O'Ryan: Hey there, my name's O'Ryan, and today I am joined by my co host, Trina, from MyLadyADHD.

And Marie Ng, who is the founder of Llama Life.

Marie: Hello

O'Ryan: Llama Life is a tool designed to help fellow ADHDers work through their tasks and routines. She believes that there can be a world without burnout, and Her mission is to help other ADHDers have calm, focused productivity. Marie, why are you so obsessed with llamas?

Marie: Well,

Marie: I made Llama Life, but the reason it's called Llama Life is because, a few years ago, this is actually COVID. I went on this little trip, it was kind of like a soul searching journey with a friend of mine.

And we went to Peru and we did Machu Picchu and, all hiking and all that stuff and there were heaps of llamas around. as part of that trip, we actually went to visit this small village. there were about 30 people there and they had no modern conveniences, no running water, that kind of thing, no internet.

They invited us to lunch. So we had lunch with them, and one of the things that really struck me was, how calm they were, and they had llamas everywhere, and the llamas were kind of part of their livelihood. They were using the llamas to get the wool off their back and make, scarves and bracelets and things.

but it just struck me how calm they were, and that always stuck with me. So

O'Ryan: Hmm.

Marie: Llama Life, which didn't have a name at the beginning. I was trying to figure out what to call it. And the mission of Llama Life is to help people achieve that calm, kind of focused productivity. So it made me think back to that trip and I was like, Oh my gosh, why don't I just call it Llama?

I wanted some kind of animal. So I was like, okay, I'll just call it Llama. And it was actually called Lama, just straight Lama for, I don't know, maybe six months. But then customers started calling it Lama Life. So I was like, okay,

O'Ryan: Oh,

Marie: a better name, because it represents kind of a lifestyle you want to achieve, this kind of calm, focused lifestyle.

And so it became Lama Life. And that's why, I'm not sure I'd say I'm obsessed with llamas, but I like llamas, and I've actually, I don't know, for those who are watching and not just listening, I've got a llama on my t shirt at the moment, but yeah, that's why it's called Llama Life.

O'Ryan: as she says, she's not obsessed.

Marie: They're funny I this.

and stuff, and they're not neurotypical, I would say. They're not

O'Ryan: I love it. I, Ithe little llama character that you have everywhere is so cute.

Trina: It's great. I

love the, like, when he's meditating and,

a lot of us here at Shimmer really use LlamaLife

O'Ryan:

Trina: using it. So, I'm excited to have you here today so we can talk more about it.

Marie: Yay.

O'Ryan: so Marie, tell me a little bit about, When you were starting this company, what was the motivation and drive behind it? I know you touched on a little bit, but I'd love to know for you personally, what was the importance of this?

Marie: I guess the first thing is that it kind of happened a little bit by accident. So I wasn't really planning to start this company. it happened during COVID when everybody was in lockdown. And during that time, everybody was learning a new skill.

Like people, my friends were learning how to cook and make sourdough bread and do gardening things around the house. And I'm not really any of those things like I'm not a cook and I'm not really good with my hands and DIY and stuff like that. So I decided that I would teach myself how to code.

I've always been tech savvy, but I never knew how to actually program and code and make stuff. so I was like, okay, I'm going to use this time to learn that skill. So I started watching YouTube videos and learning, in theory, how to do stuff, but I really wanted to put it into practice because, you can watch as many videos as you want, but I wanted to actually make something.

And so I thought, what is something that I can make for myself that I would use and that I really want? I've always used timers. Like timers work really well for me in terms of getting things done. And when I say a timer, a countdown timer, not a stopwatch, but a countdown timer.

there were other apps out there that kind of did this, but they didn't do it exactly how I wanted it to. And I was always trying to find of hack together these different solutions. So I thought well, I'm just gonna make my own and this is a really good project that I can do. So I made a very basic version of Lama life and I put it on Twitter But I put it on Twitter more to say to people like oh, here's my progress keep myself accountable and Show people like what I was doing and just kind of have some social interaction because I was in lockdown as well.

And it caught on from Twitter, but when I posted the very first version of it, somebody goes, Oh, what is this? I really like this, like where can I get it? And I was like, well, you can't get it anywhere. It's just this little project I'm making for myself. But that kind of gave me a little bit of a encouragement, a little bit of a spark.

And I was like, okay, well, I'll just keep making it. there wasn't a lot of pressure because I was kind of just making it as a learning activity and every new feature I added to it, it was, or, when I added like the database to it when I added like payments and things like that, I just kept thinking, Oh, I'm just learning how to do this stuff.

so it was pretty low pressure and then it started to actually take off. And I was like, Oh, okay, maybe I should, take a bit more seriously. it was a very kind of progression into let's make this a business. and now it's a business, so it's, still kind of new and, we're still small, but it's what I'm doing full time and I love it because I get to work on.

a product that means something to me and that I actually use and I can see firsthand how it helps people because we get emails from our customers saying, you changed my life or I've been looking for a tool like this. And I've never really got that anywhere else. Like when I worked for larger companies, you can kind of see like you're doing stuff, but you don't always feel the direct impact.

Like maybe you've got a client and the client's doing well, but you're working with an account team and You're not actually touching the end customer as much, but with LlamaLife, we actually are talking with our customers on email and on, chat and stuff and getting feedback.

And it just feels very like close as a community. And I think I really like that because I just feel like I wake up every day and I feel like I've got some impact. I'm doing something that's helping people and that's very rewarding for me. yeah, that's kind of how it started, and why we're doing it.

O'Ryan: love that. I went down the sourdough route, um, but in typical ADHD fashion, I bought all the supplies and then never actually made sourdough. I moved on to something else before I even got there.

Trina: I just feel

O'Ryan: Yeah.

Trina: decided to start coding. It's, such an ADHD thing.

Marie: Well, it is because yeah, you kind of go, well, that's like a massive, go to school for that and you can self teach yourself, but it is kind of a massive undertaking and. It's like classic ADHD because it was like, I had hyper focus on this. Like I really love doing it. And, as we all know, like if you're interested in something, it makes it a lot easier.

So I was spending, four hours a day, just obsessing, like totally obsessing about it and learning everything I could and going down rabbit holes, but you know, they were good rabbit holes because I was like learning this thing. luckily for me, that didn't drop off. there's a lot of times where I get obsessed with something and go down rabbit holes and then, the next day or the next week, I'm just like, it's dead to me, I don't want to do that anymore, but with this, think, because I could see the, I could see the outcome, like I, put the effort in and I created something and I could see that very tangible

O'Ryan: Hmm.

Marie: straight away.

there was kind of this. reward in the end. I don't know how to, I'm not sure if I'm describing it properly, but I could see the outcome immediately. you code something, you can see it, and there's a product. it's kind of, it's not that straightforward, but you can actually see, the end thing being created.

gave me more dopamine, to feed the machine and keep going. so luckily for me, it was, when I was learning, at the beginning was my hyperfocus. And it

O'Ryan: Hmm.

Marie: yeah, I don't know, it's the one thing that I really got obsessed with and it stuck.

O'Ryan: I feel like coding, I, I'm thinking back when I started learning coding way back, this is before I even knew that I had ADHD too. So like thinking about it now, it makes sense. It is very much this very tight loop of you put in some effort, you get a reward. You put in some effort, you get a reward.

It's very like quick.and I love that you were able to combine that with not only your new found hyper focus of learning how to code, but then your hyper focus of ADHD, and then combine them, which makes it even

more of a hyper focus.

Marie, I think we might have jumped the gun a little bit. Could you maybe explain to us wha what Llama Life is? we got so into the llamas and the

coding.

Marie: sure. we did. so LlamaLife is, it's a productivity tool. It's an app and it's also available on desktop. is designed to help people with ADHD get through their daily lives. it helps you create, task lists and get through routines. the way it does this is think it does this in three ways, and they're all very designed around like blindness, focus, attention, dopamine, that kind of thing.

But the first way it does it is it lets you set timers. So against every task, you can set a timer. So for example, I might say, make, make my breakfast 10 minutes, drink a glass of water one minute, record this podcast, like 45 minutes, and it'll actually count down on each task. So, while I'm drinking my water, I hit play and it's counting down from a minute to zero.

And the goal is to try and stay focused. While the timer is running and don't do anything else until it hits zero. the difference between this and other timers is that it's very flexible. So there are other apps out there that let you set like a 25 minute timer against a task or a focus session.

And 25 minutes is way too long for me. There's no way I can do 25 minutes. So I wanted

O'Ryan: Mm.

Marie: I could set very short timers and be able to set them like super quick. so that's the first way. It's kind of creating a little space like for you to focus while the timer is running. And if 25 minutes is too long for you, you just do a shorter timer and a shorter timer and there's a little bit of a like feeling of I want to beat this timer or I want to see if I can do it.

Like a, I'm very competitive, so it's like a competitive thing. Can I beat the timer? And that's the first way. The second way is all about time blindness because I am, I'm so bad with time. I don't know where I am in the day and I don't know what five minutes means and I'm always late. but what we do is we add up all the tasks in your list and the tasks can be a list of routines as well.

But we basically say, okay, well, based on where we are now. So say it's nine

O'Ryan: Mm.

Marie: the morning. add up all the things on this list, it's gonna take you to 1 p. m. Or it's gonna take you to 3 p. m. And then you can start to see like how much you've put in your day. And if you're late to start something, it just shifts for you.

It doesn't, it's not like a calendar where you have to move all your appointments, which is super like frustrating. Lamalife will just move it for you. Like it's all relative time. It's like the time now and then where you're going to end. And as the day progresses or as you get through the list, it just adjusts.

So it'll tell you the total list time and total, finishing time. And then you can go, okay, I have too much on my plate. maybe I should take some stuff out, or maybe I'm going to be late to pick up the kids because all the stuff on my list is going past, 3. 30 or whatever. And the third way is, an app can have all these things, but if it's not designed in a way that feels kind of lighthearted and fun, I'm not going to use it. And what I'm talking about is really you could have these features somewhere else, but if it doesn't look good, it doesn't feel good, like I won't touch it.

I'll just lose interest in it. So the third way is I'm really big on the look, the feel, the design, and just making it feel kind of light, but fun. And so there's a lot of emoji that you can select in LlamaLife. When you create a task, you add an emoji to it. So, there's confetti, there's like sort of these little moments of celebration when you complete stuff.

Because we all need like a little pat on the back when we do stuff. It doesn't matter big the task is or, if it seems small to somebody else, it might still be a big thing to you and we just want to celebrate every little thing that you do. So they're the three ways. Timers, kind of this kind of time blindness, list time, end time, and, making it feel lighthearted and fun.

O'Ryan: I think one of my favorite parts of that is, is the ability to set the custom timers because one of the things that we talk about a lot on the podcast is how

bad we are at estimating tasks. do you find for you and your customers, Do you find that helps them kind of better start learning and be more intentional about the time that they're estimating and taking on those tasks? Marie's

Marie: a full blown like analysis because I think that can be overwhelming. And, if you're constantly like not meeting things. It could just feel like depressing. So it's a very light report, but it tells you, how much time you planned in a given session and how much time it took, and then you can kind of figure out okay, well, Yeah, every day I'm really just putting on too much.

And we've had people email us saying, yeah, it's really helped me figure out like routine I'm doing in the morning and a routine's got like a list of let's call them tasks in there. they're going, well, I've got too much stuff on, I can't fit all this stuff in between the time I wake up and the time I need to leave the house.

And so they start to cut stuff out or they start to do maybe, I don't, cut stuff out or assess if it's taking, maybe shorten the time as like ever so slightly and see if you can actually make that because sometimes we just, the time will just expand and fill what you've put in.

So there's actually this, there's actually this law called Parkinson's law. And Parkinson's law just states that the time you give a task, like you'll kind of, you'll fill that, the work will fill that. So if you say, I'm going to take an hour to get ready. You'll probably take an hour to get ready. Like you'll feel that time, even if you don't need an hour.

So maybe you can shorten it and create like a little bit of pressure, not too much, but just a little bit of pressure, a little bit of constraint and go. Actually, let's see if I can get it done in half an hour. And if I'm not procrastinating and losing my focus, maybe I can. And so Lama Life kind of helps you do that.

It helps you figure out from a time perspective, should you compress it a bit or do you actually need to give yourself longer? Like in reality, did you actually just put on too much? Cause that happens a lot as well. It goes both ways, got to figure out where you are, but it's up to the user to figure that out as well.

So we provide the tool, but you've got to look at it yourself and go, just a little bit of self reflection and say, maybe I put on too much, that's okay. Like I'll try and change it tomorrow. No big deal. and that's why the app tries to feel lighthearted. I don't want, we don't want to pack too much stuff in terms of the analytics.

nobody looks at that, or at least I don't, and that's one of the key things with LlamaLife. Sometimes I just put stuff in that works for me, so far that's kind of helped a lot. We've had good feedback on that, but we do also, we also take feature requests if people want it.

O'Ryan: just building her dream app.

Marie: I am, I'm like, I want this so badly, I'm just gonna, but you know, it's, we've got to listen to feedback too, and it is something we take very seriously, and we do get, we get loads of customer emails every day, and there's definitely themes that come with it. Those emails. And if enough people ask for something, we'll put it in because the end goal is to make something that's helpful.

And if, people are asking for something, there's merit to that. It might not be, we might not execute it exactly like someone requests. The important thing is that we figure out like, what's the problem that they're having and like, How can we attempt to solve it?

Trina: I think it's so interesting that you needed a tool, so you made the tool.it's just because there aren't a lot of tools out there for the ADHD brain, right? And so, they're just not made for

us. So, you were running into that, so you just created one on your own, which It's just very ADHD to do that. I love it.

Marie: Yeah, it's you don't know how to code or do design or anything. And it's just I want to go from zero to a hundred, but you know, Oh, I think I can, it's that mindset of Oh, I think I can do it. I think a lot of us have this mindset where we think we can do anything, is, it's good.

I think it's positive. and in this case, I think the main thing is that it's stuck. Like we were saying before, like I've had this mindset of, oh, I could do that. I could do that. But half the time it just doesn't stick. This for some reason stuck. which I think is, I guess is a good thing, but it's somehow stuck.

It ticks a lot of boxes for me. lets me be creative as well. Lets me do design. it lets me code, it lets me solve problems. So it, kind of feels like a perfect job for me. almost like I feel like this is what I was meant to do. I know that sounds like really and stuff, but I really feel like this is what I was supposed to do.

I'm I'm imagining working at a company that I love, which I do. I have that luck as well. but I can imagine when you're building an app for yourself, there's this temptation as a person who has ADHD to add all of the features, especially when your community is suggesting such amazing features that you know, would help them. How do

O'Ryan: How do you kind of scope that down and do you have kind of a methodology around like how you think of this is what llama life is. This is kind of the way that we see productivity and how it should be.

Marie: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. luckily, you know before Lama Life, I used to work in advertising and branding and marketing that kind of side of things and I'm really big on branding. branding is very different to marketing and advertising. So branding is like the essence of the product, right?

kind of like the personality, like what's inside the product, what makes you. That's branding. If somebody says, what do you think of when you think of Llama Life? Likethat's branding. I'm really big on that. And marketing obviously is different. Marketing is about distribution. Like how are you getting the word out?

What channels are you using? How effective that is. so when I first started Llama Life, I just kind of wrote down a couple of things from a branding perspective. I was like, what do I want this product to be? and being very simple, lighthearted, fun.it's about focus, it's about time blindness, and whenever we add a new feature or think about adding a new feature, we always come back to that.

We're thinking, okay, well, does this actually fit with what we're trying to do? Are there other products out there that might do it better? We don't have to put every single thing in, and sometimes we say to people that email us, we're like, well, actually, you know what? This is probably not the product for you.

We think you're actually looking for this other thing, and we'll go and recommend something else. The classic example of that is time tracking. We don't do time tracking. Time tracking is something that is necessary for a lot of businesses. So maybe you've got a lot of clients, and you're trying to figure out how much time you're spending on each client.

So you've got to track every single minute, that's a stopwatch. That's not a countdown timer. That's counting up, right? And it'll say, okay, well I spent, three hours on client A, two hours on client B, and this is what I'm going to bill them. We're not that. So we tell a lot of people who are looking for time tracking, go and try this other tool.

They have it nailed. They do it really well, but that's not what Llama Life is. We had a lot of that at the beginning. We have less of it now, I think because we redesigned the website, because we're like, oh my god, people don't get what this is. So we took that feedback and we redesigned the website to say,no, we're this.

so that's definitely reduced, but that's just an example of we don't want to become that either. So we're very focused on what we want to do, and it's all about focus, time blindness. and helping people get through a day. So not just make a list, because there's so many tools that help you make lists and routines and stuff.

We want to help you get through the routine, through the list. And we don't mind if that's a whole day or it's a half an hour routine. we just want to design everything move you forward. Which is very hard sometimes for ADHD when you don't want to do something, just move you forward, one second at a time, let's go, one second, we can do it, or one minute at a time, let's just move you through, let's just nudge you through what you need to do.

That's what we're about, and every feature is around that. Every little thing, design, look, is around that concept of being creative. Just nudging you along, helping you move through your day, stuff done.

Trina: it's just, it's really refreshing to have, you can tell that this product was made by someone with ADHD, so I always appreciate that because it's like it was made with my brain in mind for once,

Marie: It's really funny. Like when I first started, I didn't, like we, over, over time, we've kind of leaned into the ADHD community a bit more and kind of being more vocal about that. But when I first started, I didn't actually pitch it toward ADHD. I just said, Hey, this is like a task list. just, obviously, and not surprisingly, most of the people emailing and saying they liked it, would email and say, Oh my God, I've got ADHD.

This is great. But didn't really market it that way. And we didn't really talk about ADHD at all. And it's funny you say, you can tell someone with ADHD made it. Cause. In the early days, like when I would do a podcast, I wouldn't go in saying I had ADHD. It was just like a podcast on like making stuff, like an entrepreneur kind of podcast.

I remember there was one person that the host of the podcast, she had ADHD, I don't know how it came out in the conversation that I had ADHD, but when I told her, she goes, Oh my God, she goes, I knew it. She goes, I knew this was made by someone with ADHD. I could feel it. And she was just having this moment on the other recently we're just like, you know what, this is what, this is the audience that it helps the most. And we're just not going to hide that anymore. And Just talk about it. More people need to know about ADHD. We just had ADHD Awareness Month,think it's just a really good opportunity to kind of people just understand what it's about and that's the audience that it fits, so why not talk about it a bit more and that's what we've been doing recently. It's just let's just

go all in because that's, that's the audience that helps. So why not?

Try and fight it. Like why try and go against it? Because we, we were originally trying to make it for everybody, but that's when a product becomes nothing. You know, like when you try and make a product that's just too general and you're adding things in because

everybody's just asking for their own stuff, that's when a product just falls apart.

And we're like, no, we're going to go the other way. We're going to make it, we're going to niche it down. And we're just going to design a product that we want, and it's going to help people. that are similar to us. And that's when a product gets super, like, tight, you know. So that's what we've done.

We kind of went that way.

O'Ryan: Okay, Marie, I love what you've built. And our coaches at Shimmer always recommend Llama Life. This is something that we're always talking about. if you could leave somebody who maybe just learned they had ADHD, one piece of advice that you wish that you knew from the early days, what would that be?

Marie: If you just found out you've got ADHD or you're just learning about, My biggest piece of advice is just to find other people who have ADHD and talk to them. Because at the beginning, it felt very isolating in a way. Like I knew what was going on and I was relieved to figure out and have an explanation, but I was like, I don't know what to do, do with that.

You know? And I still feel like a bit quote unquote, not normal. Right. And I was like, okay, well, Now that I'm doing Llama Life and now that we're very kind of vocal about ADHD And I've met so many people like Trina yourself like just people on Instagram people on Twitter X, you know Get on social media actually use social media in a good way in a way it's it's community, right?

and if you can find other people who are similar to you, it is like life changing. when I chat with someone else who's got ADHD, I feel like I don't need to mask at all. whether that's conscious or subconscious, you know, we all do a little bit of masking. cause we all want to fit in. That's human nature.

We all want to fit into society. And society, the large portion of society is neurotypical. there's nothing wrong with that, but that's just the fact. Right. And so sometimes it's good to find people who are similar to yourself and it just feels like very natural and it feels like, Oh, I, you know, There's other people who are dealing with the stuff that I'm dealing with.

That's fine. Like, you know, on this call, I was a few minutes late. I'm like, oh, they'll understand. Like, I tried really hard to get here on time, but they'll understand if I'm two minutes late, let me get my drinks and all, whatever weird stuff. I've got like three cups around me at the moment. We were just laughing at that from the, at the beginning.

I got like a coffee. I got some hot water. I've got some warm water, which was meant to be hot and it got cold. And I don't feel any hesitation telling you guys these things because. I know you'll get it, but if I told my neurotypical friends, they wouldn't get that. that's one of the reasons why we're trying to raise more awareness of ADHD as well, because it is not just, like, young, hyperactive boys.

Like, there's many different things, many different sort of, symptoms, I guess, of ADHD, that if you weren't close to someone with ADHD, you would not get. that's why I just think community is so important. Go and use social media in a good way. Go and find some people who have ADHD, go follow ADHD creators.

the best way to get to know people is don't just go on somebody's feed and like stuff. Anyone can hit the like button. That's really easy. That doesn't mean anything. Comment. The comments are the best way. Like, start conversations. pretend I'm just chatting with you in real life. You posted this piece of content that I really like.

Make a comment. But make it genuine. Don't just be like, oh, this is amazing. Start a conversation. that's the best way to get to know people. That's the way, I don't know, is that how I met you, Trina? I kind of remember. We, Trina and I have a mutual friend, and I met him that way. Like we just kind of were chatting on social and then I think I met you through that.

So one little thing on social media could open doors to other things and open this community to you. And that's a very long answer, but that's my biggest piece of advice would be find other people.

who are similar to you and It just makes life like a whole lot better.

O'Ryan: We always talk about zebras here. and I was actually, as you were talking, I was like, maybe it should be llamas. we're a bunch of llamas herding around with horses, comparing ourselves against other horses, but really we should be out there looking for our herd of llamas.

Marie: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. that's a good one. The zebra thing.

Mm hmm.

Trina: I couldn't

Marie: Yeah.

Trina: with the community thing, Marie. I feel like that's usually the answer that I give, is just to find community, find other people like you. That is how we met, that's how my community, that's how, that's why I have friends, honestly. It's like everyone

Marie: Mm hmm.

Trina: through the ADHD community are now some of my best friends.

So, if you are just finding out you have

Marie: Yep.

Trina: go find your people. That's, that is,

Marie: Yep. Yep.

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