Overcoming Creative Overwhelm as an ADHD Business Owner

Suffering with creative overwhelm as an ADHD business owner can be detrimental to your business.

From constantly thinking of new ideas to not knowing which ideas to pursue, having so many ideas can feel all consuming.

In this blog post, we explore what exactly is creative overwhelm, the impact it has on your business and strategies to overcome this ADHD struggle!

What is Creative Overwhelm?

Creative overwhelm is especially prevalent in people with ADHD as we tend to struggle with Shiny Object Syndrome.

Shiny object syndrome is where we are constantly thinking of new ideas and we never take one idea through to completion. We are basically, always looking for the next best thing!

This leads to creative overwhelm where we have so many creative ideas that we don’t know where to begin.

How Does Creative Overwhelm Impact Your Business?

Creative overwhelm can impact ADHD business owners as they feel like they are not really achieving anything, as they are always starting something new.

It can also put you into a state of overwhelm paralysis when you feel like you can’t start any of the creative tasks because they all seem like the most important opportunity.

What Can You Do To Reduce Creative Overwhelm?

If you're an ADHD business owner who is currently struggling with creative overwhelm, here are my best strategies to overcome this symptom.

Outsource Tasks

You cannot overcome creative overwhelm as an ADHD business owner if you don’t start outsourcing tasks!

When you outsource small tasks you have far more time to be creative and you can also outsource tasks to get these creative ideas into motion!

One of the best things I did for my business was hiring a virtual assistant so that I could spend more time working ON my business instead of IN it.

At The Virtual Assisters, we help ADHD business owners receive funding through the Access to Work scheme. We have helped ADHD business owners receive over £150,000 in funding.

This is government funding which you can then spend on hiring a virtual assistant to be able to outsource these tasks and grow and scale your business.

You can access our free mini course on how to apply here. I promise there are no strings attached. I went through the process and received funding myself!

Break Down Large Tasks Into Smaller Tasks

The next way that you can reduce creative overwhelm is to start breaking down tasks into smaller tasks.

As an ADHDer, this can be really challenging to do by ourselves (which is where a virtual assistant comes in).

Our ADHD trained virtual assistants can recognise when you’re feeling overwhelmed by a task and will help to make the task more manageable.

They can give you smaller tasks to work on each day, while they work on other tasks. When you get to the end of the week, you can see just how impactful this is - you will be moving towards completing the larger task!

By doing this, you will find that creative overwhelm is minimised as you view the task as simple steps instead of one big project.

Know Your Triggers

Understanding your triggers is paramount in overcoming creative overwhelm.

For example, consuming inspiring content is great but if you're constantly consuming content that is making you pivot and deter from your original idea, this can be detrimental to your business.

It’s important that you talk about these triggers to either your virtual assistant, business partner or even friends so that they can help you decipher which ideas are worth pursuing and which are better left alone. An ADHD business coach is really great for this.

Prioritise Tasks

The next step in overcoming creative overwhelm is checking which tasks are more of a priority to you.

Try to go with your gut feeling here because if you pick an idea that you’re not hugely passionate about, it will be even harder for you to continue with that task long enough to see if it’s successful!

Key Takeaways on Overcoming Creative Overwhelm as an ADHD Business Owner

Those are our best strategies on overcoming creative overwhelm as an ADHD business owner.

Hiring a virtual assistant has been the main benefit to our clients who struggle with this ADHD symptom. 

Hiring an ADHD trained virtual assistant helps to free up space in your brain to be able to focus on the things that you love in your business.

You can access our free course to get the funding to hire and hire a virtual assistant for free or email us at hello@thevirtualassisters.co.uk