Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 266: Project Summer: Your ADHD Brain Will Love It

Transcript

266: Project Summer: Your ADHD Brain Will Love It · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  If you have ever been frustrated with yourself over your lack of discipline or willpower, and,
• 0:08
  you have that frustrating feeling like you know exactly what needs doing,
• 0:13
  and you maybe even kind of have an idea of how you want to go about getting
• 0:19
  something together in your home.
• 0:21
  But every time you get yourself up and you go into that space to actually do something with it,
• 0:29
  you just immediately get either overwhelmed or paralyzed and turn around and
• 0:34
  walk back out and go numb yourself on some sort of,
• 0:38
  scrolling or whatever activity we do to just sort of give our brains a break.
• 0:46
  Then you're going to enjoy this episode because this is not for the faint of
• 0:50
  heart but is a suggestion that may help us jump in,
• 0:55
  to making some actual changes in our home when we have been stuck for what feels like forever.
• 1:03
  A wise person once said everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its
• 1:07
  ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
• 1:12
  Well, Fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
• 1:18
  It's time to jump in the water and learn how to swim with the current of your life.
• 1:22
  I'm Joy, a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
• 1:28
  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
• 1:31
  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
• 1:36
  then I'm glad you're here.
• 1:37
  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
• 1:43
  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
• 1:48
  Summer is the perfect time to experiment with what I'm going to call just project summer.
• 1:58
  I need you to not have yet another situation where you have decided this summer
• 2:05
  we're going to do X every day and here's some spreadsheets and this we're going
• 2:09
  to check off and we're going to be really disciplined and we're going to have the willpower,
• 2:13
  to every day before we're allowed to go do anything fun.
• 2:16
  We're going to make sure the beds are all made and the laundry is going and
• 2:20
  the bathrooms are wiped down and somebody vacuumed.
• 2:22
  And guys, if we just do this right at the beginning of each day,
• 2:25
  we're going to be able to go and have our fun because I've had enough and we're
• 2:30
  going to stick to this plan for the summer.
• 2:33
  And we're mid-June and it's already fallen apart.
• 2:37
  Please don't get frustrated. Our brains have not, they're not created for discipline.
• 2:45
  They are designed for this fast reward loop of, of, you know,
• 2:55
  work reward, work reward, that is faster than the average sort of routine that, you know.
• 3:01
  Discipline is incredibly dull to our brains. We need shift and change.
• 3:07
  We need actual urgency because our brain can see a mile away
• 3:13
  every single time we have created a fake deadline or the accountability of just
• 3:19
  knowing we want to get it done because we will let ourselves down every time.
• 3:25
  We will not hold ourselves accountable. So what are we going to do?
• 3:31
  We are going to embrace just the summer chaos.
• 3:36
  And if you live with monkey brains, and if you have no idea what I mean when
• 3:40
  I say monkey brains, you did not listen to my intro.
• 3:43
  But if you have monkeys that live in your house that are going to get fully
• 3:48
  alarmed and start screeching at the chaos that I'm about to suggest you create for the summer, then,
• 3:54
  maybe just warn them that summer is what summer is and they're going to have
• 3:58
  to deal with it because this is going to be fish brain summer.
• 4:02
  And we are going to lean into our project brains magic.
• 4:09
  We have project brains.
• 4:11
  And so I'm going to give you some concrete examples of what I'm thinking about
• 4:16
  when I talk about what I want you to do for this summer.
• 4:18
  Instead of saying, you know what, this summer before school starts again.
• 4:23
  We are going to have all these toys figured out and we're going to,
• 4:27
  get every day, we're going to pick these things up and we're going to get everything
• 4:32
  figured out and we're going to sort through and we're going to just get rid
• 4:36
  of all the things we don't need and it's just going to be great.
• 4:40
  And then you set up some system where like we're going to spend 15 minutes every day doing X, Y, or Z.
• 4:46
  Instead, you literally need to say overhaul time.
• 4:51
  We need to lean into what we are.
• 4:55
  The itch, the thing that will scratch the itch in our brain is a complete overhaul.
• 5:02
  So if you have a playroom that you can't even function, and every time you walk
• 5:09
  in, you want to turn around and walk back out, I want you to literally say,
• 5:14
  we are doing project playroom.
• 5:17
  And project playroom is going to make life horrible before it gets better.
• 5:23
  But if you want your brain to hang into it, I really want you to consider trying
• 5:28
  this challenge with yourself.
• 5:30
  I apologize. I have a dog chewing a bone right behind me and if that comes across on this podcast,
• 5:36
  I apologize but I'm going to try and push through because this is the one time
• 5:41
  I have to record so we're going to let him do his thing in the back and maybe
• 5:44
  when my AI edits it we'll filter him out.
• 5:47
  But anyway, I wanted to say that if you have a space that you have been using
• 5:53
  as a playroom and it's not been working for you because it's too far away from
• 5:58
  where the family hangs out, they're always dragging the toys into the family space,
• 6:03
  then rethink life.
• 6:05
  If you never use your dining room, then maybe project overhaul means the dining
• 6:10
  room is now the playroom and now all the toys actually can be,
• 6:15
  put away of a night out of the living room because they're literally being taken
• 6:19
  10 steps instead of being carried upstairs and back into the playroom,
• 6:24
  which nobody wants to do at night and they're all too tired.
• 6:28
  Or maybe you're like, nope, nope, my playroom is going to be where my playroom
• 6:31
  is. I just, we just have to deal with it.
• 6:35
  Then you need to have what I call a staging area,
• 6:41
  which means is there a space near this playroom that you can decide to destroy.
• 6:49
  In the act of recreating this playroom?
• 6:51
  And so if visualize, okay, we are going to destroy kid A's bedroom because it's
• 6:57
  the closest thing to the playroom and kid A is going to sleep in kid B's room all summer.
• 7:04
  Who cares? I had one summer where all four of my kids slept in an empty room on a floor,
• 7:10
  in little blow-up mattresses because I was deciding that this was the time where
• 7:15
  we were going to overhaul everything and I sold furniture and I painted and
• 7:20
  I found new furniture and I got everything fully switched.
• 7:24
  They loved that summer that is a summer they remember more than anything else
• 7:28
  because every night before they'd go to bed they'd pj up
• 7:32
  and they would literally run around in circles playing leapfrog around all the
• 7:36
  air mattresses and then i would get them settled and i read them a collective
• 7:40
  book even though they're,
• 7:42
  four kids they were seven and under and.
• 7:45
  And not at that particular summer, but so I had them in seven years.
• 7:50
  I've picked a book that from the oldest to the youngest, we could all enjoy.
• 7:53
  And I would read them a chapter of night every night settling in.
• 7:56
  And they all had the same book they could discuss. And it was just,
• 7:59
  it was a fun, fantastical, crazy off the wall summer.
• 8:04
  Those things don't hurt your kids. So if you need to grab a kid's room and overhaul
• 8:10
  a kid's room, have them move in with another one for the summer.
• 8:13
  And then they both can sleep back in the other one and do another one.
• 8:17
  You can keep your deadlines for yourself shorter if you want to,
• 8:22
  but they need to be related to some sort of real deadline.
• 8:26
  So if it's, I can't have these kids sleeping somewhere different once school
• 8:29
  starts, that's an actual deadline.
• 8:32
  If it's, we are going on vacation at the end of July and I don't want to come
• 8:36
  back to chaos, then the end of July is a real deadline because you want this
• 8:40
  done before you head off on vacation.
• 8:42
  So look at the calendar, figure out your deadlines and real ones,
• 8:48
  and then decide you're going to literally destroy a space.
• 8:54
  So give yourself permission to haul everything out and literally dust down all
• 9:00
  those baseboards that have never been done. Give that carpet a really good fresh up vacuuming.
• 9:06
  Do a paint refresh if you want to.
• 9:09
  Try a paint treatment with some fun painter's tape and get your kids involved if you so dare.
• 9:16
  The feedback loops that your brain needs for actual immediate rewards is it
• 9:23
  doesn't get any feedback from slow, dripped,
• 9:27
  steady changes of we put 15 new things away each day or we decided every day
• 9:35
  we were going to get five things out of there.
• 9:38
  It's good. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying never,
• 9:41
  ever, ever use that method.
• 9:43
  I'm just saying if your brain needs a shift, the summer is the perfect time
• 9:48
  to literally, it loves the, oh my gosh, the room was full, now it's empty.
• 9:53
  Oh my goodness, this is the first time the room smells this good and this clean
• 9:57
  and everything is squeaky clean and I even wash the windows.
• 10:01
  Your brain feeds off of that.
• 10:03
  Then it loves paint changes. So it, you know, it love that you painted.
• 10:09
  Then there's the furniture rearranging and getting it to where getting it to
• 10:17
  where you are using things completely differently than you have before.
• 10:24
  Don't put all the furniture back in in the same space. Like really rethink how
• 10:29
  you were using it. Your kids are now different. They're at different ages.
• 10:31
  They like different things.
• 10:33
  Adjust that toy sorter cabinet thing that used to be used for all the Legos,
• 10:39
  but your kids aren't playing Legos anymore.
• 10:41
  Now you're using it to sort through the PS5 games and you're using the top of
• 10:50
  it now as a TV stand instead of to display the put together Lego items.
• 10:55
  Or you once had all the little people and now they've grown up from the little
• 10:59
  people and now you're using the sorters as Lego drawers or, you know,
• 11:04
  the train table is now a craft table, whatever.
• 11:07
  Everything, you are a creative brain. Lean into your creativity.
• 11:11
  Rethink the arrangement. Rethink the utility. Rethink the function.
• 11:17
  Get rid of things that you aren't needing anymore. Becoming Facebook Marketplace
• 11:21
  for people who are getting rid of things that will work perfectly for you.
• 11:24
  This doesn't have to be an expensive change.
• 11:26
  It just has to be a and.
• 11:30
  A complete change. You have to allow your brain these rewards of thinking of
• 11:36
  things in a new and completely different way.
• 11:39
  Then once you have the bones of this new place base created,
• 11:45
  you need to be super protective of white space, super protective of
• 11:51
  breathing room, and you need to remind yourself that kids thrive on less.
• 11:58
  Their brains get creative. They have patience for longer play times.
• 12:02
  They have more engagement with less items.
• 12:08
  That is huge. So if you had always thought, you know what I was thinking,
• 12:12
  maybe we would do a toy rotation, but I never really had the guts to really figure that out.
• 12:17
  Then also enlist your kids. Like what are their things that they're most excited
• 12:23
  about getting back into the playroom and let them each pick only two or three.
• 12:29
  Five max, and let them have those things arranged in that space and take a pause for a week.
• 12:37
  See what it's like when they're playing in those spaces. See how many times
• 12:40
  they're digging through your staging area to find something else that they really
• 12:45
  thought would be great to play with the things that they decided to bring in.
• 12:48
  Experience less. Experience the quiet mentally and physically.
• 12:56
  Experience timers at the end of the night, cleaning up a play space that has way less in it.
• 13:04
  And then with that mindset, start going, okay, let's be brutal about not putting
• 13:10
  all this stuff back in, right?
• 13:12
  Or packing it up in ways where you're like, at some point, maybe we'll rotate
• 13:17
  this out of the basement or out of the attic.
• 13:20
  But you have far more clarity now on what it really takes to enjoy a space and
• 13:28
  remind yourself over and over and over again, the overwhelm came from the excess.
• 13:34
  But your brain is constantly loving this project type plan because this project
• 13:40
  plan feels new and exciting and novel and different every single day with an
• 13:46
  actual legitimate deadline.
• 13:49
  So I challenge you to find an overhaul space, lean into that project brain,
• 13:56
  and give this type of sort of blowing up your summer a try.
• 14:02
  There isn't any better time to do it than than the chaos and the lax schedule
• 14:10
  that is already built into a summer.
• 14:13
  If you give it a try, I'd love to hear back. Please feel free to reach out to
• 14:17
  me. I'm joy at joylovinghome.com, or you can DM me on Instagram anytime.
• 14:21
  I'm at joylovinghome there as well.
• 14:23
  All right, until next time, continue to choose joy.