St.Croix: Right. And let's put this disclaimer out there in big bold letters, all caps. Whenever you use AI, you better proofread it before you send it. Because Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: yes. Jayson St.Croix: you are 100% responsible for whatever you just blind Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: copy and pasted. And shame on you. You should Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: never, ever, ever put anything out on AI before you proofread it. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, and I think that this really honestly this goes back to our original question about when is the appropriate time To use it. And again, for me, it's never during that, those expert moments. That's my time. That's where you get me. So I think my example that I just gave really does solidify that and back that up. If it's just a mundane text message and I'm trying to get out a story and I don't have time to tell it, it's AI, man. But it's in a group chat. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, talking to your husband. Yeah. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: But if it's something that is an expertise, if it's something that has to do with, that level of intellect, that is all me. You know, y you can't get that on AI. Jayson St.Croix: Right. AI doesn't have the experience. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: No, no. Jayson St.Croix: All right. So since you asked me, I'll tell you anyway, which you didn't really ask me. So I'm gonna tell you anyway. I'm gonna I'll build ya Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Wait. I'm gonna have Chat GPT put it in a text to you. Jayson St.Croix: Man, we're gonna end this one here real quick. So I'm gonna build for you a little one pager. you know how I always build when I do the PDs, everyone always Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: with a cool little takeaway for whatever. And Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yep. Jayson St.Croix: I I will build something like that for your LinkedIn and we can put it we on this face or on yeah, on our Facebook page too for Hook, Line, & Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Okay. Jayson St.Croix: SinkHer for parents. But just some of the easy reminders we talked earlier about the phone. Is it the rod or is it the fish at the very beginning, right? So Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: to come full circle. Your phone's got a lot of great features that can help people with ADHD. For one, it's got built-in reminders. You can download apps like Google Tasks or Google Keep. You have a to-do list to-do that you can set up in your phone. You don't even need to type it because you can voice type it. You have your Microsoft to-do list if you're an Office user. The best part, you and I do this frequently, is we share a list between the two of us, whether it's a grocery store or if it's a to-do list or if it's a thing to do for the podcast, right? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, yeah. Jayson St.Croix: I mean, those are all easy tools built right into our phone. You can also use the visual timer. Those of us that are in the kitchen use the timer a lot when we're doing things in the kitchen. I can show you how that works someday. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Please don't. Jayson St.Croix: We also have voice timers that we can set using Siri on our phone. The calendar on our phone. You said sometimes when you're out in public, you need it right there at your fingertips. And yeah, you could dig out your agenda, which you always have with you as a backup, but you have it right there at your fingertips. But your phone has built-in focus mode. What do I have to remind you every time we record this podcast? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Put it on Do Not Disturb. Jayson St.Croix: Yep. Is your computer on do not disturb, right? And that helps me focus from the notifications, which is going to be my next one. Is you can control what notifications you receive on your device. Those Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: ones that tend to distract you, turn them off if you're trying to be productive. You can silence your notifications and you can customize those at pretty easily right at your fingertips. But there's three websites that I've come across lately. One is called Forest, F-O-R-E-S-T T. And that is a mindful timer for you to be on a certain website or a certain task. And when that timer goes off, that's giving you that visual timer for you to get back to your to-do list to see what you have to do next. There's classroom screen, which we use in the classroom a lot because the kids like those visual timers that we talked about previously, especially the little littler kids, right? There's a website called Freedom or Cold Turkey. They will block other websites that might take away your attention while you're trying to be productive. Goblin Tools I already gave you, voice memos we talked about. Password Manager and I'm gonna foreshadow this a little bit. This is coming up on tangent of the week. Like I use an app called LastPass, which stores all of my passwords encrypted. And Google also has a great password manager feature if you save your password when you use Google Chrome when you're on the internet. I would recommend make sure you pay for the Google account because it seems to have a little bit more protection than the free one. And also you can set screen time on your Apple devices. Just make sure you remember the password when you set the screen time for your child, because if you don't, your child, as they get older, end up getting mad at you because someone may forget a passcode that they set for the screen time. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: She she still, I think, like ha is is timed out sometimes. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: That was like what, ten years ago? She's gonna be, she's gonna be. Jayson St.Croix: at least I think it was YouTube, right? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah I I mean she's gonna be twenty and she's Jayson St.Croix: And that came that came about because we thought she was doing something naughty and she wasn't. She has trouble spelling and she was trying to spell dear future husband. Do you remember that? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, that song. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, and it came out something inappropriate and we thought she was searching something inappropriate and Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: yeah. shameless plug for PD also is I do this one for the 4D decision making when it comes to emails and how to get Inbox Zero for people. If you want to keep your inbox organized and clean. The Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: So let's let's stop on that one. So you I I I obviously know that you're giving PDs absolutely constantly, but mine are focused on one area and yours are focused on another. So clearly I'm aware of what you're doing, but not always all of them, right? Because there's so many of them. So just the other day you shared that with me. The four, what do you call it? The four D's to keep Jayson St.Croix: Four D's Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: your okay. So I think it's the th I actually was looking at that the other night. So I think it was the third one on there. Jayson St.Croix: There's do it, delegate it, defer it, or delete it. Okay. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, defer it. So on defer it, you mention this it's honestly a strategy that you can like hold on or have a reminder that it can come back up. I I've never known that that's available at all. I had no idea that that was a potential option, let alone that I could use as a strategy. So how do you take and like make it come back up or send a reminder? Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, you can open up the email and there's literally an option and you will pick it up in two seconds as soon as I show you. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: Here at the firm we use Gmail, but Outlook also has that availability or that option where you can have a email and it doesn't resend it to you, but it just brings it back to the top of your inbox. But it's not like pinning an email at the top of your inbox. But that's a Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Gotcha. Jayson St.Croix: that's an option that you can do with your email. for the Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I had no idea until I was looking at those strategies that you had shared. Jayson St.Croix: Maybe I can give you a P D someday on how to do it. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I'll go over to ChatGPT and send you a text on when I'm available. Jayson St.Croix: God, here we go. And the other one that is very popular that I give, again, not trying to toot my own horn, is organizing your Google Drive and different strategies that we can use to color code folders, how to automatically send things to certain folders in your Google Drive, create workspaces in your Google Drive. Those are also very popular. All right, Dr. St.Croix let's bring this back to families for a second because screens come up in almost every conversation about kids about kids. Parents are worried, kids are frustrated, and everybody feels a little judged. Would you agree? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I think that it it's it's really n it's not about looking at the time a kid anyone really spends on an electronic. It's about looking at what they're getting out of spending that time on that technology. That's where the that's the important question, right? Regardless if you're a parent or this is a personal reflection, you know, or you're trying to, you know, as an adult, kind of have some more strategies on how to have eliminate those distractions with technology. It's really about looking not about the time, but what are you getting out of that experience? experience because it's mo it it's always going to be what that ADHD brain is is thriving like and it's related to the particular lack of executive functioning skills. So you know people will say gosh there's so many apps I don't know which one to choose or I've got so many of them that I'm not using all of them. You know, they're bogging down my phone, my memory, all those kinds of things. Then this is where the important piece is. You really have to take a look at what you're getting out of that screen time and what is the executive functioning skill or skills that you're most challenged with. And then that's the area that moms and dads can help their kids, or we can do for ourselves as adults, that we should be looking at when we select an app or we select a strategy, a system that we're gonna use. So it's not about spending the time or how much time is spent, I should say. It's about what you're getting out of it that can then in turn help you determine, you know, where you need supports. But so this kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. How many times do we hear parents either verbally say or they'll say to us, I tell him to get off of that right now. Get off of it. And he doesn't listen to me. I hear that all the time. From moms and dads. This is the thing. It goes back to the discussion we had about transitions. If our ADHD brains can't automatically disengage it's not necessarily behavioral. It looks behavioral. But when you tell someone to do something, get off of that video game, and they don't do it, it definitely looks like defiance for sure. But there's a disengagement piece that's going on there. And we'll be much more successful if we say things like, you know, you've been on that for how long? I'm gonna give you 10 more minutes. Or if it's a younger, and then you know. Five minutes, three minutes, one minute, and stick with it, moms and dads. Do not say 10 minutes and then go walk away and forget that you said 10 minutes because and then walk back in at the 30 minutes and say, you've been on for 30 minutes, now get off. Because that transition, that disengagement piece, it can't happen, right? The other thing that I always use is first then. So I'll say, first we're gonna do this, then we're gonna do this. So you could potentially say, first finish that board or that screen or that mission, whatever that they happen to be doing on the on the game, then turn it off. So you have a first and you have a then. But those are two strategies that will help that ADHD brain be able to disengage than a parent just saying, turn that off. Jayson St.Croix: Gotcha. So here's the takeaway. Here's what I'm hearing. The goal isn't to throw the phone in the lake. It's to be the one holding the rod. Choose the lure, set the line, and know when to reel it in. How's that? that about sum it up? All right, before we wrap things up, it's that time once again for our tangent of the week. And in case you haven't noticed, she sounds a little stuffy today. She hasn't really felt her best, but she's been a trooper and I appreciate you recording this podcast today. So thank you. I appreciate that. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, no problem. We're only gonna do one today though, right? Jayson St.Croix: We're only doing one today. Do you know where we're headed? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: So the tangent of the week? Jayson St.Croix: Yeah. Every episode will share one of those moments that perfectly captures the wonderfully unpredictable nature of ADHD. So, Dr. St. Croix, let's talk about a recent week because it was a trifecta. Do you know what a trifecta is? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I do. Jayson St.Croix: All right, part one. The airport. You're sitting there with a large travel party, including your parents, which makes you part travel agent, part crossing guard, and part headcounter. And right in the middle of all that, a time-sensitive task shows up and you need to get into your laptop. So you type in your password, wrong. You type in your password again. Wrong. You try again. And keep in mind, this is the same password that you have been using on that computer for a while now. But with Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. I've had this computer six months now. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah. But with that many people, bags, and announcements competing for your attention, your brain obviously had other plans until your laptop, which has no sense of humor, locked you out. It wasn't solved until you got home and your tech guy figured it out for you. And on the technology episode, no less, I guess the universe does really have a sense of humor. Part two. The unpacking. We all know you like to have your ducks in a row before bed. So you can wake up with us wake up and start fresh every morning. We've talked about that, Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah. Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: Which for a fishing podcast is a bold choice of bird. So instead, you got suitcases, laundry piles, house in temporary disarray. And we haven't even talked about your office yet and what did and didn't get done while you were gone. And then to top it all off, part three, during one of your trainings recently, you were blessed with the flu. Blessed. Everyone else who goes fishing catches fish. You caught the flu. A locked Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I I don't know that it's the flu, but somebody shared both their knowledge and their flu virus germs. But I don't know that that's what I have. Jayson St.Croix: My point is a locked laptop, a disrupted routine, an office full of loose ends, and a fever, maybe the flu, all in one week. If that were a fishing trip, you would have lost the lure, tangled the line, and still somehow been the one who caught something. Tell us honestly, how close is that to reality? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: That was my week. This week's been terrible, absolutely terrible. I'm really looking forward into going into next week so that I can adjust. But I even felt I could even recognize myself having tangents this week. And this is really bad, but now that I know you tell the world about my tangents, I stop. And think for a second, okay, should you say this? Shouldn't you say this? like I'm literally stopping and being like, I can't say this because he's gonna put that on the podcast. Jayson St.Croix: It's not the bad. It's it's what it's like living with someone with ADHD, right? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Yeah, it's it's tough, but it it's funny because that's what you see. I guess this really goes to the internal, external kind of thing. But for me, one of the biggest struggles this week, as I've been dealing with all the things that you mentioned, that I probably spoke of a couple of times, but I don't know that you really understand how much of it was internalized was things like chores at the house, the vacuuming, laundry, those kinds of things. Because as I was putting the pieces back together this week, and we had a lot of new stuff going on, and like I said, we went to court this week and we had a lot of stuff going on. All those other things needed to be put together. the side and I did not do well with that. Jayson St.Croix: Here's what I want you to take away from my tangent of the week, okay? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: Okay. Jayson St.Croix: Don't stop don't stop being you because you made a sound bite last week that kept replaying in my head all week and I'm gonna keep posting it. Or we or whoever does our it could be our director of operations is gonna keep using it. And the soundbite that you had in last week's episode is if you're neurodivergent and you have ADHD, there's a pretty good chance you're pretty awesome. Do you remember saying that last? Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: That yeah, I wanna can can you make me a t-shirt that says that? Yeah. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, I think we can probably make that happen. But Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: you know what? I do have to give this shout out and I have to apologize. I cannot think of the girl's name right now, but but as soon as I say it, anyone that knows will know and I have to give her all the credit in the world. There's a new t t-shirt that is supporting an organization that says d in it in the the girl that's promoting it, she has autism, and she does an amazing job on TikTok. Her name is Kaylin and I believe that she was on Netflix. I think it was like maybe season one of Love on the Spectrum. And she has an autism diagnosis and she does an amazing job on TikTok, like sharing situations and scenarios, and she has a new teacher that is supporting an organization and it says, "Don't hear what I didn't say." How Amazing is that. Obviously, she's autistic, right? But even I think about with ADHD, anyone who's neurodivergent, don't hear what I didn't say. Jayson St.Croix: Yeah, that's great. Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: So, you know, again, tone. Right. That's huge. That lack of filter that we sometimes see. That impulsivity. the sensitivity, the sensory dysregulation, but don't hear what I didn't say. So yeah, you gotta go over and get that t-shirt. I I'm I'm definitely getting one. Definitely. Jayson St.Croix: definitely. I just used my rod, aka my phone, and went to my list to put down Christmas present for Dr. Amy St.Croix So Dr. Amy S. L. St. Croix, ACAS: I'm gonna have one before Christmas. Jayson St.Croix: All right. So that's a wrap on today's episode of Hook, Line, & SinkHer Her. If today's conversation resonated with you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who has ever opened their phone for one thing and came back 40 minutes later. Next time we're heading into Deep Waters, ADHD in education. What helps learners thrive in the classroom? And what do teachers and families wish they'd known sooner? So until next time, keep casting, keep learning, and remember: sometimes the best catches happen when you least expect them.