Written in June 2025
Although my job involves coaching other people, I use coaching strategies all the time to manage my own life, tasks and goals. Many of the questioning approaches we use are incredibly helpful for ourselves as well. This will be in three parts for readability!
The questions I ask myself most frequently are:
What is a priority?
Questioning what is a priority is one of the hardest things for me to do. The AuDHD brain combines the ADHD approach to time of “now, or not-now” with the autistic approach of wanting to define priority, and being unable to determine what thing is more important than another.
It’s precisely these challenges that make this one of the most important questions. Looking at the answers helps me to see what can wait until later today, what could hold over until tomorrow, and what needs to be done in the next hour/half day.
A nice format for determining what’s urgent, important, for someone else, or to leave, is the Eisenhower matrix. This is great for when you have so many tasks in front of you, that you don’t even know where to start. Start with the matrix!
What will take the least time/lead to the most progress?
How can I motivate myself to start?
The questions about what takes the least time, and how I can motivate myself helps me to get on with one or two quick jobs, which can then create a wave of momentum to drive me through the next task. I find activities like yoga, making a cup of tea, or setting my desk up to be a good transitional activity. This works well when there’s a job (like tidy the kitchen table) that I can do while I wait for the kettle to boil.
Who else is involved/has responsibility?
The question about who else has responsibility is key for ensuring I don’t take on too much that actually belongs on someone else’s list, and a very useful question for escaping the rescuer role of the Karpman Drama Triangle. Quite often I take on other people’s problems or tasks (especially if I can see I’ll get it done quicker), but I’ve learnt this doesn’t actually help the other person, and ends up overloading me. This might be one of the most valuable lessons I have put into practice from coaching.
Does this situation serve me, or is it an imposition?
This question is useful for digging into the same issue. I’d love to believe in true altruism, but I realise that this line of thinking can lead me into self-sacrifice (which then becomes a default response). Checking whether something serves me doesn’t mean I only do things where I get a tangible benefit, but it helps me make better informed decisions about when and how to help.
Read part 2 here, and part 3 here.