My Learning Coach wants to know...

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Hello all... I decided to show my learning coach this site (Don't ask why...) and she asked me to go into this forum. On reviewing it, she noted that there wasn't any coping skills and strategies for people with AS re: Planning. She would like to know how we plan and organize from an aspie perspective, if anyone would like to share.

um...what's planning? LOL! justed coped i guess

I always have a planner with me.
If it isn't in my planner, it's not important enough to bother with, so I have to write everything I'm supposed to do down.

I have a page (laminated) with my weekly to-do's Mon-Fri. My work schedule tells me the time I need to be in work, go for lunch and go home, very basic but really needed. Home schedule is to remind me to clean, feed pets and myself and personal care. I stick too it pretty well, if I don't I begin to lack. I don't have a strict plan for the weekends as they can vary.

Well, there were two options that fit me, but I picked "do everything at the last minute" because I'm the world's biggest procrastinator. However, I "just know most of the time," so even though I put it off until the last possible moment, I know weeks in advance what has to be done. I just obsess over it, mentally going over all that needs to be done. Plus, my OCD gives me an inherent guilt about doing assignments and keeping appointments, so if I have a panic attack for no reason and worry that I've forgotten something, I'll remember it to stop the panic attack and guilt. I don't believe in planners or writing things down. The only things I ever write down (and the only things I ever forget) are very, very minor things that won't affect my grades or something. Like, if I have some unexpected meeting or offer to participate in a survey, I won't remember it unless I write it down. However, this doesn't happen very often. I remember how we were actually required to keep a planner in seventh grade- it was worth points. I did it for the points, but it was lame. I knew what I was required to do, so it was a waste of time. At my college, they always give us a planner at the beginning of the year. Mine promptly goes in the trash...
-OddDuckNash99-

I need to know exactly what it is I need to be doing at what time. I am the opposite of spontaneous. That being said, I am also a horrible procrastinator.

I have found that making a daily "to-do" list is a great help. I place items on the list in order of importance and mark them off as I complete them.

Edit: By "horrible procrastinator" I mean that I procrastinate very much. So really you should say I am a great procrastinator.

If I didn't keep a calender and To-Do list, I'd forget to do anything other than eat or sleep. My first step in every project is to make a list of what things I need to do in order to complete it. Once I have things broken down, I am able to plug away at them one at a time. Otherwise, I am too overwhelmed.

Well, I use PDA and I'm still getting use to it. I have to have a calendar of the month so I have some clue what is going on. I use both a to do list and my mind to remind things which doesn't always work for me. When I was in high school, every Sunday for lunch, my family would go to McDonalds to eat and do calendars. That way we would all write do what was happening the next week in our calendars and we all had an idea of where people would be during the week. (At the time we did have cellphones.) This helped me a lot because I knew when my dad would be gone and when my mom would be home. We kept doing it while was going to college and living at home, however, since I've transfered colleges and live half across the country, they don't do it as much.

I have to say I'm great at procrastinating and do it all the time even though I know and plan ahead. I still have not figured that out. However, using the PDA as my calendar and i have program that deals with homework, I've done a lot better this semster then in the past, so I guess the PDA is working.

My strategy is to brew a gigantic pot of coffee several hours before an assignment comes due.

I usually mentally plan in the morning what I would ideally do that day. But then as the day progresses I adapt the plan to changing circumstances, and hardly anything from my original plan gets done, instead getting bumped to next day's plan.

Example:

Plan
-one hour of internet (for fun)
-clean my room
-another hour of tv/internet/reading as a reward
etc.

Reality
-I get online
-a friend gets online too and we start chatting
-well, she won't be online later, so maybe I'll clean up later, when she has to go
-we end up chatting for hours, or just before she leaves another friend gets online

wtf is a learning coach?

A learning coach is someone who helps a student with study skills, like organization.

For me, I just manage to remember everything. If it is something really important, I write it down. I dislike using a planner, so I have only used one when forced to. I have a to-do list, only I rarely write it down. My calendar serves mainly as a reminder of people's birthdays and due dates for huge projects. I doubt this is the best system of organization, but it seems to work for me.

I would've put I just know, or Planning? But my learning coach was behind me.

I use a day planner to plan what happens on each day of the week, but I don't always define when I do something on a day. Sometimes I just think to myself that I have to have something done on or by a day or else I'll have to do it at 2am, which is not always enjoyable.

For college, I tend to be very organized. Using day planners doesn't seem to work well for me because I never end up using them and seem to have a good memory for assignments, tests, etc.. For those things which aren't school-related, I tend to use my PDA and set the alarm for stuff I'm likely to forget.

I enjoy organizing information and my stuff, so I usually do fine.