The ADHD Skills Lab

Presented by Understood.org

You know how to do the work. But when a task is actually a project, you have to figure out the steps again every time you come back to it.

On Wednesday we looked at the research behind this problem. ADHD planning challenges often show up when the brain has to manage the structure of a project internally.

This episode looks at the practical solution.

Instead of trying to carry the whole project in your head, many ADHD entrepreneurs externalize the planning layer.

Skye and Robbie explain what that looks like in practice — including tools, capture systems, and support structures that hold the plan so your brain can focus on execution.

What We Cover

- Why projects become inefficient when the plan lives only in your head
- What externalizing executive functioning looks like in practice
- The three components of an ADHD project system: tools, structure, and support
- Why the tool matters less than the habit of capturing work outside your head
- How entrepreneurs separate planning from execution

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.

Listen here:

https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab
 P.S. If your ADHD symptoms turn every business day into chaos, with unfinished tasks piling up and revenue stuck, it's not you. It's your operating system. Click here to book an operational strategy session with Skye.

Presented by Understood.org
You can handle individual tasks all day. But the moment something becomes a project, everything slows down.
Research into ADHD executive functioning suggests the difference often comes down to planning demands, not motivation or intelligence.
In this episode, Skye and Robbie break down what these experiments reveal about ADHD and why complex projects require building a sequence before starting. That requirement can create real cognitive friction for many ADHD brains.
On Friday, we’ll look at the practical systems that reduce this planning load and make complex work easier to execute.
What We Cover
Why ADHD often struggles more with projects than tasks
What “tower task” planning experiments reveal about ADHD
Why working memory and inhibition appear most consistently affected
Why ADHD is a performance issue rather than a knowledge issue
How planning demands make complex work cognitively inefficient
If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.
Listen here:
https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab
 P.S. If your ADHD symptoms turn every business day into chaos, with unfinished tasks piling up and revenue stuck, it's not you. It's your operating system. Click here to book an operational strategy session with Skye.

Presented by Understood.org
You make a to-do list.
Then you avoid it all day.
For many ADHD professionals, the problem isn’t motivation, it’s how the workday is structured.
In this conversation, Skye speaks with Kyle Vamvouris, founder of SalesThread and the strategist behind 87 B2B sales teams, about how he actually works.
Instead of rigid productivity systems, Kyle relies on open calendar space, rapid experimentation, and what he calls “sandbox days.”
In the episode, Kyle explains:
Why most productivity systems collapse after a week
How empty calendar space can produce better work than tightly scheduled days
What building dozens of sales teams taught him about focus and decision-making
Why ADHD curiosity can be a strategic advantage in business
How AI tools are changing how he experiments and builds companies
If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.
Listen here:
https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab
Connect With Kyle:
Kyle just launched SalesThread, an AI-powered deal management platform designed to help sales teams understand why deals win or lose and close with more intention.
You can find him here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylevamvouris
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylevamvouris
SalesThread: https://salesthread.ai
 P.S. If your ADHD symptoms turn every business day into chaos, with unfinished tasks piling up and revenue stuck, it's not you. It's your operating system. Click here to book an operational strategy session with Skye.

Presented by Understood.org
Many adults with ADHD feel like they have to repeat the same instructions again and again.
You explain a process to your team, everyone nods, and a week later it feels like no one remembers what they learned.
Earlier this week on ADHD Skills Lab, Skye and Robbie explored research on why ADHD brains often struggle during the encoding stage of learning. When information isn’t encoded properly, it never makes it into long-term memory.
In this episode they focus on what to do about it.
They break down practical systems that help ADHD professionals and teams actually retain information, including practice testing, spaced repetition, and designing learning environments that make it easier for ADHD brains to encode new information.
If you haven’t listened to Wednesday’s research episode, start there first.
What We Cover
Why repeating instructions rarely fixes ADHD learning problems
• How practice testing improves encoding and recall
• Why one-day training sessions often fail
• How flashcards and recall testing can work inside businesses
• Practical ways to design training that helps ADHD teams remember
If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.
Listen here:
https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab
 P.S. If your ADHD symptoms turn every business day into chaos, with unfinished tasks piling up and revenue stuck, it's not you. It's your operating system. Click here to book an operational strategy session with Skye.

Presented by Understood.org
Many adults with ADHD feel like they have a bad memory.
You learn something in a meeting or training session, but a few days later it feels like the information has disappeared.
In this episode of ADHD Skills Lab, Skye and Robbie break down research on memory and ADHD. They explore how information gets encoded into long-term memory and why this stage of learning often breaks down for ADHD brains.
The discussion covers a major meta-analysis on effective learning techniques, research on long-term memory in adults with ADHD, and an experiment comparing retrieval practice with restudying.
In Friday’s episode they’ll explore practical systems that help ADHD professionals and business owners design training and learning systems that actually stick.
What We Cover
The difference between encoding and retrieving information
Why ADHD memory problems often start during the learning stage
Research showing practice testing and spaced learning outperform rereading
Why verbal learning can be harder for ADHD than visual learning
What research suggests about medication and learning performance
If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.
Listen here:
https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab
 P.S. If your ADHD symptoms turn every business day into chaos, with unfinished tasks piling up and revenue stuck, it's not you. It's your operating system. Click here to book an operational strategy session with Skye.