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You're overcomplicating this whole AI thing.
Feeling behind, overwhelmed, not “technical enough”? You don't need 47 new tools—just one ADHD-friendly system. I’m going live again with xTiles this Wednesday, August 5 at 1pm ET to show you mine. Register free here ➝
A few weeks ago, my monkey brain was trapped in a cycle of overwhelm. One deadline after self-imposed deadline, no break, for months.
My very flawed solution: Do more.
More work, more friends, more events, more content. No matter what I finished, it never felt like enough.
Then I shipped myself off to Europe.
What started as a last-minute Airbnb booking turned into:
A week of dance in the south of France. Practicing broken French with locals, climbing mountain peaks in Switzerland. Sprinting through train stations to make connecting trains. Taking client calls on a 6-hour time difference, sometimes on unstable wifi.
Somehow, through the constant external chaos, I found real internal calm.
Here's how I solved my overwhelm problem, had the time of my life, and still got things done without “trying harder.”
The Paradox of Infinite Choice
Solo travel warps your perspective. The following becomes obvious:
You can do literally anything you want.
Nobody knows you. There is no right or wrong way.
You could take 5 trains to go climb a mountain, or sit for an entire week in one Airbnb, eating croissants all day.
There are no expectations.
On the flip side, you can't do everything you want, at the same time.
You have limits. Every few hours, you need to eat and sleep. Every activity takes physical energy. There are financial constraints.
Things will go "wrong." You will have to deal with them. But when there’s no "right" way to begin with, a pivot carries very little emotional weight.
You’re forced to prioritize.
Nobody will decide on the infinite options for you.
There is often never a "best" option. There are 10 best options, and any one of them beats doing nothing.
It turns out, overwhelm isn’t just about how much you’re doing. It’s about expecting yourself to do too many things that never actually had to get done.
Solo travel forces this perspective shift. But these concepts apply every day, wherever you are.
Breaking Out of Autopilot
ADHD compounds the overwhelm. There’s even more noise and distraction:
Our brains generate endless possibilities (divergent thinking)
Ideas feel urgent just because they're exciting (emotion regulation)
We want to act on all of them at once (impulse control)
We underestimate how long any of it will take (time blindness)
Our expectations rarely match reality.
Not everyone can just ship themselves overseas to cut through the noise. Luckily, there are simple strategies to achieve a similar brain reset.
Activate the Default Mode Network (DMN). Walking, showering, or sitting on a moving train triggers the DMN—the brain state linked to increased creativity and internal clarity. Create a blank canvas, release all expectations, and give space for your real priorities to surface.
Allow space and time to pause. Calm the impulse to rush, or get to the finish line as fast as possible. Rushing 10 wrong things takes more time and energy than intentionally doing 1 aligned thing. Just because it all feels urgent doesn't mean it is.
Brain dump to externalize everything. The point isn’t to make sure you finish everything. Instead, it’s to remind yourself you won't. Not everything you think of actually has to get done. And that's okay.
The key to getting more done isn't doing everything you can.
Release the expectation to do everything, so you can do more of the right things.
This Week: You’re Invited! (For Round 2)
Last month’s live session with xTiles was so fun, we’re doing it again!
This time, we’ll be discussing how to use AI to support an ADHD brain, minus the overcomplicated tech hype. I’ll also walk through some real examples of how I use AI in my day-to-day workflow for prioritization, time management, and reducing overwhelm.
It’s happening this Wednesday, August 5 at 1pm ET.
It’s free, with a bonus offer at the end to attendees. Claim your spot here ➝
PS: AI Tools that Actually Work - Wispr
If I had to recommend a single AI tool for ADHD (task initiation, externalizing, brain dumping, reducing friction), it would be Wispr.
My ADHD founder friends and I use it every day. Check it out for free below.
Speak naturally. Send without fixing.
Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, professional text you can send the moment you stop talking. Not rough transcription you have to clean up. Actual polished text — ready for email, Slack, or any app.
Speak the way you think. Go on tangents. Change your mind mid-sentence. Flow strips the filler, fixes the grammar, and gives you text that reads like you spent five minutes writing it.
89% of messages sent with zero edits. Millions of professionals use Flow daily, including teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. Works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.
Hi, I’m Kat! Welcome to my newsletter—your biweekly dose of strategies to work with your extra-interesting brain, not against it.
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— Kat