Are you AD/HD and running late?

Running late is really easy to do even if you don’t have ADD or ADHD.  We tend to underestimate the time that it takes us to go someplace.  We have an appointment at 10:30 and we may not leave until 10:30, so we get there at 10:45 instead.  AD/HD people may have a 10:30 appointment, only remember it at 10:45, and then get there at 11:00.   

How to cope with this? 

Strategy #1: You can fool yourself.   You can make the appointment for 10:30 and then write 10:15 on your calendar.  Or you can set your clock ahead by 15 minutes so that you think you are leaving at 10:30 but you are really leaving at 10:15.  Sometimes that “oh my gosh I’m late” feeling is enough to jolt you out of your task so that you can start getting ready.  (This can be an effective strategy, although sometimes it feels like you are lying to yourself.)

Strategy #2: You can learn to take into account travel time and pad your schedule a bit.  Find out how long it takes you to go to school or work and then calculate backwards from the preferred time of arrival so that you know the time when you absolutely must leave the house to not be late.  This is the ZERO HOUR and must be kept sacred to the activity of walking out the door.  This strategy was a big help for keeping me on time to school consistently.

Train yourself to begin to prepare to leave about 10 minutes before you think you need to leave.  This will give you enough time to stop and think about whether you have everything before you go.  It will also ensure calmness.  It will give you a little extra time to find things you may have misplaced or lost (like keys, wallet, etc.) or time to get through unexpectedly bad traffic.

You mothers have an additional challenge.  The more children you have, the longer it will take you to gather the kids, gather the kids stuff, pack the kids in the car, pack the stuff in the car, unpack kids and stuff from car to go to an appointment.  Kids take longer, so don’t forget to allow enough time for that.   My mom (who had seven kids) learned to allow herself 30 minutes travel time before appointments because it would take that much time to wrangle us kids into the van.  She preferred to set her watch 30 minutes ahead.

My mom told me about the tricks she had to play on herself so that she could be on time for things.  Because of that, I learned that chronic lateness can be remedied with coping techniques and strategies.  I learned that if I noticed that kind of problem, rather than just throwing up my hands and calling myself a “late person,” I could think about what caused me to be late and think up a plan for something I could do to making it easier to be on time.

 


Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

To return or not to return?

One of my friends asked me how to deal with the sheer number of receipts that she accumulates and keeps just in case she has to return one of her purchases. I have several thoughts on this.

First, if there are a lot of things that a person plans to return, I would be inclined to stop blaming the store for bad merchandise and start honing decision-making ability to make wise purchases.

Returns happen for one of two reasons, (besides wanting one’s money back):

--The merchandise is defective

--The purchaser changed their mind and doesn’t want the merchandise because they were uninformed as to how it would fit their needs or they were misled as to how it would fit their needs.

Having a large amount of merchandise that one wants to return is a drag because it uses time and energy that could have been used on other more productive pursuits. It gets in the way of actually living life.

In an ideal world, we would not need to keep any receipts because all our purchases would be so thoughtfully made that bad purchases would be avoided. However, occasionally products are defective and sometimes we change our mind, so this isn’t quite practical. So instead, the goal is for us to hone our decision-making and information-gathering abilities so that we will learn before making a purchase that the new gizmo really is going to meet our needs. Good businesses try to make it easier for us to make good decisions by providing products for us to test ahead of time so we can see how it works. It is to our advantage to use testers so that we avoid wasting our own time and energy returning what we could have avoided buying in the first place. It is to our advantage to do some prep work before we purchase.

Purchasing prep work includes:

· Measuring dimensions to make sure there is room for our purchase to fit. (For example, before I bought a new fridge for our home, you can be sure I measured the space in the kitchen so that I would not buy something too big to fit. I was able to find a fridge that fit perfectly.)

· Scanning the internet for possibilities. (It’s no fun to buy something and then find something better later that you could have found with just a little research.)

· Calling stores ahead of time to make sure they have items in stock. (It’s no fun to go on the hunt for something specific and then have the energy sucked from your body gradually when you have to visit four more stores to find what you want because no one has it.)

· Experiment with in-store testers. Try the clothes on. Try using the computer. Use software trial periods. Sit on the furniture. If possible, play with the toys. Listen to the music.

Second, it is helpful to set an arbitrary dollar cost below which we will not bother to return a product. (If your time is worth $30/hour, it is not worth it to take 30 minutes to drive to a store, stand in the customer service line, and drive home just to return a $5 purchase. It’s like spending $15 to get back $5.)

What kind of receipts are worth keeping?

• Furniture purchases
• Software purchases
• Technology purchases
• Expensive repairs (car, house, computer)
• Gift receipts (usually without dollar amounts)
• Business expense receipts (These should have their own file folder)

Where should these important receipts be kept?  How about in a file folder called "Important Receipts!"   (Yes, brilliant, I know!)  You can also make it easy to remember what each receipt is for by writing what it is for clearly at the top, rather than having to decode store-receipt-ese.  (Store-receipt-ese is their abbreviated codes of what things are, which requires you to stare at it for a minute before you realize what they mean.)

Students: How to keep track of your assignments

If you find yourself having difficulty remembering all you have to do and feeling a vague discomfort at times because you feel like there is something due soon that you are forgetting, it is time to start using a planner of some kind. Again, this will cut down on cognitive load so that precious thought cycles can be used on studying and class work instead of worrying about forgetting an important date.

In college, on the first day, all classes will hand out a class syllabus, which lists reading material, dates assignments are due, and dates tests will happen. The first thing any smart student will do is consolidate all due dates and readings and assignments and tests from all their class syllabi onto one calendar/planner. It is much more efficient to look at assignments in only one place every day than to have to look at four or five different places every day. Yes, it takes time, but it is worth it to stay on track.

The best type of calendar for Melanie and Robert is the type that shows every hour of the day. This may seem excessive, but it is meant to help Melanie and Robert learn to manage their time. Melanie and Robert have two types of time—time that is spent in class, and time that is spent out of class. With a calendar that lists every hour of the day, Melanie will be able to block out the times that she is in class. She will then be able to see at a glance how much time is available for all the other things that need to be done, like work or church or play or doctor’s appointments, or anything else that will need to be scheduled. She can then be able to estimate how much time is available for her in which to study. If she can SEE that she only has a three-hour block in which to read her history book and write a report, she will be much more likely to spend that time doing on history homework than surfing the internet.