Welcome to episode #57 We’re thrilled to be joined by Chris Cameron today.
Chris Cameron is a Workflow Engineering and Process Automation Expert with over a decade of experience. He founded Satellite, a company dedicated to helping small businesses optimize their operations. He also teaches people with executive function barriers how to overcome them using AI, no-code automation tools, and productivity strategies. His work is driven by efficiency, innovation, and empathy, ensuring technology serves people.
QUESTIONS
- Can you tell us about your experience with neurodiversity?
- When did you realize that you weren’t neurotypical?
- During pandemic
- Felt more on top of things
- Other people were struggling
- Realized later
- He was responding well to chaos.
- Having a child
- The above two things prompted him to investigate further
- In school was the kid that
- Didn’t
- Do homework
- Study
- But always performed well
- What challenges did you face?
- Late to start things
- But learning new things about it all the time
- Different ways to approach things.
- Time blindness
- If something isn’t on the calendar, then it doesn’t get done.
- Underestimating
- Tries to journal and self-analysis and reflect on what is working and what isn’t
- What is it like now?
- Wanted to talk about it so that other kids wouldn’t fall through the cracks
- Not simply be dismissed as the hyperactive boy stereotype.
- See through the coping strategies and masking.
- What neuro-exceptional strengths are you leaning into now?
- Tolerance for frustration
- Depending on the cause
- Lower than usual
- E.g. repetitive tasks
- Filling out tasks
- Higher than usual
- E.g. Solving aggravating problem
- Coding a solution
- What "work" projects are you concentrating on?
- Consultancy doing business process automation (Satellite)
- Educational workshops (https://learnwith.cc) for ND people to learn how to automate processes
- Building out course material
- Tutoring (e.g. how to set up automation)
- Workflow optimization tool (free tool to figure out how to improve your processes)
- How about the rest of the time? What do you enjoy doing in your off time?
- Investigating new tools (physical and computers)
- Spending time with family
- 2.5 year old
- What do you do to optimize productivity during your working hours? What is some unhelpful productivity advice that doesn’t work for you?
- Calendaring + notes (so don’t forget)
- Timeboxing (worked for a while but then hated it)
- Time tracking
- Started for client billing as a freelancer
- Tracking how much time spent on personal projects too
- Helpful to calibrate estimates (e.g. grocery shopping seems like it should only
- Adapt tools to how people work rather than bending people to make the tools work
- Velja
- E.g. default zoom calls to a specific browser
- E.g. always open Trello in the Trello app
- What works for a few months, can’t expect it to work forever
- Theories about cycling
- Novelty is attractive
- Adaptation / habituation
- COMMERCIAL BREAK
- How do you manage communication with neurotypical folk?
- Variable NT tolerance
- Having different personas
- Work Chris
- Real Chris
- Is he consolidating these?
- Establishing good rapport
- What does your morning routine look like and how has it evolved over time?
- For a while, he had a tightly planned morning routine
- Previously, 2-hour time block in the morning
- Exercise
- Meditate
- Adaptability helped in transitioning to parenthood.
- Being a father led to a need for flexibility in the morning (e.g. kid wakes up early and needs you right away)
- Self-care for self
- Get son ready (change, feed him, take him to daycare)
- Do maintenance tasks (meditation, exercise, writing)
- How is your sleep? How do you switch off at night?
- Parenting
- Terrible sleep doesn’t last forever.
- It’s tough when the kid doesn’t sleep at all.
- Energy management (more productivity stuff)
- Know when you have peak energy
- Being mindful of when being sleep deprived.
- Where can people connect with you or find your work?
- https://learnwith.cc
- X: learnwithcc
- LinkedIn
- Do you have any final words or asks for our audience?
- Webinars
- Get people to attend.