good morning! it is Monday, I slept like ass again, and I am bored.

TIME TO RAMBLE ABOUT MY ROUTINES, STRATEGIES, AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTION HACKS

a thread

My brain is wonky. Not sure exactly how, but I'm pretty sure I have #ADHD. Might be on the spectrum, too, who knows! Plus, of course, I'm chemically deficient in the stuff that makes you feel well-balanced and not bleakly hopeless.

One common ADHD experience is this: forever trying new organizational systems and abandoning them within the week.

Forever hoping that maybe, this time, this next one will solve the puzzle of getting our shit together.

Once I discovered how common this experience is, I started viewing it as long-term trial and error. Instead of diving headfirst into a BRAND NEW SYSTEM that will SOLVE ALL MY PROBLEMS, my life is a series of little experiments.

If I try X, how does it feel? What changes if I try X in the mornings, or only at night, or after eating?

And "it was too much to keep track of so I dropped it" is ALSO USEFUL DATA

For example, I tinkered with an adorable little app called LifeRPG, that allows you to prioritize tasks by how hard they are, how long they'll take, and how intimidating you find them. It's extremely customizable, but eventually it was TOO freeform for me and I couldn't keep up

Even if I try something and drop it the same day, I still learn something in the process, something I can take with me into the next experiment. Something more useful than "ugh, I GUESS I JUST SUCK. AGAIN."

ALL RIGHTY. THAT WAS PART 1 OF THE THREAD.

COMMENCE PART 2: RECENT EXPERIMENTS AND WHAT I'VE DISCOVERED

DISCOVERY #1: STREAKS

Streaks and chains come up a lot in discussions of productivity / routines / building habits. Get a wall calendar, they say. Get an index card. Get an app, and do The Thing every single day and DON'T BREAK THE STREAK

Uhh. This doesn't work for me. I love the satisfaction of ticking off a growing chain, but when I miss a day, it's OVER and POINTLESS and WHY EVEN BOTHER STARTING FROM ZERO AGAIN.

And I'm going to miss a day. I'm always going to miss a day.

On a good week, when I'm really on top of my shit, I might do my top priority routines 5 or 6 days out of 7.

On a bad week, it might be 1-3 days.

Every so often, I'm just going to have a spell of not being able to bear looking at lists, calendars, apps, clocks, anything at all. Days or weeks where I can eat and take my meds and go to work, and that's IT. No more.

Sometimes I can plan these breaks, sometimes I can't.

HOWEVER, I like tracking what I have and haven't done, because it helps defeat the brain gremlins that say YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL.

It's nice to be able to say, look here, I have been doing things every day for the last three weeks, so fuck off, thank you.

SO HERE'S WHAT WORKS

I have a habit-tracking app. (I use HabitBull, mostly because I like the colorful way the days link together when you tick them off.) The free version only allows for 5 habits at once, which is GOOD. Keeps me from trying to track 27 things and burning out

When I set up my brand-new habit, I set the "goal" frequency to ONE TIME PER WEEK.

Can I manage to floss ONCE THIS WEEK? Sure, why not! Cool! Then it's over until next week!

Maybe I wake up tomorrow and go, hey, I'm waiting for the shower to warm up, I could floss again!

Maybe I ignore my app for a pile of days and then go OOH IT'S SATURDAY. IF I FLOSS, I'LL KEEP THE STREAK GOING FOR ANOTHER WEEK. I CAN DO THAT.

See, I missed 4 days but I knew I'd miss days, the streak hasn't been BROKEN.

Trying to start over from a broken streak would be insurmountable, but taking 5 minutes to keep it going for another week? sure!

See, when I ignore the app for a few days and then check it, I'm trying to crawl back out of my hole.

When I was trying to do things Every Day Like All The Articles Say, I'd poke my head out and see, AHH YUP, I'M A FAILURE. AGAIN. NEVER MIND THEN.

Now I poke my head out, and it's like I'm saying to myself, "Hey, welcome back. Ready to do this again? It's not too hard."

After a month or three, of trying my New Habit, if I'm regularly doing it more often, I might up the "goal frequency" and see what happens.

So, for example, my daily journaling/freewriting/reflection?

My lil app says I've been doing that at least 4x/week for the last 3 months

Anyway, been doing this for awhile, and now I have a bunch of data for the Brain Gremlins.

Instead of feeling like a sucky failure who never even FLOSSES . . .

I'm looking at the app, and whaddya know, I've had ups and downs, but over the last year I've averaged once a week

Feels nice, when I go to the dentist, to be able to say, "Usually about once a week, but I'm working on getting that up, and the last couple months it's been 2-3x/week."

Instead of "uuuhhhhhhhhhh not very often? i don't know"

ANYWAY. THERE'S OTHER STRATEGIES AND OTHER HACKS, BUT THAT'S ENOUGH FOR TODAY

Look, it chains things together so prettily!

Really helps me focus on big-picture trends, which doesn't come naturally.

My "good" and "bad" weeks are all part of a larger practice/routine. My brain needs ebb and flow? Cool, we'll plan for that.

@juliegoldberg a screenshot for you!