by Artemis | Oct 23, 2026 |
A “quick look” at Obsidian once turned into a whole day building a database that stored and cross-referenced all my stuff. It did all the things. By my next low-energy day, I’d forgotten how to use the damn thing.
Another quick look at Pixabay for looping videos somehow became a Reset Retreat with kayaking and camping in the rain. I hadn’t even worked out what I wanted the videos for.
I love where my curiosity takes me. I also have a business to run, so occasionally I need a break I can actually come back from.
Late last week, I read two excellent ADDitude articles: “Never Enough? Why ADHD Brains Crave Stimulation” and “Using a Dopamine Menu to Stimulate Your ADHD Brain”. Somewhere in the reading, the idea hit me:
I NEED A DOPAMINE DINER IN THE VILLAGE.
How I was going to build it, or what the hell it would serve, remained to be seen.
Out came my bullet journal. I spent quite a bit of time working through the images, feelings, and ideas, then turning those into directions for AI. Eventually, after a fair amount of fiddling, I had a diner.
I’m always talking about workflows that fit neurodivergent brains and how important it is to take breaks. Yet I hadn’t really shown people what those breaks might look like.
“Go take a break.”
Lovely. What am I supposed to do with myself?
Left to my own devices, I apparently build databases and campgrounds.
The dopamine menu idea appealed to me because you work out some choices before you need them. When I’m tired and my brain is being spectacularly unhelpful, having somewhere to start sounds pretty good.
So I wanted to make a place where people could choose a little diversion, give it a go, and see how they felt.
Colour had to be there, of course. I’m a fibre artist, for heaven’s sake.
Colour is part of our everyday lives: branding palettes, yarn combinations, the colours we surround ourselves with at home. I wanted something for all the creatives who enjoy putting colours together just to see what happens.
I particularly love being able to download a palette and go looking for those colours in daily life. In the garden, in a pile of yarn, in something that catches your eye while you’re out. There’s a little bit of the activity you can take away with you.
Then there are the writing prompts.
I’ve always loved writing. Blog posts, letters, short stories, poetry, journalling. Words tend to find their way into other things around here, too.
I once bought a sweet little guitar for $10 at a yard sale. It was small, just my size. I wrote these words by Stephen Crane in tiny letters all along its outer edge:
“Think as I think,” said a man,
“Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad.”
And after I had thought of it,
I said, “I will, then, be a toad.”
Still rings true. Quite happy to be a toad, thanks.
That’s part of why I wanted writing in the diner. A prompt gives me somewhere to begin. I can take it to my notebook, write a few lines, follow an odd little thought, and see what turns up.
Then there are the TakeAway Specials, with a little something for everyone to take out into the world.
Little thoughts and activities to carry into your day, have some fun, and give yourself a bit of a reset. Pick whatever catches your attention and give it the time you’ve got.
The world does, apparently, continue to exist while I’m staring at a screen. I feel a damn sight better when I remember to join it.
Each activity offers that opportunity: walk away for the amount of time you have to give yourself and find an enchanting diversion you can just do. No fancy tools or fanfare. Pick something up and have a go.
Sometimes that’s colour or writing. Sometimes we all need something thoroughly silly to pursue. There’s quite enough in the world to make us clench our teeth.
Enter the Silly Table Questions.
As far as I’m concerned, laughter and whimsy should be prescribed daily. Take regularly. Share with a friend.
I first experimented with this in my studio. If you visit and head into the round workshop area, you’ll find a box of curious questions on the coffee table. Have a rummage. See what catches your attention.
That little experiment has me wondering what else we could do in the T.A. Café.
Originally, I imagined it as a gathering place, a bit like the commons at university. Somewhere to drop in, have a conversation, and spend time around other people.
Now I want to play with the different ways people gather. What happens when there’s something small to do together? Where might a curious question or a shared story take us?
I’d love to bring some of what happens in physical workshops, workplaces, and groups into this digital space. With Rippily, I have somewhere to try those ideas, see what people enjoy, and make changes as we go.
The diner is one of those experiments. I want people to leave feeling mentally refreshed and ready to get back to their work. Maybe with a colour combination to look for, a few words to play with, or a ridiculous question to ask someone over supper.
That’s the sort of thing I want to keep exploring through TechAlchemy. How can we make our tools and spaces work better for the brains actually using them?
You’ll find the Dopamine Diner in the T.A. Café in TechAlchemy Village. Come play with some colour, pick up a writing prompt, see what nonsense is on the table, or grab a TakeAway Special for later.
And if you wander over to my studio afterwards, my door’s open. Coffee and a bit of nonsense are always welcome.
Until next time Friends...
by Artemis | Oct 15, 2026 |
I'm 59, still carrying shame from decades ago, and finally getting pissed off enough to do something about it.
I'm still embarrassed about something I said to my husband's grandmother in 1996.
Yep. Thirty bloody years ago.
Every once in a while, my brain digs up that conversation and decides we should cringe over it again.
What possessed me to say that? What must she have thought?
And there I go, judging myself all over again.
Fear has always been pretty straightforward to me. It's there when things are going badly, and it's there when things are going well.
But shame? That's a different beast altogether.
Recently, I read an article from NDFounders about why running a business can be harder for neurodivergent entrepreneurs.
One part stopped me in my tracks. The author talked about how putting ourselves out there can mean confronting a lifetime of shame and rejection.
Well, shit. That hit home.
Fifty years of wondering what was wrong with me
I was in my 50s before I discovered I had ADHD.
Growing up, I was considered very smart. I was also the problem child.
Weird. Different. An outsider.
Home wasn't exactly a refuge, either.
My mother could fly into terrible rages. I'd spend weekend mornings listening to her rant about everything, including things no child should have been dragged into.
Eventually, she'd retreat into a book, and I'd get the hell out of there.
Living in the country meant there were plenty of places to escape to.
As a teenager, I partied, smoked pot, was sexually active, and made some questionable decisions.
In our small town, I became that girl. The slut. The troublemaker. Someone people felt entitled to judge.
I had my first baby at seventeen, and it felt like people were watching, waiting for me to fail.
I worked my ass off to be a good mother.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was always having to prove I was a decent person.
Doctors told me I was depressed. Nobody seemed to understand what I was struggling to explain.
And neither did I.
I didn't know I had ADHD. I certainly didn't understand how it affected my behaviour, my impulsivity, or the way I experienced the world.
I just knew I didn't fit.
A diagnosis doesn't erase a lifetime of shame
When I finally learned I had ADHD, so many things started making sense.
But understanding why I'd struggled didn't magically undo the years of feeling that something was wrong with me.
And apparently, I'm not alone.
A 2025 study published in Scientific Reports explored the experiences of 28 women diagnosed with ADHD later in life.
The researchers found recurring experiences of criticism, shame, low self-esteem, and grief over the lives participants wondered whether they might have lived if they'd understood themselves sooner.
Reading that was both comforting and heartbreaking.
How many of us have spent decades believing other people's judgments about us?
And how many of us are still carrying those judgments long after we've learned they weren't the whole truth?
I'm not even sure how much of my own shame comes from growing up with undiagnosed ADHD and how much comes from everything else I experienced.
Maybe I'll never completely untangle that.
Now I'm building a business. What the hell am I thinking?
Here I am at 59, building TechAlchemy, a business and community for neurodivergent entrepreneurs.
I know things. I've learned things. I'm creative, resourceful, and pretty damn good at figuring out technology.
But put me in a conversation with other businesspeople or potential clients, and suddenly I'm worried about everything.
Am I talking too much? Do I sound stupid? Did I miss something important? Do they think I'm obnoxious?
And afterward?
Oh, you can bet your ass I'll replay the conversation.
Sometimes for days.
It's not simply that I'm afraid people will think I don't know enough.
I'm afraid they'll decide I'm not worth taking seriously.
That's where shame and imposter syndrome seem to collide for me.
And this business matters. I want to earn a good living. I want my husband to be able to retire. I want us to enjoy the years we have ahead.
But I also want something else.
I'm building TechAlchemy Village because I want people like me to have somewhere they can belong.
Somewhere you can ask a question without feeling stupid. Admit you're overwhelmed without being judged. Get practical help without somebody telling you to just try harder.
A place where we can be honest, call out the bullshit, and hold each other up when we're struggling.
And thanks to Rippily, that Village is becoming something pretty damn amazing.
If you haven't experienced Rippily, it's nothing like your typical online meeting or community platform. Instead of another boring grid of faces, you can create entire interactive spaces where people explore, gather, learn, and actually spend time together.
I've built a little virtual village with a café, library, studios, and places for workshops, coworking, and conversation. There's even a Reset Retreat where you can escape the noise, enjoy a little nature, and paddle a kayak around the lake when you need a break from everything.
And I can keep dreaming up new things to add!
The creative freedom is incredible. But what really gets me is that Rippily lets me build something that feels like an actual place to belong, rather than just another website to visit.
And here's the kicker.
I'm going to have to learn to feel comfortable being myself in the very place I'm creating for other people to do exactly that.
Well, isn't that a bitch?
I'm scared. I'm doing it anyway.
I've decided it's time to start inviting organizations and community groups into my virtual studio for coffee.
I want to show them the Village, hear what their members need, and explore how the space might help them.
And I'm terrified.
What if they think it's a scam because I'm offering space for free? What if I stumble over my words? What if they think I'm a joke?
That familiar shame is already trying to talk me out of it.
But I'm going to find out what happens.
Maybe I'll embarrass myself. Maybe I'll say something awkward. Maybe I'll need to try a few times before I get comfortable.
So bloody what?
I've spent far too much of my life worrying about what other people think of me.
I'm not interested in spending the rest of it doing the same.
I'm not magically cured of shame. I'll probably still be replaying that conversation from 1996 when I'm eighty.
But I'm learning something.
I don't have to stop being afraid before I start living the life I want.
I can learn how my brain works. I can create systems that help me. I can ask for support, make mistakes, and try something different.
And so can you.
Maybe you're fifty, sixty, or seventy and still wondering whether you've got what it takes.
Maybe you've spent your whole life being told you're too much, not enough, or just plain different.
Maybe you've started believing it.
But what if those old judgments don't get to make your decisions anymore?
What if you gave yourself permission to figure things out as you go?
I'm ready to grab life by the balls and say NO MORE!
No more waiting until I'm perfect.
No more expecting my brain to work like everybody else's.
No more letting shame decide what I'm capable of trying.
I'm going to figure this shit out, one step at a time.
And I'd love some company along the way.
We've still got some living to do.
Does shame still show up in your life, even years after discovering your ADHD? I'd love to hear what you're learning about yourself and what you're finally ready to try.
Until next time Friends...
by Artemis | Oct 8, 2026 |
How do you get seen on social media when everybody is already talking?
How do you get heard without turning yourself into the loudest person in the room—or a full-time content creator when you already have a business to run?
I keep circling those questions.
It's hard to get your voice out there.
Sometimes social media anxiety doesn't look like panic.
Sometimes it looks like having something useful to say, opening the app, seeing everybody already talking and quietly closing it again.
There are so many voices. So many people posting, promoting, teaching, shouting, dancing in front of their phones and apparently knowing exactly what the algorithm ate for breakfast.
If you're trying to run a small business, it can feel as if marketing now requires you to become a full-time content creator on top of doing the work people are meant to be hiring you for.
Sometimes it's easier to listen to the noise and decide nobody's going to hear you anyway.
I know that feeling. I also know it from long before social media.
I'm a ham radio operator. The summer I passed my Advanced Exam, I could finally get on HF and talk around the world.
And I was ready.
I bought an older Kenwood HF radio from a friend. It needed repairs, but I knew I could fix it.
And I did.
Then I learned more about building antennas. I experimented. I adjusted things. I made the equipment work.
It was awesome.
In June 2006, I was sitting in our CB shop in London, Ontario, Canada, listening to a dog pile of hams trying to reach a radio operator who was operating aboard a Second World War submarine in Pearl Harbor.
A dog pile is exactly what it sounds like: a whole lot of people calling at once, each hoping their signal will be the one that gets through.
I listened for a while. Then I finally got my nerve up, grabbed the microphone and called:
“CQ CQ DX, VE3LYY.”
And I kept going.
A little while later, I heard him say my call sign.
My call sign.
He'd heard me.
I wished him 73 and he moved on to someone else. The whole exchange was brief, but I was thrilled. My voice had travelled all the way from London, Ontario, through that dog pile and reached a person I couldn't see in Pearl Harbor.
So I kept turning the dial.
I found more people to talk to, and every contact made the next one a little easier. One day I had a wonderful conversation with a man tending a lighthouse in Venezuela.
My world got bigger every time I used my voice.
The medium changed. The dog pile didn't.
Now the radio is a website, an email list, a workshop, a social platform or a room where everybody seems to know one another already.
There's still a dog pile.
There will always be somebody louder. Somebody with a bigger audience, newer equipment or suspiciously firm opinions about how often the rest of us should be posting.
That doesn't mean your signal isn't worth sending.
It means you may have to do what I did then: speak, listen, experiment and build a better antenna.
A better antenna doesn't mean turning yourself into a louder, shinier version of somebody else. It means making it easier for the right people to receive what you're actually trying to say.
Maybe the idea needs a clearer sentence.
Maybe you're transmitting in a place where your people aren't listening.
Maybe the story carries farther than the list of tips.
Maybe you need to make the call more than once before somebody catches it.
None of that means your voice is wrong. It means you're still working on the signal.
Do a signal check
When I catch myself sitting quietly at the edge of the noise, I can ask:
- What am I actually trying to say? Not everything I know. One honest thing.
- Who am I trying to reach? Not “the internet.” One kind of person who might need to hear it.
- What would make this signal easier to receive? A story, a clearer subject line, a different format or a better place to share it.
- What is one call I can make today? One post. One email. One invitation. Then listen for what comes back.
On a low-energy day, make it even smaller: write the one sentence you'd say if you and that person were talking somewhere quiet. Put that sentence where they have a chance of finding it.
That's enough of a transmission for today.
Confidence didn't arrive before I picked up that microphone. It grew because I picked it up, made the call and discovered that someone could hear me.
I need to keep telling myself about these moments. Not because I need another motivational speech, but because they're evidence.
I've been afraid to transmit before. I did it anyway. Someone heard me.
Little has changed, really. Only the medium.
There's always a dog pile.
I have to keep speaking, keep listening, keep experimenting and keep building better antennas.
Then I make the call again.
Until next time Friends...
by Artemis | Oct 7, 2026 |
I'm looking for five creative, neurodivergent people to beta test Carry On, Creative, the app I built to help turn a handmade, artistic or digital idea into a clear path toward a first sale.
Testing is free during the beta. We'll meet weekly in the TechAlchemy Village to answer questions, work through whatever gets in the way and gather the kind of honest feedback that says, “This made no bloody sense,” when that is the useful truth. Cameras and microphones are optional, and you don't need a formal diagnosis or technical expertise.
Learn about the free beta circle and apply
If that sounds like you, there's the important bit. The rest is how I ended up building the thing in the first place.
For years, I had ideas for businesses I could start.
I could sell my handmade goods. Fibre arts. Soap. Patterns. Classes. I knew how to make things, and I could see how those things might become a business.
Then I would run into the business tools.
They were all going to make everything easier, naturally. All I had to do was choose the right platform, understand the jargon, compare seventeen options, create several accounts, work out what connected to what and remember which free trial was about to charge my credit card.
Easy.
I wanted to sell soap. I didn't want a second, unpaid career arguing with software.
The irritating part was that technology itself wasn't the problem. I'm a total geek. I build websites, solder things and play with the cool toys to find out what they can do. I like technology.
I don't like tools that promise to simplify one job and quietly add three more.
Still, I did what I usually do. I read. I researched. I tried things. I went down rabbit holes, found adjoining rabbit holes and occasionally forgot which original rabbit hole had brought me there.
I'm an introvert and an overthinker. Neither of those things is especially helpful when a business requires you to make a hundred decisions and then announce your existence to other humans.
Eventually, I'd get so frustrated that I'd walk away.
There was no dramatic table-flipping exit. I'd simply stop mentioning the idea and move on, while privately adding it to the growing pile of things I apparently couldn't follow through on.
What exactly was my defect?
That was the part I couldn't understand.
I could learn complicated creative skills. I could solve problems. I could work hard. Why could I want something so much, put that much effort into it and still fail to get it off the ground?
What was wrong with me?
Was I lazy? Undisciplined? Not as capable as I thought I was? Other people seemed to manage this stuff. Admittedly, some of them were loud enough to convince the entire internet they had personally invented commerce, but they were still getting their work out there.
I wasn't.
It's only been three or four years since I found out I have ADHD.
That explained a few things. Quite a few things, actually.
It didn't finish my abandoned projects or lead me gently out of every rabbit hole. It did explain why tools that expected me to hold the entire business in my head, prioritize twenty competing decisions and keep going through the boring bits were such a spectacularly bad fit.
I hadn't been failing a basic character test. I had been trying to work without an accurate manual for my own brain.
Useful information. It would've been even more useful several decades earlier, but apparently we enjoy a late plot twist.
I figured out what worked
I started paying attention to what actually helped me make progress.
I found ways to get information out of my head, make the next step visible and reduce the number of decisions fighting for attention. I tried tools, kept what helped and got rid of what created more work than it removed.
There was a fair amount of fucking around and finding out.
Some attempts worked. Some failed. Some sent me on scenic detours I did not need but can now describe in tedious detail. I learned, redirected and tried again.
That's how I've managed to achieve goals I couldn't reach before. It is also one of the main reasons I started TechAlchemy. I know what it's like to be perfectly capable of doing the work and still get stopped by the machinery wrapped around it.
I also know that once I've finally figured something out, my next thought is usually, “Well, somebody else shouldn't have to go through all that nonsense.”
Eventually, I built the tool I kept looking for.
From “I can make this” to “someone can buy this”
The app guides people with ADHD through the journey from pricing what they want to sell to making their first sale.
My own experience comes from handmade, artistic and creative work, so that is where my heart naturally went while I was building it. Creative people can do astonishing things with fibre, clay, paint, ingredients, words or whatever else we've dragged home because it looked interesting.
Turning the thing into a business is a different job.
You need to decide what you're selling. You need to price it. You need somewhere for people to buy it and some way to let them know it exists. Eventually, somebody says yes, which is excellent and also creates an entirely new collection of things that need to happen.
The same foundations apply to digital dreams. A pattern, an online class, a download, a digital product or another online offer still has to travel from idea to something a real person can buy.
Building the app gave both sides of my brain something useful to do. The maker understands how much the idea matters. The geek wants the structure, logic and tools to behave properly. They don't always share a filing system, but they worked well together here.
That is what the app is built to help with: the business underneath the creative idea, laid out clearly enough that you can work through it without having to reconstruct the entire plan every time you come back.
I think it does that rather well.
There. Nobody needs to arrange a parade.
Now I need other brains
Having ADHD means I understand my experience of ADHD. It did not come with authority over everybody else's brain, which is probably for the best.
I'm looking for neurodivergent people who would like to beta test the app with a business idea of their own.
You might want to sell something handmade, offer a class, publish a pattern, create a digital product or finally do something with the online business idea you've been researching since approximately the invention of Wi-Fi.
I'd like you to use the app and tell me what happens.
Where does it help? Where do you get lost? What needs more explanation? Which part makes you wonder what the hell I was thinking?
You may say, “This makes no sense.” I will not require the feedback sandwich. We are adults, and nobody has time to hide the useful bit between two slices of compliments.
My plan is to hold weekly gatherings in the Village, our online gathering space. We can answer questions, work through whatever is getting in the way and talk about what would make the app more useful.
No grand mastermind energy. Bring the idea, the question or the bit that has you muttering at your computer. We'll start there.
If you don't know how to explain where you're stuck, use this:
I'd like to sell ______, and the bit I keep getting stuck on is ______.
“I don't know what the next step is” is a perfectly good answer.
Apply for one of the five free beta spots
I spent years figuring out pieces of this the hard way. If what I've built can shorten that road for somebody else, good. That's the point.
Bring the mess. We'll figure out the next bit.
Until next time Friends...
by Artemis | Sep 25, 2026 |
I was at a StrikeUP Canada virtual event today.
It was really good. I was also trying to choose one workshop idea from approximately 47 perfectly good possibilities. This'll become relevant shortly.
This was almost inconvenient, because I've had an unreasonable reaction to Skype and Zoom since the beginning of time. Something about those little boxes makes my nervous system behave as if it's been assigned a group project with no instructions and three people named Dave.
Still, I showed up. I took part. I learned things.
And afterward I was spent.
Not pleasantly tired. Not thoughtfully reflective. Just done.
Unfortunately, the rest of my life had failed to clear its calendar in honour of this development. I still had content to create, a website to finish buttoning up, and a virtual workshop to design.
The workshop won't be on Zoom.
It'll be in Rippily , which, for the way I want people to gather feels approximately one million times better. Yes, I’m biased. I also have reasons. That's another article for a day when my brain isn’t lying face-down on the carpet.
Here's the current problem: the content for the workshop is done.
I know what I want to teach. I feel good about it. The problem is the implementation.
Rippily gives me rooms, objects, movement, gathering spaces, activities and enough possibility to send an idea-generating brain directly into orbit. I'm limited only by my imagination and my knowledge, which sounds delightful until you remember that my imagination has no adult supervision.
We have the house. Now what do we do in it?
Claudio, who built Rippily and is very active in its community, has been talking with us about how people actually meet online.
Not which button starts the meeting. Not where the mute control is. How we meet.
He showed me Liberating Structures, a collection of ways to help more people participate instead of allowing every gathering to become one person talking while everybody else slowly becomes wallpaper.
The way I understood Claudio’s point was this: we have the house now. We need to decide how to use it.
Then he demonstrated a new pass-around feature with a cookie.
English isn’t his first language, so “tossing cookies” did not arrive with the same unfortunate digestive association it has for me. I briefly became twelve years old. Then I recovered enough to see the point.
One person gets the object. They respond, then pass it to someone else. It's familiar because groups have used versions of it in physical rooms forever.
I nearly wrote “in real life,” but somebody recently pointed out that our online connections are real life too.
Fair.
The exciting part is that so many forms of gathering, team-building and shared activity can now happen in a virtual room.
The dangerous part, for me, is also that so many forms of gathering, team-building and shared activity can now happen in a virtual room.
Possibility isn't a plan
When the platform can do almost anything, I immediately start trying to make the first workshop do almost everything.
Maybe people should move between rooms.
Maybe we should toss an ax.
Maybe there should be a collaborative wall.
Maybe a tiny experiment. Maybe pairs. Maybe groups. Maybe a mysterious object in the corner. Maybe a whole sequence based on one of the Liberating Structures. Maybe six of them. Maybe I should reinvent online gathering before lunch.
This isn't a shortage-of-ideas problem.
It's a container problem.
And that distinction matters, because most advice for getting unstuck tells us to generate options. Brainstorm. Explore. Make a mind map. Ask what else is possible.
Please don’t ask my ADHD brain what else is possible. We'll be here until Thursday.
What I need is a way to choose one idea without making the other ideas feel dead.
So this is the approach I'm going to use.
How I’m Going to Choose One Workshop Idea
1. One outcome
What's the one thing I want a participant to leave with?
Not seven insights. Not a vague sense that we had a nice time. One thing they can point to, use or try.
For this workshop, that might be one decision they have turned into a small rule, checklist, template or default - something that removes a little friction from their business after the workshop is over.
If an activity doesn't help create that outcome, it doesn't belong in the first version.
That doesn't mean it is a bad idea.
It means it's furniture for a different room.
2. One interaction
Which one Rippily interaction helps people reach that outcome?
Maybe it's the pass-around object. Maybe it's moving to a table that represents their choice. Maybe it's working quietly beside somebody before sharing anything aloud.
I get one main interaction for the first test.
It needs to do a job. It can't be there only because I'm delighted that the tool exists.
This is painful and rude, but probably necessary.
3. One test
The workshop doesn't need to prove that I've imagined the perfect virtual gathering.
It needs to answer a smaller question:
Does this interaction help these people get to the outcome?
That can be tested with a handful of people.
Afterward I can ask:
- Did people know what to do?
- Could they participate without being put on the spot?
- Did the activity help them make the thing they came to make?
- Where did their energy lift or disappear?
- What can I remove before I add anything?
That last question's doing important work.
Parking isn't murder
I also need somewhere safe for the other ideas to go.
Not a sprawling idea database with seventeen properties and a maintenance schedule. I know myself. That'd become a second workshop I have to design.
Just one note with three headings:
- Later in this workshop - useful after the basic version works
- A different gathering - good idea, wrong purpose
- Delightful but unnecessary - allowed to exist without becoming a task
Nothing has been deleted. Nothing has been betrayed. I'm simply refusing to make every good idea prove itself at the same event.
And what about the part where I'm already spent?
This is the bit productivity advice often skips.
I attended the event. I participated. My brain used the energy. The fact that I came away with ideas doesn't mean I'm required to implement all of them before the day is over.
Recovery isn't evidence that the event failed or that I'm lazy.
So the low-energy version of this plan is very small:
1. Write down the one outcome.
2. Circle one interaction worth testing.
3. Put the rest under one of the three parking-lot headings.
4. Stop.
No building the room tonight. No choosing fonts. No adding a second clever activity because the first one looks lonely.
The next step isn't to finish the entire workshop. It's to choose one workshop idea and test it.
The next step is to make the first test small enough that I can actually run it.
We have the house.
I don't have to furnish every room before I invite anyone through the door.
What idea are you afraid to park because parking it feels like killing it?
When the next one is ready, it will appear with my free virtual workshops for neurodivergent business owners
Until next time Friends...
by Artemis | Sep 21, 2026 |
t’s a beautiful fall day. There’s just enough chill in the air to make a walk sound lovely.
Instead of having a shower and heading outside before my 3 p.m. meeting, I’m sitting here at the computer while overwhelm creeps up behind me.
This is what ADHD business overwhelm can look like for me. It doesn’t always arrive with a crash. Sometimes it quietly settles in while I’m trying to do twelve perfectly reasonable things at the same time.
I’ve been completely revamping my website and, really, my entire business. I’m dealing with redirects, indexing problems and SEO issues. Rather than start over, I chose to keep my years of blogging. Some of it is unindexed while I decide what still belongs on the new site, but it’s mine. I’m not willing to throw it all away because starting fresh might be tidier.
At the same time, I’m preparing for my first serious social media campaign. I’m adding three new Canadian platforms, experimenting, watching the analytics and learning what works and what doesn’t.
Of course, that means writing a lot of content.
But I don’t want to churn out a pile of AI crap. Pardon the expression.
I want to share what I know, what I’ve learned and what I’m learning while I’m still in the middle of it. I want my content to come from somewhere real, even when I use AI to help me organize the words.
And one thing I’ve learned, often the hard way, is to watch for the signs.
I Recognized the Signs
The horsemen of the apocalypse, so to speak. Those familiar signs that I’m heading toward overwhelm and misdirection, the same path that has pulled me off course many times before.
I was standing on the balcony earlier, berating myself.
This is what you help people with! You had better smarten up and put your money where your mouth is!
You know, all those deeply motivating things we say to ourselves when we’re already struggling.
If I had a shame jar in my home, I would owe myself a lot of money.
Then my senses kicked in. I knew what was happening. More importantly, I’d noticed it in time to get myself back on course.
That matters.
The Win Is Noticing
The win isn’t that I never become overwhelmed. The win is recognizing the signs sooner and interrupting the pattern before it carries me too far off course.
Compared with everything I’ve already built, these last few steps aren’t enormous. If they feel this heavy, something else is going on.
I think I’m stressed both online and off. I’m overloaded. My brain is trying to carry too many open loops at once, and every unfinished thing is shouting for attention at the same volume.
This isn’t the moment to shame myself into working harder. It’s the moment to assess.
What’s taking energy? What’s adding pressure? What can wait? What am I treating as urgent simply because it’s making noise?
It’s time for an energy audit.
Breadcrumbs for Future Me
I need to tell myself where I left off and what I plan to do when I return. Every evening, and every time I walk away from my work, I need to leave breadcrumbs.
That way, if my low-energy self is the one who returns, she doesn’t have to reconstruct the entire forest before she can take one step.
A breadcrumb can be one sentence telling me what I finished, where to begin next or what can safely wait. That tiny note saves future me from reopening every mental tab just to get started.
As a neurodivergent business owner, I can’t expect my brain to hold every bit of context indefinitely. I need my business to hold some of it for me.
Five Tasks, Different Energy Levels
Now I’m going to choose five tasks that need to be addressed next.
It doesn’t have to be five. I like five because it gives me some choice, and choice helps me work with the energy I actually have.
The trick is to include tasks for different energy levels. One might require clear thinking. Another might be small and mechanical. One might take an hour, while another takes ten minutes.
I can choose the one that fits the brain and body I have at that moment.
Once those five are finished, I can stop and decide what comes next. I don’t need to map the entire journey today.
My reward is usually the satisfaction of knowing I completed them, but you do you. Stickers, chocolate, a cup of something lovely or dramatically crossing things off with a thick marker are all valid options.
So, I’m going to turn off the television that’s making noise in the background. I’m going to have a shower, take that walk and come back ready for my meeting and the next small thing.
And while I’ve been sitting here, writing down what I noticed and how I feel, I’ve completed another task on my list.
Funny how that works.
In the words of the famous fish Dory: just keep swimming.
But maybe leave yourself a few breadcrumbs along the way.
Until next time Friends...
