My hill. My manifesto.
So. If you catch me being loud about one thing on the internet, this is it.
Not the whole VA industry. Not everyone’s business plan. Just mine. My hill. The bit I’ll die on.
Support should work with your brain. Not against it. Not around it. Not politely tolerating it while quietly wishing you’d get with the bloody programme. WITH it.
If you take nothing else from this blog, take that.
The systems problem
Most productivity systems on the internet were built by neurotypical brains for neurotypical brains, then sold to everyone as “the solution.”
The perfectly colour coded calendar. The five step morning routine. The inbox zero method. The bullet journal spread that requires forty five minutes and a set of coloured pens you don’t own. The app that gamifies your to-do list into a small guilt farm on your phone.
None of it is inherently bad. It works, brilliantly, for the brains it was built for.
Nobody mentions, when they’re selling you the system, that the system has assumptions baked in. That you have to be able to start it. Keep it up. Notice when it’s slipping. Adjust it. Care about it consistently for it to work at all.
For a lot of ND brains, that’s not a productivity system. That’s a full time job on top of the actual bloody job. 🦄
What “adapting” actually looks like
I get asked what makes what we do different. Here’s the honest answer. It’s not the tools. Everyone uses the same tools.
It’s the fit.
Some of what that looks like day to day:
- A client who thinks in voice notes gets voice notes back. Not because it’s trendy. Because typing them a formal update at 4pm would mean they don’t listen to it until Wednesday.
- A client who freezes at a big task gets it broken into five small steps. Not “write the newsletter.” Try “open the doc. Type the subject line. Send it to me. I’ll take it from there.”
- A client who spirals on Sunday nights gets a Monday check in that says “no pressure, here’s what’s on this week, ping me when you’re ready.” Not a to-do list. A hand.
- A client who needs to talk through the mess before it becomes a plan gets space to talk through the mess. We take the notes. We find the tasks. We keep moving.
None of this is in a package on the website. It’s the work.
“Just use a planner”
Right. This one. Bloody hell this one.
If you’ve ever had someone tell you to “just use a planner” or “just set reminders” or “just make a list”, and you’ve felt the ground open up slightly, I need you to know something.
The word doing all the damage in those sentences is the word “just.”
“Just” implies the effort is small. That the solution is right there and you’re mildly failing to pick it up. “Just” turns a mountain into a molehill in the mouth of someone who has never had to climb it.
The advice, in a vacuum, is fine. Planners help people. Reminders help people. Lists help people.
But the advice given as “just” isn’t advice. It’s a diagnosis of you. It says the tool exists, therefore your struggle is a choice. Which is a hell of a thing to say to someone whose brain has been fighting them since Tuesday.
Bin the word “just.”
What shame-free support actually looks like
Here’s what it looks like on the ground.
- We don’t ask why you didn’t do the thing. We ask what would help you do it.
- We don’t send passive aggressive “just checking in!!” messages when a task’s overdue. We check whether the task is still the right task, or whether life has moved and the task needs to move with it.
- We don’t make you explain your brain. We ask how it works and we work with it. 💖
- We don’t flinch at 11pm apology voice notes. We don’t lecture you about work life balance when you send one. We reply in the morning, kindly, and we get on with helping.
Nobody has to earn their support here by first proving they deserve it. You needed help. You reached out. That’s the whole bloody eligibility criteria.
Support that fixes you vs support that works with you
There’s a version of “support” that treats you as a problem to solve.
It looks like fixing. Retraining you. Handing you their system and expecting you to become the kind of person who thrives inside it. If you don’t, that’s a you problem. If you do, congratulations, you’ve been reshaped into something more convenient.
That is not support. That is admin with a superiority complex.
Then there’s the version we do.
We meet the brain you actually have. We fit around it. We flex. We adjust when you tell us something isn’t working. We don’t hand you a rigid system and tell you to grow into it. We build the support around the shape you already are. 🌈
One of those approaches is fundamentally about the person providing the support. The other is fundamentally about you.
Guess which one lasts.
If previous VAs didn’t get it
I want to say this bit clearly because I hear it a lot.
If you’ve worked with VAs before and it hasn’t clicked. If you’ve felt like you had to mask your way through calls. If you’ve been apologising for how you communicate, or how long you take to reply, or how your brain drops threads. If you’ve quietly wondered whether you’re just not the sort of person who can be helped.
That is not a you problem.
That is a fit problem. And a fit problem is fixable. Not by you changing. By finding someone who actually gets it.
We are not the only VAs who do this properly. There are brilliant people doing brilliant work all over. But if you’ve never met one. If the ones you’ve met have made you feel worse. If you’ve come to expect that “support” means being quietly reshaped into an easier version of yourself.
Please know that’s not what this has to be.
So. That’s the hill.
Systems that don’t fit your brain aren’t proof that you’re broken. They’re proof the bloody systems were built for someone else’s brain and sold to you like they were universal.
Support isn’t a fixing job. It’s a fitting job.
Shame doesn’t belong anywhere near any of it.
And if you’ve been through a few flavours of “support” that didn’t feel like support, you’re allowed to try something different.
That’s what we’re here for.
🦄
