08.31.07
Something Else New – 31 Folders
OK, so I admit I can’t wrap my head around the whole GTD thing (well, I haven’t even tried to) and I’ve heard of the 43 folders system before and thought “wouldn’t that be nice” but never tried it. I didn’t want to complicate things.
However, after some very-nearly-almost late bills and knowing I have 2 more projects being added to my always-growing list of work projects, I figured I better put a system in place now. I mentioned my “customized planner” before, and haven’t yet finalized how it looks and works, so I haven’t uploaded the excel file yet (though I have been using it for more than a week at a time, which is an improvement!). I’ve also mentioned my Bible reading plan and haven’t yet been able to start on that.
One of my primary goals with this folder system is to focus on a small amount of projects every day (like 2) and have defined work tasks each day, instead of being overwhelmed to the point of being frozen by the large stack of papers from 8 different concurrent projects each day.
You may be wondering why I, a self-professed computer geek, am not using a PDA or Google Calendar to manage this. Here’s the answer: they haven’t worked for me so far. I forget to put a task into the software to be reminded about it, or I get all gung-ho and put everything in all at once, then forget to take it with me or check my email by a certain time each day to see the email reminder or whatever. For whatever reason, software doesn’t help me much.
So, here’s my plan for how I’m going to start with the 31 folders. Hopefully, I can keep this up an grow the system more later.
1) Get 31 folders, 1 for each day of the month (After I decided to do this system, I found a pack of unused folders in my business parter’s old file cabinet with folders pre-labeled 1 through 31! neat!) There are supposed to be 43, but I’m starting out small here.
2) When a bill comes in the mail, immediately drop it into the folder numbered a few days before it has to be mailed.
3) Make index cards for the following and put them in the corresponding folders
- When an invoice should be created to bill a client for work I’ve done (approx. every 2 weeks)
- When a bill is regularly due
- When a gift or other item needs to be bought or mailed
The cool thing about that is if a bill is due on the same day each month, I can leave it in the folder and be automatically reminded on the day the next month.
4) Put tasks on slips of paper (including Bible reading chapters) and put them in the folder. If a certain task doesn’t get done, it gets dumped into the next day’s folder and the current day’s folder gets moved to the next month stack.
Putting each task on it’s own piece of scrap paper will help with a problem I have of making long lists, then finishing most of the list, then letting the remaining 1 or 2 items on the list go undone when the list gets buried in a pile of stuff. Now, if one item doesn’t get done, I just drop it in the next folder.
This should also help by getting papers I don’t want to forget, but don’t need for a few days, off of my desk – hopefully avoiding creating piles of things and combating the “out of sight, out of mind” problem. Now, the thing I need should pop into view when I need it and not all the time! (won’t that be a nice change!)
Anyway, I’ll update if I do more with it, but that’s what I’m starting with for now. Time to put my Mountain Stream sounds on and get back to work!
08.29.07
Something New – White Noise
So I know I probably shouldn’t be trying something new when I haven’t even been able to get back into my old pre-vacation “daily goals” yet, but that’s how I am…. I see something new and I want to try it now! I guess that’s an ADD thing.
OK so my new thing to try is white noise/sounds to block stuff out in order to get more work done.
I used to only be able to study or sleep in college if there was music on. I haven’t been listening to music while working lately because my new music player of choice is on Pandora Radio where I can hear all kinds of new songs. I can’t recommend it enough - I just love Pandora! The problem with it, though, is that the new songs and the Pandora interface of thumbs up/thumbs down keep all of my attention – which is great when I’m just listening to music, but not great when I’m supposed to be using the music to keep out distractions.
What worked in college was listening to music that I knew and loved and not adding any new songs to my “work playlist”. That way, the music was familiar and soothing and not distracting.
So, what I’m trying now is to have a “work sound” that I use all the time when I’m in work mode so other noises and thoughts are less distracting and my brain can focus on the sound. The one I chose to try first is a mountain river. Kind of an aggressive water noise with some minimal bird noises in the background. I chose this because I used to go camping near a river in a forest as a kid, and my house was also in the woods, so woodland sounds and rivers are relaxing to me. You may prefer ocean sounds, or just plain white noise (which is available at several frequencies and tones on iTunes).
On iTunes, it’s called “The Sound of Streams: A Mountain Stream 3″. I’ll let you know after a few days of getting used to it if it’s helping me focus any better.
Have you ever tried using a white noise machine or something similar? Let us know how it worked out in the comments!
08.27.07
Progress Chart Update
OK well since I stopped using the progress chart over vacation (in July), then re-started and failed to maintain it a few times now, I think it’s time to start totally from scratch. 3 people in my family are either teachers or students and start school tomorrow, so my whole schedule is going to change anyway. I will attempt to put together a new chart this week and upload it soon.
I’m also in the progress of reading “Women with Attention Deficit Disorder” by Sari Solden, so I will write a little review of that soon when I’m done reading it. One interesting thing I learned that I’ll have to do some more reasearch on is the relationship between dopamine and ADD and estrogen/hormones.
Just wanted to give a quick update – and so this isn’t a totally useless post, here’s a link to another blog I just found that is also linking back to me: Jeff’s ADD Mind
08.20.07
Messy
It’s a sad day when you forget to do something because you didn’t see your newly-organized organizer because it was under a big pile of papers! Ugh….
Here are a few links with organizational ideas that recently showed up in WordPress tag surfer…
http://blooming.wordpress.com/2007/08/18/declutter-your-desk/
http://apronlady.wordpress.com/2007/08/19/organizing-keepsake-schoolwork/
http://addledacademic.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/the-master-task-list/
P.S. Wouldn’t you love for your desk to get organized this beautifully? (click on more images on that page for great pics)
08.16.07
New Organizational Tool – The PocketMod
Well, today I had a big argument with someone, and it was a backtrack since I thought I’d been doing better about causing huge blow-up arguments. So, to make myself feel better, I decided to improve another part of my life: date planner organization/finances.
I’ve been using a decent planner called Time:Master, but it’s an academic-year planner and ran out recently. Instead of buying a new planner, I decided to try a new method that will hopefully help me pay my bills on time, etc.
I will post in the future how I made my planner and why I made certain choices and hopefully a picture of it.
Today, however, I’m posting about my new ”backup planner” idea. The planner I made is in a large 3-ring binder, and sometimes it’s not handy, I don’t want to bring it with me (like to dinner), or I just plain forget to bring it along. Another problem I have is not writing down my checking account transactions (especially debit card) and causing bank account problems. So, I found a way to get a handle on both problems:
The PocketMod. 
It’s a little thingy you design online, then fold up like origami, and it turns into a little 6-page pocket-sized booklet! All it takes is one piece of paper to print it out.
So, my pocket mod has a weekly calendar on the front page, a finance page (for tracking debit card transactions) on the second page, folding instructions in the middle (which I won’t need every time!), two lined pages for notes, a shopping list page, a “cover” page which is on page 5 for me, and the back cover is a 2007 calendar. Handy!
So my plans with this are to print one out every week, then keep it in my purse and jot stuff down on it when I don’t have my full-size planner on me, then “sync” it with my full-size planner (hopefully I’ll remember to do this often) and voila! A back-up planner!
Now I just have to make sure I keep a pen with me at all times! I need one of those mini keychain pens…
08.15.07
Celebrating 1000 blog visits!
We’ve had over 1,000 visits to the blog already! Yay!
To celebrate, let’s check out the positive aspects of ADHD. Here is an article with a list:
http://web4health.info/en/answers/adhd-positive-aspects.htm
I’d like to think some of my own positive traits are: creative, forgives easily, open-hearted. I see ‘good judge of character’ in the list from the article, and people tell me I have that trait, too. My sister always wants to introduce me to her boyfriends to see if I get any negative vibes!
Share some of your positive traits (because of – or in spite of - having ADHD) in the comments!
08.13.07
Organization Ideas from other ADDers
Well I’m totally hyper and can’t focus on work right now. I was just browsing Adults_ADD livejournal and came across this post about someone else with organizational problems:
http://community.livejournal.com/adults_add/652426.html?view=6375818
The other people in the community have some great ideas, including using colorful flower pots to organize stacks of things into categories, and another idea of trading houses with a friend and cleaning each other’s spaces up! Genius! It’s like “Trading Spaces” on TV, but with clutter instead of decorating.
Don’t you find it so much easier to organize for someone else? I could literally be a professional organizer since I have a creative side and lots of ideas for storing things away in a pretty and efficient manner, but just can’t do it with my own stuff. I feel the need to have everything “out” so I can visualize what part of a room it’s in instead of in drawers, but if someone else would put it all away for me, that could work! At least the place would “look” cleaner every once in a while.
Post any other organizational ideas you have in the comments!
P.S. I haven’t tried it out myself, but someone in the Livejournal community recommends Mozilla Sunbird for calendar organization.
08.09.07
Blast From the Past Exercise Videos
I found some exercise videos on Google Video (YouTube) that my gym teacher used to make us do in class. They’re really “old school”, which you can tell by the music, outfits, and the lead guy’s reference to women wearing shoulder pads!
However, they are only 8 minutes long and the exercises change about every 30 seconds – perfect for my ADD brain. You can’t get bored with an exercise before the next one starts! So, I just finished “8 minute Abs” and “8 minute Arms” and bookmarked the rest. I haven’t watched all of them, so let me know if any of the videos are messed up.
Here are the links:
New Goal (Daily Goal #4): Set aside time for my spiritual life
I consider myself to be a fairly spiritual person (though not as calm and peaceful as I’d like to be) and I have strong Christian beliefs. My desire to be peaceful is one of the driving forces in my quest to manage my ADD.
So, I’ve decided to add another daily goal: to read at least one chapter from the New Testament of the Bible daily, and to meditate/pray every day for at least 5 minutes. To a “non-ADD” person, meditating may come easily, but for me it’s a struggle to clear my mind and sit still at all, so 5 minutes is my initial goal. Hopefully, that time can increase in the near future.
It’s sad to me that I have to write this on a list to remember to do it, since I want to put God first in my life, but my mind wandering all around makes that difficult. I’m hoping that by “forcing” myself to do it for a while, that I’ll get used to it being a daily thing, and the benefits of calming myself regularly and having a better relationship with God will become apparent.
I’ve thought about adding meditation to my daily routine for a while, but it was actually this article about kids with ADD and Tai Chi that helped me finally decide to do it: http://www.massagemag.com/Magazine/2003/issue101/research101.3.php
And here is a related article with additional “Stress-Busters”: http://add.about.com/od/adultadd/a/stress.htm
If you use any meditation or spiritual methods for dealing with your ADD, please comment!
End of Vacation Report
Hello Everyone!
I’m back home and ready to settle into the daily routine again. I kept forgetting that the vitamins I brought were in my suitcase pocket, so I only took my supplements a few days while on vacation.
I don’t think I did too well with being a pleasant person while on vacation. There were some problems with our condo (namely, deafening construction at 8:30AM) and I was somewhat moody from not getting enough sleep. We got a huge discount for the trouble, and decided to stay in the condo. Though we had planned to be out each day when construction was going on, everyone in the group was a night owl and no one else found the construction disturbing enough to have to leave the room, so I ended up being the only one sleep-deprived and ended up sleeping on a lounge chair at the pool a couple mornings.
I was told by my closest friend that I complain too much and cause arguments (which I already knew). I thought I was doing OK with complaining, since I complained A LOT less than I wanted to (I really held back) but it wasn’t enough and I was still a pain to be around. :(
I think that when I feel that I’m not in control of the situation and I’m out-voted, that I have trouble doing things other people’s way. I believe it stems from the trouble I have functioning in everyday life, and the need to be in control comes from my own need to feel like I have some control over myself and my situation to feel sane.
Anyway, I’m babbling now. Overall, we had a great trip. I just hope everyone else remembers the good times we had and not what a pain in the butt I apparently was.
