My main things that keep me in control are;
- Meticulous use of Google calendar with colour coding for different things; Green things are the days that certain bills come out. Purple are personal appts/social things. Dark blue is my set work shifts, pale blue for events inside my working day that I need to be aware of/training/meetings I need to log on for. Red is birthdays and anniversaries (these are set to recur every year). Grey is days off/annual leave. I used the salmon pink colour to mark anything relating to my DP - so his annual leave, when he’s travelling, etc. I make sure anything that needs to recur monthly, three monthly, yearly, etc is set to recur within the reminder, so I never have to think about it again, it’s always there.
- I do not agree to or book ANYTHING without checking my Google calendar first, and I add it there immediately, I don’t allow myself to say “oh yeah, I’ll put that in my calendar later”.
My next thing is using a to-do list book, and the Google Tasks app. Working Tasks I have multiple to do lists set up;
- One has all my monthly bills and outgoings on it, and every day I check my bank balance, tick off what has come out and tally up what’s left to come out, and what remains in my account to play with. At the start of a new month I untick everything and start again, add up my total, work out roughly what I think I’m going to have left as disposable income and work out if I need to magic some money from anywhere else, or if I can chill.
- I have a shopping list one, self explanatory, add anything to it that I need to remember to buy when grocery shopping.
- I have a “To buy” list, which is for non-grocery items, so that stuff that I might need several different shops for, or do a bit of research about; new bedroom furniture, front doorstep paint, remembering I need navy thread to hem my uniform, etc. And I can dip in and out of that when I need to. I also add on here stuff that I really really want, so that if anyone asks me what I’d like for a birthday/Xmas I have a few ideas to hand that I’ve thought about, rather than saying “oh anything!”.
- I also have a Master to-do list which contains jobs that do ultimately need doing, but aren’t urgent and can be moved along - I.E. find new bedroom furniture, repot plants, paint the garden fence (just so that they don’t fall out of my brain altogether). Usually everything starts off on the master list and gets moved around depending on what life throws at me.
- A daily to do list, I’ll add things to this from the master list, but also day to day domestic tasks that I need to incentivise myself to do - such as empty dishwasher, put whites load in, peg washing out, go to post office, etc.
- I also have a paper to-do list pad, because my brain finds physically crossing something off as a “high-value” reward for whatever I’ve done, I might do my daily jobs on the pad so I can carry it round the house with me without getting embroiled in my phone every time I have to pick it up to cross something off.
- I break down all my tasks, so what might be “laundry” to a non-adhd person, for me it will get broken down into whites loads, peg whites out, darks load, peg darks out, fold whites, put whites away, etc. I need to be able to visualise individual stages or I just drown in the task. This way makes it easier for me to dot about and do other tasks in between, because my smaller tasks are on the list and can’t be forgotten. But if I just approached it as “laundry” it would be the only thing I could do all afternoon. Same with hoovering, I list hoovering and then each individual room, then I don’t feel like I’ve failed if I don’t do the whole house, and just manage the downstairs or whatever.
- I ask my partner to look at this list and see which tasks he can do. My standards are far higher than my neurotypical boyfriend but he tries to do his bit to help me out.
- At the back of the list book I have a page for every room in my house renovation and an itemised list of what needs doing, such as; lounge - ceiling rose, coving, replacement skirting, painting, new carpet, replace blinds, new rug, cabinet, clean fireplace, replace window lock, etc - this means I can dip in and out and progress things incrementally. My dad works from this bit too, to help me out and because he enjoys the house/diy stuff.
- Periodically I review all of my lists and check they’re all still relevant and that nothing has been ticked off organically by myself or my partner since it was added.
When I’m really struggling for the motivation to do something/lots of things I’ll use “body-doubling” which is where you can work alongside a supportive person, people often do this on MS Teams to keep each other accountable at work/ whilst also having company. But my version of body-doubling is getting my partner on board and us planning a day/or morning of errands, to get the really tricky/low reward stuff ticked off, he’ll come with me while we go to the post office or nip to X place and do what needs to be done and we try to plan in nice stuff during this time too, so getting a Costa as soon as we set off, choosing the post office with the best selection of cake, etc. I’m fortunate that he’s supportive and has done a lot of his own reading into ADHD in Women and knows I need him sometimes. Other times it might be my dad who will come and pick me up while we run around and do some of the trickier jobs that are on my list (these are usually house renovation related things where it’s my lack of knowledge/not being a man that creates the anxiety around a particular job/liaising with a trade/dealing with measurements, etc).
In my job I also keep an index notebook, where write every single piece of pertinent information that I’ve ever been given and keep it organised. Numbers for departments, numbers for speciality registrar on call mobiles, direct numbers for control rooms for police/different ambulance services, extensions for every departments nurses station or ward receptionist, extensions for specialist nurses, etc. Once I’m given a number, I write it down and keep it forever. I also print out and stick in any relevant pathways, guidelines, diagrams etc that I might need to easily have at hand, aide memoirs that I can quickly glance at.
Most of all I try to be very compassionate with myself, I try to stop negative self talk, I try to be mindful of the fact that I have a bit of a toxic perfectionism streak and that almost no one is expecting me to produce the standards that I impose on myself. I remind myself that I’ve achieved a lot, in less than ideal circumstances at times (significant bereavement, less than ideal childhood, undiagnosed adhd for a long time, binge eating disorder (in recovery, but it’s Co-morbid with adhd as a sensory/dopamine seeking behaviour), etc), and I am doing my best. And I accept that some days it’s okay to wake up and not do anything on my to-do list because my body and my brain need a rest.
Probably sounds crazy written down like that, but once you implement the systems, it’s very little work to maintain and it becomes a natural inbuilt behaviour. If I’m struggling for what I should be doing or floundering a bit, I consult the list and get myself back on track.
Hope that helps.