Welcome to Season 31 of Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast! In this episode, Pete and Nikki kick off the Back-to-School Series for college students with ADHD by tackling one of the most essential—and overwhelming—skills for academic success: planning. From understanding the logic of a syllabus to building an ADHD-friendly workflow using calendars, task managers, and learning management systems, this episode is packed with practical, real-world strategies to help students plan smarter, not harder.

You’ll learn how to create your “College Workbox,” build semester-overview tools, and develop weekly and daily habits that support executive function and reduce academic stress. Pete also brings in insights from his experience as a former university faculty member to help students understand what instructors actually notice—and what they don’t. Whether you’re starting your first year or returning to campus as an adult student, this is your guide to planning a semester that works for your brain.

Links & Notes

• Support the Show on Patreon
• Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database

• (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
• (02:43) - College Planning
• (05:26) - The College Workbox
• (14:52) - The Syllabus

🎓 College Coaching for ADHD Students is Now Enrolling!

Starting college with ADHD? Don’t go it alone. At Take Control ADHD, we offer two personalized coaching options to help students thrive both academically and emotionally. The Roadmap Planning Package includes two pre-semester strategy sessions to build custom calendars, break down big assignments, and create ADHD-friendly systems for success. For ongoing support, our Weekly Coaching Package offers one-on-one accountability throughout the semester to stay focused, flexible, and in control.

Learn more and find the right fit at https://takecontroladhd.com/college.

In this bonus drop for all listeners, Pete and Melissa peel back the curtain on their personal email habits—and how ADHD continues to complicate even the simplest message. This is the fifth installment in the ongoing email challenge (the first four were re-released to Patreon earlier this year), and it’s a rich mix of confession, coaching, and curiosity.

We recap where the challenge began in 2018 and what we’ve learned since then:

• How triage habits evolve (and fail) over time
• The mental and emotional load of email procrastination
• The shame spiral of watching your unread count climb into oblivion

Then we shift into what’s new:

• Melissa’s accidental inbox apocalypse
• Pete’s haunted January shame project
• Tools that actually reduce friction: Gmail + Gemini, Superhuman, Spark, and a candid look at Mailbird
• AI’s promise in cutting through clutter without replacing your brain
• The challenge of confusing your workbox with your inbox

Melissa is launching a personal email rehab project and will be posting updates in Patreon for Deluxe members and above. Pete’s committing to finally clearing out that January shame stack. And together, they’re setting the stage for a December follow-up episode—because this work isn’t one-and-done, it’s ongoing.

🧠 Key Takeaways:

• Triage isn’t the problem—action is.
• Email should be emotion-free (but often isn’t).
• AI isn’t the enemy—it might just be the assistant we’ve always needed.
• If you feel bad about your email habits, you’re not alone—and that doesn’t mean you’re broken.

📌 Links Mentioned:

• Superhuman
• Spark Email
• Mailbird
• Gmail + Gemini

• (00:00) - The Email 2025 Update!
• (05:15) - The Season Recap
• (07:27) - Where are you now?
• (15:52) - What did we not tackle?
• (28:39) - The Inbox and The Workbox

🎓 College Coaching for ADHD Students is Now Enrolling!

Starting college with ADHD? Don’t go it alone. At Take Control ADHD, we offer two personalized coaching options to help students thrive both academically and emotionally. The Roadmap Planning Package includes two pre-semester strategy sessions to build custom calendars, break down big assignments, and create ADHD-friendly systems for success. For ongoing support, our Weekly Coaching Package offers one-on-one accountability throughout the semester to stay focused, flexible, and in control.

Learn more and find the right fit at https://takecontroladhd.com/college.

It’s summer rebroadcast season! Ok, let's get this out of the way: We're big fans of You Need a Budget. Like, huge fans. Massive, life-changing kind of product fans. So you can imagine that we're a bit beside ourselves this week.

See, for someone who has had struggles with money in the past, discovering a tool that has the capacity to rewire your brain around budgeting and spending is a pretty big deal™. That's YNAB, a budgeting tool like no other. Even better, while the team had not intention to make a budgeting tool that can work for folks with ADHD brains, for a lot of us, they did just that.

Jesse Mecham is the Founder of YNAB and personal finance expert. He hosts the You Need A Budget Podcast, the Beginning Balance Podcast and is the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of the book of the same name, You Need A Budget. The Smart Money Mama herself, Chelsea Brennan, introduced us to YNAB in 2020 and the tool quickly landed at the top of our list of favorite, life-changing services, so Jesse is here not only as a budgeting guy we think you might like to meet, but because we are legit fans.

YNAB isn't a sponsor of this show, but we encourage you to visit right away and sign up for their 34-day free trial and see how it works for you.

• (00:36) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast
• (03:20) - Support the Show: Become a Patron at Patreon.com/TheADHDPodcast
• (06:21) - Introducing Jesse Mecham
• (13:37) - The Tenses of Money
• (16:37) - The Four Rules
• (17:35) - 1. Giving Every Dollar a Job
• (20:39) - 2. Embrace your True Expenses
• (25:45) - 3. Role with the Punches
• (26:57) - 4. Aging Your Money
• (30:07) - The Elusive Emergency Fund
• (33:27) - What if you hate "Budgeting"
• (34:57) - Your Credit Card and You
• (39:23) - What if you're overwhelmed?
• (43:11) - YNAB as a Couple
• (46:26) - Kids

🎓 College Coaching for ADHD Students is Now Enrolling!

Starting college with ADHD? Don’t go it alone. At Take Control ADHD, we offer two personalized coaching options to help students thrive both academically and emotionally. The Roadmap Planning Package includes two pre-semester strategy sessions to build custom calendars, break down big assignments, and create ADHD-friendly systems for success. For ongoing support, our Weekly Coaching Package offers one-on-one accountability throughout the semester to stay focused, flexible, and in control.

Learn more and find the right fit at https://takecontroladhd.com/college.