Money is rarely just about math—it’s about stories, habits, emotions, and, for ADHDers, often a deep sense of shame. In this episode, Pete and Nikki sit down with Nicole Stanley, financial coach and founder of Arise Financial Coaching, to unpack the hidden ways ADHD intersects with our finances—and how we can finally start to build a healthier, ADHD-friendly relationship with money.

Nicole shares her own diagnosis journey and the challenges of postpartum depression, financial anxiety, and feeling “not enough” as a new mom. From there, she walks us through how our early experiences shape money beliefs (most of us make up our financial mindset by age seven!), and why traditional budgeting advice so often fails the ADHD brain.

This conversation is a blueprint for anyone who’s ever felt overwhelmed, behind, or just exhausted trying to “do money right.” Nicole reframes key concepts: how to spot the real root of your financial stress, why automating your systems might be better than trying to “budget harder,” and how to emotionally connect to your goals so you’re actually excited to follow through.

Plus: what financial coaches really do, how ADHDers can leverage dopamine to create a positive money loop, and the five core financial problems that every person needs to identify before they can move forward. Whether you’re in credit card debt, unsure where your money’s going, or just sick of feeling behind—this episode is your permission to drop the shame and start where you are.

Links & Notes

• Arise Financial Coaching
• YNAB (You Need A Budget)
• Become a Supporting Member
• Join the ADHD Discord Community
• Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database

Books Mentioned in This Episode:

• The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins
• Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez
• I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
• Happy Money by Ken Honda
• You mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?! by Kate Kelly & Peggy Ramundo
• Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins

• (00:00) - Introducing Nicole Stanley

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

Money and ADHD: two words that often stir up stress, shame, or avoidance. But what if we stopped thinking of planning as punishment and instead saw it as a path to clarity, confidence, and even peace of mind? This week, Pete and Nikki welcome Ben Barlowe and Ernie Reppe—the Budget Nerds of YNAB—to talk about why the word budgeting is going out of style and how we’re still all-in on the money mindset.

They share how to build a money mindset that’s about purpose, not restriction, and why giving every dollar a job is the simple shift that makes all the difference. From impulse spending and forgotten bills to shame spirals and the fear of facing financial reality, this conversation gets real about the unique challenges ADHD brings to money management—and how to take the sting out of them.

Whether you’re brand new to planning your finances or you’ve tried before and burned out, this is your invitation to make peace with your money and take back control.

Links & Notes

• Getting Started with YNAB with Ben and Ernie
• YNAB for High Income Earners
• Get your 34-day Trial of YNAB
• Support the Show on Patreon
• Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database

• (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

Side hustles can be exciting, creative, and empowering—especially when you have ADHD. But they can also be overwhelming, unsustainable, and, let’s be real, joy-draining if you’re not careful. In this kickoff to our new series on ADHD and money, we’re talking all things side gig—from handmade crafts and tutoring gigs to late-night freelance projects and full-on mini-businesses. We break down the benefits and challenges of turning your interests into income, while exploring the emotional and executive function landmines that too often get left out of the conversation.

We look at the upsides: hyperfocus, creativity, independence, and the opportunity to build something meaningful on your own terms. And we also name the hard stuff: shiny object syndrome, burnout, disorganization, and the pressure to monetize every hobby. Whether you’re side hustling by choice or necessity, we’ve got practical strategies to help you stay on track—planning tools, body doubling, automation tips, and pacing ideas that won’t crush your ADHD brain.

So before you burn the midnight oil trying to ship Etsy orders and do your day job, take a breath and join us for a real talk about protecting your energy, your time, and your joy.

• (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

Music isn’t just background noise—it can be a tool. This week, we’re joined by Dr. Kevin J.P. Woods, cognitive neuroscientist and Director of Science at Brain.fm, to explore the science behind audio designed to do something: improve focus, enhance rest, and support attention regulation, especially for ADHD brains.

Dr. Woods breaks down the neuroscience of “functional music,” explaining how Brain.fm uses phase-locking, neural oscillations, and lab-validated protocols to guide your brain toward desired cognitive states. We dig into why ADHD brains might respond especially well to this kind of auditory support—and how students and adults alike can use it to manage study sessions, reduce overwhelm, and even fall asleep more easily.

If you’ve ever tried to study to lo-fi beats, felt overwhelmed by silence, or needed a reliable way to shift your brain into focus mode, this one’s for you.

Links & Notes

• 🎧 Brain.fm – Get a special 30-day free trial to give it a real spin!
• 🧠 Follow Dr. Kevin J.P. Woods on LinkedIn
• 📝 Learn more about how we support students with ADHD at Take Control ADHD
• Support the Show on Patreon
• Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database

• (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

Memory isn’t just about recall — it’s about learning, encoding, storing, and retrieving information in ways that actually work with your brain. In this conversation, Pete Wright and Nikki Kinzer continue the ADHD in College series with returning guest Dr. Daniella Karidi, diving deep into the practical study strategies that help students and adults build lasting memory.

From note-taking that actually supports learning, to strategies for sleep, nutrition, and asking for help, Daniella lays out a roadmap that makes studying less overwhelming and more effective. Whether you’re heading into a new semester, studying for certification, or just trying to remember what’s in that self-help book you just read, this episode gives you tools that can help you work with your ADHD brain — not against it.

Links & Notes

• Join Focus on ADHD Books | Bookclubs
• Support the Show on Patreon
• Dig into the podcast Shownotes Database

• (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

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

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

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!

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

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

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

It’s summer rebroadcast season! We all have that one project—the thing we swore we’d get done before the end of summer. Whether it’s clearing out a garage, taming your inbox, or finally tackling that closet of doom, this episode is your nudge to pick a project and actually finish it.

Nikki and Pete walk through how to choose the right project (hint: it should matter to you), how to break it into manageable steps, and how to stay intentional through the planning and execution process. They cover tools, strategies, scheduling, and the power of visualizing your “after” moment. Plus, they unpack the ADHD hurdles that can get in the way—and how to overcome them.

Want to share your One Project? Post it in the Discord and we’ll check in with you!

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.

It's Summer Rebroadcast Season! If you’re a well-practiced student, you probably have your own system and set of practices for doing that job. Taking notes, studying, preparing projects, taking exams ... you know what works for you, right?

It turns out, it’s pretty easy to develop a false sense of security in our own systems to the point that they might not actually be helping you do the real work of being a student. This week on the show, we offer the timeline for effective study habits — originated at the University of Arkansas — a simple, straight-forward process to help you learn to study effectively and deliver the results you want.

Links & Notes

• Timeline for Effective Study Habits (PDF)
• Anki Flashcards
• Quizlet

Notetaking

I know, these are both iPad Pro focused, but I encourage you to watch them for process, not technology, if you’re thinking about how to engage in material.

• 🎥 Samuel Suresh: “How I Take Notes with My iPad Pro in Lectures”
• 🎥 Ali Abdaal: “How I take notes on my iPad Pro in medical school”

Zettlecasten

If you’re not on the market for a new note-taking system, do not click on these links. There be monsters! If you’re embarking on any sort of research — and you have fun with this kind of stuff — you might just find Zettlekasten and some of the software tools that enable it really exciting.

• 🎥 Shu Omi: “Zettlekasten Note-taking Method: Simply Explained”
• 🎥 Shu Omi: “How to take Smart Notes in Roam Research”
• 🎥 Curtis McHale: “Getting Started with a Zettlecasten System”
• 🎥 Curtis McHale: “What Makes a Good Zettlekasten Note”
• 👨‍💻 Roam Research
• 👨‍💻 Obsidian

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

---
Join the Declutter Challenge!
The Winter 2026 ADHD Declutter Challenge is now open for enrollment! Join a community of people on a 31-day mission to reduce clutter and start the new season with a fresh new view by visiting https://takecontroladhd.com/declutter.