hannah

Freelance EA | 3 clients, 1 brain, too many tabs

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

I spent 2 years as a freelance EA trying to look organized by working harder.

The real shift was working differently.

My stack:
1. Reclaim Ai (auto-blocks focus time, I don't decide when to work)
2. TickTick (one folder per client, tags for action verbs only)
3. Littlebird (meeting summaries + follow-up drafts in each client's voice)

Result: I close my laptop at 6 PM instead of 9 PM.

Some links are referral links. Full disclosure.

https://t.co/4CnjAJA7aD

#productivitytips #adhd #freelancer #AI #tools #littlebirdai #reclaimai #tasks #Freelancing

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

https://t.co/D3WfMDzJwA

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

Five back-to-back client calls last week. By the time I closed Zoom, I'd pulled every action item by person, and the follow-up emails were already drafted in my client's exact voice.

Post-meeting admin: 45 min → 10 min.

But the daily brief is the real magic. It reads my calendar and hands me the 3 things that actually matter that day.

https://t.co/uva4lgzXgM (referral link)

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

"What am I walking into today?" is a question I now ask an AI instead of scrolling through four apps in bed.

https://t.co/It8XyRL3jL

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

3) Expanded the closing ask from "send me speaking gigs" to "send me coaching clients AND speaking gigs." The original deck asked for half of what she needed.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

Redesigned my client's networking presentation this week. Three changes that actually mattered.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

2) Changed bullet style from gerund-led ("Leading through change") to noun phrases ("A steady hand through change, pressure, and hard moments").

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

@Gaus450 I feel like marketing is a huge aspect. I use this great product and it does not get the same marketing that many other tools get.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

@NicolasLecocqHQ Supposedly networking but it is not used as much anymore it seems

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

@AlexHormozi How so?

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

my AI assistant just rebuilt my entire Notion template for me.

it connected to my workspace, duplicated my draft, built 3 new databases, remembered my favorite colors to format it, and told me to go to bed at 11pm.

it knew things about my business I forgot I told it.

this is what context changes. everything.

#ad @LittlebirdAI

[Hannah @anah_sahh]

X is becoming more valuable for networking than LinkedIn.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

i have 3 retainer clients and they all email like completely different people. one starts with "Hi!," another starts everything with "Hello X" and one treats exclamation marks like a personal attack. i used to send the wrong tone to the wrong person at least once a week.

now i just tell littlebird what happened on a call and it drafts the follow-up in each client's actual voice. i used to spend 45 minutes after every call reconstructing what we said. now i spend 4 minutes editing.

this is exactly the kind of admin brain drain you complain about. try it: https://t.co/uva4lgzpre

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

I have 47 drafts in my email right now. Not sent emails. Drafts. Half-written follow-ups. Emails I started, got distracted by a Slack notification, and never came back to. Emails I wrote at 11 PM, decided were too weird, and saved for morning. Emails where I forgot who I was writing to halfway through and changed the greeting three times.

The draft folder is where my good intentions go to die. Every draft is an open loop. Every open loop is a background process my brain runs. It is exhausting.

My new rule: if I open an email, I finish it, or I delete it. No drafts. No saving for later. Later does not exist in my brain. Later is a void.

The tool that helps is the one that drafts the email for me, so I am not starting from zero. But the real hack is the rule. No drafts. Close the loop or kill it.

How many drafts do you have right now? I need to know I am not the only one running a graveyard.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

I agree, never leaving open loops is crucial. I used to spend 45 minutes after every call trying to remember what was discussed. Now I ensure I not only record my meetings and get transcripts, but also ensure I utilize task tools to check off the tasks mentioned.

[Dickie Bush @dickiebush]

My biggest productivity hack:

Never leaving open loops.

I try to touch everything once (rather than use mental bandwidth to remember it later).

The key is designing your work environment to minimize the number of things that *create* open loops for you.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

@N_and_ni Theatre, stage management. AI can't tape out a ground plan, sit in on rehearsals, or call a show the same way a human can.

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

Lately, I have been so burnt out. Work is a lot.

Question for everyone: How do you handle burnout at work?

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

Three months ago I spent 45 minutes after every meeting reconstructing what happened. Yesterday I sent 3 client follow-ups in under 10 minutes. Something else drafted them. I just edited. What's the thing in your workflow that your brain still doesn't believe is real?

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

I have a client call at 2 PM. It is 10 AM. I have 4 hours.

I cannot do anything.

Not because I am lazy. Because my brain is in this...waiting mode. It is an #AuDHD thing. The second you have a later appointment or thing you have to do, your brain decides the whole day is a waiting room. You cannot start deep work because you might be interrupted by the appointment. You cannot do small work because you feel guilty about not doing deep work. So you doomscroll.

Something I've been doing now is calendar blocking with automatic buffers. Reclaim AI (https://t.co/Vdqtz9Qijo) puts a 30-minute block before every call. It is labeled "prep." I see it as a task I have to do because it's on my calendar. So no more waiting; instead, there's a transition.

I still get stuck sometimes. But now I have a label for it. This "Waiting Mode" is not a character flaw. It is a brain state. And brain states can be hacked.

What is your "Waiting Mode" hack?

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

@menti_mind Exactly! I enjoy tools where I can set it up in 5 minutes or do a voice memo dump and it sets itself up! Do you have any tools that have helped you best?

[hannah @adhdfreelancer]

The app that actually stuck for me is not the one with the best features. It is the one with the least setup.

I have abandoned Notion, Todoist, Obsidian, Asana, ClickUp, and Trello. Every single one died because I spent 3 hours building a system and then never opened it again.

The only apps that survived are the ones that require zero maintenance. They just show up where I already am.

Calendar blocking that happens automatically. Meeting summaries that arrive in my inbox. Tasks that I can dump in 10 seconds.

If your productivity app requires a setup phase, your ADHD brain will abandon it. Build around that.

#adhd #neurodivergent #productivity #Freelancing #AItools #AI #artificialintelligence #notion #trello #WorkflowAutomation