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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (often called ADHD or ADD) can have a huge impact on an entrepreneur's ability to remain productive at work.  Here are just a few tips that can help you manage symptoms of ADHD at work.  And by the way, these tips are great even if you don’t have ADHD!

#1:  Take an Honest Look at your Social Media Use

By now, you’ve probably heard that to increase productivity, you need to shut off your phone and stay off social media.  Sound advice, but people with ADHD really need to take this to heart.  Individuals with ADHD are more easily distracted and more likely to sucked down the proverbial rabbit hole when online.  Maybe you opened Facebook with the intent to quickly wish someone a happy birthday, only to find yourself watching funny cat videos 45 minutes later.  Do yourself a huge favor:  delete social media apps off your phone and save your social media usage for before or after...

Do some of your best ideas come to you while you are taking a shower? 

Or when you are driving? How about when standing in line at the grocery store? 

Chances are your best ideas have come to you when you were NOT actively trying to analyze the problem. 

Our tendency to come up with creative ideas when we are not consciously working on them is not mere coincidence. In fact, it makes perfect sense from a neuroscience perspective. That’s because when your brain stops the conscious, analytical thinking of the prefrontal cortex, other parts of your brain are free to make associations. Our brains have a default mode network that is constantly working when the prefrontal cortex takes a break. The default mode network is made up of “association” areas of the brain that communicate and make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. It’s when we are not consciously thinking about a problem that our brain has...

Do you ever sit down to work on something and find that you start remembering everything else you need to do?

Isn’t it distracting?

In this Vlog, you will learn about a simple strategy that allows you to stop using your brain as a storage device and start using it as a thinking tool so you can get your projects done.

Last week we talked about STOPPING the shoulda, coulda, woulda thoughts that feed procrastination and avoidance by using the Stop Sign. Building on the work of the Stop Sign which interrupts the flow of negative intrusive thoughts, we follow it with taking a Moment to Pause with several deep, full breaths.

The Stop Sign clears the mind while the Moment to Pause breath helps us to return to the here and now.

The Moment to Pause Breath is a mindful powerhouse in terms of the positive changes it triggers and the ripples it creates in our brain, mind and body.

• First, the Moment to Pause breath signals the part of the brain responsible for our stress response to stand down;
• Next, the Moment to Pause breath activates the part of the brain which relaxes us to turn on;
• Finally the Moment to Pause breath eases us into the current moment.  

These changes in the brain - turning the stress response off and the relaxation response on -  happen quickly with a several, mindful...

I am…at peace..

...is one of my favorite mantras for centering and refocusing the direction of my mind,  which helps me to be much more effective and focused when working on my business. 

The need to focus and concentrate in our business and in our lives, cannot be overstated.

With a constant flow of information from technology, social media and news outlets, learning to quiet the volume from these intrusions as well as the inner voice of our own minds is a vital skill to master for entrepreneurs.

Meditation is one way of achieving a centeredness amid the noise and distractions created.

More importantly, we are now able to see the positive differences in the brains of meditators versus non-meditators.

The MRI scans of participants in an eight-week Mindfulness class, show the brain's fight or flight center, the amygdala appears to shrink. This area of the brain is associated with all emotion and is directly involved with the body's stress response.

Also, as the...

What do Technology and a Gorilla have in common?

Reliance on technology – phones, tablets, ipads, laptops is pervasive today and a necessary part of most of our professional lives. A report by the Nielsen Company found Americans spend nearly half the day on a screen of some type. That’s a lot of time being stimulated by the backlight of the device and  the steady stream of information. While there are clear advantages to having information at one’s fingertips to enhance productivity, extended use of screens is a brain-drain! 

Too much screen time can lead to problems with concentration and focus, and multiple devices can lead to inattentional blindness – focusing on one activity such as talking on the phone creates inattention to other stimuli.

Which leads me to gorillas...

You may wonder how a gorilla could be invisible?

Well, in a study where participants were asked to count the number of passes made by the team in white uniforms, 42% failed to...

I admit it, my attention span may have been shorter than a goldfish’s. 

I want to share with you a snapshot of what my life was like about a couple of years ago. 

Picture this:  I’m at my computer working, when I hear a notification from my phone that I have a new text message. I quickly check it and send a reply.  While waiting for a response, I mindlessly open Facebook, because I have to admit…. I really hate all those numbers of notifications staring back at me.  A friend has tagged me in a post because letting me know that I would like a restaurant she just dined at.    Next thing I know, I’m on Yelp to check out the reviews.  I feel the phone vibrate and see that my sister has replied to my text.  Before I have a chance to respond, out of the corner of my eye I see that I have a new email on my computer.  I put down my phone to read it, and suddenly ask myself:

“How did I get so off...