morning rituals
comic by @maudiemichelle
To be honest, I sometimes get irritated when people remark at how “diligent” or “good” I am at organising tasks or getting certain things done. Even when it’s meant as a compliment, and I’m trying to take it as such - half of the time it doesn’t feel like it. I guess growing up hearing people make fun of Scott Summers’ “boy scout”-ness all the time makes me feel suspicious when people point out how task-oriented I can get. That, and the fact that even the people who rely on me tend to find me ridiculous, like an ex-faculty advisor who had said in public that I was the Hamilton to her Washington, but had also asked a friend in private why I was such a dork.
I think all of this used to bug me a lot more than it does now, because after self-diagnosing myself to be on the spectrum I am recognising this to be how I deal with my lack of executive functioning. If I were to just expect myself to do tasks when they need doing, like a “normal” person, I would end up freezing because of the sheer enormity of it all, when I can’t even get myself to pick up that sock that fell on my way to hang the laundry… not without adding it specifically in my task lists and getting to it when its turn came.
It’s like… if you use this ADHD Alien comic as an example, she explains it like this:
“Because my Brain is like a stove without any Buttons. I know I HAVE to cook, but how do I turn on the stove without the Button? And knowing the consequences doesn’t turn on the Stove.”
And also:
“In my Brain, there is a neurological problem. I don’t get Buttons for mundane tasks. It’s not a motivational issue, because after all… you can’t motivate a Stove to turn on, can you?
“However, I only get Buttons for really interesting or rewarding tasks. SO many Buttons.”
This was one of the reasons why learning more about myself was such an eye-opener, because I grew up being told (and believing it enough to always say self-deprecatingly) that I’m lazy. But lazy wasn’t why when left unchecked, I can spend a whole day (and had once spent a few days) barely eating or drinking or getting up to look after the cats, because I was working on some personal project or was just too frozen with all the simple tasks I needed to do that I never left my couch/bed. It wasn’t lack of motivation, because I don’t think that motivation is required to, you know, grab a bag of chips so I don’t starve. The comic listed medication or body doubles (just having someone there, or someone to check in on them) as possible ways to “spawn” a Button. I can’t afford medication (nor the spoons needed to get an official diagnosis that would lead to medication) and I live alone, so one of the things I started doing that can help to spawn Buttons (for me at least) is creating task lists. I realise others do it too, after joining a Discord for queer ADHDs recently (I’m not ADHD, but we have executive dysfunction in common.)
So — when I write down in my Weeks that I need to dedicate 1 hour to emails, and 1 hour to catching up on book news, and that I needed to transfer my comics orders from my personal folder to the group folder, it kind of spawns buttons for these specific tasks. It doesn’t always work, but more of then not, it does. Giving myself rituals and structure help a lot in putting my mind in the frame where it is somewhat amiable to spawning buttons when I ask for them. But I need to ask for them, clearly, and specifically, or it might not work. This is a way for me to not end up starving and living in a house that closely resembles the Luidaeg’s (the grimy version that is). It’s a survival method. What it is not, is me being “good” and “diligent” and refusing to “have fun” or “be spontaneous”.
Anyway, one of the banes of my (and neurotypicals’ too, I’m sure) existence is managing my emails. At work, I get dozens of emails of varying degrees of importance daily. I’m sure this is the same with most people - some probably get more than I do. I was recently asked about how I deal with my inbox and the tentacles that come from them. Um, I guess I need to explain tentacles now. The term came from Ned Vizzini’s It’s Kind of A Funny Story and when I read it for the first time I was amazed to be reading something that so perfectly explained how my brain works:
- “Tentacles is my term — the Tentacles are the evil tasks that invade my life. Like, for example, my American History class last week, which necessitated me writing a paper on the weapons of the Revolutionary war, which necessitated me traveling to the Metropolitan Museum to check out some of the old guns, which necessitated me getting the subway, which necessitated me being away from my cell phone and email for 45 minutes, which meant that I didn’t get to respond to a mass mail sent out by my teacher asking who needed extra credit, which meant other kids snapped up the extra credit, which meant I wasn’t going to get a 98 in the class, which meant I wasn’t anywhere close to a 98.6 average (body temperature, that’s what you needed to get), which meant I wasn’t going to get into a Good College, which meant I wasn’t going to have a Good Job, which meant I wasn’t going to have health insurance, which meant I’d have to pay tremendous amounts of money for the shrinks and drugs my brain needed, which meant I wasn’t going to have enough money to pay for a Good Lifestyle, which meant I’d feel ashamed, which meant I’d get depressed, and that was the big one because I knew what that did to me: it made it so I wouldn’t get out of bed, which led to the ultimate thing — homelessness. If you can’t get out of bed for long enough, people come and take your bed away.”
So, yeah. That’s tentacles. And every easy task that NTs (neurotypicals) don’t think twice about is a tentacle that comes with more tentacles attached. And what helps me, just a little, is kind of the same as logging the simple tasks that I need to get done - to name and rearrange each tentacle, and look at them only one at a time. So in the one task I might write in my planner (“1 hour on emails!”), in my head, that one task is divided into these:
- I scroll through all my new emails and read the subjects, and take note of who sent them.
- I delete the spam or unnecessary emails, like announcements of new military & war titles (which aren’t under me), or workshops on keeping a diverse range (I don’t think I need them? And I haven’t the money), and so on.
- I go through the FYI-type emails, the ones that don’t require replies or at least nothing beyond “noted with thanks!” These are usually announcements about books winning awards, movie/cartoon adaptation news, price changes, general notifications and deadline info from colleagues, etc.
- Add any email that include titles I need to order to my “To Do” as well as my “To Order” folders.
- Reply to any promotion proposals that interest me, and then add them to my “To Do” folder so that I’ll be reminded to follow up. Decline the ones I need to decline.
- If there are easy tasks, like only 1-3 titles that I need to order or check out, or anything else that doesn’t freeze me when I read it, I’ll settle those immediately and then add them to my “Done” folder.
- For big orders, I will add a separate “Big Task” in my actual planner because manifesting a Button for it would be more difficult, and also I need to plan to block a few hours to get them done.
Sometimes there would be emails that would take more thought/effort to reply or respond to. Normally these would freeze me for the entire day, making me unable to do anything other than think about how I can’t seem to do this one simple thing. These days I try to mitigate that by adding these to my “To Do” folder, to give myself a (maybe false?) sense of security in saying “I’ll get to it when its turn comes”. Sometimes it takes a few days - sometimes even a couple of weeks - to manifest the Button needed to complete these tasks, but I try to remind myself it’s in the list, I will get to it eventually, so for now I should focus on the tasks that I can do instead.
Every morning at work, the moment I switch on my computer, I take out my Hobonichi Weeks and I flip through where I left off in the notes section. I look at my desk calendar (even if I already know what date it is, so I can see if I have any important appointments to note down/set aside spoons for) and write down the date, highlighting it. I stamp my Weekly stamp and circle the day in red. I log in to my inbox, and note down how many emails I have unanswered. And I write down the tasks I mean to do that day. Like I wrote earlier, sometimes writing down the tasks will spawn the needed Buttons. Sometimes it doesn’t - I would have to get around it by getting as much of the other tasks done as I can, and renegotiate with my brain throughout the day. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t, and I’ll need to forward the task to the following day.
On days I’m not working, I have other rituals. I’m not always strict with myself, and there are days when my “plans” are just reading and/or writing. But laying out these tasks, in my notebook, in my head, and having all these rituals, they help me get out of bed.
Which reminds me. I need to set a reminder for me to get out of bed and go to work tomorrow.