06.26.08
Completed a goal!
Yay, I finally cleaned out my closet and dresser, like I said I wanted to about a week ago.
I divided my wardrobe into ‘fits’, ’slightly small’, and ‘yeah right’ sizes. I got rid of everything in the ‘yeah right’ pile, because I’m never going to be under 110 lbs again like I was in high school (nor do I want to be), so anything that would be too tight to wear got put in the yard sale box.
I picked my favorite items in the ’slightly small’ pile, and stored them in a small box that can fit under my bed. Those are things I’ll be able to wear if I get in better shape like I’m planning to.
Then, in my ‘fits’ pile, I got rid of anything I really won’t wear. I also put 3 of of my 7 purses and 4 of my 12 pairs of shoes in the yard sale box. Most of my shoes are actually pretty worn and getting old, but if I get any new ones, I’ll be sure to eliminate a pair I have now. I don’t need that many shoes. I got rid of pair of heels that I really like, but that really hurt my feet, because if I keep them around I’ll wear them, but every time I wear them I regret it. I also got rid of a couple formal dresses that barely fit, and that there’s a slim chance I’ll ever wear. If a formal event comes up, I have 2 dresses I could choose from. I really have no need for the rest, and maybe some girl could use one of my old ones and get joy out of it and that would be much better than having it gather dust in my closet.
So, in total, I think I put at least 1/3 of the total items in my closet and dresser into the yard sale bag, and I put all of my winter sweaters in a storage bin in the basement. Now, I have fewer clothes to rummage through when I’m looking for something to wear, and my drawers all open and close easily!
This organization task is a big accomplishment for me, Read the rest of this entry »
04.23.08
Minor Achievement
OK, well I’m really only writing this because I need *someone* to share my minor success with… no one’s here at the office to celebrate, so I figured this type of achievement is an ADD-blog-worthy topic. I overcame a big obstacle in my quest to start exercising again (notice, it’s a quest just to get started, I’m sure you understand) – I rode my bike to work today!!
Google maps says it’s exactly 2 miles, and it is quite hilly. I walked my bike up the ‘big’ hill right outside my neighborhood (that scary hill was the biggest excuse for me not to ride, until my super-athletic sister said “Renee, you could just walk your bike up the hill.” – she disabled my biggest excuse! The nerve!), but I rode the rest of the way, stopping at the several intersections in-between.
I rode on the sidewalk, which is actually illegal here, but I’m too afraid to ride in the street on a small highway – even with a lot of intersections, cars go pretty fast on that road. I’ll leave the road-riding to my spandex-clad tour-de-france-in-training aerodynamic-helmeted friends. It would be funny if I rode an aerodynamic helmet, riding my brakes all the way down the steep hills.
So anyway, all winter I said I’d get outside and exercise when it got warm, then during the last couple weeks when it started warming up, I felt so lazy from being a bum all winter, that it was hard to get started. So, I thought I’d start big, and I made it!
I am in an upbeat mood now, and feel focused, so I think I’ll be able to get a lot done today. I’ve heard exercise helps ADD, and I’ve posted about it before (see the Exercise category), so in addition to helping me get fit, maybe this is the start of a new round of ADD self-treatment, too.
Now let’s hope I can get back home….
11.18.07
Busy Busy
I just wanted to let you all know that I’m not planning to ditch this blog and I won’t be gone forever… I’ve just been having a tough time managing all of my work lately and I’m spending more time than usual on business tasks because of an increased workload. The “Kick My ADD” blog has just been bumped down on my priority list until either my life becomes less hectic, or I become better at handling the workload! The good news is that my income has increased! Other good news is that once I am able to start posting again, I should have a lot of material based on “real life” ADD issues, since Lord knows I’ve been struggling with them!
Thanks for your understanding, and I do appreciate those of you that continue to post responses on my past posts.
If anyone is interested in “guest posting” while I’m gone, feel free to post a comment and let me know what topic you’d like to write about!
10.04.07
Good and Bad News
Well, the bad news is that I haven’t been sticking to my progress charts, I haven’t been taking my vitamins regularly, and I haven’t been posting as often lately.
The good news is that I’m very busy because my business is doing very well and I have a lot of projects to manage. This is definitely an ADD challenge!
Hopefully I’ll be able to post more in the near future, but I wanted to give you an update on why my visits here have been more infrequent.
09.11.07
Blog Success Milestones
Well, just a few months into this blog and we’re achieving some milestones I want to celebrate!
Visits per week for the last 13 weeks
- KickMyADD is about to hit 2,000 visitors! Yay!
- KickMyADD is the “featured blog” for the ‘adhd’ WordPress tag! (What makes that happen?)
- If you search for ’supplement adhd’ (in that order) on Google, KickMyADD comes up on the first page! If you search for ‘goal setting and adhd’, KickMyADD is #2! (Thanks for the heads-up, blog stats page.)
- And most importantly…. I am still doing this blog after several months! I thought it may either be a flop and no one would visit, or I’d get bored and stop posting after a little while. But neither has happened and KickMyADD is still going strong!
Please post any feedback or suggestions for KickMyADD blog in the comments!
Truce
OK, this is a major development for me and I’m very happy about it:
My partner in business, life, and love told me yesterday that he has realized how hard it could be for me to do little things that he thinks should be easy (like grocery shopping and cooking), so he will take the pressure off of me and stop stressing me out by being so strict about doing these tasks “right”. This is a HUGE relief to me, and I am trying to use this opportunity to be better to him – to listen to him more since I see he has been listening to me.
Here are some shopping- and cooking-related things we have argued about in the past:
- I bring home the wrong brand of something and it tastes bad
- I forget to write something on the list that I think I’ll remember (like milk) and forget it
- I pick up things that I think we need and end up going to the cash register and having to put groceries on my credit card because I bought more than planned and didn’t have enough cash with me
- I forget to put something on at the right time while cooking a meal, so everything’s done except one side dish that will take another 20 minutes to cook while everything else gets cold
- I ruin some part of a meal because I wasn’t paying attention to it
Basically, I mess up with food a lot, and he is pretty picky about his food. So, I think this “truce” will be a big help to me, because I think the stress of thinking I’m going to do something wrong causes me to mess up more instead of less. So, with this pressure off, and knowing that a mistake won’t turn into a big argument, hopefully I’ll have better shopping experiences and remember more since I’m not so stressed about getting something wrong. Hopefully I can cook better, too, since I won’t be stressed out feeling like I’m about to get a disappointed look from him when the meal is served. (It’s stressful enough for me to try to coordinate making the meal, without the added pressure of worrying that I’ll get fussed at about it later!)
Without any direct prompting from me, he recognized what a stress this has been on me and promised to lighten up about it, and acknowledged that maybe my ADD makes things harder on me than he originally thought, and that I’m not just making excuses. What a man!!
On other related cooking notes, here’s a cool link to a new “ADD-Friendly” cooking site from the creator of Jeff’s A.D.D. Mind: Jeff the ADD Chef
09.08.07
Update on Folder System
OK well it’s been 8 days that I’ve been using the folder system. So far, it hasn’t really helped me get any more done in a day, but it has helped majorly in other ways:
- My desk has about half as much clutter as it would this long after I last cleared it since the papers are all in the folders
- I find I can avoid hyperfocusing at the expense of an urgent task (which I sometimes do for fear of fogetting something later) by dropping a note to myself in the folder for a more appropriate day to focus on a task
- I have a “tactile” feel for how many different tasks I’ll need to think about in a day based on how many slips of paper are in a folder. I also can put off a task for another day without fear of forgetting it by just moving the slip of paper.
It’s a good feeling to get just a little more organized, enough that it makes a small but noticeable difference. I recommend the 31-day folder method!
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…
