Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 261: ADHD Hack - Find a New Rhythm to Beat Procrastination

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261: ADHD Hack - Find a New Rhythm to Beat Procrastination · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

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  In our world today, it feels like everything that is being fed to us,
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  particularly online, is slowly destroying our attention span.
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  For those of us with ADHD, sometimes that attention span isn't all that long to start with.
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  So what can we do to force ourselves to slow down and focus when our hyper-focus
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  isn't coming to us and when we just have tasks that are going to take some time,
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  some concentration, and we just can't seem to force ourselves to take it because
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  we start to feel jittery or it starts to feel hard?
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  I've got I hate to call things a hack but I've got a hack for you to try,
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  right after this a wise person once
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  said everybody is a genius but if
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  you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will
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  live its whole life believing that it's stupid well fish
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  quit trying to climb trees while getting
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  advice from well-intentioned monkeys it's time
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  to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current
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  of your life I'm Joy a professional organizer
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  mom of four and fellow fish brain if
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  you're looking for a place to get understanding encouragement and ideas for
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  your home that actually fit how your brain thinks then i'm glad you're here
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  let's ditch the type a advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes
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  unique together we could have a joy loving home.
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  We're going to be using a timer, which is a huge friend to those of us with
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  ADHD, but we're going to use it in a different way than I think you're used
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  to hearing about because timers are awesome for us.
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  They keep us moving. They prevent us from losing track of time.
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  They enhance that need for urgency that we crave.
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  But sometimes they work against us when it's something that needs to be done.
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  We need to slow down. We've got to focus a little harder.
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  And this constant quick hits of time can make us feel jittery and unable to
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  focus long enough for a task that's going to take a little extra time.
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  Or it's training us to defer, oh, I don't have time for that kind of thing right now.
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  Let me push it down the road, kick it down the road. And then all of a sudden
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  you realize you're not getting any of the bigger stuff done because you're avoiding
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  it with a lot of little things.
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  So we're going to try something.
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  And if you would like, give me a shout back about how you feel about it.
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  I will tell you one of the things, this is an aside here that tickled me,
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  is that I had asked in a previous podcast for you to reach out to me if you
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  resonated with what I was talking about.
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  And I just said, email me joy at joylovinghome.com. I love to hear from you.
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  I got your emails, those of you who reached back my way, and I am so tickled
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  that you did. Thank you so, so much for that.
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  I have been horrible about working on email responses.
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  So you will hear back from me, but just know I did get that.
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  So if you took the time to reach towards me, just know it's so appreciated.
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  So anyway, if you do decide to give this idea a try, give me your feedback.
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  I'd love to hear how it's working for you or not.
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  So what we're going to try and do is what I'm calling the reverse rumba.
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  Not to be confused with a rumba, I did a whole podcast on rumba vacuums.
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  That's not what this is. This is the rumba.
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  And if you are a fan of dancing with the stars like I am, you may know that
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  the rhythm of a rumba is slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.
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  And we, with our need for.
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  Urgency, we're not going to do that kind of rhythm.
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  So we're going to do the reverse of that, which is quick, quick, slow, slow, quick.
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  So all you need to try this activity is a timer and ideally a pad of post-it
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  notes or a scrap piece of paper.
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  If you have your phone, you are more than welcome to use the timer on your phone and your notes app.
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  That will work as well. I just like to jot things down where I can like walk
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  back over and look at them.
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  Physically, I think writing helps our brain too, but you do you.
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  Either way will actually work. So what we need is to break some time,
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  and in this case, it's going to be an hour, and you may go, Joy, I don't have an hour.
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  You don't have to do this all in one setting. But if you have an hour, you can carve out.
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  Kids are at preschool for, you know, by the time you drop them and get home
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  and have to leave to go pick them up, you might have like an hour and 20 minutes.
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  Take an hour of it and try this. So the first thing you're going to do is you're
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  going to set the timer for five minutes.
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  And on that post-it pad or in your notes app, you are going to jot down some
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  quick, easy, brainless things that would make your life better if you just got them into production.
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  Things like making a bed or starting a load of laundry or emptying a dishwasher
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  or filling a dishwasher or switching the laundry over or any of those like quick
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  hits that it makes it feel like, okay,
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  I did a little bit of something, those, you know, vast.
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  Tidy of a room, whatever. So just jot down the things really quickly that come
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  to mind when you think of quick brainless activities that the whole point of
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  the quick ones are just keep your body in motion.
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  So on this five minute timer, you're jotting down things that your brain thinks
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  of that would make your life a little nicer.
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  Okay, then you also need to jot down those things you've been kicking down the
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  road and avoiding because they feel really big or very hard to concentrate or anything like that.
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  So it may be making a phone call to an insurance company to figure out a bill
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  or it might be getting a reply to an email that you actually have to stop and
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  write and think about appropriate response.
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  It might be needing to actually gather and sort through that box that you had
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  intended to take to two separate donation areas,
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  but you just keep avoiding it because you hadn't thought through or like you
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  threw a bunch of stuff into a donation box,
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  but you now know a friend who needs some of it and you haven't sorted through.
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  Things that take a little more of our brain power, and we keep avoiding them
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  because of our time blindness. We believe this will take three hours to do.
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  We don't know how long it's going to take, but we're going to jot those things
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  down that make us feel a little squirmy, like that you drank coffee,
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  but you've had new food, and that jittery feeling,
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  and just the thought of slowing down to do them,
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  you're, you know, just activates something in you, just put them down on paper.
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  Don't, don't feel any pressure about them yet. Just get them out of your brain
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  and onto this piece of paper. Okay. The timer should have gone off pretty quickly.
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  First five minutes, done. That's your first quick. Your second quick,
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  you're actually setting the timer for 10 minutes.
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  And in that 10 minutes, I want you to feel that urgency. I want you to rush
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  around. I want you to see how many of those brainless things.
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  Can you run up and get the washing machine started so that that is working in
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  the background in your favor?
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  Can you hurry up and make your bed? Can you zip through and get all the things
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  that are in the kitchen over towards the sink, even in a sudsy load of sink,
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  even if you're not going to wash them,
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  just rush yourself against that 10-minute timer and see how many of those sort
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  of brainless activities that would make you feel better about your home you can do in 10 minutes.
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  All right, when that timer goes off, that's your quick quick.
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  All right, the next timer you're going to set is for 20 minutes,
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  and 20 minutes is going to feel like an eternity.
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  It's going to make you want to squirm.
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  What I'm asking you to do is to say, I can do anything right now for 20 minutes.
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  I've committed to this 20 minutes. And I want you to pick any one of your slow
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  activities and just start.
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  You're not racing against the clock. I'm not asking you to get it fully completed.
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  Ask yourself, what would it take for me to call my insurance company?
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  I need to go find my insurance card.
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  Great. You walk over. There's no pressure on this. You find it.
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  You say, there's going to be questions. There's going to be notes.
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  There may be, I might need information.
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  How did I find the bill that I'm supposed to be talking about?
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  How do I find the details on the car I'm supposed to be talking about? Whatever.
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  You start to gather those things. If that takes the full 20 minutes and the timer goes off, fine.
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  No worries. You have choices.
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  That sort of getting started on a hard task is now completed,
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  which feels great because all of the needed information has been gathered together.
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  And you can start the second slow, because remember we're doing quick,
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  quick, slow, slow, quick. So if you're like, okay, I actually feel okay about this.
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  I'm going to continue in the same task.
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  When you reset the timer for 20 minutes, keep going.
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  Keep going and see if you can make that call and actually complete whatever that one task was.
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  If you finish it before that timer goes off, look down at the next thing.
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  Maybe the next thing is scheduling a doctor appointment.
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  So you go grab your calendar, you grab the kids' calendars, you're trying to
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  see what are possible dates, and you get the phone number together,
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  and maybe the timer went off.
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  And that's okay. You have forced yourself to sit through two slows and seeing
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  how long things that feel like they're going to take forever take.
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  You've gotten started on something that's difficult for you to focus on.
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  Now, that last quick, so we've done a quick, a quick, a slow, slow.
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  Your last quick is a five-minute timer because that's all you've got left to
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  this hour that I've asked you to set aside.
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  In your five minutes, and this is where it's really nice to actually have a post-it note.
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  Is in whatever you started with the slow,
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  your five-minute timer is for you to take your pencil and your post-it note
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  and tell yourself where you left off or what the next step would be.
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  Because the hardest part when we sit down to these slow, painful things that
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  don't always work out when we try them the first time,
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  the number of times I build up my energy to make the phone call and then I don't
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  get an answer and they have to call me back or I try and they needed more information
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  that I had and now I've got to go find something else.
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  Whatever status you are leaving this slow task at, you are writing yourself
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  a note so that you know exactly where to pick up again the next time you force
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  yourself to slow down again.
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  You're not starting all the way back at scratch.
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  All of this work that you already did is going to build and your momentum is
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  going to carry you to completing these slow tasks that you don't seem to have
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  the attention span for anymore.
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  And when that five-minute timer is off, your hour is done. Move on.
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  You go do what you needed to do. You rush off. You go grab the kids.
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  Or if you're like, okay, that was sort of the most productive hour I've spent
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  in a while, what if I repeat that?
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  Then start over grab your
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  five minute timer write down the new things you want
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  to try and get done do your 10 minute timer run
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  through and do as many of the quick brainless tasks as you can
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  then when you get to the slow down pick right up where you were and try and
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  go through that same longer lasting task again again you get a second 20 minutes
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  and then the most important piece of this is in that last five minute blip,
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  you are reminding yourself where you're leaving off on that slow task.
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  See if this reverse rumba, and I'm giving it a name so that you can think about
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  it when you're feeling stressed about what you're going to get done in a day,
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  and you're like, what will get me up off this couch and get me moving?
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  Go, oh, wait, I remember Joy talked about trying a reverse rumba.
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  I'm going to try that. Wait, wait, wait. A rumba is slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.
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  So we're going to do quick, quick, slow, slow, quick, and it's 5, 10, 20, 25.
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  Give it a go. Let me know what you think.
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  I know you can do this. We're going to use the timers not just to keep us in motion,
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  not just to help us keep track of time, but we're going to actually use it to
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  stretch our attention span a little bit and slow down and do some of those tasks
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  that we won't give ourselves the time to do.
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  Another one that I happen to think of,
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  was, I really need to sort of wipe down all of my kitchen cabinets.
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  But to me, in my brain, that's going to take like three to four hours.
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  It probably won't, but in my brain, that's how long it's going to take.
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  And I don't have three to four hours. And I think, well, if I start this.
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  I got to get all the stuff together.
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  I got to make, you know, the solution that I want to use on the cabinets.
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  I've got to be wiping down. I got to need my stepladder out because my cabinets are tall.
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  I probably should dust them before I wipe them down.
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  I start to talk myself out of all of these things.
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  If I were to say, this is what I'm going to slow down and do.
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  I'm going to see how far I get in 20 minutes.
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  If I'm in a rhythm, I'm going to do them for a second 20 minutes.
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  If I definitely have to stop at the end of the 20 minutes, at least on a post-it
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  note, I can write to myself, you stopped here wiping down cabinets,
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  and I can stick it on the inside of the cabinet door where I stopped.
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  And then if I start on the left side, or I started in one corner,
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  and I'm trying to work my way around, I know right where I left off,
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  I'm going to ignore the fact that the ones I already have cleaned might look
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  dirty again, because I want them all to be hit once.
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  And then maybe one time I start back over.
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  I don't know. But I just, I don't have the patience to start something that
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  in my brain is going to take forever or that I don't know how to get started
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  or I don't know how to stop effectively.
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  This is to help weed out all of those excuses and get it done. All right.
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  I'm going to stop there. If you ever want to reach out, I'll remind you,
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  joy at joylovinghome.com.
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  I have a free group that is bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
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  And then I have my membership, which is $10 a month where we work together with some accountability.
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  Every Tuesday, we call it Tackle It Tuesday.
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  And intermittently on the other days, you're more than welcome to ask questions
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  and get feedback from the very lovely members. But you find out about that at
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  joylovinghome.com slash membership.
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  I hope that you continue to choose joy.