Structure is key to how I manage my ADHD, and maintaining my 'normal' really really helps me.
I am self-employed, which almost always means self-directed. I find myself sorting my days into different 'types' of days, wherein I follow certain expected rhythms. For example, as of the time of this writing, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; I train acrobatics at the =circusInPlace video chat (in the before times it was at CircusFreaks' Clown Gym). So I know that most of my day is going to be setting up the gym, and I'll be able to fit in maybe one step on some other project I'm working on. I know when I'm expected to be at virtual 'places', and I know how long the necessary steps to make the day work are going to take, because I've done them a lot at this point. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have a "rest day" that's more free-form. I make sure I've scheduled something for those times, usually moving a step or two forward on a project or two, and I write that out in my bullet journal. I make sure to be easy on myself though, because the primary goal for me right now is to be training recovery. Saturdays and Sundays I spend time with family, and often take a step forward on a project later in my day.
So right now that's 3 types of days: Gym Days, Non-Gym Days, and Weekend Days.
When there isn't a pandemic going on, typically I had Gym Days, Non-gym days, Weekends at home, teaching-gig days and performance-gig days.
If this idea seems super basic, that's because it is. It's foundational to how I process time. It's very difficult for me to conceptualize how much time there is in a day but it's pretty easy for me to think of a 'small next step' or a 'big next step' and it's easy for me to slot those in to schedules that already include all of the 'basic' things that need to happen over the course of a day. This helps me not over book myself and find myself having to skip breakfast or have to make super creative clothing choices because I haven't done the laundry.
For anyone who is thinking 'oh my God, that sounds like the most boring thing ever', I hear you, but it's not. I regularly change what projects I'm working on so in many ways it feels like I'm always doing something different. It's just that it's all in a larger familiar structure.
I know the word 'Ritual' is heavily laden with social implications, but in this case I'm using it in what is like the 3rd definition in the dictionary:
> Ritual -(n) an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner
How I manage build functional day forms is arguably by stacking a bunch of rituals in orders that become habits (more on habits in a bit).
For example; First thing on weekday mornings, I will make coffee. Simple enough at first, but through repetition and some experimentation it ends up looking like this: #Empty tea kettle, set it in the sink and turn water on (this minimizes build up in a kettle, fyi) #Pour coffee beans in grinder #grind coffee beans #Pull french press from drying rack and assemble #put ground coffee beans in french press #stop the water #put the kettle on the large burner #turn on burner #walk to bathroom #put on deodorant #brush teeth #walk to bedroom #put on clothes (laid out the night before, optimally) #run to kettle because it's screaming #pour water into french press #set timer on microwave for 4 minutes #retrieve bullet journal from bedroom #check off teeth brushing, deodorant, get dressed, and make coffee from bullet journal #notice that it says "take meds" #retrieve meds and place them on the table #turn off beeping timer #press the french press
And voila! Coffee! And I'm more-or-less ready for my day.
Now, if I tried to sell you a class and said that you that you could simplify your life by making coffee in these 22 simple steps ... my guess is most of you would walk the heck away. Because that doesn't sound like simplification, that sounds like complification. And that's one of the reasons why it's so hard to find and/or follow good advice for how to deal with mental health. It's extremely unlikely that anyone is going to benefit much by following what I do exactly.
But the essence of what I've done there is what I'd like to share.
I did not figure this out by sitting down and deciding that that's the order I'd do things in. I sat down and said to myself "What needs to get done in the morning in order for me to be ready for my day?" I wrote that down and gave myself a list that I could reference. I didn't write out all the steps of making coffee, but I did write out all the things I wanted to get done. While double checking my bullet journal ended up near the end of this process, originally it was essentially the first thing. Then once I'd set off a task that took time (the boiling and steeping) I would check the list and guess at what I could get done. Most of it fell into a natural order pretty quickly, I'd prefer to put on deodorant before putting on clothes, and I'd like to give it just a moment to dry, so I ended up making sure my deodorant stick lived in my bathroom so I could quickly brush my teeth after putting it on. I don't remember how exactly that went originally but it was probably something like check bujo, set water filling, do bathroom stuff, overfill water, pour out extra water, set water on burner, get dressed, have a screaming kettle and no ground coffee to pour it on, be very frustrated. But key to that is that I didn't stop at that point. I fixed the problem that day as best I could, and then tried it slightly differently the next. One of these days, I'll remember the meds before I leave my bedroom so I don't have to double back for them.
I'm confident by this point that someone reading this is thinking "aren't you overthinking things a bit?" and maybe I am, but then again, I don't naturally have good time sense so for me to be effective with how I use my time, I have to consciously think out how to do that.
Note that even though I've mostly set that 'ritual' now, I still have a step where I check my bujo? I've found that to be incredibly useful. As there's inevitably a morning where some weirdness ensues, I try to create some redundancies.
Each type of day has a set of these sorts of sets of actions. In a way that might be annoying to some, I write out each of the key elements of them the night before in my bullet journal as my 'expected tasks', which I set ahead of my as-the-day-goes log on my 'daily' spreads.
Some of them overlap, I try to have nearly the same wind-down practice every night, and most days start with the above coffee dance, but some are exclusive to a certain kind of day. I'm not going to be setting up of our gym mats for a day with no video call, for example :)
There's tons of competing ideas on how effective habit forming works, but what I can say works for me is this: Once I've connected a string of actions, doing one of those actions will trigger the others. I haven't figured out exactly how many repetitions of an action pairing/string have to occur before that happens, but I have definitely seen it do so. A key thing when I'm trying to build new routines is to make sure that there's a starter activity that I enjoy. I like coffee, so having the rest of my basic morning routine integrated with/ set off by making coffee is very effective. At this point, if I start making coffee and I'm distracted or just sort of spacey, I'm likely to make it all the way to putting the kettle on without missing steps, and will find myself walking off as soon as I do. This has lead to some interesting "where am I even going" moments when making a cup of 'afternoon' coffee, but generally works really well to keep me in a pattern.
When I was thinking about the habit building I've been doing I was struck by the phrase "Choose your defaults with intention". I'm probably going to do more writing on that concept at some point, but for now I'll just say, that I find myself building habits whether I decide to or not, and I've noticed that life works more smoothly if I've put in the work to create some basic habits that are good for me.
The downside:
I get really really thrown when a day doesn't fit into one of my expectations. With enough advance warning I can figure it out, but one of the realities I'm coming to accept for myself is that on days that have gone wacky, I'm just going to be less 'productive' -note that I don't particularly approve of 'productivity-centric' thinking.. but I do fall prey to it. The first draft of this was written during what I temporarily classified as a 'rolling power outages' day, which took a day to figure out my methods for, and is ..as one might expect, less functional than my typical day.