The Importance of Routine and Schedules for Adults with ADHD: Time Management

In elementary school, every minute of every mean solar day was laid out for me. My parents were my alarm clocks, personal stylists, chefs, tutors, chauffeurs, and around-the-clock cheerleaders. They woke me up 2 hours before school, laid out my clothes the dark before, had breakfast waiting for me on the table, reminded me to castor my teeth, and got my sister and me to school at to the lowest degree fifteen minutes before the bell rang at 8:xxx.

At school, the construction continued. 10:30 recess, 12:30 lunch, and by 3 pm we were home free! Well, not quite.

Nosotros played outside until 5 pm, when we started homework. Dinner was at 6; I usually just pushed my peas around the plate until but before my favorite show came on at vii pm.

At 7:30 pm we were rushed upstairs for a bath and to brush our teeth, and then sent off to bed with lights-out by viii.

The next 24-hour interval it started all over over again…

[Your Free Download: Get Control of Your Life and Schedule]

In my teen years I rebelled against the system. No manner someone was going to tell me what to do and when to do it! I was independent! My rules, your house… whatever, I was the male monarch of the castle!

As the systems, scheduling and routines fell to the wayside, so did my self-confidence, grades, and ability to succeed. My grade 12 report card told it all: 131 missed classes. In that location was lots of talk almost what I should do, simply not once did the school intervene to walk me through what I could have washed to change my situation. I'chiliad not sure if I would have listened anyway.

In my 20s, I bucked the organisation whatsoever mode I could, which left me in menial jobs with no room for advancement, living day-past-miserable-day. I would put on a happy face up and tell everyone I was doing awesome, but most could see right through it.

It wasn't until my mid 30s, following my ADHD diagnosis, that I had a major perspective shift and embraced the value of maximizing time and productivity.

[Take This Examination: Could Y'all Have Adult ADHD?]

I went back to school at 36 to go a clinical social worker/ADHD charabanc. I enrolled at the Nova Scotia Customs College in Human Services with a concentration in Community Inability Supports full-time during the twenty-four hour period, did ADHD coaching school two nights a week, and ran support groups for students with both ADHD and mental wellness challenges on a weekly basis. On my get-go mean solar day of school, I showed up prepared with virtually $500 in binders, highlighters, pens, fancy notebooks… yous name it! But I nevertheless didn't accept a clue of how to use any of this to my advantage.

I speedily learned that the only way to manage this transition was to face up my arch nemesis — time management — caput on. I had no idea where to start.

Four weeks in, I noticed a young woman sitting in the front of the course with an absolutely flawless binder. Everything was color-coded, not a newspaper out of identify. She likewise had everything written in her weekly calendar that was cleaved downwards into 15 minute increments. She never missed an assignment or broke a sweat managing her own full-time form load and full-time job at Staples. I sat down beside her i twenty-four hour period and asked if she would teach me her exact method of getting organized.

This is how you do it:

one. Wake up at to the lowest degree ane.five hours before work or school. Can't get up on time? Check out these alarms:

• Apps: Sleep Cycle or Waken Shake App
• Traditional alarms: Clocky Alert Clocks or Sonic Boom Alarm Clocks

2. Write a Due south.G.A.R.T. to-exercise list to start the twenty-four hours. If yous can complete a job in v minutes or less, practise information technology right away.

3. Schedule your entire day/week in 15-thirty minute increments:

• At-A-Glance Quicknotes "My calendar week" — Model # 76-950F-05
• Brand sure to pick up an At-A-Glance zippered cover – Model # 80PJ2F-05 for extra notes, pencil, flash drives, and and so on.
• Likewise run into Passionplanner.com
• Don't forget to cake time for: travel time between appointments, iii meals a day, personal, social and volunteer time, plus both short and long term goals.

4. Colour code tasks using:

• Frixion Erasable Pens & Highlighters
• Tabs

5. Online options: Google Calendar or Outlook. Keep it as simple as possible; deject based is best equally you can access information technology from multiple devices.

6. At the end of the solar day, compile a done list! Reflect on what worked, what didn't work, and carry over whatever tasks to the side by side day'due south to-do list.

7. Disconnect from technology 1.5 hours before bed.

Then do it all over once more tomorrow…

Let your parents, educators and employers get back to beingness your #1 fans, providing accountability in a collaborative role while y'all have control of managing your ain fourth dimension and creating your own routines!

[Read This Next: Your Never-to-Do List: How Yous're Wasting Fourth dimension Every Single Solar day]

This postal service originally appeared on Educate, Empower, ADDvocate: strADDegies.

Notation: Delight note that all names, models, prices, links, and specifications were accurate and items were in stock at the time of this article's last update on Jan 31, 2022.

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Source: https://www.additudemag.com/how-i-became-liberated-and-organized-in-15-minute-increments/

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