Experiencing ADDvantages

Great Client Quotes:Messes

“I need someone to clean up the messes I make because I’m too busy making them.”

JeanneMarie, in the Odd One Out Coaching Program

Resources from ADDitude Magazine

I have a couple of resources to share with you today from ADDitude Magazine.

First, ADDitude has a new blog roll posted on their site in which they index ADD-related blogs. Check it out for some fun and interesting reading!

Also, ADDitude has released the article Tame Time: The Best Planners for ADHD Adults by Coach Sandy Maynard as a preview for their Summer issue. If you enjoy this article, you might also be interested in our upcoming Time Management Masters Seminar.

And by the way, Sandy is one of the experts scheduled to speak at the Virtual AD/HD Conference™ in September!

Master the Art of Time Management

In the spirit of the Time Management Masters Seminar, here are my Top 5 Time Management Tips for Adults with ADD:

1. Take 15 minutes every single day to plan your schedule. A small investment in planning goes a long way towards reducing stress and overwhelm.


2. Always keep a to-do list. Your to-do list is your friend. It helps you keep track of all those tasks  that are so easily forgotten.


3. Pay attention to your  biorhythms.  Work with your natural energy levels instead of trying to change them.


4. Schedule down time and relaxation. Self-care is one of the first things to be sacrificed when things get busy.


5. Don't give up when you get overwhelmed. It's normal to fall off track every now and then. Don't beat yourself up. Do recharge and resume steps 1-4 as soon as possible.

Time Management Masters Seminar

I'm pleased to finally offer the Time Management Masters Seminar to those who have been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to learn effective, ADD-friendly time management systems.                      

In the Time Management Masters Seminar, you'll be guided through the following steps for creating and utilizing a personalized, ADD-friendly time management system.

Week 1: Tools & To-Dos                      

• Custom-create a to-do list that will work for you
• Discover the various time management tools that are available, and find out how to pick the right tools for you
• Develop a daily planning routine

Week 2: Schedule Management & Daily Planning                          

• Put your time management tools to work efficiently and effectively
• Determine your "pillars of structure" and plan around them
• Develop structure based on  your natural biorhythms and energy levels
• Use a secret, ADD-friendly trick for getting things done

Week 3: Task Management & Weekly Planning                          

• Get a firm grasp on  your various responsibilities
• Create a safety net for your new  time management system
• Learn how to plan for and manage projects through their completion
• Create a system for managing "all those great ideas" that you come up with, but never have time for

Week 4: Practice & Problem Solving

• Learn how to get over roadblocks and hiccups in your progress
• Troubleshoot any challenges you've encountered in your new time management system

The seminar begins June 3 and includes teleseminars, notes, worksheets, and more.

Discounts Are Available!                                      

The Early Bird Rate of $177 (a savings of $20) is available through midnight EST on Wednesday, April 30.

OR, save $47 when you register for both the Time Management Masters Seminar AND the ADD Clutter Busters Workgroup for just $297!

Get more info or register at the program websites.

Last Day to Save $30 On The ADD Clutter Busters Workgroup

In this 3-week coaching program, I'll walk you step-by-step and start to finish through the process of de-cluttering and organizing.

If you commit to the program, you'll not only completely declutter and organize one space in your home or office, but you'll also master an ADD-friendly, solution-oriented process that you can apply to any cluttered space.

Register Today to Save $30

The workgroup begins on May 6. You must register by midnight EST on Friday April 18 to save $30 and pay the Early Bird Rate of just $117.

Please note that this workgroup isn't for everyone. It's for adults with ADD who:

Are ready to get rid of clutter--for good! 

• Are willing to spend a little bit of time each day on the steps that we cover in the teleseminars
• Are willing to work with the process and understand that results won't happen overnight (but they will happen)
• Are ready to stop complaining and start doing!

This proven program has been very popular for a reason--it works!

Register or get more info here.

Adults with ADD: Clean Your Brain

Ever find yourself with a brain full of unwanted guests?

ADD brains have a way of filling up with negative thoughts. They can build up to a point where it becomes hard to move forward in your day. This is what I call a state of "mental clutter."

 

Mental clutter is made up of many different kinds of negative thoughts. Think of them like characters.

Regrets Of The Past and Worries About The Future come over uninvited and park themselves on your brain's couch, where they can brood with each other for hours.

Self Doubt rings your brain's doorbell with a new criticism every chance it gets. When you don't answer the door, it leaves messages on your answering machine telling you why you suck.

Self Pity gets in your brain's way. It's an annoying little character that frequently sprawls out on your brain's floor and throws a tantrum.

 

And, of course, All Those Shoulds hide in the corners of your brain and whisper "You should do this!" and "You should do that!" when you least expect it.

When mental clutter takes over the ADD brain, it can be stressful, overwhelming, and sometimes even paralyzing. Mental clutter creates an atmosphere of chaos and gets in the way of you being calm, productive, happy, and successful.

When mental clutter starts blocking your progress, it's time to take out the trash!

 

The best way to clean up mental clutter is to attack it head on. This means acknowledging all those characters and the messages they send, and then kicking them all out on their butts.

 

Talk with Regrets Of The Past and Worries About The Future. Find out what they're on about and ask them a few questions. Does Regrets Of The Past have any wisdom to share that might be helpful in the present? Does Worries About The Future have any plans or solutions to offer? 

    

Tell Self Doubt to F--- off. The only way to deal with Self Doubt effectively is to put up really strong boundaries. Let it know, in the most direct and vulgar manner possible, that it's not welcome in your brain.

 

Give Self Pity a Time Out. Empathize with Self Pity and let it express its concerns. Find out why its so upset. Reassure it and make it feel better. Give it a toy to keep it busy.

Sweep Up All Those Shoulds. Collect All Those Shoulds from the corners of your brain and have a look. If you find a few gems, then by all means hang onto them. Throw the rest out the window.

Don't let mental clutter take over. When you find yourself with unwanted guests, take a little time to clean out your brain!

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Ready to Bust Through Your Clutter?

By VERY popular demand, the ADD Clutter Busters Workgroup is back!

This 3-week coaching program takes you step-by-step through an ADD-friendly process to:

1. Stop procrastinating and make your clutter disappear.
   
2. Create organizational systems that work for you and with your ADD!
   
3. Develop maintenance systems to keep the clutter away for good!

This highly structured, 3-week workgroup includes:

• 3 Live Teleseminars (Tuesday evenings from 8-9pm EST on May 6, 13 & 20)
• Teleseminar Recordings
• Seminar Notes and Worksheets
• Coaching Feedback and Support
• Members-only Website

Register Early and Save $30

The regular rate for this coaching program is $147.

If you register before midnight EST on Friday, April 18, you'll save $30 and pay the Early Bird Rate of just $117.

This proven program has been very popular for a reason--it works!

Register or get more info here.

Managing Adult ADD: Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

When you make a change in your life--presumably to better manage your ADD--what's the hardest part?

The hardest part of making any change is that there is a stage in the process in which you are guaranteed to be uncomfortable.

If change was easy, we'd all be in great shape, get places on time every time, be completely organized, and get along with every member of our families. If it was easy to make changes in our lives, we'd all have everything we ever wanted. But life doesn't work that way, does it?

Specifically when it comes to managing adult ADD, the changes you want to make and the skills you want to learn don't come easy. They take time, energy, patience, and practice. They may manifest in stages and layers, too, coming together one piece at a time. The process can be slow, tedious, boring, and even painful. It's downright uncomfortable. But the process is necessary.

Let's look at some examples using a few of the 5 Essential Skills for Managing Adult ADD, from my book Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD:

• When learning how to Break the Cycle of Overwhelm, you have to learn how to take really good care of yourself, and that often means creating strong boundaries and saying "no."

Saying "no" can be dreadfully uncomfortable. But until you learn how to say no, you'll find yourself stressed out and over-committed.

It's uncomfortable to say, "No, I'm sorry, but I'm not able to watch your kids for you on Saturday." But it's necessary to learn how to do it in order to overcome overwhelm.

• Similarly, when learning how to Take Control of Your Space and Time, you have to learn how to create organizational systems that work for you. This means spending time straightening up and organizing your stuff.

Getting organized, throwing out junk, and creating systems can be awfully boring and uncomfortable. But in order to get organized enough to reach your goals, it's necessary to jump in and invest the time.

• Taking Control of Your Space and Time also means learning how to manage your time effectively. And that means developing new patterns in which you don't get caught up in negative hyperfocus.

When you're stuck in hyperfocus on the Internet late at night for no good reason, it's uncomfortable to interrupt the pattern and force yourself to move on and go to bed. But once again, it's necessary in order to manage your time effectively.

Making any of these changes successfully requires steps that are uncomfortable, but necessary. In fact, that uncomfortable feeling is often a cue that you're moving in the right direction!

You can expect that some of the the changes you make when learning to manage your ADD will be difficult. Make it easier on yourself and get comfortable being uncomfortable.

As always, feel free to post your thoughts in the comments!

Keep Clutter Away For Good!

Last week I told you about an ADD-friendly method for getting rid of clutter. It involves 3 steps:

1. Sorting your stuff.
2. Creating systems that will work for you.
3. Planning the follow through.

Today I'd like to focus on the third step, which is about maintenance. This is the step that proves to be the most troublesome for many people. After all, what good is busting your butt to get rid of your clutter if it's just going to come back in a few weeks?

There really is a better way. Adults with ADD have to learn to approach the clutter problem differently. Although it would be great to develop a habit of putting things away as soon as you're done with them, it just isn't practical for many ADDers. We need to allow for clutter buildup, and also allow for clutter cleanup.

The problem is not that clothes, papers, and other objects build up throughout the day, or even the week. This is pretty normal for ADDers. The problem is when the clutter builds up indefinitely.

You may think the only way to manage your clutter is to never let it accumulate in the first place. But forcing yourself into a habit that doesn’t suit you won’t work, and won’t stick. What's more practical is to allow yourself some freedom to let things go a little, and then schedule a regular time to get your space back in order. That might mean a quick cleanup session each day, each week, or each month.

Not only does this system take the pressure off, but it ensures that your space will never get so cluttered that you'll have to spend weeks or months to get it back in order. Having a maintenance plan is like having an insurance policy that protects all that hard work you did de-cluttering and organizing in the first place.

So as you start your Spring Cleaning and organizing this season, don't skip the third step in the de-cluttering process: plan your maintenance!

Your comments are welcome. Happy Spring!

If Spring Cleaning and de-cluttering is on your mind in a big way, then you'll want to test drive our most popular coaching product, the Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye Coaching Toolkit. You can try it risk free!

March mADDness Week 3 Winner

The winner of our third March mADDness giveaway is David P!

David submitted his plan for the first thing he's going to tackle in Spring cleaning:

First thing I'm tackling for spring cleaning is The File Cabinets. I got my files set up and organized using David Allen's alphabetical-for-everything filing system. It's mostly worked pretty well, but now that I've been using it for a couple years, I've run into two issues: 1. There are a few things that I filed under something that seemed right at the time, but which made it absolutely impossible to find later when I wanted to retrieve it. I'm sure this rings a bell with somebody out there :). 2. I've just plain filed too much stuff. Now that I've had a couple of years, it's much easier for me to tell what exactly I need to keep handy, what can go in a box labeled "Stuff from 200_" (just-in-case stuff that will probably never be useful), and what can go straight to the trash or shredder. So I'm going through existing files and purging all of that stuff. There's also the stuff that was a good idea to file, but is now just out of date, so needs to be either tossed or archived out of the way.

Congratulations, David! We'll be contacting you offline to get your address and send you our coaching toolkit, Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye. I'm sure you'll find it very helpful when you begin tackling those filing cabinets!

Our next March mADDness giveway contest is coming up - stay tuned!

The winner of our third March mADDness giveaway is David P!

David submitted his plan for the first thing he's going to tackle in Spring cleaning:

First thing I'm tackling for spring cleaning is The File Cabinets. I got my files set up and organized using David Allen's alphabetical-for-everything filing system. It's mostly worked pretty well, but now that I've been using it for a couple years, I've run into two issues: 1. There are a few things that I filed under something that seemed right at the time, but which made it absolutely impossible to find later when I wanted to retrieve it. I'm sure this rings a bell with somebody out there :). 2. I've just plain filed too much stuff. Now that I've had a couple of years, it's much easier for me to tell what exactly I need to keep handy, what can go in a box labeled "Stuff from 200_" (just-in-case stuff that will probably never be useful), and what can go straight to the trash or shredder. So I'm going through existing files and purging all of that stuff. There's also the stuff that was a good idea to file, but is now just out of date, so needs to be either tossed or archived out of the way.

Congratulations, David! We'll be contacting you offline to get your address and send you our coaching toolkit, Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye. I'm sure you'll find it very helpful when you begin tackling those filing cabinets!

Our next March mADDness giveway contest is coming up - stay tuned!

Uh-Oh, It's Spring Cleaning Time!

Happy Spring! This is a great time of year - the days are longer, the colors are brighter, and we tend to have a lot more energy! It's also the time of year that many of us look around and actually want to get our physical environments in shape...and that means getting rid of clutter!                     

So many adults with ADD are plagued with clutter. Our desks are covered with papers. Our sinks are full of dishes. Our floors and counters are covered with "stuff." 

Where Does Clutter Come From?                      

Clutter builds up  easily for many ADDers. Sometimes, we get distracted and just place a paper or an object wherever it's convenient. Other times we find that, despite our best efforts, we just don't know where to put something, so we put it anywhere. Other times, we just don't care what goes where and why, and we shun the idea of "organization."

No matter why your  clutter builds up, one things is clear: clutter affects the mind in a negative  way.                       

How Clutter Affects the Mind

Looking at your  clutter can often zap your energy on the spot. You get angry with  yourself for letting it get to this point...and then you feel bad.                      

You want to clean  up, you want to be organized, but you just don't know where to start...and that  makes you feel bad, too.

Because you don't  know where to start - and because cleaning and organizing is not your   favorite activity - you procrastinate...and that makes you feel even worse.                      

The result is that  your clutter sticks around, untouched. And if you do manage to make some headway, chances are you'll be feeling bad again when the clutter quickly comes back. What an awful cycle!

What to Do                      

There is a proven, ADD-friendly method for dealing with clutter, and it's a 3-step process

1. Sort your stuff. This means going through all that clutter and figuring out what you have, what you need, and what you can get rid of.     

2. Create the  systems. After you've successfully sorted all your stuff and know what you need to keep, you'll need to figure out where to put it all! This is the point where you start thinking about how to work with your ADD to keep your stuff organized. It means developing systems based on what  will work for you, and NOT based on that organizing show you saw on TV.

3. Plan the follow-through. No matter how great your organization systems are, your clutter will come right back if you don't put a plan in place to use your systems consistently!                     

And there's one more missing piece to this puzzle that trips up many ADDers: To make this process work, you must step back from the problem in  order to create the solutions.                       

It's nearly impossible  to find a lasting solution to your clutter challenge  when you're standing in the middle of  it. You've got to detach from - both physically and mentally - to keep from getting overwhelmed by it.

Don't Judge Yourself                      

Lastly, don't judge  yourself because you tend to accumulate clutter. It's a common problem and it does NOT indicate a character flaw! Just know that when you are ready to  deal with it, you can successfully get rid of your clutter!                     

Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye Coaching Toolkit

If Spring Cleaning and de-cluttering is on your mind in a big way, then you'll want to test drive our most popular coaching product...with no risk!                      

Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye is a breakthrough program that is helping countless adults with ADD get rid of their clutter - for good.

Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye contains a 4-track audio CD with over 55 minutes of practical solutions and 26-page booklet that will guide you through each step. 
The audio CD walks you through this ADD-friendly process in a lighthearted and fun manner. You can listen to the CD at your convenience in your car, on your computer, or on your stereo.                      

The companion booklet guides you through each  step, covering all the material in depth, so that everything you need to know about this process is contained in a handy reference guide.

In this  ADD-friendly, step-by-step process, you’ll:                      

• Pick  the right area to begin de-cluttering
• Tap  into the motivation that will help you stay focused
• Establish  realistic goals and expectations
• Stop procrastinating and get  rid of your crap
• Create  ADD-friendly organizational systems that will work for you
• Develop  structure that will allow you to keep your clutter from coming back

Plus, following this method ensures that you won’t succumb to overwhelm when you bust  through your clutter.                      

AND, this product is backed with  a 110% Unconditional Guarantee. Try Kiss Your Clutter Goodbye for 90 days. If you’re not completely satisfied with your purchase, simply return it for a full refund of your purchase price, plus an additional 10%. You can test drive the product with no risk!

Get more info or order your coaching toolkit at www.ADDclutterbusters.com.                                          

I hope you are enjoying the first week of Spring.  I know I am! :-)