Activate Your Organizing when You have ADHD
Those with ADHD often feel that they know what to do, it’s more a matter of getting started. That’s the tricky part with executive function challenges. It’s about activating. When you learn there are professional organizers and productivity consultants, you open up a new world to get stuff done. With ADHD, you feel there are ways to be more productive and create order in your world. Here’s a list of why you can activate your organizing when you have ADHD.
Non judgmental partnering
Feeling a positive energy without shame is a first step in getting started. Working with a professional, you are creating a trust relationship that leaves judgement behind. Your professional is your partner in keeping your work moving without remorse of what you are letting go.
Being mindful and staying on task
A professional helps you stay in the moment and on the task. Getting distracted by both internal thoughts and external actions can derail organizing for clients with ADHD. Working together you are focused on the tasks. If you get off track, your professional is guiding you back to your work.
Holding the time and keeping you accountable to your goals
Setting a time to work and keeping track of time can be an executive function challenge. Executive function challenges often relate to time distortion, like how long a task can take. It might feel like it would take forever and your professional can guide you in creating manageable chunks of work time. By setting a date to work with your professional, you are committing and keeping accountable.
Helping make decisions
Getting stuck in making decisions is common for clients with ADHD. There are many decisions back to back in organizing and it can feel overwhelming. With your professional, when you are stuck, your professional helps you move forward with gentle questioning.
Calming your mind on the organizing journey
Many clients have an overlap with anxiety as well as ADHD. It’s that feeling that professionals can help the most. Your professional is reassuring you that you are taking the next steps, making good decisions, and moving forward with your goals.
These 5 reasons to get started make for great reasons to contact a professional!
These are all terrific reasons to reach out for organizing help, especially when activation issues are prevalent. You bring up an excellent point about issues around time awareness and how challenging it can be to have a good grasp of how long things take or how much time has elapsed. One of the tools that work well to help assimilate time is using analog clocks (vs. digital ones.) You can literally view time passing. Timers are also great to use. And in particular. I love the Time Timer products with a visual depiction of time disappearing.
Fabulous suggestion! Clocks placed in many locations make all the difference!
You always have great ideas for people with ADHD, Ellen! I love reading your tips. I find that people often get tripped up on that decision-making hurdle. Not with all decisions, but some seem to be paralyzing. Having another point of view is so helpful, and then also someone who will say, “Ok, now that we have considered all the options and talked it through, I’m going to push you to make a final decision.”
Yes @Seana, that is the key to our work and helping our clients with ADHD. It’s about making decisions and empower those decisions.