Prep Questions and Call Planning

Hello!

This page has two sets of questions that should take you less than an hour to answer:

  1. Background questions about your work, ADHD, and goals
  2. Scheduling and contact information questions

Please send me your responses at phil@adhd9to5.com, and I’ll reply promptly to schedule our first call. If you don’t hear from me, please call or text me at 919-491-4530 to make sure your email didn’t get lost in the ether. Thank you!Phil

 

Prep Questions for our First Call

[To complete in 50 minutes MAXIMUM]

Career Summary

[10 minutes maximum for this section. If you hit 10 minutes before finishing, stop and move to the next section]

  1. Briefly, what is your career history? (E.g.,”ten years in various sales jobs (three of which were in sales management with a mid-sized company), then three years in marketing management for a magazine”)
  2. What is your job like today? (E.g., what are your major responsibilities? How many staff do you manage? What kind of people do you work with each week? How is your time split between creative work, people-management, admin, etc.?)
  3. What might you want your career to look like in 5 to 10 years?

Business Issues To Focus on Now

[10 minutes maximum]

  1. List 3 to 5 business issues that need attention over the next six months (e.g., improving administrative efficiency, hiring staff, acquiring new or different clients, financial performance, etc.)
  2. What 1 or 2 things (not listed above) that are going well that don’t need attention during coaching (e.g., business volume, office morale, profitability)?

Personal Performance Issues To Focus on Now

[10 minutes maximum]

  1. List 5 to 10 personal performance issues cause stress now. (E.g., budgeting and managing time over the week, daily challenges around timeliness, setting and keeping priorities, staying on task (especially for boring stuff), communication with staff or colleagues, “work-life balance”)
    • Which of the above do you think would be wise  to work on first?
  2. What are 2 or 3 things (not listed above) that are going well and don’t need attention during coaching? (E.g., relationships with teammates, work quality).

ADD/ADHD Management History

[15 minutes maximum]

  1. What are some non-medical things you’ve done to help yourself manage ADD/ADHD at work? (E.g., alarms and timers, strict scheduling (“lunch no later than 1, leave office no later than 6:30”), hiring staff for admin tasks, using online ADHD accountability groups, etc.)
    • How well have these worked (or not) for you?
  2. Have you used medication or therapy to help with ADHD? If so, how well have they worked?
  3. What do like about your ADD/ADHD nature? (E.g., I enjoy creative work and am good at it. I like working with many different people each day.)

Communication Style

[5 minutes maximum]

  1. On our phone calls, would you rather that I be (1) sharp and to the point, (2) conversational with a lot of room for “oh, and another thing”, or (3) something in between or otherwise.
  2. Will you interrupt and ask me to change direction (or repeat something) if you need me to? Or are you better off if I frequently ask if we’re on track?

Final Prep Question

How long did it take you to finish this first set of questions? 🙂

 

Calendar and Contact Info

  1. Scheduling: your intensive coaching plan includes five weekly phone calls, and it will be good to pick the same day/time each week. Please let me know some date/time combinations that will work for you, and I will check my calendar for matches. The best times are generally between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. (Eastern time) Monday through Thursday, but other times are possible.
  2. Contact: preferred phone number(s).