Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 260: Time Traps and Your ADHD Brain: From Wasting to Action

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260: Time Traps and Your ADHD Brain: From Wasting to Action · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  I want to dig into the concept of time today.
• 0:05
  How many times have you thought to yourself, obviously, I can't keep my house
• 0:13
  together because I have no time.
• 0:16
  And you, depending on your current stage in life, fantasize about when the kids
• 0:23
  start going to preschool a couple hours, twice a week, And you just think,
• 0:28
  that sounds like so much time.
• 0:30
  I can't wait until I get to that phase because I'm going to knock things out
• 0:35
  that I'm just so excited to get done around this house.
• 0:38
  And then you discover that time just disappears in a snap.
• 0:45
  And then you're like, well, it'll happen. I will get it together when all these
• 0:51
  kids are in regular school, right? The full school day.
• 0:56
  As soon as I have that kind of time, this house is going to get it.
• 1:01
  Like, I'll get it together then.
• 1:04
  And somehow, none of the things that you're wanting to get done ever seem to materialize.
• 1:12
  And you can't either figure out where that time is going, or you're beating
• 1:17
  yourself up because of all the time you were wasting.
• 1:20
  And as a person who is in their first year of empty nesting,
• 1:27
  I was still convinced that this, this would be the actual difference.
• 1:34
  Spoiler alert I am still not using my time wisely as they say so let's dig into this mystery of time,
• 1:48
  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its
• 1:54
  ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
• 1:58
  Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
• 2:04
  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
• 2:08
  I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
• 2:13
  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
• 2:17
  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
• 2:22
  then I'm glad you're here.
• 2:23
  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
• 2:29
  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
• 2:34
  I should start by saying hi, I'm Joy. Welcome or welcome back to the podcast.
• 2:38
  I started this podcast because of this exact topic,
• 2:44
  because I was so frustrated with myself about why and how I wasn't utilizing
• 2:51
  this gift of time that I suddenly had.
• 2:56
  And I saw it repeat itself over and over at different stages in my life.
• 3:01
  And I just, I thought, can I be the only one?
• 3:05
  Am I the only one frustrated at my inability to take action?
• 3:10
  Even when I'm actually excited about the things I think I'm going to be able to get done.
• 3:15
  I'm excited to finally tackle those things that I've been dreaming of,
• 3:21
  but I never had the margin to do before.
• 3:23
  And yet somehow, I'm still letting that time slip through my fingers.
• 3:29
  And so if any of that opening sounded like you or you have experienced that
• 3:34
  exact same thing, you likely are in the right place because you either know you have ADHD,
• 3:41
  believe you have ADHD, or believe you have some semblance of sort of ADHD tendencies
• 3:46
  in which somehow this gift that is supposed to be time is something that you're not receiving.
• 3:58
  Well, I guess I don't
• 4:01
  have the exact words to put around it other than I know we all feel the same
• 4:06
  frustration at what feels like our inability to take action when we have time
• 4:14
  and this frustrating lack of accomplishment in the midst of the time we do have.
• 4:21
  And so I just want to talk about what I think's going on and how to change, I guess, how to change.
• 4:34
  Second spoiler alert, not actually going to change us. I'm just going to change
• 4:39
  the way we peak at the time we have. So anyway, let's dig in.
• 4:44
  When you dig into the way the ADHD brain works, we know that urgency is a huge
• 4:53
  factor in what allows us to kick into actual action.
• 4:58
  And so interestingly enough, this time that we should see as a gift,
• 5:04
  this time that we covet and we can't wait until that phase in our life when
• 5:11
  we actually have this time,
• 5:13
  this great trap of discovering once we have it, our body,
• 5:19
  our brain or whatever we want to talk about doesn't kick into action because
• 5:26
  our brain doesn't see it as a gift.
• 5:28
  Our brain does not seek out unlimited time.
• 5:33
  Our brain sees it probably, in my fish analogy, as the chance to finally just drift.
• 5:43
  This moment where we can quit swimming upstream at everything in our life,
• 5:50
  and we've finally been given this gift to just pause and let the current just
• 5:55
  allow us to be. Think about that.
• 5:59
  Is that how you're spending this precious time just being still?
• 6:07
  And then you're so frustrated because you're like, if I could just utilize the
• 6:12
  time, if I could utilize it when I have it, that I wouldn't be so breakneck
• 6:17
  the whole rest of the time when I'm juggling 15 things all happening at once.
• 6:22
  Why, why, why will my brain not see the time as a chance to accomplish instead
• 6:29
  of a chance to let go and be still?
• 6:34
  Is this resonating? I would so love to hear feedback because there's so many
• 6:39
  times when I talk about topics and there isn't this direct feedback like other
• 6:44
  social mediums where I can see how you're feeling about it.
• 6:47
  But if you ever want to reach out to me, I'd love to hear from you.
• 6:50
  It's joy at joylovinghome.com is my email if you're ever wanting to just,
• 6:55
  speak back to me. I would love to hear your thoughts and to know that I'm not
• 7:01
  the only one that in those gifts of time,
• 7:05
  my brain and my body resists all action and is just,
• 7:12
  fighting to stay still.
• 7:14
  So what do we do? What are our options when our brain has to have that urgency.
• 7:22
  Sadly, we need to schedule, and I'm not talking about arbitrarily put stuff on calendars.
• 7:29
  Like, okay, I now know every Tuesday and Thursday my kids are at school from
• 7:34
  9 to noon, which really means after drop-off and getting back home,
• 7:38
  I really have 10 to 11 to work.
• 7:41
  So let me put on my calendar every Tuesday from 10 to 11, and every Thursday
• 7:46
  from 10 to 11, you know, clean the house, do a project, our brains know that's fake.
• 7:53
  Our brains know there is nobody that we're accountable to except ourselves,
• 7:57
  and we will not hold ourselves accountable for just putting it on the calendar.
• 8:03
  So we have to do actual, real, outside accountability in order to fix it.
• 8:11
  So I'm going to give you sort of a baby steps to bigger steps version of what
• 8:16
  you could do with this time that you may or may not know is coming.
• 8:21
  Well, you would have to know it's coming to do these outer accountability.
• 8:26
  So the minor little baby step is literally in one of your chaotic moments,
• 8:33
  start creating a list of the things that you could use outside help with.
• 8:38
  The handyman that you could hire for an hour to fix three different things around
• 8:42
  your house that are driving you crazy.
• 8:44
  The fact that your dryer has been on the fritz and you need to schedule the
• 8:50
  person to come out and actually do.
• 8:53
  Take care of it.
• 8:57
  You've been wanting to get a room painted.
• 9:00
  I don't know. I'm just thinking of outside perfect strangers that you can schedule
• 9:06
  into those moments because two things happen.
• 9:09
  One, you'll actually get the space they have to work in pulled together.
• 9:14
  I know our brains, and the reason I call this a baby step, is you'll get kind
• 9:18
  of panicky that a stranger is going to see your house.
• 9:20
  And then you'll start to do some things. And then somewhere along the way,
• 9:24
  you'll convince your brain that who cares? It's a stranger.
• 9:27
  They're never going to see me again. I'm never going to see them again.
• 9:29
  I don't care what they think of me or my house.
• 9:32
  And so you maybe do just enough, which is helpful.
• 9:37
  Anything is helpful. But the other thing it does is if you can schedule them
• 9:43
  to be there in that hour, and I know that's not always possible because with
• 9:47
  service people, you tend to get a four-hour window and you're like, great.
• 9:50
  But if you can get them to come in that window, then you will work on something while they're there.
• 9:59
  It is that phenomenon of body doubling.
• 10:02
  You don't have to be in the same space. You don't have to be speaking to them.
• 10:06
  You don't have to be doing anything resembling what they're doing.
• 10:10
  Just having another body in your house will have you up and doing something.
• 10:18
  Don't have the science behind that work, why that works, but it works.
• 10:23
  So that's the baby step. The next step up from that would be consider,
• 10:28
  even if it's once a month.
• 10:31
  Hiring and you could, when I say hiring a cleaning, cleaning people,
• 10:37
  the most gracious way to do this for yourself is to find an independent individual
• 10:43
  who you can start getting some comfort with and seeing if you can say,
• 10:50
  can I hire you for just an hour on Tuesdays so that give that person the task
• 10:59
  that maybe you dread the most.
• 11:00
  And it could be one Tuesday a month. It could be every other Tuesday.
• 11:04
  It could be every Tuesday if you can afford it and give them bathrooms or just the kitchen,
• 11:12
  but you will also work while they work and you have the added advantage that
• 11:16
  that space that they're working on cleans, gets clean.
• 11:21
  And then as you all work through this and you can speak to them,
• 11:26
  you can maybe expand on, okay, I love that the bathrooms are actually staying a little bit cleaner.
• 11:34
  Can I really work on keeping the floors up and maybe right before you leave,
• 11:38
  you vacuum or you can work amongst yourselves.
• 11:42
  But again, it's the added advantage of it being a repeat person.
• 11:47
  You want them to see the house slightly different than they saw it the week before.
• 11:50
  So you're pushed right before they get there to do a little something more than you've been doing.
• 11:56
  And then that body doubling extra.
• 11:58
  And then the most expensive entry point to this outside of accountability would
• 12:03
  be to hire an actual organizer that's going to help you maybe get more things out of your house.
• 12:09
  So one is, you know, upkeep, one is maintenance, and one is actual decluttering, which is.
• 12:17
  Is going to ascend in order of cost and benefits.
• 12:20
  So that's one way to actually start utilizing that time that you have.
• 12:26
  Another way, and again, I'm going to give you baby step through a bigger commitment,
• 12:31
  but baby step of invite another mom over who ideally is a friend and say,
• 12:43
  This is a crazy idea, but you seem so pulled together and always organized. I'm a little chaotic.
• 12:50
  Would you be willing to come over one Tuesday a month and just sort of be with
• 12:56
  me while I'm trying to get something organized or cleaned up or something?
• 13:01
  Even if you agree to have coffee together, have it at your house so that it
• 13:07
  forces you that morning in the chaos of how your morning is to kind of keep
• 13:11
  the kitchen a little tidier.
• 13:14
  These actual real consequences of someone seeing your house is what's going
• 13:18
  to make you utilize that time.
• 13:20
  I know it sounds crazy and you may be like, there's no way I could ever do that.
• 13:26
  The baby step is have a beloved friend
• 13:30
  who knows you and knows how you are and would
• 13:32
  be more than happy to be that extra person for
• 13:36
  you the next step above that is to invite that circle that's a little further
• 13:42
  out the people who you would be embarrassed to see and you can use that friend
• 13:46
  who's maybe been working with
• 13:47
  you for a few Tuesdays to say my goal is by the end of the third month.
• 13:53
  I want to have like the whole mom group over here right after they drop off.
• 13:57
  Can you help me host a little coffee get together for everybody?
• 14:01
  So that you're saying to yourself, I have this bigger anxiety about showing
• 14:08
  people a house that's not ready.
• 14:09
  But in this scenario, all you have to get together is the common space and the kitchen.
• 14:17
  And maybe a bathroom for them to use. You don't have to worry if your upstairs
• 14:20
  is chaotic. You don't have to worry about if your downstairs is chaotic.
• 14:23
  You're not inviting a play date where the playroom has to be organized.
• 14:26
  It's just the moms. It's just some coffee. They would probably enjoy getting
• 14:31
  together and it would be the benefit of you having some real consequence to that time that you have.
• 14:37
  And then the bigger step to that is inviting family or friends that have to
• 14:43
  sleep over because then you're graduating to, now I have to have a bedroom ready.
• 14:47
  Now I have to have a bathroom ready. I have to have more space because they're
• 14:51
  going to see more things and,
• 14:53
  baby steps, but maybe you can get to that kind of accountability.
• 14:57
  If you shut yourself off from all socialization because you're embarrassed by
• 15:02
  your house, your life is suffering in multiple, multiple ways.
• 15:06
  So you have to push yourself to still socialize, to still be around other people.
• 15:13
  This is so important for your quality and happiness in life.
• 15:19
  And this also is the way to not give up on your house,
• 15:25
  to not give up on your spaces because you're still interacting with people and
• 15:30
  you feel that accountability of wanting to at least make it look livable.
• 15:35
  All right, and then.
• 15:38
  Other thought here, which is a very sort of low entry point of accountability,
• 15:43
  but if you're just wanting to
• 15:44
  play around with a little bit of accountability, I do have my free group.
• 15:49
  I've been trying to go in there every Monday. For those of you who wondered
• 15:52
  where I went this past Monday, I got stuck in the airline chaos after going to visit my son.
• 15:59
  We had a flight delayed, delayed, delayed until it got canceled.
• 16:03
  We managed to get one of the last rental cars out of Orlando,
• 16:06
  and we pulled an all-nighter driving home and did not get back to our house
• 16:12
  until 7.30 in the morning.
• 16:14
  Exhausted, laid down for a
• 16:17
  nap, woke up, and then had to deal with some stuff that was waiting on me.
• 16:21
  And so I never got into the group because I would have been a zombie,
• 16:26
  although sometimes we do things as zombies, and that probably would have been an advantage.
• 16:30
  But anyway, that's where I disappeared to. I'm going to make up for it next Monday.
• 16:34
  So stay tuned. So if you were wanting to be part of that, you just go to bit.ly
• 16:40
  slash joylovinghomecommunity.
• 16:42
  At least on Mondays, you can turn me on as a body doubling live kind of accountability situation.
• 16:49
  But if you wanted a bigger commitment, I do have the membership that's $10 a month.
• 16:54
  We do Tackle It Tuesday Zoom calls four times on Tuesdays where you actually see me.
• 17:00
  You actually talk to me. We actually are working side by side versus you watching
• 17:04
  a live and pretending I'm right there with you.
• 17:07
  I'm actually there and you are there with me, which I appreciate because I get
• 17:11
  the accountability from having the membership.
• 17:13
  But to do that, you go to joylovinghome.com slash membership.
• 17:16
  So that's another option if you ever wanted to give that a go.
• 17:20
  So I, as I said at the beginning, it's real. You're not alone.
• 17:27
  Nothing's wrong with you. if you notice that you are not utilizing time,
• 17:31
  if you're not taking advantage of time.
• 17:34
  And the reason is because your brain sees it.
• 17:38
  Differently than you want your brain to see it.
• 17:43
  You're wanting your brain to be like, oh, what a gift. Let me get busy.
• 17:47
  Your brain sees it as, oh, what a gift. Let me relax.
• 17:51
  Let me just be still for once because the rest of my life feels like running around like a chicken.
• 17:57
  So let's take advantage of giving our brains these boosts that it needs to feel
• 18:07
  actual real outside accountability and real urgency with those moments and minutes
• 18:14
  and time that we are gifted.
• 18:18
  All right, I'll stop there. Until next time, continue to choose joy.