November 24, 2008
Free “Productive Magazine” Download
I found this link on Lifehacker. I haven’t read it all, but it looks good so far, so I thought I’d pass it on:
June 26, 2008
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 »
June 22, 2008
Blogs & News as a Reward
I’m reading the book called “Find Your Focus Zone” by Lucy Jo Palladino right now. It’s a good book, and I’ll post a full review of it when I’m done with it.
It is helping me realize that a lot of the things I do right now to help me keep my focus – like lots of short breaks to check my blogs – are good things that can help keep me on track while working, even though to others it may seem like a diversion.
I know that one of my biggest time wasters in life right now is reading blogs – not that blogs are a waste, but that first thing in the morning, I spend up to an hour just browsing the internet and “getting ready to work”. So, from now on, I’m going to use that desire to stay on top of the latest news as a motivator – I will only get to read my blogs after I accomplish something on my to-do list, and my Remember the Milk to-do list will now be my homepage instead of iGoogle with all of my blog feeds.
Then, each time I accomplish something, I can read a couple the blogs I enjoy for 15 minutes, then I’ll have to get back to work.
I’ll let you know in a few days if this strategy for defeating some of my procrastination helps! If you have little strategies like this that have been successful for you, please post in the comments!
June 18, 2008
ADD & Clothing
I have what I’d call a medium number of clothes. Not a ton, but my drawers are full. I realized the other day that I probably only wear about 25% of my clothes, and I spend a lot of time sifting through the other 75% of my clothing looking for the 25% I want to wear. And the only time the other 75% gets worn is when I haven’t done laundry in a while! (Which does happen fairly often)
Does anyone else have this issue? I didn’t even realize it was an issue until I had to try on 3 pairs of jeans that didn’t fit before getting to a wearable pair today.
I’ve gained about 10 lbs in the last year, mostly in my stomach and thighs, so it really affects how my jeans fit. However, I don’t want to throw away my smaller jeans because I plan to lose weight – but as you know from my other posts, exercise is one of the first things I tend to procrastinate!
ADDers tend to be messy and be “pack-rats”, right? I think that applies to my messy clothes collection. Sometimes I go weeks without being able to find a certain shirt, only to find it in the bottom of the laundry basket of clean clothes sitting next to my dresser because the t-shirt drawer is too full to unload the basket, or because I don’t like going through my drawers looking for clothes when it’s easier to leave them in the basket, then dump it out onto the bed when I need them. It would probably be even easier to have organized drawers!
So I have another big plan – I’m going to clear out all of the clothes I don’t like or that really don’t fit, and give them away, and only save my few favorite pairs of smaller pants for if I actually do lose weight, and clear out the rest. There’s no reason for me to have 10 pairs of pants in my drawer if only 5 fit! Same goes for the shirts, shorts, etc. – I think I can get rid of about half of my wardrobe. (A lot of it is old t-shirts I save for “memories” but I decided to put them in a box and maybe make a blanket out of them one day instead of filling up my t-shirt drawer with size S shirts from 8 years ago…)
I also decided I’m going to stop unbuttoning my jeans when I’m sitting around the house. Maybe if I’m uncomfortable in my clothes, I’ll be more likely to exercise and lose weight and less likely to want to spend money on new pants that are bigger…. or I might just be more likely to walk around the house in pajama pants all day :)
Either way, I’m going to organize my clothes and get on track to lose a size and fit back into the ones I wore last summer! I’ll save money, be forced to do laundry regularly, be healthier, and be less cluttered that way!
June 8, 2008
Why I failed at Goal #2, Plus new plan
Almost exactly a year ago, I made some goals for myself when starting this blog. Of couse, as with most things in my life, I eventually got off track, stopped using my progress chart, and stopped meeting my daily goals. I’m not sure which came first – Did I stop using my progress chart because I wasn’t meeting my goals and got discouraged? Or did I stop meeting my goals because I wasn’t regularly using my progress chart to keep track of everything? I don’t know, and I’m not going to worry about it. I’ll just try again!
So, I thought I’d analyze why I failed at a simple goal: Take Omega-3 supplements every day.
Here are a few possible reasons:
- I had put my vitamins by my computer so I’d be reminded to take them daily. They were by my computer in the basement, which I didn’t use every day, and now rarely use. One of my supplements (GABA) is still down there somewhere.
- The rest of the vitamins are in my cabinet in the kitchen – out of sight, out of mind, right? I only remember to take them about 2-3 times per week, if that.
- I really don’t like swallowing pills, especially large ones like the GNC vitamins.
- I have amassed several different types of vitamins, and have a hard time keeping track of which ones I took when, so then I just don’t take any for a while. I would like to rotate between: GNC Women’s Ultra Mega Vitamins, CitriCal (Calcium Citrate + Vitamin D), and Centrum (chewable multivitamin for when I don’t feel like swallowing the GNC ones), and also take Omega-3s every day.
So, I figured a good way to make sure I take at least one multivitamin and one Omega-3 supplement a day would be to use a pillbox. I looked on Amazon since I had a gift certificate, and I saw this cool one: http://www.amazon.com/Apex-Pocket-Med-Pack-Tray/dp/B000EGN1A6/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1212917207&sr=8-1
It’s handy because I can fill up the little pods at the beginning of the week and know whether I took a vitamin yet today, as well as exactly how many vitamins I’ve taken over the week. I can also take one of the little pods with me to go, in case I want to take one when I eat a meal at the office, or if I take a trip somewhere I don’t have to take a little baggie of vitamins that all get all dusty from each other and nasty looking like last time I went on vacation.
Anyway, just thought I’d share my new plan. When the little pill thingy arrives in the mail, I’ll post a picture of it with my vitamins. (Note: the containers would also be handy for those of you on medication.)
January 6, 2008
New Source of Exercises
Hi!
Well, I’m not really “back”, but I had a few spare minutes and thought I’d share something new with you. I know that physical health is definitely related to ADD and mental well-being in general, so I decided to join the millions of other people with a New Year’s resolution of “Get In Shape”.
I’m not really overweight, though I could stand to lose 5 lbs in my mid-section (especially after reading the previous post by Joan about waist-to-hip ratio… when I gain weight, it’s always around my tummy, and I have a really flat butt!), but I do want to gain some muscle tone and get back to the shape I was in a few years ago.
Problem is, back then I had a great college dining hall (yes, my school had delicious and healthy food), with fresh salads and seasoned veggies available at every meal that required no preparation from me, and I was in the college’s Tae Kwon Do club. With the easy healthy food that I didn’t have to shop for, wash, chop, etc. and with more time on my hands, I managed to have a pretty good diet. Lately, I’ve been eating pretty poorly, especially since there’s a convenient fast-food joint downstairs from my office that is open late when I’m working after-hours.
My main problem, though, is that I really had become sedentary over the last couple months. I used to attend rigorous hour-long Tae Kwon Do workouts 3 times a week. Now, I barely work out at all, and it’s showing. I have all of the normal excuses – I’m super-busy, I don’t want to pay for an expensive gym membership I probably won’t use, it’s too cold outside to take walks or ride a bike regularly, I’m tired after work and don’t want to go anywhere but home…. but now I found a solution that has been working for me for the past couple weeks: on-demand “free” cable workouts!
I put “free” in quotes, because I’m (over)paying for Comcast cable, and the on-demand service is part of the service package I have. I only recently discovered these workout videos because I thought the only on-demand things that were available were rental movies, or pay-per-view boxing fights. Boy, was I wrong! I finally looked through the menu, and there are “cable favorites” (re-run TV shows), older movies, and a ton of 10-30 minute exercise videos On-Demand at no extra cost! I can pause, rewind, etc. and play them any time I want! I don’t have to have buyers remorse after paying for a video in the store because if I don’t like the personality of the fitness guru, or the exercises they want me to do, I can just try another one! Yay! I’m so excited.
So, you ADDers out there that either 1) misplace rarely-used exercise DVDs, or 2) have energy late at night when the gyms are closed, or 3) have the excuses I had above, or 4) get bored doing the same exercises every day – check out your cable on-demand shows! You might come across the good selection of short workout videos that I did.
October 11, 2007
Back to GABAsics
OK, stupid title, I know. It just popped into my head and I couldn’t let it go.
Anyway, I just wanted to officially announce that I’m going to get back on schedule with my GABA and Omega-3 Fish Oil supplements. I didn’t really take them long enough before to know whether they were making a difference with my ADD symptoms, but all those things I was tracking on my Progress Chart did seem to be helping me, so it’s about time I stop looking at that bottle of supplements on my desk every day, and start using them.
I’ll let you know if I notice a difference!
September 11, 2007
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
August 31, 2007
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!
August 9, 2007
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!
Kick My ADD 