Written by May Cadman

When I ran my wedding cake business, I made countless cups of tea and most of them went cold. I’d make a cuppa, take a sip, remember something urgent, answer a message, begin another task, solve a problem, notice the untouched mug an hour later.

And repeat the process.

It wasn’t just that I was busy. My attention was constantly being pulled in different directions. I would move from one task to another, trying to keep everything going at once, and then try to force myself back to what I had originally been doing.

At the time, I thought this was just part of running a business. But what I didn’t realise was how much energy I was using trying to force my focus back once it had already gone.

Now, I’m not saying this is unusual. People with busy lives can relate to cold cups of tea all the time this is not an exclusively neurodivergent experience. But the difference is often in the cost. For some ADHD brains, repeatedly pushing on without pause can tip more quickly into overwhelm, stress, emotional reactivity or mental paralysis.

And I was busy. Truly busy. Running a business brought real pressure: deadlines, clients, deliveries, long days, constant responsibility.

But looking back, I can see something else was happening too.

It was not only that life was busy, my mind was busy. There were always mental tabs open. Things to remember. Problems to solve. Ideas arriving at the same time as practical demands. A constant sense that something needed doing now.

For many people with ADHD, the challenge is not a lack of attention. It can be an excess of it. Too many things pulling at once. Too many thoughts competing for priority. Too much being noticed at the same time.

When that happens, it can become harder to continue, harder to choose, harder to settle, and harder to think clearly.

At the time, I assumed the answer was to push harder. I had no other option - there was work to be done, so you got on with it. If I felt overwhelmed, I sped up. If I felt behind, I tried harder. If I felt tired, I carried on. It worked until it didn’t and I burned out.

What I understand now is that many of those moments were exactly when I needed to pause and reset. The cold tea was never really about the tea. It was about the lack of pause. But I had no language for that then.

I thought slowing down meant losing momentum and I thought rest was something you earned after everything was finished. It turns out the opposite can often be true. That is why breaks are not always a luxury. Sometimes they are part of staying well and functioning well.

Years later, in a much quieter time of my life, I noticed something important.

Even without the pressure of running a company, my brain still sometimes needed a reset. I could be sitting at my desk to work or study, only to find myself drifting. Reading the same paragraph three times. Looking at the news. Checking messages. Feeling cross with myself for not simply being able to concentrate (that self-criticism taking far more energy than the task itself!).

It was then that I began experimenting with something different. Instead of forcing focus once it had gone, I tried pausing. Sometimes it was making a cup of tea and actually drinking it. Sometimes stepping outside. Sometimes folding laundry, walking around the block, or doing something simple for a few minutes.

And yes, when life feels full, a pause can seem like the very thing you do not have time for. Sometimes even making a cup of tea can feel like another task. But often, that is the moment it may help most.

A short pause can help the nervous system settle. It can calm the feeling of overwhelm and create enough space for the next step to become clearer.

There is often something else happening in that pause too: kindness. Stopping for a few minutes can be a quiet way of saying to yourself, ‘I’m listening.’ Instead of meeting struggle with criticism, we meet it with care.

That can feel deeply grounding. We are no longer battling our own mind, but beginning to work with it.

Many ADHD brains work well in shorter bursts, with pauses in between. Productivity does not always come from pushing through. Sometimes it comes from stepping away at the right moment.

Creativity can work like this too. Ideas need energy, but they also need space. A mind that is overloaded can struggle to shape thoughts into something tangible. A mind that has had a moment to breathe can often find its way back to clarity.

These days, my tea breaks are far more intentional. That may sound like a small thing. But often the smallest changes carry the biggest meaning. Back then, the tea went cold - these days, I drink it.

So if your mind feels busy today, try not to judge it too quickly. Pause first. Then return. And if the cup of tea happens to be in the sun, all the better.

www.may-cadman-coaching.com

Monday is an interesting day in our home. My husband and I are self-employed and get to choose what work we’re going to do - or not - on a Monday, so we never have that ‘Monday feeling’. It feels exciting getting back into some kind of routine.

But then, we have three children who attend school (full or part-time) and they do get that Monday morning feeling. Leaving the warmth and comfort of home for a day of being told what to do by someone else. None of them feel excited about it.

Perhaps, as kids, we didn’t feel very excited about school and so now, as adults, we have taken back the reins by shunning a more formal workplace and designing freelance careers that feel exciting, and give us a sense of freedom.

In more recent years, I’ve felt particularly grateful for my self-employment as we’ve navigated periods where school has become inaccessible for one of our children. This has required extreme flexibility and I’m so glad I never had to request it from a boss.

At times, I would have liked the promise of a paycheque each month but other than that, there is nothing that would pull me back into employment. As I explore my own neurotype, I wonder if neurodivergent people are more suited to self-employment?

Here’s why…

1. Autonomy

Those of us with PDA tendencies (pathological demand avoidance, or persistent drive for autonomy) struggle with being told what to do. The language of collaboration works better, but a boss isn’t likely to get and respect that.

So, if we work for ourselves, we create our own plan for the work we’ll do, what our work-day routine will look like, what we’re not going to do, who we’ll work with (who we will not work with), when we want to take holiday. We have full autonomy.

2. Hyperfocus

When we are in hyperfocus - that intense, sheer focus that feels unbreakable; we can’t hear what people are saying; we override our body’s cues for food/toilet/water - we need to work. When we’re not, we need to rest or re-build our energy.

Working for yourself means you can get your head down when you’re in it and go for a walk if you’re finding it hard to concentrate or need time away from your screen. You can have breaks, lie down, do breathwork, phone a friend - whatever lifts you back up.

3. Creativity

The muse might appear when we’re sat on the toilet in the morning, and we manically record the thoughts and ideas, to action as soon as possible. She rarely appears in the 9-5 hours we are expected to sit at a desk, when employed. She doesn’t do office hours.

So, self-employment can give us the flexibility required to run with the muse. And when she’s in hiding: that’s when we can go and do the things that might get her to peep back out again. Creativity flows in and out, it‘s unpredictable.

4. Routine

We might like autonomy but that doesn’t mean we don’t like routine. Often, we thrive on routine. We just want to decide what it looks like rather than being told. We might like an early start, or to work into the night; long stints or shorter sprints.

This is about honouring our energy, as well as the aforementioned hyperfocus and creativity. We need to build routines that help us to feel bright, clear-headed and focused. A busy smelly commute probably won’t help, nor will an assigned lunchtime.

5. Expectations

In employment, there will be meetings that we don’t think are necessary, after-work drinks that aren’t obligatory but are really (confusing), the understanding that you should work hard and fast but also that you should engage in long inane chats with fellow workers.

In self-employment, you can decide to do no meetings, have drinks with your actual friends at a time that suits you - and work hard and fast, or lightly and slowly, without ever having to be distracted by someone’s weather-based small talk.

6. Rules

Employment comes with rules. There might be a dress code, rules for the hours you work, the way you should communicate with clients. There might be people looking over your shoulder to see if you’re scrolling on Instagram because you’re not allowed.

At home, the only rules you have to follow are the rules you create. There might be lots. None. They might change, depending on how you feel. Some of us don’t see hierarchy so rules become arbitrary, whatever they are.

7. ?

I don’t have a number seven but I feel awkward stopping at six. It needs to be three, seven, 10, 13, 15, or 20, 25, 27, 30. Does that make sense to you? Possibly not. It’s about patterns that I see, or create, and because on Substack, I’m my own boss, I can do that.

But look: this has become a number seven in itself. I need to honour the patterns that make sense to me. The number sequences that feel like a full stop rather than a comma. The pricing that looks right. Here, on Substack, I get to choose.

Of course, there are advantages to employment, like that monthly paycheque, connecting with and learning from your team (not for me, but some people like it) and having what might feel like a more structured day and work-life.

But on the whole, self-employment is a better fit for me.

Over to you:

• Are you self-employed?

• If not, would you like to be?

• What would you like to do - freelance (and have clients), run a business?

• Do any of the points above resonate?

• Are there any that don’t?

• Any that you’d add?

Annie x

You’re at a party and someone sidles over. So, what do you do? they ask and you balk, because you do so many things and yet you don’t know which bit to talk about.

Should you talk about how that day, you actually did quite a lot of laundry, even though you wanted to be doing a pastel still-life?

Should you tell them about the client work you do that pays the bills but doesn’t always bring joy?

Should you mention that creative project you’re really proud of but that you did so long ago you’re not sure it still really counts?

Maybe you should say you spend time with your friends, walking and cold-water swimming. After all, that’s when you’re happiest.

But you know that ‘what you do’ means ‘how you earn a living’ and so you’ll have to try and talk about that bit.

Or will you?

In the first module of my new online course, Transformation, we look at what you do by actually breaking it down.

There is no pressure to be anyone or do anything other than who you already are and what you already do.

You are liberated from perceived judgement.

We then move onto what you have coming up; the non-negotiables.

This is all about looking at your life as it already is, with acceptance, before we move onto the really exciting stuff: what you want you life to look like.

There are three exercises that will guide you towards what you want, and to help you let go of what no longer serves you.

Next, there’s a wild card module. About your wild card. I help you to pull it.

And finally: Future You. A visualisation to help you sink into future you, plus a creative drawing exercise and a writing exercise.

If you would like to take some time for yourself before the wild December demands kick in and you forget you even have a name: join Transformation.

It’s a short, simple course offering plenty of creative coaching exercises in a clear and neurodivergent-friendly layout.

You can work through it entirely in your own time but if you’d like some side-support from me, over email, you’ll have that for two weeks, from Monday 17th November.

This is the kind of course I so often want for myself, and find it hard to find. Something to get me dreaming big, while staying connected to my current reality.

It’s pay what you can/want/choose. The minimum is £1, there is no maximum. If you decide to join, I’d recommend choosing a price that will help you to commit.

But if accountability is a challenge, I can help you with that via email.

You can tell me when you’d like me to check in with you and I’ll set reminders to do that (so that you don’t have to).

I want you to feel held, by me, while you go through a creative transformation.

I'm in

Stay creative.

Annie x

Towards the end of October, I decided to take a month off writing for my personal Substack. I had written between one and three essays a week, every single week, for over two and a half years and I needed a creative break.

I’m still on that creative break but I can’t sit still so I decided to do something I’ve never done before. Not just that: something I’ve actively told myself - and others - I can’t do. That I assumed it would be impossible to do.

I built a website.

For full transparency, ‘building a website’ these days is not as complicated as it once was. I used Wordpress to host the website and several plugins to help me set up payments for the shop. I was guided through parts of the process.

But other parts, I wasn’t.

I had to put in code to change things I didn’t like. It was deeply satisfying when it worked and extremely frustrating when it shifted something else and that then needed fixing. But I was in hyperfocus and obsessed with this challenge.

My husband glanced over, while we were on a family holiday in Somerset, over the school half term, and said: you’re in hyperfocus, aren’t you? And I felt the fury rise inside me because you can’t interrupt someone in that state. I’m not sure I responded.

Those outside of the hyperfocus might feel ignored and left out. It’s like nothing else exists. Coming between someone and the object of their hyperfocus is like stepping out in front of a car and expecting the driver to slam on the breaks and not be annoyed.

The driver would be furious. They are driving on a straight road at a speed that feels right and good and they are trying to get somewhere and they do not want to slam on the breaks because it will interrupt the flow of their journey.

My husband is usually very respectful of my hyperfocus. When he commented on me being in it, on that holiday, and I probably didn’t respond, he wouldn’t have been annoyed. He respects my need to give 100% of my creative attention to a project.

So, I built the website. And then I decided to launch an online course that mirrors the moment I’m in right now: a transformation. A handful of transformations, actually. As a woman, mother, creative, writer, entrepreneur, website designer.

(Lol. Obviously I considered making this my career and got quite into the idea but I’m now backing away from it and reminding myself that you can learn a new skill and really enjoy it without it having to become your career.)

When you see the website I built - if you are interested in seeing it at all - you might think: that looks extremely basic. Who are you kidding? - but although it is very simple to look at, the backend is actually quite complicated #justsaying.

I integrated an online course-hosting platform within my website so that I can offer We Hyperfocus workshops and courses, and that new course I mentioned, about transformation, is now live. And, excitingly, the thing I’m doing differently is:

You can pay whatever you like for the course.

So, without further ado, here is my brand-spanking-new-DIY-website:

wehyperfocus.com

…and if you’d like to join my creative coaching course, and to go through a transformation of your own, you can read more about it and sign up (for whatever price works for you) here…

Transformation

I’d love to have you on the course, if you fancy it.

Annie x