…or let’s get creative and see how much I can do before I get a case of the nerves.
So, what happens when you’ve got a book being released, a launch party, and you have other projects you need to flesh out? You take a deep breath, plan EVERYTHING, and make lists, LOTS OF LISTS.
You see, when you have ADD, overstimulation is a thing that can happen when you have events coming up, and you’re excited.
Your excitement can get the best of you and leave you forgetting things, your mind racing, and being wired for sound. How do I cope?
Read on, my friends, and I hope what I do to cope will help some of my fellow spazzes. ❤
1. Make Lists
This is a to-do list that you can find in the windows store. This is the main list. I enter what I want to do for that day on the list.
The best part about this is that you can list within an item. This means you can break down the entry into a smaller list to further organize your project.
This is great for me, because the main item sometimes makes me feel like I am trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and then I wind up clicking mindlessly through social media and getting mad at myself for not getting anything done.
2. Use Evernote
For people like me who have tons of ideas and tend to shut down when they list them all, there is Evernote. (No, I am not an affiliate.)
I will be making tutorial videos on the newest iteration of the application, but in short, it lets you organize all of your projects so you can work on them at your leisure.
The main heading in the picture is called a stack name. The titles under the stack are the notebooks, and you make notes within the individual notebooks.
I have been using this for eight years and can’t imagine my life without it, quite frankly.
You can make outlines in it, story boards, and annotate images that you can paste into it. You can even download articles to your notebooks and store them without ads or pesky pop-ups.
3. Mentally Prepare Myself
There have been times where I make the list, not break it down, look it at, get overwhelmed and shut down, not doing a darn thing for that day. Then the day turns into 2, then 3, and before I know it, I whole week has gone by. When that happens, I get depressed and frustrated at myself because nothing got accomplished. ADD screws with you that way.
I have to calm myself down and breathe. Then, I move on to the next step.
4. Remind Myself I Am only One Person
To do this, I have to recite to myself the following sentences:
- I will do my best to achieve the goals I have set for myself.
- I accept I may not get to everything today.
- I will not get upset if I can’t tick everything off the list.
- I will be satisfied with what I accomplish.
- I am only one person, and I can only do so much in a day.
You might be rolling your eyes reading those, but I have remind myself that not finishing everything won’t be the end of the world. Too many times I set out to tick everything off a long list of projects only to fall short and mope the rest of the day instead of being satisfied with what I have accomplished for that day. It’s a horrid cycle.
I am doing my best to break it.
Until next time, what do you do to keep focused? Put it in the comments.
Anissa “Maddy” Walker
House of Geek 