Routine (part 1): the Conundrum

Do you have a routine? Is is productive? Don't be misled. Chaos can be routine.

Routine - 1. a regular, more or less unvarying procedure, customary, prescribed or habitual, as of business or of daily life.*

Conundrum - 1. a riddle whose answer contains a pun (Example: what's the difference between a jeweler and a jailor? One sells watches and the other watches cells.) 2. any puzzling problem or question - SYN. see MYSTERY*

This is a visual of the direction my routine takes me>>>

I have ALWAYS struggled with routine. I now have a vantage point of perspective that numbers into decades. For half my life I've attributed my difficulties in finishing what I start and maintaining routines to a lack of discipline. What I know now is that I have ADD. When I was a kid, I had ADHD. Fortunately for me and every boss I ever had, I outgrew the H part.  

In my efforts to homeschool my ADHD son, the struggle to create and sustain routine continues to be an enigma - 2. a perplexing, baffling, or seemingly inexplicable matter, person, etc. - SYN. see MYSTERY*

There's that MYSTERY word again. See what I'm dealing with here!?

I have attempted to demystify the whole routine thing with tools like planners, white boards, checklists, etc., etc., etc. However, no matter what I do, we end up right back where we started. The routine is on the floor and we're just floating... again.... just floating... like the feather in Forest Gump... taken where the wind would float it.... float... float... floating...

Today, David and I had a conversation about routine. Like, where in the heck is it? I'll blame Michigan February (NOT a lame excuse, thank you very much) and a recent round of bad dentistry that left me vicodining on the sofa. However, all excuses, lame or otherwise, do not change this fact: ADHD people will have serious problems in getting anything worthwhile or necessary for life done without a routine.

So, now what? We decide that there doesn't have to be a conundrum about routine for us. We know what the problem is and we know that it is not likely to change. I've been alive for over 50 years now and I've not conquered it. My routine will fall apart on a regular basis. Period. That shouldn't stop me from getting back to it. This is what I need to teach David. Instead of getting discouraged, we should get used to it. Recognize when it lags and don't wait too long to get back to it. Back to the tools. Back to the plan. Back to the mindset. Get back to work.

I'm off to update my planner. You should see my new planner. It's a beaut and I think it will work. Sometimes.

To be continued...

Cheers,

leapinlily

* Webster's New World Dictionary - Simon and Schuster

...and Work Your Plan...

This is my kitchen table. It is minus the camera with which I took this picture. Before taking the picture, the camera with which I took this picture was on the kitchen table, along with all the rest of that junk. Really?

This is the way I live and it has become downright ridiculous.

In addition to the kitchen table, I have a desk in my bedroom that is much smaller but looks very much the same.

 Then, there's the office downstairs.In my defense, whatever I have in the office that I share with my husband and belongs to me is in neat piles. Three of them. That's after doing an hour of filing...

I never intended for this blog to be a rant but I guess I'm going to cave right now and rant on. In the last few weeks I have experienced a slow and dawning realization that I am up against the wall of my own ADD. The wall has always been there. I've always been up against it. For most of my life, I have been able to manage. Not to the level that I would like but just enough. I rarely finish what I start. There are always too many irons in the fire. I've managed, sort of. But, I'm getting pretty sick of it. Sick of the mess, the confusion, the planning my work - at which I'm pretty good - and not really working the plan - at which I excel. Same struggles, different day. I can no longer seem to manage in spite of the wall. Familiar frustration!

The latest issue of ADDitude Magazine has an article entitled Stand Up to Symptoms. In the article, author Katy Rollins speaks of "the minutia of daily life." In speaking to non-ADHDers she says:

"Understand that the mundane details mean more to us than they do you. These are the devils that regularly frustrate us. You may not think these are real chores for us, but that's the point. It is in the nature of ADHD, and its impact of people's lives, that the small things are difficult, that we must approach them mechanically... ADHD isn't about the big disruptive things that people do. It's best defined by the little things that shouldn't be so hard."

I never saw it in those terms. And, yet, that is exactly the way it is and always has been.

sigh...

As I have circled around the thought of trying to figure out yet another way to get it together so that I can home school the boy, have a life and stay sane, one thing has become quite apparent. I am resisting the planning of my work because I know in my heart of hearts that I will not be able to carry it out. My kitchen table does not change, no matter how hard I try to make it different.

It's time to turn to treatment process to myself.

I shall see my doctor about meds and I shall look into a coach of some sort for myself. I've often joked that an ADD mom homeschooling her ADHD child is like the blind leading the blind. It's become not so funny.

That's my plan...

Cheers,

leapinlily