Planning My ADHD Life

I’m not really big on the whole New Year's Resolutions thing because I always break them within a week, or I just forget what I had planned to change.

So even though this might sound like a resolution it’s not really. I’ve planned to use a planner (ha ha) to organize my schedule this year.

I’ve tried using planners in the past without much success. The planners I've tried have primarily been homework planners but usually I forgot to bring them to class, or I just wrote the assignments in my notebook, or I didn’t take the time to fill them out. The only time I was successful was when I was seeing a time management tutor and she had me using a weekly planner to write everything I needed to do in addition to an hour-by-hour schedule of when I would complete which tasks. This worked great – except that it took me at least 30 minutes every night to figure it out and I always overscheduled every free minute until I was exhausted.

This time, I’m using my planner a little differently and I’m determined to make it work. First of all, I bought a half-size notebook-style planner so it fits easily in my purse and I bring it everywhere. Second, I’m not limiting myself to only writing things I have to do. I think part of the reason I didn’t stick with my planners in the past was that I hated to see everything I was assigned to do listed out every day. It was too overwhelming.

This time, I’m writing things like do laundry on Tuesday; go to Target on Wednesday, etc. Of course, I also write my work schedule, so I don’t decide to wash two loads of laundry when I’m working until 10pm. The planner I’m using has plenty of open space to write notes to myself also – always a bonus for someone as forgetful as me. I’m hoping that writing everything in my planner will eliminate the need for hundreds of Post-it notes everywhere. If I think of an idea for a blog, I write it in my planner. Actually, today’s date on my planner says blog: Planner.

And look at that – I wrote a blog about my planner today. It’s working already!