There’s a strange and almost electrically-charged state of ADHD I’m currently in where I have a very hard and fast-approaching deadline, and I’m trying my best to chug along through the list of things I need to accomplish. I have some white space in my schedule, but it’s mostly taken up with Summer Mom Mode. But I have a few days where I have to put myself into something like 5th gear, which for this ADHDer looks a bit different than what one might expect.
For starters, I get very meticulous about my lists. I currently have a list of work things to get done, house things to get done, packing for an upcoming vacation, making all the arrangements for that, and getting ahead for my clients and projects so I can enjoy some time off for some long-term travel and family time for the first time since pre-lockdown era.
While I’m not chipping away at all the lists, I’ve been replacing a lot of screen time and social media scrolling with simple doodling in my journal. I’ve been sharing them over on Instagram and on my Stories so check it out :)
I’m about 48 hours away from the official departure, and I hope to have everything on my list taken care of. However, in the present moment, my brain is oscillating between all the lists and all the tasks on the lists. All of them have to get done, so my usual method of prioritization has gone out the window and every single thing seems important and urgent.
Sometimes I’ll sit down and jump from one task to the next, very keenly aware of exactly when my brain starts to get bored of something and slows down, so I’ll switch to another task that’s more engaging or interesting at the moment so I can stay at a fast-paced speed.
While it may look chaotic to some, as long as I stay on top of my list and make note of my progress, it’s actually been fun to see how much I can get done when I’m just following my Sense of Interest.
Sometimes I’ll get lucky and find I’ll get engaged in one thing for a long enough time to get into a flow so I can chip away at those bigger projects. But long stretches of time don’t just magically appear when there isn’t school or camp for the kids, so there’s a lot of “give Mom 10 more minutes to finish this up!” (And it’s always closer to 20 if we’re being honest.)
One of the things I remember my parents, my mom especially, saying about me when I was growing up was “Once she gets going, it’s like there’s a motor in her that won’t stop.” And I never understood what they meant because I was also often told I was lazy. So, which was it? (As it turns out, it was undiagnosed neurodivergence.)
So when it comes to getting ready for something big, like a trip, a massive or unexpected change to our routine, or when I got my hysterectomy a few months ago, sometimes I’m super grateful for that chaotic little motor in me that likes to go, go, go. There’s a part of me that knows I’ll do everything I need to do before I leave. Even though I don’t have a lot of white space in my schedule, there’s still a fair amount of flexibility I left myself so I’m not scrambling and staying up all night getting things done.
I also realize that sometimes I have chaos in my life simply because I also make it a priority to get at least 7 hours of sleep at night now because my ADHD is so much worse when I don’t, and then I have even lower productivity to do the things I want to get done.
I used to think I was one of those people who could get 5 hours of sleep and function because it gave me a rush to go to bed late and wake up for work and try to use the anxiety of being late and rushed to get me going throughout the day. Even writing that now, I’m shaking my head and feeling sorry for early 2000s-Emily.
But after years of doing that and trying to make up for lost sleep on the weekends, I burned out. Often. Especially when kids were added to the mix and all of a sudden, I realized how important having a regular nighttime routine is for everyone, no matter how old.
Oh sure, I still have stress, but I’m glad part of my stress comes from things like “I need to get this done to go to sleep at a reasonable hour so I’m not a monster with everyone around me or relying on caffeine and the jitters to get me through” or “I need to get this done so I can go enjoy a long-awaited, lovely vacation with my family.”
Even though my motivation ebbs and flows throughout the day, I’m glad there’s a part of me that’s learned to say, “Hey, I know this is tough and boring, but let’s just sit down, set a timer for 30 minutes, and just work on this one thing while we can. Then figure out the next step from there.”
By the way, another example of this weird productivity motor I have, I’m currently writing a blog post for the first time in 2024 when I’m supposed to be doing all this other stuff from the lists I mentioned. I haven’t had the ideas or motivation or even the feeling of wanting to post a blog post in a while now, but all of a sudden tonight I felt motivated to add yet another thing to my ongoing to-do list and create a blog post.
I like continuing to figure out this motor of a brain, even if it’s sometimes chaotic, unwieldy, and unpredictable.
WHAT TO READ NEXT …
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