Most of us have a stack of self-help books we fully intend to get to. Our friend Misty Stinnett, co-host of Go Help Yourself, has read hundreds of them for her show, and she joins us to talk about reading when your attention has its own plans. Misty is quick to say she isn’t an ADHD expert, but she has years of practice getting through a book she’ll have to explain on a microphone a week later, and plenty of what she’s learned carries over for the rest of us.

Her favorite permission slip is that the book works for you. You aren’t on the clock for it. If one idea sticks and changes how you see something, the book did its job, even at 500 pages. Knowing what’s at stake for you before you open a book helps. So does putting it down without guilt when it stops connecting. There’s room for the slow road too: visiting a hard book a paragraph at a time on the days that’s all your brain will give.

The members version includes the pre-show, with a face-blindness mystery thriller recommendation and the origin story of “bless the baby.” The after-show is packed with listener questions: whether to reread, how to remember what you heard in the car, why a single paragraph can wear you out, and the old guilt some of us carry about reading for fun. It ends with a book recommendation that brings us full circle. Join us patreon.com/theadhdpodcast and see what you’re missing!

Plus get the companion guide, Let the Book Work for You, with reflection questions and reframes for the thoughts that keep a book stuck on the nightstand. Grab the guide right here.

Links & Notes

  • (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
  • (02:26) - Introducing Misty Stinnett
  • (07:20) - Learning to Read Self-Help
  • (10:00) - Chunking
  • (14:22) - The Visit
  • (25:56) - Audiobooks
  • (33:34) - How do you know the book is GREAT

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