"ADHD Essentials" welcomes Dani Donovan, the creator of the Anti-Planner, a powerful tool for individuals with ADHD. She shares strategies like paper football decision-making and KanBan boards and even provides meal planning tips. The Anti-Planner is a survival kit with different sections addressing emotional states, aiming to empower individuals with ADHD to be productive. They also discuss strategies for sleepiness, overcoming negative emotions, and the upcoming kid-friendly version of the book.
The Anti-Planner provides a variety of strategies and tools to help individuals with ADHD improve their productivity and overcome feelings of being stuck, overwhelmed, unmotivated, disorganized, or discouraged.
The interactive and visually appealing design of The Anti-Planner makes it more accessible and ADHD-friendly, breaking down information into bite-sized pieces and encouraging experimentation with different strategies.
Deep dives
The Anti-Planner: A Survival Kit for Procrastinators
The Anti-Planner is a strategy guide and survival kit for procrastinators that offers an alternative to traditional planners and to-do lists. It provides 165 different prompts, activities, challenges, and tools to help individuals with ADHD get things done. The book is organized into sections based on emotions such as feeling stuck, overwhelmed, unmotivated, disorganized, or discouraged. Each section offers specific activities to address those feelings and improve productivity. The book emphasizes self-awareness and the understanding that one productivity system does not fit all. It encourages readers to experiment with different strategies and find what works best for them.
Interactive and Accessible Design
The Anti-Planner stands out with its interactive and accessible design. It incorporates elements like tabs, post-it notes, and illustrations to make the content engaging and easier to navigate. The book's graphic design breaks down information into bite-sized pieces, making it more ADHD-friendly and preventing information overload. The author, Danny Donovan, leveraged her background as an artist and graphic designer to create a visually appealing and user-friendly tool.
Empowering Individuals to Overcome Procrastination
The book challenges the notion that procrastination is caused by laziness and instead helps readers understand the underlying emotions and roadblocks that lead to procrastination. By addressing self-defeating beliefs and offering practical strategies, The Anti-Planner empowers individuals to take control of their productivity. It encourages readers to give themselves permission to play and experiment with different strategies, recognizing that not all tasks require the same approach. The book helps readers build self-awareness and emphasizes that their worth is not solely defined by productivity.
Impact and Feedback
The Anti-Planner has received meaningful feedback from readers, including clinicians working with patients who have traumatic brain injuries and parents connecting with their children. It is praised for its ability to facilitate conversations about productivity and provide practical solutions for a wide range of tasks. Readers appreciate the book's authenticity, engaging format, and the way it makes them feel understood and supported. The feedback highlights the book's positive impact in helping individuals overcome procrastination and develop strategies for getting things done.
In today’s episode, we talk to ADHD creator and friend of the show, Dani Donovan! (Dani has created the Anti-Planner, a phenomenal tool for helping folks with ADHD get stuff done.)
Dani talks to us about the Anti-Planner, and why it it such a powerful tool for folks with ADHD. She shares some of the strategies in it. Strategies that she actually used in creating it! (Like letting yourself bounce from one strategy to another, paper football decision-making, KanBan boards, even strategies for meal planning!)