Time Management for ADHD Entrepreneurs: How to Prioritize What Actually Matters
Managing your time as an ADHD entrepreneur can feel like herding caffeinated squirrels. You’re doing so much, but still somehow feel behind, unfocused, or like you're constantly putting out fires instead of moving your business forward. The list of urgent must-do items is getting all of your attention, but the less urgent, more impactful things to help grow your business are the things you know are going to allow your time to be the most impactful, so how do you shift things?
It’s all about finding systems and strategies that work with your brain, not against it! As a financial coach supporting entrepreneurs with ADHD, I find that helping you manage your finances is where my creative brain truly excels! So, looking at my time in a similar way has been impactful personally.
Time Management Isn’t About Schedules—It’s About Awareness
Most of us wildly misjudge how we spend our time. We assume we’re working all day, but in reality? A massive chunk of our energy is leaking into task switching, procrastination, perfectionism, and reactive work.
And that’s before we even get to the admin, the inbox rabbit holes, and the “quick things” that somehow take 90 minutes.
Tracking your time (in a non-shamey way) is one of the most powerful ADHD-friendly tools I recommend to clients. Not because I want you to become hyper-productive, but because data gives you clarity. When you know where your time is going, you can make decisions from a place of truth, not guilt or guesswork. And this is something I do myself at least once a quarter. Yes, it can be a little tedious, but the information I get is so valuable!
ADHD Tip: Try a tool like Toggl to track how long you're spending on different types of work. Even 3–5 work days of tracking can show you patterns that are seriously eye-opening. But you may need to track for longer depending on how varied your days/weeks are.
Urgency ≠ Importance (But Our Brains Can’t Always Tell the Difference)
One of the biggest time traps ADHD entrepreneurs fall into is spending all day on tasks that feel urgent… but they aren't actually important.
That ping in your inbox? That client who wants something right now? That internal pressure to respond to everything instantly? All of that feels urgent, but rarely moves your business forward in a meaningful way. Do you need to get back to your client? Yes, does it need to be right now? Ideally, those are not the expectations your clients have of you, but if they are, this blog post can help you out.
There’s a simple little tool I love for sorting this out: the Eisenhower Matrix. It helps you separate the fires from the fluff.
Urgent + Important = true priorities (client deadlines, important decisions)
Important, Not Urgent = strategy, systems, long-term growth stuff
Urgent, Not Important = other people’s emergencies, random admin
Neither = distractions, dopamine-seeking tasks, logo tweaks that don’t matter
When you spend your whole week living in the “urgent but not important” quadrant, it feels like you’re working nonstop, but your business stays stuck.
ADHD Reminder: Just because something feels urgent doesn’t mean it deserves your time or energy. Not every bell needs to be answered. Ask yourself if you can turn off distractions and notifications for a chunk of time each day or week to help you work on important but not urgent tasks.
Focus on the Work That Moves the Needle
Here’s something I say to clients all the time about money, but it also applies to time: You don’t need more. You need to get clear on what matters most and spend (time + money) in alignment with what’s important to you.
We all have needle-moving work in our businesses, those tasks that will build momentum and generate income or long-term results. But those are often the hardest ones to prioritize because they require focus, confidence, or executive functioning that’s in short supply when we’re overwhelmed.
Instead, we default to:
Checking email for the 17th time
Making another graphic, we won’t post
Reorganizing our Notion board or whatever our latest ‘get out lives together’ endevour is
Meanwhile, the strategy work, the content planning, the boundary-setting, and the financial systems? They get pushed off. Again.
To change this, I recommend choosing three priorities each week. Not thirty. Not thirteen. Three. If you only got those done, and nothing else, would you feel like you moved forward? That’s how you know you picked the right ones.
Make Your Business Fit Your Brain
Let me be very clear: you are not a machine. You’re not wired to follow a rigid schedule, and honestly? That’s fine.
The key isn’t to force yourself into some productivity system that looks great on Pinterest but makes you cry. It’s to build your business around your brain.
That might look like:
Theme Days (e.g. Monday = client calls, Tuesday = content, Wednesday = admin)
Task Buckets to help you group similar things together
Time blocking to carve out space for deep focus
Templates and systems to stop you from reinventing the wheel every damn week
Adding in accountability to help you keep going when you really don’t want to
And yes, buffer time. For when life happens, or your brain just says nope. For me, this tends to happen after a really productive day because our energy will shift significantly from day to day.
ADHD Insight: Every time you switch tasks, your brain loses about 23 minutes of productivity. That’s why batching and boundaries are such a game-changer.
Let It Be Messy (But Make It Intentional)
The truth is, there’s no perfect time management system. Your needs will change. You’ll find ‘the next best thing’ and then two weeks in the dopamine will dry up. Your energy will fluctuate. Some days you’ll be laser-focused, and other days the best you’ll manage is clearing your inbox and remembering to eat.
That’s not failure, that’s being human.
What matters is that you build awareness. That you track, tweak, and notice. That you stop reacting and start leading your business. That you choose a few things to do really well, instead of trying to do everything (which is easier said than done for solopreneurs). Are there things you can/should outsource? How can you begin to plan for that?
And that you remember: your business should fit into your life, not consume it.
Want Help Making This Work for Your Brain?
If your days feel chaotic and your priorities are foggy, I can help you build ADHD-friendly systems for your money that make running your business and your life feel way more doable, and less like a 24/7 panic spiral.
🎯 We’ll figure out where your money is going, what actually matters to you, and how to set up strategies that feel good (and that you’ll actually use). And because, well, ADHD, business growth strategies tend to go hand in hand for my clients that are entrepreneurs!
👉 Book a free consultation and let’s talk through what your money challenges are and how we can work to resolve them!
