Thanks to @AnokheeTara@ohai.social for the inspiration for some of the sections in this post – and for the inspiration in sharing this regularly!

What went well?

I've been continuing down the ADHD rabbit hole, which has shifted my perspective such that I see my daily structure – my habits, my journal, scheduling my day – as fundamental needs rather than nice to haves. To that end, I scheduled my days every day this week, and that helped me build so much traction on various projects.

I also spent a bunch of time organizing and writing down all of the things I want to be doing – fun projects, hobbies, etc. Getting it all out of my head and into a document from which I can randomly grab tasks on any given day helps so much. Otherwise, I forget about them, and if I don't make the decision in the morning to do something, the likelihood of it happening is painfully low.

I also wrote a bunch this week. I published a post about how to accomplish the important things that somehow keep slipping. I dusted off a decade-old idea for a novel and started re-visiting the outline for it.

What didn't go so well?

I got really frustrated and irritated at work in the first half of the week, mainly from ambiguous and shifting expectations. I also found myself not wanting to deal with and process those feelings. I just wanted to stew in them.

I also had a couple of nights of bad sleep. Thursday night, I woke up at 1am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I had a total of about 3 hours of sleep. Friday night, Zoe, my husky pup, had diarrhea, so I was up every 2 hours taking her out. Saturday night was a lot better, though I got to sleep about an hour and a half later than usual and still woke up at my normal time.

What did I learn this week?

I'm learning that structure and planning are essential needs for me. My sense of well-being depends on it. I'm also learning that I need to have clear expectations at work, and I need to ask for that or find healthier ways to cope with shifting expectations in situations where it's necessary.

I'm also learning that I still react to many things in my life, usually by just getting grumpy and shutting down and avoiding, when instead I could be responding. That requires being more mindful of a given situation, of my feelings, and choosing to respond instead of reacting.

What am I curious about?

I continue to be very curious about ADHD and how the coping strategies of others will work for me. I'm excited and hopeful that by giving myself enough variation and a list of things to choose from, I can keep myself engaged and thus feeling pretty well.

What's bringing me joy?

Making progress on my various projects! I did some work on my RV home automation/remote control project, in which I'm building the ability for us to adjust climate controls and even start/stop our generator remotely. This is really important to us, because sometimes we leave the dogs at home, and if we forget to turn on the A/C – or if there's a power outage – it can get incredibly hot. The remote control allows us to get notified if the power goes out, and start the generator + A/C from where ever we are.

What are my intentions for next week?

Next week, I would like to be more mindful of how I react vs. respond to situations in my life, and work on nudging myself towards responding. I will also continue planning my days, because that's really working out well for me. I'm bumping my daily word count goal to 400 words per day. We'll see how that goes. Experimentation without judgment!

#Reflection #SelfCare #PersonalGrowth #AmWriting #Mindfulness

That led to going down an ADHD rabbit hole, buying a book called Driven to Distraction, and almost finishing it in the span of a couple of days. This coming from the guy who has been reading two other books for the last 3 months and is nowhere close to finishing them. Fixation much?

I hate to self-diagnose, but a lot of the ADHD experience resonates with me. And it's not just casual forgetfulness and procrastination, it's a deep inability to follow through on things, an inability to start things even though I want to do them. The need for a structure in order to get anything done. Episodes of hyperfixation where I go really deep on something, lose sleep over it, forget to eat and drink and shower. Hell, even on a regular basis, I forget to shower unless it's in my task list.

That being said, I also feel like my experience is manageable enough without medication and with the proper structure and systems in place. Whether or not I have it, the mental model of ADHD helps me recognize and understand some of my behaviour, and how to cope and manage it better. I don't feel like a professional diagnosis would change anything.

What happened this week?

Engaging with the ADHD rabbit hole gave me a huge energy spike. For the last couple of months, I've been trying to figure out how to feel that energy spike. How to get that energy back. I've been in an energy trough for so long. What's interesting is that my eating, sleeping, and exercise habits didn't change at all. The only thing that changed is that my brain was engaged on a new topic. How do I sustain that engagement? Can I sustain it? Is it even sustainable? Or do I have to accept the rotating highs and lows as that’s just how my brain works?

What went well?

I found it really helped me to check-in on a daily basis with a variety of people to help keep me focused and accountable. I checked in and shared my daily intentions with my best friend and my step-daughter, who I thought would also benefit from a daily check-in.

I also started doing daily writing check-ins on the Mindly.Social Discord server. I set a specific daily writing goal: 250 words or sit for an hour, whichever happens first. And having multiple projects to choose from – this blog, my travel blog, and a possible fiction project – helps me make sure I write, even if I'm not feeling into one of those projects.

With the new insight about structure, I worked on building a habit stacking plan.

What didn't go so well?

Given my fixation on the ADHD rabbit hole, it was incredibly hard to get focused on work. The only time I managed to get any real work done was when there was serious external pressure – something broke and I needed to urgently fix it, or I felt like someone at work was waiting for something specific to be done. Deadlines for the win, I guess?

Daily physical activity eluded me. I totally forgot to do any kind of finance management on the weekend, and even forgot to get some bills paid. Thankfully I did remember eventually – at 2:30am Sunday night :D

What did I learn?

I learned how important and necessary structure is to my sense of well-being. On top of that, I learned that having a trusted friend or group of people to keep me accountable contributes greatly to that structure. Using tools like body doubling, coaching, and accountibilibuddies, are necessary to my success and consistency.

How can I improve next week?

I need to manage my expectations, and realize that I can't change everything all at once. With that in mind, I need to focus on building one consistent habit for at least the next couple of weeks, before I can consider adding another one.

That habit is writing. Every day, after I finish writing in my journal, I'll write at least 300 words or sit for an hour.

Next week, I also want to finish building a habit stacking plan for myself, and making adjustments to my journal to add more structure to my planning.

#ADHD #Mindfulness #SelfCare #Journaling #PersonalGrowth #Neurodivergent #AmWriting #Writing #WritingCommunity #Habits