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How can I organise daily tasks? · Wellbeing Solutions - Ask A Counsellor

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: When talking about organising daily tasks with neurodivergence, I think the key is remembering that our brains function a little bit differently and working with the tools we've got rather than the ones that we wish we had or the societal explan the societal expectations.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about organising daily tasks in a neurodivergent brain, sometimes I think we have to do things a little bit backwards because the instincts usually, what do I need to get done today?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we rush to make a list, to plan the day, to work through the tasks.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, particularly when our dopamine is already low, that approach can actually make everything feel harder because starting a task can create dopamine, there's a little reward in getting something moving, finishing something, or seeing progress.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But when we're already operating at low capacity by default, every additional task can also be interpreted by our nervous system as a demand.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing we have to initiate, another thing we have to manage, and eventually the to-do list feels like a threat.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So one strategy that I find quite helpful is something called the anti-to-do list, and the ethos of that essentially, instead of asking what do I need to do right now, we pause and ask, How do I need to feel right now?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We pause, we take a breath, we notice what our actual capacity is, not what our capacity should be.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: We explore what we can realistically do today with the attention, sensory capacity, and emotional bandwidth that we have.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answer is not very much, that's not a failure.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Capacity being low is information.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's information about what our system has available to give us right now.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when we treat information as a problem we have to overcome, we can end up pushing ourselves harder and harder and then wondering where we're burnt out and everything feels even more impossible.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we don't need to solve the low capacity, we need to adapt to it because we still feel how we feel.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're exhausted, you're exhausted, if you're overwhelmed, you're overwhelmed, if you're overstimulated, you're overstimulated.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can judge ourselves for that, but that just adds shame on top of how we're already feeling.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of asking, how can I force myself through that?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We can ask what would help me come back towards capacity.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, maybe that's a sensory break, maybe it's emotional regulation, maybe it is just grounding ourselves in our needs.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then, if there's room, we choose one small thing, not the whole list, one thing, something small enough that starting it doesn't require us to become a completely different person because we can build capacity, and this is where the trick is with organization as a neurodivergent person because a lot of the time structure is really good for us, but a very tight neurotypical structure is going to be something that causes overwhelm.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we need a few anchor points that we build around.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, to get those, we don't begin with what can I get done, we begin with what do I need, and then we ask what is possible in line with that.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to create conditions where our brains and bodies have enough safety, energy, and capacity to participate in our own lives.