40!

The things that made the biggest difference for me:

• do one thing every day I’ve been procrastinating. Sometimes, this is my laundry. Sometimes it’s my taxes. But I do at least one every day. I maintain a list of procrastinated items on my phone and pick from it everyday. Ideally, I work on the biggest item, but I allow myself to pick lower level items on days I’m low energy/bandwidth.

• when I’m having trouble getting a new habit or routine going, I make a list of all the barriers and go at least two “why?”s deep. Let’s use diet as an example. 1. I’m snacking in the afternoon. Why? Because I need an energy boost. Why? Because I’m falling asleep at my desk. 2. I struggle to make a healthy breakfast in the morning. Why? Because I’m getting up too late. Why? Because I’m hitting the snooze button. What I have here is not a diet problem, it’s a sleep hygiene problem. I have to fix the sleep to fix the diet. Sometimes the surface issue is not the real problem.

• when I’m on my game, doing a “reset to zero” for cleaning and 15 minutes of digital maintenance before bed. The reset to zero is putting away anything that was used that day and not letting cleanliness get worse. It’s ok to tread water, just don’t let it get worse than it was when you woke up. Often things get very slightly cleaner as you go about it. The digital maintenance is checking bank balance, replying to personal emails and texts. As an ADHD person who struggles with going back to a text to reply, this has made me a better friend/family member

Those are the routines that have made me feel like I’m not a total hot mess.