Clawing forward

[sorcyress]

I am proud of myself for writing a little schedule and (mostly) sticking to it so far. Hopefully I will be able to do the same tomorrow! Maybe get something good out of this stupid MCAS bullshit?

Some things I have done so far today, for tracking:

*Sorted my dance cards, including marking duplicates (when I passed my full exam I decided to start over with creating them so I could be more consistent)
*Ensured I have dance cards for the double social hour next Monday (this is an _astounding_ advance on prep-work for me, but it's been so exhausting frantically trying to prep these on the bus to dance).
*Brushed my hair
*Cleaned out my little bookshelf, which included recycling literally six inches of paper-stack. So that's....that's a good progress, yipes.
*Cleaned off the desk, which is nice for my co-teacher as well as for me. Gods I wish I had my own desk though. Like. That would be...very nice.
*Replied to a _really_ important email about a ball I had dropped, and was reminded that there's a big ToDo list item I need to work on. Glad to get it back into my brain.

In general, that last point is actually a really frustrating symptom of one of the big problems I currently have: I don't have a decent ToDo tracker. I have a good dailies tracker (and now that I get dice as rewards it _even works_ and it _keeps working_ and that's a very cool thing to have figured out for my life

To emphasize that, I'm ADHD which means I crave novelty. It's pretty easy for me to find something that works...for a few days. Finding something that works continuously is basically impossible, but finding something that I can *return* to is nearly as difficult. My weird little spreadsheet has been running since the first of the year, 81 days including today. I've missed making any entries on 16 of those days (and 12 of those were a consecutive string in MidJanuary when I was seeing 60%+ of my students absent from Omicron and was pulling my hair out in stress).

I don't _do_ all my dailies every day, but that's sorta the point. I can earn a die if I do 15/20 of the dailies. I've managed it 20 times (and twice I've gotten 20/20 and that earns me *two* dice). It is a very visual reminder of the direction to be moving into, and a nice way to visually see how I'm doing --when my numbers start dropping, I know that means Things Ain't Great and maybe I can try and do something about that?

I want to go ahead and work the dice into some sort of Big Important ToDo List Management, but I haven't yet figured out _how_. Calibrating worth is hard --is something that takes five minutes but is incredibly important and I don't do it for six months worth a die? Is something that takes four hours and I got it done right now but I didn't really _need_ to? Bah.

((And yes, I am very _very_ happy to have worked out that dice serve as Successful Incentives for me. I have a handful of orders from various dice companies that I _haven't opened_ (it's killing me) because when I finish the original advent calendar I'm going to get a friend to go through and reload it with new treats. Sure, I technically know what dice I ordered but I ordered most of these six weeks ago so my memory is already sliding, and some of them are even mystery sets!))

Of course the little schedule I wrote earlier did not say anything about writing my words/a DW post just now, so I'm gonna stop procrastinating on grading the test (from Feb7th, sigh). Ta!

~Sor
MOOP!

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I know I'm not supposed to compare myself with people who really have ADHD (After testing in my 50s I was professionally diagnosed with what the psych person jokingly called "girl ADD." I asked what that was supposed to mean, and he said that I was easily distracted but wouldn't jump off a garage roof. No meds suggested, just a book and some writing exercises). Right now I'm in full flow of not finishing anything. Making a list of bank accounts for the lawyer turned into doing other things with a bank account which if I'm not careful will turn into paper shredding ten year old bank statements from a bank that has since changed its name. Washing my mother's clothes has reminded me that I need to call the running store to see if they still have a box for recycling sneakers. Sitting at the typewriter reminds me that I haven't written Mama-died-Friday notes to people for whom I don't have email addresses or phone numbers. One of those people lives in Norway, but I sure haven't learned enough Norwegian to write a sad note. Or at least not one that is more than three words. And it's lunch time. And Proud Boys are asking the courts to let them out of jail in time to go to classic car shows or vacations, including three out of the country (and one in NJ). Two minutes of listening to the radio was enough to hear one senator claim to KBJ that Christianity, Jewdism (my phonetic translation of what he said) and Islam all agreed about "traditional marriage." She did not jump off the stand and throttle him. I was actually disappointed by her answer, which didn't say anything like "not all denominations" at a minimum. I had to turn off the radio.

[sorcyress]

There's something in this about how ADHD is underdiagnosed in girls (or really, in anyone who doesn't present with the traditional hyperactive symptoms, and instead is merely having trouble with imitative, gathering dopamine, rejection sensitive dysphoria, working memory...)

I'm not surprised that right now is being unfocused for you. I've heard of a strategy called Junebugging where you kinda let that lack of focus work for you --move towards the thing you are trying to do, bounce around off other tasks, but keep returning to your goal until it gets done.

You've managed to listen to more news than I have this week -- I've been getting mine filtered through twitter, where at least there's snark and jokes when we talk about how awful it is that KBJ is getting asked insulting questions by the republicans.

~Sor

[lauradi7dw]

I don't think I belong in the H part (and neither did the psych guy).
I don't know that I turned in a tidy homework assignment until almost puberty, but nobody at the time had the modern diagnoses other than not working up to potential. Or maybe I just didn't think it was worth the trouble. I learned some useful stuff anyway.
I was flitting about the house leaving projects unfinished a couple of years ago and apologized to my mother, who said it was fine, she did the same thing.