Prioritising everything in my ADHD brain...

[@BOABModels]

I need to do a mind map thing like you did there. I got such a sense of overwhelm last week when I was halfway through putting up some shelves. I'm way behind on videos myself right now, but really I shouldn't blame myself. I'm suffering from tennis elbow, which is weird as I've not played tennis in years!

[@andrewdavies2640]

Also great tip on prioritisation. I think we struggle with too many options and it gets all EURGHHHBLEGHHH. Makes much more sense to REMOVE the junk first and THEN pick off whats left. I shall steal that, rather good.

[@ilianaboheme]

We are not alone!! 😉💗

[@SimoneEppler]

Honestly, I recently rediscovered the Eisenhower matrix thanks to the anti planner, and for the first time it helps me structuring all the things in my head. I loathed that thing in the past! Because a lot of the creative projects are important, but not urgent. But we need to plan it in in order to not forget about them (or think about it the entire time ). And yes, we need to allow ourselves to jump into our creative outbursts at the same time. A great suggestion by Ruri Ohama: always plan in a highlight into our day, and it does not have to be important, but something that lights us up. And it’s not optional, it has to be done!

[@rachdoesyoutube]

Love that suggestion from Ruri - thanks!! What do you think of the anti-planner? I bought it for my sister because I thought it looked soooo cool and fun. But it also looked a bit overwhelming of where to start with so many ideas and frameworks

[@meghanmonroe2045]

chaotic interlude is story of my life. i have no idea why i went from getting help as a kid with adhd and my mom taking me off the medication and now it resurfacing as a 35 year old. it's so story of my life. i'm so grateful to see the validation from you.

[@andrewdavies2640]

Great contentz! Bullet pointing information etc is a great way of offloading executive function (particularly planning) to a piece of paper or notepad app. I'll definitely try to just roll with WHAT that external thing is though as I do notice that I always think I've found THE way to do ze thing but accepting that it's cool to roll with it and be flexible is more realistic. I've kind of applied that to other things actually. I'd get mega irritated if I overly planned because of I slightly slipped I'd get overwhelmed at stuff piling up. I now just state what good enough looks like and set that bar low/reasonable but allow myself to be flexible and it's much better for sticking to goals and my mood. Ie instead of YOU MUST GO THE GYM AND STUDY ON DAYS X Y Z..... It's now something like "I'll do the gym roughly 2 days on, 1 off but who cares if I skip 1 extra day and break the pattern? I'll do SOME amount of studying daily but if I skip a day, whatevs!!"

[@meghanmonroe2045]

yeah the flooding wasn't always so clear for me. it was more emotional prior to the adhd diagnosis. i live for these videos. thank you so much rachel!

[@rachdoesyoutube]

Yippeee, thanks for being here!

[@heyjonmanning]

Double Rach video day 🎉🥳

[@rachdoesyoutube]

hehe indeedy

[@BeamZee]

Say I have my to-do list sat there judging me 😂, on one hand it can help, on the other hand it quickly becomes a tyrant that takes up mental bandwidth when I'm trying to relax or rest. How quickly these adaptive strategies become maladaptive quicksand!! The skill to practice is spotting when the scales tip so that you can jump off and let go of the idea that all of your tasks need to be done immediately or even at all 😯 What? Yep, sometimes you learn enough from just starting a project and that's valuable enough. If you have 10 tasks and you do (or start) one today that's fine because.... well.... life basically 😂 ADHD life. It seems counter productive to let go of unfinished business at first but the mental space that letting go provides, ironically, lifts the fog of time blindness and suddenly you realise "oh wow I've just finished this and I actually have a lot of time left for other stuff this week". Doesn't always work because of the way our brains work, but letting go is definitely a skill worth practicing, especially when overwhelmed.

[@rachdoesyoutube]

Yesss, totally agree! Thank you for sharing. I especially found this helpful 'The skill to practice is spotting when the scales tip so that you can jump off'

[@BeamZee]

@rachdoesyoutube I think a problem is that with ADHD we are really good at seeing the bigger picture, like we can see everything that needs to be done but we see it all simultaneously which is massively overwhelming (im doing it now as i work on a uni project). Something I heard though that pulls me out of it is the saying "the most important step is the next one", and I think that's right. When we see everything, all the variables we are thinking about the outcome, this is not surprising given the lack of executive functioning that we have, so a reminder that the next step is just as important as the bigger picture and that the process is just as rewarding as the outcome can help bring our attention back the present....... Oooosh deep!!! After party 4am kitchen talk deep 😂