For individuals managing ADD, learning to manage time can be an ongoing challenge. Professional organizers and ADD coaches often encourage the use of timers to make sure hyper-focus doesn’t cause the swallowing of hours and hours of time scheduled for something else.
Here’s an idea I created for a young client whose tremendous creativity sent me searching for an alternate timing device. Create a set of playlists for yourself on your mp3 player for various lengths of time. One might be 5 Min Playlist, another 10 Min Playlist etc. When you have a task to complete or a job that you need to focus for a designated time, plug in and turn on your playlist that matches that period of time. It may take a couple of attempts before you figure out the genre of music that works for a 10 minute end-of-day-get-stuff-off-the-floor task versus a 30 minute I-really-have-to-enter-in-my-expenses-today-if-i-want-to-be-reimbursed-this-month type task.
Have fun with it – its a perfect personalized tool to support your time management.
Archive for AD/HD
If you or someone you know/love struggles to organize under with ADD then this is the book for you. ADD-Friendly ways to Organize your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, is even written to hold the attention – but not the hyper focus – of individuals with ADD.
It’s seven chapters, including one with further Resources, are chock full of information, strategies, suggestions and ways to adopt new behaviours to make your life the organized world you desire. This book has been written in a light-hearted vein but addresses the seriousness of disorganization in the world that individuals with ADD know so well. Solutions are broken down into those that you tackle by yourself and those that require additional support from friends or professional sources.
Even if you don’t struggle to organize with ADD, but are looking for a book full of strategies that have been proven to work for organizationally-challenged individuals, you will find this one a good read and a helpful manual.
Managing the behaviour and characteristics of a packrat is a common reason that professional organizers are called by clients. Packrat behaviour is seen equally often at the office as it is in the home. The only difference is that at the office, there may be someone in a position of authority reminding you to keep your workspace in a professional state. The following behaviours and characteristics, modified from a list developed by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau in ADD-Friendly ways to Organize your Life, may be familiar to you because of your own life or perhaps the life of someone around you:
- You hang on to things that you, or anyone else, hardly ever uses;
- You eagerly collect items regardless of whether you need them;
- You refuse to part with items because you think you will use them someday (but can’t remember the last time you used it);
- You consider yourself a packrat;
- Your workspace or home is so cluttered it is hardly functional;
- You have difficulty making decisions about objects.
Sound familiar? The following strategies may help you get started on a healthier path.
- Try the “two for one” policy when bringing new things into your environment. If you bring a new book into your home, commit to removing two books already there that you can’t remember the last time you touched.
- Ask someone you trust, a clutter companion, to commit to a day of clearing out. It will probably take more than one session but you will find even starting will be very rewarding.
- Clear a sorting table so that you have a clear space at waist height in which to sort. You will find this easy on your back and the sorting will feel easier.
- Choose items of better quality and let the quantity of objects diminish. If you find 4 staplers, keep the best one.
- Play the Friends, Acquaintances, Strangers game. Objects that feel like friends can stay. Acquaintances may or may not stay depending on their timeliness and utility. The strangers leave your space.
- Establish and maintain a commitment to yourself to live in a healthier lifespace. You deserve it.
Managing the behaviour and characteristics of a packrat may be something you assume that professional organizers focus on mostly with residential clients. The reality is that packrat behaviour is seen equally often at the office. The following behaviours and characteristics, modified from a list developed by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau in ADD-Friendly ways to Organize your Life, may be familiar to you because of your own life or perhaps the life of someone around you:
- You hang on to things that you, or anyone else, hardly ever uses;
- You eagerly collect items regardless of whether you need them;
- You refuse to part with items because you think you will use them someday (but can’t remember the last time you used it);
- You consider yourself a packrat;
- Your workspace (or home) is so cluttered it is hardly functional;
- You have difficulty making decisions about objects.
Sound familiar? The following strategies may help you get started on a healthier path.
- Try the “two for one” policy when bringing new things into your environment. If you bring a new book to your office, commit to removing two books already there that you can’t remember the last time you touched.
- Ask someone you trust, a clutter companion, to commit to a day of clearing out your workspace. It will probably take more than one session but you will find even starting will be very rewarding.
- Clear a sorting table so that you have a clear space at waist height in which to sort. You will find this easy on your back and the sorting will feel easier.
- Choose items in your workspace of better quality and let the quantity of objects diminish. If you find 4 staplers, keep the best one.
- Play the Friends, Acquaintances, Strangers game. Objects that feel like friends can stay. Acquaintances may or may not stay depending on their timeliness and utility related to your or your company’s strategic goals. The strangers leave your space.
If you suffer from ADD you may be all to well aware of the dangers of hyperfocus when you get into a project. Four hours after starting, you pull your head out of the project to find that your family will be home for dinner in 5 minutes and you were planning to shop for groceries before the end of the day. Meanwhile, the project at hand is spread across the dining room table. Sound familiar?
Consider keeping a time tamer alarm close at hand for these situations. Set the alarm for 45 minutes to an hour. When the alarm goes off, get up from where you are working, walk around, get a drink to stay hydrated. After 5 minutes or so return to the task at hand and reassess the degree of focus you have given based on your objectives for the time you have to work.
Remember to reset the alarm before you return to work.
