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Digital Overload: The 3-Bucket System to Rescue Your Stressed ADHD Brain | 019 · Quick Wins for ADHD Moms - Short Episodes, Real Solutions for Burnout and Overwhelm

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, welcome back to Quick Wins for ADHD moms.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jessica Lynn Lewis.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the last episode, we talked with Miriam.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's a professional organizer, and she was talking about creating all these different buckets to be able to organize our physical spaces, like in your kitchen, in your home, your kids' rooms.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that got me thinking: what about our digital spaces?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have a thousand screenshots right now on your desktop?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into organizing that and just a really simple way to start organizing, here's today's quick win.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Create one folder and name it archive.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Create one folder on your desktop, name it archive.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can put it in your desktop, you can put it on your documents, and then just drag all the clutter into it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't used something in maybe three to six months, archive it.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Put it in that archive folder.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an old project you haven't touched, maybe it was an idea that you've lost interest in.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're deleting it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're just simply getting rid of all of that visual clutter that makes us overwhelmed.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the best part is that computers are easily searchable.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can always find that project later.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So this one move instantly creates calm when you open up your laptop and there's not all of those file folders everywhere.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have one little archive and you just dump it all into your archive.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because let's be honest, if you haven't looked at that Canva screenshot in the last few months, are you really gonna use it?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also, it's still stored in Canva, so you can download it later if you decide you need to use it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So why does this matter?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because digital clutter is mental clutter, and we all know we do not need any more mental clutter.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So even though it's invisible, it quietly eats at your focus, especially with our ADHD brains.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now you open your laptop and you think, whoa, when did I save those 27 screenshots of the same graphic?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you are scrolling your phone and you realize you've downloaded 10 productivity apps and it just made everything messier and honestly, nothing is working anyway.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So all of that adds up to this overwhelm and creates all of this micro stress.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: We know that's the last thing we need right now.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let's make a space for what's active.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So once you've cleared the clutter on your desktop, the question becomes okay, when new stuff comes in, where does this go?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is where my three bucket system comes in.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone, one of the three buckets, everyone has an archive bucket.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's your resting place for things you've done or you might do someday, but you're not doing anything right now.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other two buckets just depend on your life and your season and how you organize things your way, what your life looks like.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: For me, uh, I have the archive folder, and then I have work and home.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of is my life right now.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my work life, I've got my home life and archive.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe yours are something like if you're a stay-at-home mom, there's there's the parents folder and the kids folder, maybe projects that the parents are working on, projects that the kids are working on, or kids' school.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you could divide it up as, you know, personal things and then family things on your computer.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So again, three buckets, an archive, and then I use work and home.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you just get to figure out the other two folders that work best for your world.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then once your brain learns that pattern of everything gets dumped into one of those three buckets, it's not as overwhelming to look at something and go, oh, I don't know what folder this goes into.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It could go, uh, it could go into four of these different folders.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's just simplify it, create three huge buckets, and then just take all of that digital clutter and just organize it into that.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can do this on your phone as well.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So on my phone, I have an iPhone and I use um, I have a home page and the house, all my home essentials.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I use Notion to keep my second brain organized.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the weather, the calendar, my daily tasks.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm doing a food tracker, you know, everything that you do every day is listed in that first homepage.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I scroll over and hit page two of my phone, I've got things like Netflix, Disney Plus, Audible, anything that I'm gonna be entertainment, anything that I'm gonna be watching or viewing.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm gonna go on the treadmill and I want to watch the latest show that I'm watching, or maybe I'm in the middle of a podcast.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I hop in the car and scroll to that second page and hit the next podcast or the next audio book that I'm listening to on Audible.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I scroll over and the third page that I have is just randoms.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a random page with a bunch of different folders where I just dump all the stuff that's related to home or travel or shopping or business.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Any apps that I don't use use often and things that I'm gonna be searching for anyway when I open up my phone, I just search for that particular thing.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth page, I could probably split this up into two different ones, but one is like content creation.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So all the creative stuff, Lightroom, Video Leap to create videos, or Instagram Reels has a new app to create reels.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all of the content creation stuff goes on that page.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last page is just like the messaging that I want to make sure I get back to people.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what I love is having a first page that's important of daily tasks, and then I can scroll over to my last page on my phone and make sure that I'm not missing any messages or contacts.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's something my kids actually showed me.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can hold down on your phone, like your phone to scroll all the way to the end.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you can scroll through all the pages really fast.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have everything important on the first page and then the last page because I can scroll really quickly between the two of them.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And our goal with this is to keep everything just clean and simple.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to distract you or pull you away from your important daily activities that are on the front page or the messages that you need to get back to on the last page.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you still have everything on there and accessible, it's just not taking up a lot of visual clutter.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, sometimes I move a few apps back out of certain folders and create a better visual workflow.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just a trial and error thing to figure out, you know, what is going to work best for you.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, this whole idea of getting digitally organized, you know, when I first started organizing my creative life, I was doing wedding photography and I had a whole bunch of weddings and portraits.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you have thousands of photos from each wedding or from each portrait session.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to figure out really quickly a way of how to organize all of that.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And just recently, over the last couple of years, I started using Notion to keep my second brain organized.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I came across Tiago Forte's paramethod.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: P-A-R-A stands for the different buckets that you put all of your digital life into.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So there's projects, areas, resources, archive.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But with my ADHD brain, I just kept freezing looking at the folders, thinking, wait, is this a project or is this an area?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Does this go into the resources tab?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'd start to overthink everything.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then decision fatigue sets in.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you end up searching for some other app that would help.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So through this process, I've simplified it into something my brain could repeat automatically.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this very basic three bucket system seems to work really well.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So again, the top folder, one for home, one for work, one for archive.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: For you, we are all going to have that archive folder and then two other folders.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So home, work, archive.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then within the home, I have an archive.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Within the work, I have an archive to be able to keep those folders organized as well.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, in my work folder, so let's start down from the top again.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you can visualize the work folder, home folder, archive folder.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So in my work folder, I have clients, and then I have an office folder, any office y kind of stuff related, and then an archive.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: For home, um, what I've noticed is when I dump everything into the home folder, there's certain things that come out like um healthcare, taxes, yay, um family stuff.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So then under home, we have taxes, and under taxes, I have each year organized.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then for under family, we have maybe individuals.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, each kid gets their folder, and there's always something that they're creating that you want to keep, but you're not sure where to put it.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's nice to just drag it into their personal folder.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So everything has a place, even if it's messy, because you have your top three buckets that keep your desktop organized and you don't have that visual clutter.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then you go into each folder and you can put an archive in there and slowly start the process of ordering things from top down.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as overwhelming.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's really easy to start organizing by having just three main buckets, dump stuff in those buckets.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you want to organize from there, you can.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, you don't have to either.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's all within those buckets.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you keep, again, your desktop relay clean.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So another problem that I ran into after I was organizing all of these things is that you start losing lots of space on your computer.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started looking at other places where I can organize all my digital files to get them off of my computer and save it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as a wedding and portrait photographer, uh, I heard somebody say once, if you don't have your photos backed up at least four times, does that stuff even exist?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great question, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have lost your laptop and have lost everything on your laptop?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I use Dropbox to use as my file organization system.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what's great is there's a Dropbox folder on my computer where you can go in there and it looks like it's on your computer, but it's all stored in the cloud.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So in Dropbox, I have the work and home in archive.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then under work, I have like three different businesses.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So each business kind of gets their own folder.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And under that, those folders are office and archive.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like my digital filing cabinet, if that makes sense.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and back to weddings and portraits, you know, there's also the way I organize my stuff, but then there's also the client-facing stuff.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So uh for photography, all my personal photos, all of my client work is on.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I use smug mug.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people use Pixie Set.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different options out there.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I personally use smug mug because I've been doing that since 2000, I don't even know when they came out, 2010, 2015.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a while, but it's nice to keep everything digitally organized photography-wise, there.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Some people use Google Photos.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just find smug mug to be a really nice user interface and it looks, it's just nice to see.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I'm doing mostly voiceover work, you know, it's not like I can take those WAV files and put them into a portrait gallery because WAV files don't necessarily look pretty.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So now in voice work, I just use my mainly my Dropbox folder.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then within the Dropbox folder, I have my work.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: The main one of the three buckets is work.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then under work is my three different businesses between coaching and doing the podcast and doing voiceover work.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then under voiceover work, I have a client folder.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And under the client folder, I have all of the names of all the different people that I have worked with.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then under that, when I actually do a specific project, I will name it the date and then underscore their name or their business name and then underscore and then the actual project that I'm working on, the voiceover that they gave me, maybe it's the script name, so that later I can go into Dropbox and I can look up that particular client because people are always coming back and asking, hey, do you still have that from last year?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think you can just do a little update?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, absolutely.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I can find it within a minute.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the more organized you are, the easier it is to find things later, too.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of having an archive bucket is also really nice because I do that at home too.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have like an archive corner in my closet where I put maybe there's just extra clothes that the kids have grown out of.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we got a new internet router.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the old one still works, but it's not as quick as it needs to be for our needs, but somebody else could still use it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Archive corner.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Old clothes, archive corner.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe old toys that are sitting around.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: We put it in the archive corner.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that way, if the kids come back and say, hey, whatever happened to my recorder, oh, I don't know.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where that is.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if they walk away thinking, I don't need the recorder anymore, awesome.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to listen to the recorder anymore.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: If they're still wanting it, it's like, well, I didn't give it away yet.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the archive corner.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: We can we can get it out of the archive corner.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But that archive can work in your physical space as well.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this is just keeping it really simple to organize your computer, maybe your phone screens, so there's not so much visual clutter.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you go into your inbox, your email inbox, that is a whole other beast that we can save for another time.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that has worked really well for me is it's called Inbox Zero.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's been around for a long time.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard of it, maybe you've tried it before, but it's an amazing system that I have found works fantastic.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It takes away all of that overwhelm and email clutter.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a game changer for me.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I just go in and there's just a few emails per day to sort.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not a thousand to go through.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to dive into that, check out inbox zero.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But we can also talk about ways to organize your inbox as well to keep that digital overwhelm manageable.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need a 37-step digital organization system.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's overwhelming, and honestly, you're gonna pay a lot for this huge organization system and you're not gonna use it anyway.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep it simple.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, this week's challenge, make your archive folder on your desktop.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Move all the clutter, anything that you have not done in the last three to six months.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just move all of that into your archive folder so visually you can breathe again.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you want to make two more folders, divide your life up into whatever that looks like for you, and start organizing things into maybe the projects you're doing right now, compare in your work folder or things you're doing in your home folder and anything you're not working on in that archive folder.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep it simple so your digital world also feels more clear.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how all of that digital stuff flows into the physical world too.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to be able to breathe again and be able to see things and access them when you need them, but also feel calm that you don't have a thousand things on your desktop or a thousand apps on your phone.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we have some great shows coming up with some more guests with their quick wins.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to miss those.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to subscribe and join our newsletter.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: The links are in the show notes so you don't miss an episode.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do you have a tip or technique that works for your brain?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe something that's worked for your kids?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear it and share it with everybody else.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me, jessica at theadhdmom.com.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, our website is theadhdmom.com.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Share the show, spread the word.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's help our favorite creative ADHD moms go from surviving and feeling like they're in chaos to thriving and having control of their life again.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, have a beautiful day.