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Letter to a friend on 10 second breathing

I have been a bit slack about posting. Lots of irons in the fire here, and unfortunately this blog gets back-burnered when time is short.  Recently, I wrote to a friend about the reason she should be taking 2 minutes to breathe for 10 seconds when she is stressed and really daily whether or not she is stressed.

 

I’m posting the email here because I think it’s good info, and a pretty quick summary, even if it’s kinda rambling.

Hi!

Sorry for the late email! Long day!

Here’s what I want to share:
There is a very long nerve that runs from your brain stem/limbic area of the brain to your heart.  Consider it a dedicated circuit between the brain and the heart.  The role of this nerve is to control the heart if you are in mortal danger.  It pretty much shuts down your extraneous (at that moment) systems (such as digestion) and makes your heart pump fast and VERY CONSISTENTLY.

Normally your heart beats vary in length and frequency.  This is known as Heart Rate Variability.  High HRV or Low HRV can actually be a great measure of your health.  Lots and lots written about it.  When your HR is very variable, that means that your parasympathetic is in control.  This is the “autopilot” you want to be flying the plane.  It means you are calm, relaxed, and able to easily function in the pre-frontal cortex area of your brain.

If your HRV is very low (you have a very consistent heart rate), it actually means you are in a state of arousal, you are ready to fight, flee, or freeze.  Your digestion is an after thought, and crucially, you aren’t able to use areas of your Pre-Frontal Cortex.  This part of the brain (responsible for decision making and executive function) “costs” a lot to use. It eats up glucose very fast, and gets exhausted quick…also, it may make you pause while you consider the best course of action to run from the lion, or try to talk it out of eating you. By then it would be too late, so when in a state of arousal, the PFC is actually shut off.  Since the carpool being backed up, an urgent conference call, and spilled coffee…won’t actually eat you…the problem is that our PFC is shut off precisely when we need it the most for modern life.

How do you get it back?
One method is to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, force the vagus nerve to tell the heart to slow down, and allow cortisol levels to drop.  This is called “vagal toning” and there are a LOT of woo-woo kinds of things (‘hippie-dippie’) out there about this.  However, there is a lot of science behind it in actual psychology research journals.  Two common methods BACKED BY RESEARCH are slowing your breathing down to 4-6 breaths per minute for AT LEAST 90 seconds, or humming for at least 90 seconds.

Since humming can draw attention to yourself, and slowing your breathing can be done relatively unnoticed, this is my go-to. However, if you are alone in your car, or are braver than I, feel free to hum! 🙂  Feel like adding power? Hum WHILE doing 10 second breathing.

You want to get down to 4 to 6 breaths PER minute.  That means, one full breath every 10 seconds…or 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out.

Why greater than 90 seconds?  Because that’s how long it takes for a pump of cortisol to burn out in your body.  If you can break the cortisol release cycle (I’m stressed – cortisol is released, now I’m stressed AND anxious, and my body is on edge, omg why am I shaking, great a headache! How can I present now!?!?! OMG more cortisol just was released…thanks a lot!), Then you give yourself a BIG LEG UP.

It might not cure all the things that stressed you out, but it keeps you from making it worse, by then worrying “Is this a heart attack? is this a panic attack? My stomach is in knots, maybe it’s stomach cancer?”

Is that just me? Oops?

So…here’s some other super cool vagus nerve info. You are less likely to have a heart attack if you have high HRV.  Also, if you have a heart attack and then practice 10+ second breathing every day, working up to 20 mins, you recover faster, and have less of a chance of a second heart attack.

What’s more, you should do 10 second breathing EVERY DAY. Whether you are stressed or not.

Even if you only do it once a day, for two minutes…it impacts your body in amazing ways.

When I’m doing it, I watch the second hand and I think “THIS is the breath that I’m working on…”
then..”Now…THIS is the breath that I’m working on.”  And so on.

It’s very grounding and keeps me fully present.  I can do it in meetings, and sometimes I do.  I can do it in the car…But it’s currently in my “Lunch routine.”  I eat, then do 3 mins (I’m working up to 5 or 10), then I might do a small meditation or light reading for 2 mins.  Notice, the 10 second breathing is it’s OWN THING.  I consider myself in HRV training, and meditation is necessary and important, but different and I keep them separate.

Once I get to 10 mins of 10 second breathing, I might try to make it 12 second breathing (5 breaths/minute).

Thanks for reading this far if you actually have! Sorry to ramble.  It sounds complicated, and invasive in life, but I’m telling you it’s not. And you can work it into anything. Like maybe that’s your stoplight thing. Maybe during potty breaks (though you’ll have to tell me how humming in public toilets goes over…I feel like that would make great Twitter humor). It doesn’t matter. The more you do it, the better, but once a day for 2 mins is super impactful.  When I started I did it at least 4 times a day (breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner – I figured if I tied it to food, I wouldn’t miss it 🙂 ).

ok – enough rambling! Hope that helps!

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Time wasting and Opportunity Cost

TL;DR

Problem:

You continually put off things that you really need to do in favor of what you feel like doing right now

 

Solution:

1 – Recognize when you are choosing.

2 – Determine all the options you are choosing amongst.

3 – “Play the tape forward,” and imagine (vividly) living with the consequences of doing

4 – Recognize the opportunity cost  of not doing each option.  If you choose 1, you can’t do any of the others.  What are you giving up?

 

Full story:

 

So, let’s talk about opportunity cost, and what it means for an ADHD person.

 

Wikipedia defines Opportunity Cost like this:

 

“…the opportunity cost, or alternative cost, of making a particular choice is the value of the most valuable choice out of those that were not taken. In other words, opportunity that will require sacrifices.” (Link.)

 

Usually this in reference to financial decisions, for example, if you invest in stock XYZ, you AREN’T investing that same money in ABC…which means whatever benefit you could have had from ABC stock gains is lost to you. But can apply this concept to any “scare resource.”  Guess what is a scare resource for ADHD people (and really all people these days)? Time.  Time is your scarce resource. (Even if you are unemployed and live in your parent’s basement).  Start thinking about the opportunity cost of your time investments.

 

For example: If you have a paper due Friday, you have laundry, dishes, and vacuuming to do, grocery shopping, and you need to visit your family before they disown you.  If it will take you 10 hours to write the paper, which can only be done after work, you have 2 hours each night needed to write the paper.  Assuming you get home at 6pm and are in bed by 10pm, your capacity each night is 4 hours.  If, Monday night you think, “Oh I have ‘Plenty of Time’ to work on the paper…I can go see Mom & Dad!”  That takes all four hours because they live 30 mins away, you stay for dinner, and we all know your mom can talk…

Now you have 16 hours of capacity left (over 4 nights).  When weighing the decision to go see Mom & Dad versus working on the paper you must consider the opportunity cost of choosing time with Mom & Dad over working on the paper.  There isn’t a right or wrong answer here.  Maybe tomorrow Mom & Dad are in a terrible wreck…you will be happy you invested those 4 hours with them and not on a paper no one will ever remember.  The key is, you should CHOOSE WITH AWARENESS of the opportunity cost.

 

Now it’s Tuesday night, and you have to cook dinner, do the dishes, and vacuum as the dust bunnies and pile of dirty dishes in the sink are out of control.  You have chosen cleaning over paper.  The opportunity cost is that now you are seriously diminishing you’re a) Ability to do quality work on this paper and B) Quality of life when you finally sit down to work on the paper.  You will be a stress puppy because you left it to the last minute and cut every corner you can. You and I both know this.

 

 

Dr. Wes Crenshaw talks about this in his book “I Always Want to Be Where I’m Not,” which, btw, I love the title of this book. I can so relate to this.  I’ll review the book in a later blog, but for now, let’s just talk about what he calls “Playing the Tape Forward.”

In order to see the opportunity cost of anything, you must be able to play the tape forward. This is, according to Dr. Crenshaw, the ability to imagine the future consequences of doing, or not doing, any specific action.  ADHD peeps, notoriously impulsive, have major issues with this!  No surprise there.  However, if you can’t see the potential outcome of doing or not doing anything, you will never be able to weigh the opportunity cost.

 

So, step one is RECOGNIZE WHEN YOU ARE ABOUT TO MAKE A DECISION!!!  This is harder than you think.  And it goes to (yet another blog post to come) Microchoices.  These are the teeny, tiny, infinitesimally small choices we make all day that add up to the totality of our lives.  Maybe there’s a better word, or someone has already coined that term for something else…but this is how I define them in my life. And recognizing when I’m making a microchoice is CRUCIAL to this entire process.

 

Once you start to notice where you make a choice, be it big or small, you can identify the alternatives available in the choice.  Let’s say you recognize that when you come home from work every day, you have grand plans of all the things you want to tackle before bed.  Instead, once again, you find yourself zoning out in front of the tv until it’s long past bedtime.  When is the moment of choice?  When you plop down on the couch and pick up the remote.  Tomorrow (cause it’s too late today), when you are about to plop on the couch, you will need to stop and consider your other options.  Yes, I know you will FEEL like “relaxing” for just a minute.  You are choosing none-the-less.  And this is the perfect opportunity to make choices that will change the ease of your life.

 

So it’s tomorrow, and you are heading towards the couch. You think, “This is just what that blog was talking about.”  What are your alternatives?  You could, instead of plopping on the couch, quickly go change into your running shoes and get out the door before you have a chance to change your mind.  Or, you could work on that Business Plan for the new business you dream about starting.  Or you could do the pile of dishes in the sink, which will make your spouse supremely happy, and result in a more harmonious marriage.  It doesn’t matter what your options are, you need to play the tape forward for each one.  Then you need to understand that when you choose one, all the others are off the table to you.  You don’t get the harmonious marriage and get to sit on the couch night after night.  That’s not the way the world works.  Your biz won’t ever take off if you know more about Game of Thrones than your new venture.  You will probably end up with a heart attack at 55 because you “felt” more like “relaxing” than putting all that effort into running.  I’m not being mean; I’m being realistic.  And you need to be, too.

 

Everything you choose shuts off ALL THE OTHER OPTIONS.  

 

I used to think, erroneously, that I’d “make up for it later.”  Do you do that?  Ok, well, if I spend “just a minute” checking Facebook, I’ll “work faster” on that paper later, and just get it done in less time.  Or I’d somehow clean faster, or drive faster.

 

That’s called “magical thinking” and is not how reality works.

 

When I chose to scroll through Facebook, I’m giving up EVERYTHING ELSE I want to accomplish.  That’s my opportunity cost.  EVERYTHING ELSE.  Do I still scroll through Facebook? Yes, sure.  But, for very small spurts of time now, as I’m keenly aware of what I’m sacrificing.  When I say yes to a meeting request, what can’t I do because I’ll be in that meeting? 

 

Opportunity cost is everywhere.   Not just finances and not just time management.  If I give my attention to this person at the party for 3 straight hours, I’ve missed out on meeting many other people.  If I wear this outfit today, I can’t wear it tomorrow to that special dinner because you and I both know I’ll never finish the laundry by then.

 

…And so on!

 

What are some opportunity cost scenarios you’ve experienced in your daily life?

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Not just for yogis: Meditation as an ADHD intervention

TL;DR

Problem:

You have an incredibly short attention span, especially when things are boring.  You are easily distracted by random internal or external things, and it is virtually impossible to get you back on track once your thought train has derailed.

 

Solution:

 

Really, really, really give meditation a try.  The neuroscience behind why this works is extremely compelling.

 

Full story:

In full disclosure, I didn’t start meditating to relieve ADHD symptoms.  I started at the suggestion of my therapist to address the crippling anxiety I was having about practically everything in my life.  

 

Meditation is extremely difficult for people with ADHD. Let me not sugar coat this at all: It’s nearly impossible.  Which is kinda why you really need to do it.

 

For me, the only thing that worked to get my butt to sit down and try meditation was an app called Headspace for the Iphone (I’m sure there is an android version, too…).  Headspace worked for me because of their tracking of my “Run Streak” (consecutive days of meditating), and how extremely guided it is in the basic and many other packs. 

I had over 380 days in the previous runstreak!

 

There are really great animations to explain the new concepts, and basically “normalize” something that seems pretty hippie-dippy to a lot of us linear thinkers.

 

Some of the research I found discussed the brain changes that are visible on fMRI after only 10 hours of meditation.  I’ll have to look it back up, but basically the areas of the brain that show neuroplasticity after meditation are the areas of the brain where ADHD peeps could use a little more help.  Several books and articles on ADHD started tying all the threads together for me, and explained that you don’t meditate to clear your mind, you meditate to PRACTICE clearing your mind.  That’s a very subtle but massive distinction.  

 

What that means is, you WANT your mind to drift, so you exercise the “muscle” of redirecting your focus.  As frustrating as that is when it happens, the skill you are building is accepting that our minds drift, and then redirecting yourself back to your focus when they do.  As an ADHD perfectionist, when my mind would go off down a rabbit hole, I’d beat myself up once I realized I was off-task, and had no idea where I was on the task I should have been working on. Sometimes I would literally sit in my office at work and cry.  I told myself how stupid I was, how lazy, etc., etc.  The battle then became to NOT lose focus (which is pretty impossible), instead of refocusing back to where I was when I lost focus.  

 

Another great book that can help you embrace this “alternative” intervention for focusing is “10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story” by Dan Harris.  When I read his book, I had already been meditating for over a year and a half.  Unlike Mr. Harris, though, my meditation sessions are very short, and sprinkled throughout the day.  Maybe someday I’ll get to the point where I can devote 1 hour to meditating, but currently I need that time for other things.  But this book really helped mainstream and normalize meditation for me.  I felt, honestly, a bit embarrassed mentioning it at all when discussing my ADHD interventions.  Also, since I originally started this to address the anxiety, for a long time I didn’t see the impact on my focus.

 

The improvement in focus was super subtle.  In fact, I can’t even tell you when I started to notice things improving.  Once, in a meeting, when I found myself looking out the window and day dreaming, I realized I was off focus, brought my attention first to my breathing for two or three breaths, then I was able to resume focus on the speaker.  When I am overwhelmed it’s extremely easy for me to lose focus.  I will bring my attention to my breathing (literally focusing on my stomach expanding and contracting with each breath), and then go back to the thing I should be focusing on.  And sometimes I have to do this six times.  Welcome to ADHD.  What’s new is that I don’t hate myself for it, or tell myself how flawed I am. I tell myself I’m grateful for the opportunity to exercise my re-focusing muscles.  And in that way, I’m significantly more than 10% happier.

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Grocery Pickup or Delivery

TL;DR

 

Problem:

Grocery shopping takes 3-4 hours, you are overwhelmed with choices and making decisions on the fly in the supermarket, and you always end up blowing your budget because you can’t stick to the list (which, incidentally, you probably left on the counter at home, anyway…).

 

Solution:

Sign up for Grocery Pick up OR Delivery IMMEDIATELY.  Seriously. Do it now. I’ll wait…

 

Full story:

 

I didn’t realize how horrible grocery shopping is for an adhd person until I took it off my plate.  There are so many pitfalls for us.  First of all, It’s a stimulation nightmare. Sights, sounds, smells, many many people, too many decisions to count.  I THOUGHT I enjoyed shopping. I THOUGHT I enjoyed “finding the best deal.”  I really believed I needed to look at each piece of produce to determine the perfect one.  And to calculate the price per ounce of this brand versus that.  Or, look at all the ingredients to make sure I wasn’t getting dosed with sugar.  What’s worse: I thought this was a good use of my time.

 

I was wrong.

 

In the last two semesters of finishing my degree this spring, I started to fully understand the concept of opportunity cost when it comes to time.  I’ll need to go into more detail about this later, perhaps, but the basic concept is (and thank you to Algorithms to Live By for really getting this point to hit home for me), if I decide to spend my time doing X, I am thereby giving up all the other options.  For a long time I truly believed that if I chose to do X, I could still do ALL the other things, I just would have to do them quicker.  I erroneously thought I’d somehow be able to read or write faster than all historical proof otherwise.  Or vacuum. Or whatever.  Once I finally got that piece of the puzzle (that I was unrealistic!), and I really came to understand that by CHOOSING to do X, I’m GIVING UP everything else…I started to DEFEND my time much more militantly.  Actually, what happened was, I started to get very very angry at everyone.  When I was asked to drive someone 40 minutes out of my way on their whim, I’d quickly calculate all the butterfly effect impacts elsewhere in my life.  I’d start to get very angry.  “You want me to fail my class?!?!?” Would race through my mind.  Here’s how that played out:  

If I take you where you are requesting, that’s 40 mins down, 40 mins back.  I won’t get home until 8pm, and I still have to make and eat dinner.  By the time I do that and clean up, it’ll be 9pm, and then I have to start winding down for bed by 10pm.  Or I could stay up late doing homework.  But that would mean I oversleep the next morning.  Then I’d start the day behind, which really impacts the whole rest of my day, setting me up for failure tomorrow.  The paper is due tomorrow, so if I don’t get some work today, then I won’t get it finished and submitted tomorrow, but also, I have these six other things tomorrow, so I won’t be able to do much work tomorrow.  I have to work on this tonight or otherwise I’ll not get the assignment in at all, and then I’ll fail the class since this is like 40% of the grade. Clearly this person wants me to fail to ask me to do this thing! Why do they hate me???

 

So, yeah.  The better I got at “enforcing my boundaries” the less I ventured into “Why do they hate me???” Territory.  I still struggle with saying no to other people, but also, to myself.  Grocery shopping is one of those things.

 

I had seen the ads for grocery delivery services like Shipt or Instacart.  My parents used Harris Teeters Express Lane for over year.  I still refused to get on the train.  For some reason I believed going up and down every aisle, carefully considering every purchase was necessary.  I reasoned I would waste money if I couldn’t carefully consider all the alternatives of price and weight.

 

Then the reality of opportunity cost started to click.  And I started observing.  I’d spend 3-4 hours every Saturday on grocery shopping.  I’d arrive at the store with my Iphone and my shopping list in the Paprika app.  I’d go through every aisle, carefully considering all the alternatives, making the cheapest decision, unless it was a brand or style my picky son demanded.  I’d end up realizing I “probably” was out of this or that, and oh! This or that looked good/interesting/is on sale.

 

I never came in under budget.  And, I never had 3-4 hours to spare.  With juggling 3 classes each of the last two semesters, plus full-time employment, constantly being on-call, international travel, and raising a teen-ager…3-4 hours of weekend time is freaking gold.  I was squandering it…AND my money.

 

I looked at Shipt and Instacart, but was very annoyed with the fact that this products aren’t everything availabe in the store.  Also, that the prices differ from what is in the store.  I also found the pricing model annoying/confusing, and the reviews were sketchy.  Finally, the feedback from the professional shoppers who have worked there was not admirable.  I decided, ultimately, on Walmart Grocery Pickup.  I have a lot of issues with Walmart as a company, but I decided to bite the bullet and put my politics aside in favor of getting through the semester with some sanity.  Here’s how that played out:

 

Friday night, with my Paprika app open, and the walmart grocery website up, I built my cart (and added most things to my favorites). I checked out and selected pick up for Saturday at  3pm. Total time: 17 minutes.

 

Saturday: 

Left house at 3pm

Arrived 3:07 pm

Car packed and on my way at 3:13pm

Home by 3:20pm. Car unloaded and groceries away by 3:35pm

Back to working on Homework at 3:40pm

 

I was STUNNED.

 

I just got back (most of the time) nearly 3 hours of golden productive time.  No extra fees, and they don’t let you tip the associates that load your car.  Plus, it’s the same price in the store or online.  

 

Then…it got better.  Walmart started offering DELIVERY at my local Walmart.  This was, unfortunately, after my classes were over, but I’m still using it.  It’s a 7.95 delivery fee, and you tip the delivery person, but I’m extremely ok with this.  

 

 

The concept of opportunity cost is really coming up everywhere in my life these days, and I hope to write more about it in the future.  I think there are many more ways I should be applying it, honestly.  

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Book Review – Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

I just finished the book Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, and wanted to capture my thoughts on it while they were fresh in my mind.

 

This book is written by a surgeon, so it is very heavy in the medical examples.  However, a good deal of information is provided on the other well-known use-case for checklists: aviation.  The history of how checklists came about was extremely fascinating, and the implications of how they avert disaster even today is really encouraging.

 

I was incredibly surprised that adoption of surgical checklists has only happened extremely recently.  It seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me, now, to have checklists in surgery.  After listening to the aubible version of the book, I’m looking for places in my job where checklists would save my butt.  

 

The information on types of checklists, and what checklists should contain was extremely eye opening, as well.  I started using checklists about 18 months ago, (well before listening to this book), and never knew there were two types of checklists.  The do-confirm checklist is more of a safety-net, whereas the read-do checklist is more instructions to be followed.  When I implemented checklists at first, they were very much “read-do” lists.  The lists in my shower, on my bathroom mirror, and what eventually became all the lists in my routines in B24.  I would stand in the shower, look at the list, read the item, do the item, look back at the list, read the next item, do the next item…and so on.  After 18 months or so, I NOW have the routine, for the most part.  Yes…it took 18 months for me to get into a routine that I wouldn’t accidentally miss steps because I’m distracted.  Welcome to ADHD brain.

 

In fact, some parts of some of my checklists are a mix of the types.  For example, in my morning routine, when I’m extremely sleepy during the first part of the list (before coffee kicks in), I “read-do.”  The second half – which tends to be more rapid as the time to leave approaches, I usually check off after I’ve arrived at my destination. 

 

Without getting into too much detail, as I want to devote an entire post to the checklist and how it’s improved my life, here is a picture of what I mean:

 

 

 

First part of morning routine.
Rest of the Morning Routine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point where I switch from Read-Do to Do-Confirm is about step 32 or 33 most days, or 29 or 30 most days.  Depending on how well the coffee does its job!

I really enjoyed the book, even though I didn’t feel like I learned much startlingly new information.  The information I did learn pushed me to look at checklists for my job in a new light, however.  I was very limited in my thinking about checklists (only I need them, this is just to fix my ADHD, etc.), but the reality is, who doesn’t need checklists?  Because I work in Tech, and a lot of what I do is centered around production data, and an additional part of my job is growing the people under me to handle crises of such, checklists would actually be a huge benefit in my job.  This book made me see that.  And that alone is worth the price of the audio book!

 

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Try – Observe – Tweak Cycles

TL;DR

 

Problem:

 

You are afraid to start anything because you don’t want to try unless you get it perfect. This leads to massive procrastination on many fronts of your life.

 

Solution:

 

Embrace a philosophy of Try-Observe-Tweak.

 

Full story:

 

This is a great philosophy, and of course one I can’t claim credit for.  Unfortunately I’ve heard it from so many places, I can’t tell you all of the sources, nor who is the original to give credit to.  And there are lots of different variations, acronyms, etc.  Pick one you like and go with it. If you think you deserve citation, you are probably right…email me, and I’ll fix it.

 

Before I embraced this philosophy, I was constantly “stuck.”  I was completely frozen with “not knowing” the full process I’d need to take or how to do anything the most efficiently.  As I’ve previously said elsewhere, I had a bizarre disdain for “backtracking” anywhere in my life.  This could manifest in running Saturday errands.  I’d need to plan out my trip perfectly to minimize the time and distance driving.  However, I’d spend so much time thinking about all the variations and alternatives, I’d actually not get out of the driveway.  Then once on the road, in my distraction, I’d miss the turn I needed, and my perfect plan was out the window anyway.  I’d get very, very angry at myself.

 

At work this looked like any task becoming a ‘big amorphous blog,’ and my not being able to find the starting point.  I’ve talked about this before, too, as well as other things that helped me out of that rut. 

 

Being stuck, or frozen, like this is perfectionism, plain and simple.  I rejected this label for a LONG time.  “How can I be a perfectionist when I do everything half-assed???” File that under “Things a perfectionist would say.”

 

One way out of perfectionism is to view everything in terms of data gathering.  Your first attempt, pass, etc., is just to get info.  First time taking that SAT? It’s to find out where you need to focus your study time (your weak areas).  First time interviewing? It’s not to get the job (if you do, though, awesome!), but to practice interviewing.  This is the try portion of the Try-Observe-Tweak Cycle.

 

After you try, you analyze the data you get.  What worked well? What didn’t.  What could have gone better? What don’t you know now that will help you in the future?  This is the observe phase.

 

Then, you tweak your approach with your knowledge gained, and you start the cycle over. You try again.  And observe again. And tweak again.  Rinse and repeat as needed.

 

Having the little Try-Observe-Tweak idea has been enormously helpful to me.  When I hear my perfectionism creeping into my thoughts, I remind myself I’m in a try phase.  I’m just data gathering, and I’ll get this eventually.  This is how my routines came about…slowly, over months.  I finally came to realize my routines and checklists are always changing, and being rigid about them is useless.  It seems contradictory, but it actually makes sense.  Everything is adapting and changing as we go.  Perfectionism is just a form of rigidity in an every-changing world.  

 

That said, I think that “quality work” is not the same as perfectionism, and I’m not excusing you to do a poor job on things or “phone it in.”  In that case, realize you might need two or three attempts to get the quality where you want it, but perfection will always be impossible.

 

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Being Kind to Future Donna

TL;DR

 

Problem:

 

You are continually choosing to do the easy thing instead of what you should be doing.

 

For example: You keep bingeing Netflix instead of doing the dishes, eating the doughnut instead of the veggie sticks untouched in the fridge, or participating in office gossip with the coworker instead of working on your report dur in 15 minutes.

 

Solution:

 

Think about yourself in the future, having to clean up the mess you are currently making.  For me, I call this “Being kind to future Donna.” 

 

Imagine your future self having to deal with two (or ten) days of dishes instead of the current pile. Imagine future you in the heart ICU wishing you had chosen carrot sticks for 40 years instead of doughnuts.  Imagine yourself 15 mins from now wishing you had 15 more minutes to finish the report. 

 

Full story:

 

Before this idea came to me, I struggled A LOT with how to “push myself” to do the thing I knew I should be doing, but I never could get past the “I don’t feel like it” excuse.  The consequence of doing the thing were always clear to me, but “I’ll feel like it later” was a quick justification for not doing it RIGHT THEN.  (Spoiler: You don’t feel like it later, either.)

 

One day I felt very upset at my past self for not making life easier on my current self, and I wished I could go back in time and tell that version of me to be kind to future Donna.  I have weird conversations like this with myself all the time. Yes, I probably should see someone about that.  The next time I was about to make a bad micro-choice, I stopped and thought, I need to do this to be kind to future Donna.  I vividly imagined my future self having to deal with the mess I created/left for myself to deal with later (in this case it was a literal mess, shredded paper towels all over the living room courtesy of the dogs).

 

That was really motivating for me.  Suddenly I started realizing all the things in my daily life are actually tasks to improve the life of Future Donna.  At night I prep the coffee maker so in the morning Future Donna can just hit one button in her sleepy stupor.  I brush my teeth and floss so Future Donna doesn’t need dentures.  I meal prep on Sundays so Future Donna doesn’t make bad food choices during the week.

 

I’ll be honest, it doesn’t always work.  But, coupled with the Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins, it is pretty freaking effective.

 

Come to find out, this is a known intervention.  In several of the books I read last year, including this one on willpower and this one on procrastination, if we can imagine our future selves vividly, and identify with that version of us more, we will make better choices consistent with our long term goals. Studies on retirement savings, for example, showed that if we imagine our future selves vividly, we make better savings decisions now.

 

So, I didn’t come up with anything new or earth-shattering…but merely stumbled on something researchers already knew!  Once I realized that, I made sure to employ this strategy ALL the time!

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Jessie’s Advice: Breaking things down into teeny, tiny steps

TL;DR

 

Problem:

 

Nothing ever gets done.  It’s not so much that you procrastinate (though you do do that), but that when you are able (and motivated!) to do something, the tools you need are in a different room (or that person is unavailable, or something else which is a road-block to doing the thing).

 

Solution:

 

Break the task down into the smallest possible steps and stage the task progressively over time.

 

*Thanks to my work/quilting friend, Jessie, for this tip!

 

Full story:

 

This was a major contributor to my inability to get things done.  And I feel like it’s best illustrated by a story:

 

The backdoor doorknob was loose on my house. This was the outside door, so it dawned on me that  rain would seep in, and I would eventually have to replace the entire now-rain-damaged knob.  In the past this would have gone like this:

 

Day 1: *notices loose doorknob. “Oh! I need to fix this. Probably just needs a screw tightened.”

Day 2 – 486: exactly the same as above.

Day 487: *doorknob falls apart in my hand. “Oh, crap. I need to move now.”

 

Here’s the problem, in my head the conversation went…”Where’s the screw driver set? Hmm…garage? Kitchen junk drawer?  I’ll have to find that. But I need to leave for work in 5 mins, I’ll do it tonight.”  Later: “Oh I’m out here in the garage, and I see the screw driver set, but I’m heading into the car to go to dinner and don’t have time to go fix the doorknob, I’ll grab that when I come back…” Which, of course, never happens.

 

Ok, so here’s the solution: Fixing the doorknob isn’t a task; it’s a project.  You need to really,  really understand and accept that.  Maybe for non-ADHD people it’s just a task. But for you and me (ok, maybe just me), it’s a project.  There are many, many steps and potential hurdles which can derail me (or you). 

In B24, a task can have checklists, which is a major reason I have embraced this tool for all my life management (blog post coming, someday).  However, in OneNote (or everNote, etc), you can simply create a hierarchy by hitting return and indenting. Boom, subtask list.

 

Here’s the house projects project, with a task for “Fix Backdoor Doorknob.”
Here’s the task with Checklist.
Here’s a different example in OneNote, from when I used it.

 

Now, here’s how I got the doorknob fixed within a couple of days of discovering it loose (instead of a year and a half later):

 

  1. When I notice doorknob is loose, I create B24 task with checklist of all teeny, tiny, infinitesimal steps.
  2. When I find the screwdriver (usually because I see it while doing something else), put the screwdriver in a place where I will move it progressively closer to the back door the next time I pass it.  In my example, when I was getting into the car, I passed the screwdriver set.  I stopped and put it at the threshold of the garage door (the one that goes into the house). I literally have to pick it up when walking into the house (once home again), or trip over it. Either way, I’ll remember it. (Side note, if you have many little people, this might not work for you…I don’t, so it works for me.)
  3. Because when I walk in the door, the first thing I do is take the dogs potty, I immediately walk with the screwdriver set to the backdoor. I put the screwdriver set down on the chair by the door. I take the dogs potty (not fair to make them hold it longer while I figure this out).
  4. When I come back in, I’ve forgotten to fix the door entirely, and rush to do something else. However, the next time I let the dogs potty (like 2 hours later), I see the screwdriver set, pick it up, and take it outside while I take the dogs potty.  I choose the correct screwdriver tip and put it in the screwdriver base while the dogs sniff around for an excruciatingly long time.
  5. After the dogs are finished and I’ve bagged the results, I open the door and immediately start fixing the knob as the dogs are walking in. Once it’s fixed (in seconds), I put the screwdriver tip and base back in the container, walk to the garage door, drop off the poop bags in the trash on the way, and put the screwdriver set on the threshold of the garage door. Then, of course, I wash my hands.
  6. When I head to bed that night, I open the garage door to turn on the exterior driveway lights. I notice the screwdriver set.  I pick it up, turn on the driveway exterior lights, and place the screwdriver set back on the garage shelf where it belongs.

Would this have taken a whole day for a normal person to finish? I don’t know. Maybe.  Is this better than the alternative FOR ME? Absolutely.

Fixing the doorknob got done. The doorknob didn’t get ruined (or the door, for that matter) by my extreme lack of action.

 

The fundamental aspect of this story which I wish for you to take away is that if you are resisting doing anything, or if you are unable to complete anything, you might want to ask yourself, “What is the teeny, tiny, infinitesimally small step that is next required to do this?”  You don’t need to have the whole thing mapped out. Just literally the next step.  And if you are always saying “I don’t have time to do the whole thing right now,” that’s a great potential candidate for applying this intervention. 

 

It’s pretty simple: What are the tiny steps that make up that task, and how can you do them progressively over time so that it gets done?