Since my writing retreat, I’ve noticed my life is very cluttered. There’s so much… stuff. Some of it’s physical possessions, some of it’s mentalities that don’t serve me, some of it’s routines that aren’t helping me get what I need done. There are a lot of places in one’s life where clutter can collect like snowdrifts. Which is frustrating, to say the least, because by the time I notice them, I need a shovel to get them out.
Having ADHD like I do, means my brain is pretty consistently in a state of flux. Focus is hard to find sometimes, even with my medications, and I’m trying to learn a few techniques to help me manage things more effectively. I’m almost forty years old, and I feel like I’ve been missing key elements that most folks have. Now, granted, being neurodivergent as I am (ADHD/autism/dyslexia/dyscalculia) means I have a lot of other elements most people don’t have, so I’m not hating on myself. But some of those key elements make it awfully difficult to function reliably. Add to that my migraines and physical disability (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and many of its comorbidities), and you have a recipe for a life that’s constantly driven by nothing more than impulse or what’s available to me in the moment.
Having been gone from my day-to-day for almost two weeks in a space where the daily pressures aren’t as extreme, I’ve figured a few things out about myself that I think are going to change how I approach things in the future. First, is I need to stop leaping every time someone messages me. I want to respond immediately because otherwise I know I’ll forget to. That’s just a reality for me. If I don’t answer a message when it arrives, I often don’t answer it at all. This has become an issue as I start getting more and more messages and my social network has grown. I sometimes feel like I spend all day keeping up with conversations, chats, emails, and social media discussions that… honestly, I don’t need to be in. I feel like I need to be there, but I really don’t.
It’s not that I’m quitting social media; I need it for marketing, connecting with projects I’m on, and staying constant with my friends. However, I’ve decided to start working on blocking my time. I’ve tried in the past to create schedules for myself, but my autistic brain wants to schedule everything to the minute and then gets very upset when that schedule isn’t accurate. I’ve had full-blown meltdowns as a result. So obviously that isn’t healthy. However, until recently, it was that or no schedule at all, which is an ADHD/executive function nightmare.
I recently stumbled into the idea of time blocks. Many of you, I’m sure, are saying, “E, that’s not new news,” but I’d never heard of them until a recent YouTube video. I’ve been watching But First, Coffee on YouTube, and I’ve been enjoying her content immensely, and she had a video on how she schedules her day. Now, she’s a mom and has different scheduling needs than I do, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a go.
Full disclosure, today, as I write this, is my first day trying the system. But so far I like it. Now, it’s going to take me some time to figure out how long everything in my day takes so I can set it up appropriately. For example, I gave myself two hours to get up, do breakfast, and do my morning routine (which I’m trying to create for myself also). It took me one, and I wasn’t exactly hurrying. I also scheduled myself two hours of cleaning in the morning but could only manage one before my body told me it was done. So I’m going to tweak my blocks for tomorrow to try and create a rhythm.
The guide I saw suggested doing two-hour blocks, but I’m not honestly sure that’ll be necessary for everything. Some might be longer or shorter, and that’s okay. I’m developing a system that works for me.
So how does this in any way tie into my writing (because, E. that’s what this blog is for)? It means I’m going to start prioritizing my writing more and trying to start cutting down on things that work against it like strangling vines. It feels a lot of the time like everything in my life is conspiring to steal my energy and writing time. For example, I’ve gotten about five messages since writing this blog post less than twenty minutes ago. I’m trying to ignore them.
Writing is one of those activities that can’t really flow if you’re in a constant state of distraction, and my ADHD means just that. Even the fact that there’s a little (1) on my Messenger app right now is taking bandwidth away from writing this because I keep having to fight the impulse to make it go away. The world right now is a never-ending circus of distractions and notifications, and trying to keep that at bay requires intentionality that I am trying to build. It isn’t easy, but I think it will be worthwhile. And, moreover, necessary if I’m going to make progress. The fact that I was able to write 30,000 words while I was detached from the internet told me something. Most days here I’m lucky if I can eke out 500 before life grabs me.
Like I said in my last post, the focus of this blog is shifting a little from purely writing advice (which I could give forever) into something else, so if you’re still reading… thanks for keeping up with me. I appreciate you. And feel free to drop me a line via e-mail (it’s listed on the site) if you want to contact me about anything or have a question. That kind of interaction gives me content to work with that I know y’all want to read!
