10/08/2026
Real estate agents with ADHD, if getting started feels harder than ever lately, you're not imagining it.
The market has slowed way down. Home sales are at their lowest point since 1995, and 75% of agents say homes are taking longer to sell than they did last year. When things were moving fast, the urgency kept you going. Now there's no fire to put out, so nothing pushes you to start.
But the work is still there. Listing appointments to prep for. CMAs to pull. Photos to schedule, descriptions to write, sellers waiting on their weekly update. And that price-reduction talk you've been "getting to" since August.
On the buyer side, it's consultations, agreements, MLS searches, showings, offers, chasing the lender, and checking in on the buyers who went so quiet you're starting to wonder if they moved to another state.
So you sit down to work, and an hour later you've cleaned out your inbox, rearranged your desktop, and somehow read three reviews of standing desks. The important stuff hasn't moved.
That's not you being lazy. For a brain with ADHD, starting is usually the hardest part, and a slow market makes it even tougher.
A few things that really help:
Make the first step ridiculously small. Don't tell yourself "write the listing description." Just open the document and type the address.
Get a timer you can actually see, and leave your phone out of it. You know how it goes: you grab your phone to set a timer and suddenly it's been two hours. A kitchen timer or a visual timer on your desk works so much better. Set it for 10 minutes, and give yourself permission to stop when it goes off. You probably won't.
Use sticky notes for reminders. On your laptop, your bathroom mirror, your dashboard. Before you wrap up tonight, write tomorrow's first task on one and stick it on your keyboard.
Turn on music you love. If Beyoncé gets that CMA done, she's part of the team now.
Make boring tasks less boring. Go work at a coffee shop, use the fancy pen, or race the clock.
Move a little. Take a walk, stretch, or pace while you make calls.
Start with something you're excited about. That little win carries over into everything else.
And if you're completely drained, rest. Really rest, without the guilt. Pushing through when you're empty almost never works.
One more thing, and it's a big one: when you get it done, celebrate. Then tell someone about it. Your best friend, your partner, the agent at the next desk. Even "I finally sent that seller update" deserves a little happy dance.
I saw this play out with an agent I worked with recently. She'd been meaning to send video messages to her past clients for weeks, but every time she sat down to record, she found something else to do. Once she finally got started, she sent a few short video texts, and three past clients wrote back. All three told her they're planning to buy or sell in the next six months.
Three future deals, sitting there the whole time, just waiting for her to hit record.
That's exactly the kind of work I love doing. I'm Yoana Nin, an ADHD coach, and I also run The Prosperous Agency, a real estate company that's been in business since 2012. Most of the agents I work with are already successful. From the outside, they look like they've got it all together. But they've hit a wall, and keeping up that front is wearing them out.
If that sounds like you, I'd love to talk. You can book a free discovery call at yoananincoaching.com, call me at 919-337-8615, or email [email protected].
And tell me in the comments: which tip are you trying first?
