> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://berniejmitchell.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # You never see the boring part (There's joy in repetition) - URL: https://berniejmitchell.com/you-never-see-the-boring-part-theres-joy-in-repetition/ - Published: 2026-11-02T00:30:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-02T00:30:29.000Z - Description: Over the summer, I dug deeper into my ADHD report and found that I can only successfully hold a few things in my working memory at the same time. - Author: Bernie J Mitchell About 20 years ago, my friend Deb gave me a book written by the England rugby coach. England had done very well at rugby around then. I don't know much about rugby, but I knew enough to know they'd done well. Part of the book was about repetition: you take the shot a thousand times so that in the final, it's another shot on repeat, but with a bigger audience. When you run your own thing, there is a lot of monotony and repetition. Freelancer, creator, entrepreneur, whatever you self-identify as this week. But that repetition is what stacks the bricks to build your company of one. For years I've had this quest to be a location-independent company of one. I was never going to move to Thailand, get a tattoo and wear white clothes. I love Europe, especially Poland, Italy and Spain. I wasn't one of those location-independent digital nomad types. Nor was I ever pumped about the term "entrepreneur" - I have a lot of enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, but I throw up a little in my mouth when someone introduces themself as an entrepreneur. My quest for location independence was born out of necessity. I had a love at first sight moment with an Argentine in Krakow in February 2005, and I married her in Buenos Aires later that year. I could not suddenly turn up in Buenos Aires and carry on being London's most sought-after freelance event mixologist and barista. I was early to the espresso martini wave, and I had a mate with an espresso machine we'd take to events. We booked many private house parties in Holland Park in London. It was insane how many people in Holland Park liked throwing house parties, snorting cocaine, and quaffing our espresso martinis and canapés until the sun came up. But even then I was a freelance bartender, not an entrepreneur. I was being a freelancer before it was cool to be a freelancer. The plan was always to move to Buenos Aires, and I was panicked about my lack of transferable skills. I could not see a future for a non-Spanish-speaking espresso-martini mixologist in Buenos Aires. I needed to find something I could do online in English from anywhere, so in 2006 I posted my first blog on Blogger, a new website by Google, and I've been hammering a keyboard to find my voice ever since. ## The veneer There's a rancid performative glamour to this ‘build‑your‑own‑company' life when you watch it from the outside. There's the entrepreneur and thought leader posting away, Gary Vee and Steven Bartlett style and all that noise. (A person I worked with had built something and sold it to a world-renowned company. She used to tell me the word 'entrepreneur is French for can't get a job'. I'll take that over the veneer any day.) The glamour never shows you the actual work. The work is not having the ideas, it is corralling them. Ideas come at me at a hundred miles an hour, they are not ideas like Uber, or the iPhone, they are ideas about connections, and stories. My head constantly feels like Professor X plugged into Cerebro, where he can see the whole world. I avoid turning the few things that count into a repeatable process, but when I trick my brain into doing this I get to work like a sailor in a brothel with a credit card. The getting into it was harder than the work. For the last year I have been working with Helen, my ADHD coach. Not to 'get more done' to build the routines, processes and workflows that keep the company of one upright. It is the first time I have started to win that war. ## The boring fix Over the summer, I dug deeper into my ADHD report and found that I can only successfully hold a few things in my working memory at the same time. All my life I have forgotten the most important thing and could never understand why. So many days I set off with eighty-eight things on my to-do list and thought it would all work out. But I can either walk around allowing this shit show to carry on, or I can use everything at my disposal to rebuild my operating system. But I have gone back to the days when I was a chef, or line cook depending on who ran the place, a bartender and waiter. Over the last few months, I have been asking what I need to do to work like a line cook, instead of trying to be a rock star doing a space jump covered in glitter. The last few months have been my self-imposed Groundhog Day. Doing the same thing, it blows up and then I get up and get further, no new things. Routine, repetition, building foundations. Prince had a song on *Graffiti Bridge* in 1990 called "Joy in Repetition." I think about that line all the time. He also gave us, "Don't wait for your neighbour, green eggs and ham", but I digress. I've been using VoiceNotes to document my tiny actions and days like a scientist, so I can uncover the landmines and blocks. It is fucking excruciating. I add it all to a board in [Eden](https://eden.so/r/berniejmitchell?ref=berniejmitchell.com) and mine it for a recap, then send it to Gemini Notebook and make a podcast that I listen to the second I wake up to remind me of myself, like Guy Pearce in Memento. I don't know if this sounds fun or crazy to you, but it's working. Sometime over this summer it occurred to me that I have ADHD and I've spent a lifetime building haphazard coping mechanisms, some highly effective, some very destructive for me and the people close to me. I also resisted the urge to read every book on ADHD. Over the years I've read plenty. Instead I limit my intake to a few trusted people. I did the same with AI early on. I stick with a few people I trust rather than whatever Instagram serves up. For the last two months I've been using my beloved[ 750 Words](https://750words.com/?ref=berniejmitchell.com) to write only what happened the morning, afternoon and evening before. Then I pick one thing that "made the boat go faster", add it to VoiceNotes, and it lands on my board in [Eden](https://eden.so/r/berniejmitchell?ref=berniejmitchell.com). One of the more fun things I've done for this is taking over the food budget and cooking. I'm crap at money and great at cooking. I have built my day around making breakfast, lunch and dinner for my family and whoever else happens to be wandering through our apartment. I love cooking and hosting, and I thrive on the buzz of being a line cook. I'm playing a game of running a restaurant with unreasonable hospitality. This means I have to get it all done so it does not eat into my work time. I can't get distracted researching the history of Galician pork stew while I have ten podcasts in the can that need to be published. This role has my attention, and because we are all able to sit down and eat as a family at 3pm, it's Spain, school is done by 2pm, it has brought boundaries and containers to my day. It's routine, it's Groundhog Day, but my head is alive more than ever. And now I've stripped everything in my world down to email, YouTube, podcasting and one revenue model. I am down to the wire and the detail, the deep deliberate practice. ## One year on I also use the Talk Club app every day. It asks, "How are you, out of 10?" Some days I'm a 2 out of 10 and totally fucked, a total loser, how did I end up in this mess, rock and a hard place and the world collapsing. But when I look back across all the days, most of the time I'm a 7 or 8, and I've said why. Life isn't over. I've just had a shit day. I found Talk Club through Ewan at Contingent Works this time last year. When I asked what he got out of it, one of the first things he said was, "I stopped using Instagram." Not using social media, apart from a little LinkedIn, for a year has had a dramatic effect on my mental wellbeing. It's been a year since I got diagnosed. Working out how to reprogram myself is exhausting, inconvenient and letting go of very unsuccessful, but comforting coping mechanisms is oddly upsetting. But I feel more in touch with myself than ever. Constantly looking for what works, routine, flow and space rather than surprise, shock and uncertainty, has opened doors that have been shut since I was a child. --- ## **Bernie's Picks** - Join the waitlist for [Unreasonable Connection](https://coworkingvaluespodcast.eden.so/form/unreasonable-connection-2027-waitlist?ref=berniejmitchell.com) 2027 event series for coworking community builders. - RIP [Patrick Stewart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick%5FStewart?ref=berniejmitchell.com): [From the CBS archives: Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen](https://youtu.be/kFFDL2DhVgI?si=7q392rurjz8LI5wQ&ref=berniejmitchell.com) - [Fela Kuti: Fear No Man](https://highergroundmedia.com/podcasts-archive/felakutiaudible?ref=berniejmitchell.com) \- this podcast by Jad Abumrad about legendary Nigerian artist and activist Fela Kuti is one of the most incredible and inspiring things I've encountered for years. - [The Roaring Sisterhood: Free Live Event For Female Rage](https://luma.com/ayjw8ucq?ref=berniejmitchell.com) my good friend [Sangeeta](https://lnkd.in/p/d%5FJUWKHj?ref=berniejmitchell.com) is following up her book with a [podcast series](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-culture-that-hurt-me-will-heal-me-leaving-london/id1482206518?i=1000796459571&ref=berniejmitchell.com) exploring ancient Indian feminist wisdom to heal modern feminist issues, this online event is part of that narrative. - [Newsletters are cooked? Nah, our brains are being cooked by tech.](https://www.revenuerulebreaker.com/newsletters-are-cooked-nah-our-brains-are-being-cooked-by-tech/?ref=berniejmitchell.com) by Lex Roman. ###