Not Asian household, or any other ethnicity. But neurodivergent. My kids always ate things off the floor. So NO SHOES in my house. I yell STILL to this day. They’re six and seven. But they STILL eat things off the floor sometimes. Plus, it just helps with the sometimes laziness of NOT wanting to clean the floor everyday!
But for my time paralysis and and procrastination, BEFORE I can enjoy say my food, I have to wash the dishes used. If I’m on my phone, I try to have a timer set. Or I’m using it while I’m exercising, that does automatically have a time going. When I’m sitting, or laying down to nap, I have a timer. And NOT my phone. I used those countdown timers. So I’m seeing it countdown for me. Seeing my time, being accountable for MY TIME like that, it makes it accountable. I can see what it is I have left. Because BEFORE I when I used my phone, I could snooze, I could reset, stop. Whatever it wasn’t tangible. It was just a noise that went off. But with this timer I keep on me almost ALL the time, I have timers in almost EVERY room of the house. I can set it when I do something. And then, a lot of the time, I make a game out of it. Can I BEAT the timer? Because I loose my sense of time. I can become like a sloth and never realize it. So trying to beat the clock keeps me on focus and keeps me moving at a pace I want.
Also, I brain dump on here. ALL the little things I can think about that I want to do in a day. I purge because I’ve noticed that IF I try and keep them IN my head, it doesn’t work.
And then FINALLY, I’m working on making a chart for myself. So that before I LEAVE a room, I can check off IF I did everything needed in that room. Because I don’t know about anyone else. But with MY adhd mind. I SO OFTEN forget something and hop back and forth back and forth. And eat up SO MUCH time that way! Especially just trying to get out the door! So if I have a checklist of what I should have done when getting dressed/ ready in a day. Or when trying to leave. I know I needed to get certain items from a room before I leave. I check those off. And then I’m not wasting time running around trying to remember where I had it, did I grab it? What time is it now? Frick! I’m going to be late now!
And then WHEN I have meetings and such, I set reminders, alarms, and anything else to remind me multiple times. And like for my medicine, I hit snooze, and keep hitting snooze until I take it. I DO NOT turn off the alarm until I’ve taken it. Otherwise I WILL forget! My husband or boys have done that, and I HAVE forgotten as a result. It’s ALL about those routines!
Right now, my boys are home from the teachers on strike. And I feel like I’m just floating. I have no routine like I should be keeping. But it’s hard because they’re home, and they’re not upholding MY ROUTINE, lol. So it’s just making everything feel crazy. It’s nice to sleep in, but I shouldn’t. It throws the rest of the day off. I hate weekends FOR this reason. My husband is an AuDHDer and he REFUSES to feel the need to have any functioning routine that functions with the rest of us. So it throws off the rest of our routines. Total discord. And ALL of us have ADHD (my boys are AuDHD like dad).
