Organising life

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Has anyone else attempted moving their life forward by setting down all their areas where they could improve things and working through them to improve them? How did it go? Any tips?

Organising things has rarely worked for me in the past and since becoming more familiar with others on the spectrum I'm thinking that could be because I didn't attempt it in enough detail. I don't just mean a list, I'm talking lever arch file, sub-dividers, 47 (so far) individual categories. Problems that need addressing are in there but this is not a list of faults (don't do that, it's guaranteed to depress the s**t out of you) It's things I can do or change to make my life work better for me and be less anxious and get me what I want. I've only just started, though, so if you have any good ideas feel free.

I've just come through two weeks of wanting to end things, something that comes around more often when my life feels as if it's not making any movement towards where I need to go but the time is passing so I do feel my depressions are caused in part by my circumstances. Thus I need to change my circumstances.

For day to week to month scale I have not seen a better option than the bullet journal concept.



More for conceptual development I think mind mapping works better, especially if you are a visual thinker. It takes sometime to get right and it's good to be able to modify it so whiteboard or blackboard are the best choices. If you don't want to see it all the time, or it to be seen by others, you can use some fabric to make a curtain.

I guess I'll have to get more organized some day----as I'm getting old and my short-time memory is leaving me.

I have to get over my abhorrence of "writing things down." I have too much fun using my memory.

All the areas of my life that could be improved? That would take the rest of my life just to list them. I have had spurts of energy directed at one system or another to get organized and/or make progress and/or simplify things. I usually learn one or two interesting things from these exercises. The rest of it gets lost in the preponderance of information. I try to take things one at a time and no pressure myself to do more that I can handle.

If you do find something that helps, please post it.

"All the areas" would just overwhelm me. It's too big a task.

I just wait until life smacks me upside the head with a gaping omission, and then I address that particular issue.

This is the system I had been using. The problem is that my problems get lined up behind each other and those things I can do don't get done because something I find difficult, I keep putting off and so on.

I'm already overwhelmed, the idea is by breaking it down into little pieces they are individually of a size that I can tackle. At the moment I'm leaving work and my writing alone as these two areas are currently OK. Priority areas are health, dealing with anxiety, and meeting someone. These all have subsections so I won't be tackling each one as a whole as that would be overwhelming.

I'm not expecting to succeed in every area but if I make noticeable improvements in half that would be a big improvement to the quality of my life.

I find I like organising data too much so I get stuck at the organisation stage if I am not careful. When I wrote my PhD, I just organised and organised information and information about information until one day I stood in the lift to my apartment and couldn't even remember what button to press because I had forgotten what floor I lived on. I definitely have a better track record for organising than actually getting anywhere with the organising.

So.... my new system is just a simple non physical in my head list of things I would like to improve. It currently has 7 short commitments. Like for example, one is: "exercise", simple as that. Each night I just go over my list, in my head, and see how many points I got that day. If it is low, I just try harder the next day.

I will keep an eye out for all organisation and no actual doing. Your new system is a bit like my old system, I think I am too much of a procrastinater to make it work for me enough.

One thing that has worked well for me is to add something to an existing routine. I rely heavily on routines to keep me on an even keel. If you can add exercise into a morning or lunchtime routine, it might be easier to be regular with it.

At one time in my life that was particularly demanding, I retreated to my bedroom for 20 minutes every evening to meditate. I made that my new routine.

Another thing that was useful to me was to simplify and reduce decision-making. I posted little cards around the house saying "less is more." This was to remind me to simplify and reduce.

47 individual things to work on is just way, way too much for me to focus on and I suspect it may be for you, too. Prioritize: pick the top three things, get them into a routine, wait until they are well established as habits, and then pick three more top things.

Get away from trying to optimize everything in your life, and settle instead for a "good enough" approach. For instance, I could possibly manage my finances better than I do; but I'll settle for just not being late on any bills. Also, when I took over the bill paying from my spouse due to his advancing age, I closed many credit card accounts and set up electronic bill paying to simplify everything.

Another way to simplify is to just opt out of certain things. Give away books you will likely never read. Defer certain hobbies until a less busy time of life. Resign from a leadership position in an organization you don't really enjoy any more. Etc.

I would love to think you found any value in these tips. Let us know, please.

This works for me too, I am much better at things that I do at set times every day. It's the less often things that are a problem so I plan to set them down to particular days of the week or month. Meditating is on my list but it is not one of the priorities. This is because I think it's positives get blown out of the water by my anxiety over things that there was no need to be anxious over had I planed for them better. Absolutely, the 47 is the each individual thing for example health has about 8 things in it but three are problems that are really important that are not being sorted out, this causes me to get anxious. perfectionism is only in my writing, I am too much of 'that's good enough' already.Yes to decluttering house, I am a hoarder but then I can never find what I need and then I get anxious so reorganising house is definitely on list.

Thanks for suggestions, we seem to be thinking along similar lines.

Thank you so much, that was brilliant I liked those ideas and plan to use almost all of them. I will stick to my lever file for the overall plan and in-depth info (the easy bit), but I was only thinking some sort of calendar idea and lists for actually getting things done, but this would be so much better. Folder, what I want and my plan to do/get it, and the bullet journal pining me down to the details of what action I am taking and when.

I'm happy to have been some help

The 2 key things to the bullet journal idea are:
A The index so you can find what you need to,
B Migration, so you end up with only 2 to do lists, a monthly one and a long term one.
Everything else is flexible!

Have a look at Mind Mapping if you don't already know it. There are thousands of videos on Youtube about it, for me it's more about idea development, sometimes you get to see connections that are not obvious when everything is kept separate.

I use A2 tracing film which I can then put up on a wall with masking tape. Another option is to use lining wallpaper from the roll, so you can make whatever size you fancy. You can try it out without having a great big board fixed to your wall. I used to have a massive whiteboard when I had workshop space but that is some years ago, sometimes I not sure which dimension my head is in!

There are some other videos on the "How to ADHD" channel that might help you, I think she has really good advice. There are more on bullet journals and at least one on how to de-clutter efficiently!

Update

I began with working out what I could put into this, I decided on one full day (Sunday) per week. My first was yesterday and I actually did it. I did a mix of getting my sections down with their sub titles and then I went into more detail in two of them, health and finance. I also made a list of jobs that I could do that day and managed to get half of them done. Doing the finance section meant that I also now know my budget for this project, £100 per month. Altogether I feel I did well, I did enough to feel I got a lot done but not so much that I'm put off doing the same sort of thing next Sunday.

One of the things I didn't get done was a schedule for the week, for those things that can't be done on a Sunday with a plan of when I was going to do them. A starter for my bullet journal. So obviously my plan for today (kept only in my head) went to s**t. A sharp reminder of why I need to do this.

neilson_wheels

I haven't looked at the other vids yet but I will do, I'd never heard of mind mapping. I have done a bit of migrating, with the jobs I didn't get done yesterday. And I'm going to get my large pin boards from my dad's house. I bought them for my writing but never got round to bringing them round to my house (40 yards). I will borrow them for this while I'm getting organised, assuming I put pickingh them up on my list of jobs to do