This week I have been on vacation, and I although I've been burning the candle at both ends (going to bed late, knowing that our little boy would wake up early as he has been feeling poorly), I took a nap yesterday for 2 hours and felt like that fixed me up for a day or two. I really need to get more sleep. I am working on that, my dear ADHD-addled brain. Oh yes, I'm talking to you.
On the weekend, we went to Chapters books. I bought "ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life", by Judith Kolberg & Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D. This is quite possibly the awesomest (yes, I just wrote that) book I have read on ADHD self-help so far. I will get more into it in a few days, but I have spent two hours or so reading it, and picked up on a few great tips. It is a classic decluttering organization book, but written to an ADHD audience - noting tendencies and explaining how these disorganized habits relate to the ADHD brain. Oh yes, I'm working on you, dear brain.
I am actually really excited about this book - can't wait to read more of it tonight. While reading it, I have my notebook to take notes in, as the book seems to inevitably spark reminders in my head.
Prioritization of efforts is key to organizing a life wracked with ADHD (awesomest verb of the day). For example, you want to do First Things First, as opposed to doing thing based on a strategy of doing whatever occurs at the moment, etc... I've been doing that most of my life, or so it would seem.
I had a vacation day today, so was able to get quite a few things done at home. Here is my list as of 3:30 PM today:
- Fed the little boy in his highchair, played with him, and then changed his diaper and dressed him, and then my wife drove him off to daycare.
- Read some of my daily allotment of news in my Google Reader, and on my free HootSuite Twitter site.
- Scheduled a reoccurring weekday/daily reminder in my Google Calendar to stop browsing the internet by 7:45 am and shower, shave, prepare lunch and leave for work (a tip from my book).
- Decluttered boxes containing camping equipment. I am a bit of a pack-rat, and have decided that I store about 2 or 3 times more gear than I realistically will ever use. Great to think I can use a giant tin can for a cooking container over a fire, but I already have proper cooking equipment (etcetera, etcetera). Ideas are good but don't have to translate into physical clutter.
- Practiced on the guitar, and recorded it onto video to see how it sounded. Sounds better than I think it does while actually playing. Great use of time, huh (given that I had a bunch of priorities and this was NOT one of them)? I guess I'm allowed a bit of distraction - after all, it is my vacation.
- Sanded 2 rooms worth of walls that I PollyFilla-ed yesterday, and painted them.
- I disassembled my wife's office desk, after clearing all the materials out of it and placing it on the sofa, and put it in the garage, for eventual pickup by a charity truck. We're changing some things around in the house.
- Carried two large armchairs up from the basement, moved 2 side tables and a coffee table from the shed and moved them into the garage, for eventual pickup by a charity truck. Having done this, I got my workout for the day.
- I picked up my prescription of Strattera from the local pharmacist.
- While waiting to pick up my prescription, I thought over my earlier plan to go to the hardware store to buy some bark mulch for the garden, along with some bleach (for the house), but reconsidered because I recognized that this was not the best use of my time. Felt good I had prioritized, even though going to Home Depot is very stimulating and exciting - great for my ADHD brain. I'll go tomorrow instead - don't worry, brain.
- I washed my car, and the front section of the house, after locating the hose nozzle which I had been looking for a couple of months. It was in the garden, obscured by soil. Don't know how it got there! This was something not on my priority list. But it sure was fun.
- Put out the recycling into the garage.
- Showered and shaved.
- Vacuumed the room of the dust created by sanding.
- Vacuumed out the computer I removed from my wife's office, not on my priority list, but oh how easy it is for my brain to lead me astray./li>
- Answered the phone to realize I had missed a dentist appointment scheduled today for 1:30 pm. I had written down the scheduled time in Notepad on Windows, but literally a minute later we had a power blip (yesterday) which shut down my computer and erased the note. I ended up writing the wrong time down: 3:00 pm (I knew it had a 3 in it somewhere). I had scheduled my day madly today to get ready to leave in time for a 3:00 pm appointment. Lesson: Use paper or Google Calendar, and ensure that the appointment is saved. I then wrote down the new time (tomorrow at 8:00 am) again in Notepad on my computer - whoops. But I remembered about 10 minutes later and put it into Google Calendar. Phew. I guess I could have phoned the dentist this morning to confirm the time, but I was 90% certain the time I'd remembered after the power blip was correct. Shoulda trusted my instincts... :-)
- Installed Picasa 3.8 on my computer and spent some off-task time watching the face recognition software do its thing on several thousand images. I knew I was off task, but found it hard to pull myself way. Eventually did (shiny things, and all that).
- Ate a late lunch.
- Put cement caulking in the back step brick gaps, and then filled all the remaining gaps with sand to stop the interlock bricks from wobbling.
- Stopped to check e-mail.
- Wrote this post.
That's it for now - more on my new book soon. Buy it here if you'd like... I highly recommend it!
Cheers,
Mungo
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