Back on March 19 I posted a list of books I was going to read soon and I am happy to say that I am almost finished reading Tough Broad.

It’s a thoroughly enjoyable book and I’m so glad to have read it. (more on the book in a later post)

I’m feeling quite a bit of undirected inspiration right now but I’m going to channel that more specifically soon.

When I wrote that post, I kind of thought I would be done all four books by now but apparently that’s not how things are going to play out.

So I’m just going to roll with however they do play out.

In a move that is neither profound nor earth-shaking, I have decided that I enjoy long weekends.

Also, that having Friday off is better than having Monday off because it is better for planning around.

I find that when I have Monday off, I still try to cram a week’s work into 4 days. When I have Friday off, I can more easily tidy things away on Thursday evening.

A work week with Monday off might be the same length as one with Friday off but it feels very different.

And sitting here on Saturday afternoon with as much weekend ahead of me as is behind me is incredibly relaxing for my brain.

So, yes, it’s official:

A long weekend is good.

One of my goals for this year is to really focus on some creative projects.

I am constantly doing small, creative things and I operate from a creativity mindset, but I don’t always do a lot of projects.

My projects, I mean something that has a defined goal, a beginning, and an end. And at the end, I will have something to show for it.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I will have product of some sort or that I’ll have something that I can show someone else.

It means that I will have a defined sense of having reached the end of whatever it is I intended to work on.

Right now, I have three projects that I am making progress.

One of them is purely personal. One of them is quite casual and short. And the third would be a bit more public, but still very low-key.

I’m feeling very proud of myself for finding a straightforward, low-key way to practice doing projects.

Even though they’re not done yet, I can see how and when they will be.

Gold star for me!

So, yesterday I mentioned that I make a mental map of my day but that I’m not sure if other people do that.

Here’s how it goes for me-

I have a vague mental image of a calendar that I bring to mind throughout my day.

Anything that has to happen at a specific time is ‘blocked off’ – it’s a fixed point.

So my mental calendar of my day might be a kind of blank space from 9-11:30 on which ai know I am going to work but I haven’t decided on specific tasks, then a blocked-off section for a meeting at 11:30, then another for lunch with my family, then more work time.

On a regular day, I don’t do a lot of visualizing of specific tasks, I just have that mental calendar.

But on a busy day, or on a day when the timing of tasks matters (on Tuesday, I had to bake cookies before my friend got here for tea), I actually do a short mental rehearsal.

I might even start the night before, imagining myself getting out of bed getting dressed and then making tea while putting the oven on. Then I’ll imagine making the cookies and putting a load of laundry in while they are in the oven. Once my imaginary cookies are on the future table, I might visualize my client’s face on my screen for a Zoom meeting, and then my hands on the keyboard writing something. If I know I have to run an errand, I’ll get a quick flash of me walking the right direction in the store.

This mental mapping is great when I’m in charge of my day but if something comes up and I have to change my plan then I need a few minutes to recalibrate – as if the GPS guiding me through my day needs to do some calculations.

I think I have always done this unconsciously but I’m the last few years I have often chosen to do it so I can feel less harried on busy days when I have a lot to remember.

I have gotten the impression that either this mental mapping is an unusual thing to do or that the way I do it/describe it is odd.

So, once again, I’m left wondering – Is this an everyone thing? A me thing? An ADHD thing?

Either way, becoming conscious of my mental map has been really helpful for me. Not only can I make use of it to get things done but knowing that I have automatically done it has helped me to understand why I get frustrated when I have to add things in that I haven’t ’rehearsed.’

And knowing why I’m frustrated helps me manage that feeling and keeps me from being cranky at someone for a perfectly reasonable request.

I prefer to save my crankiness for when I need it – I don’t want to waste it on ordinary things. 😉

I really struggle with planning things in advance.

I know this is related to my ADHD, and it has to do with having trouble imagining a different time than now.

So I can imagine a time in the future when something is done and what that will look like. (Not everyone with ADHD can do that some people have trouble envisioning done.)

And I know what things are like now.

But I have trouble imagining the place in between those two. The place where the work is actually getting done where there’s a step-by-step process.

And if I’m very stressed, I have trouble imagining that time when things will be done.

I know that lots of people plan things for their future imagining that they’ll be much more organized much more clear, much more prepared than they are right now. Apparently, though, if left to my own devices, I will do that to an extreme extent.

If I don’t choose to be conscious of it, my imagined self automatically has the skills and materials required to do the thing. I will default to imagining that any task will be easier, more straightforward, in the future. After all I will have somehow magically gained different skills and capacities by then.

It takes a lot of energy for me to sit down and think about that in between time. It takes a lot of energy for me to remember that I’m not going to magically gain the skills or resources. It takes a lot of energy for me to break down that imagined completed task into the parts that need to be done.

And that ties into the task, initiation challenges that people with ADHD face, gathering the energy to begin a task, I have to battle two different ADHD tendencies in order to make a plan.

However, I do have better abilities for the short term future.

I am often easily able to marshal the energy to plan out a day or to plan ahead for the next morning.

I think it’s because I can easily imagine the future self who will benefit from those actions and I know that there is no time to get magically better at the tasks in the meantime.

For example, today, I cooked the meat I will be using for supper and made something for lunch all before 9 o’clock this morning.

And I love the feeling I have right now.

Instead of envisioning my day with the herd stop it 4:30 or 5 o’clock to get supper started, things feel a little looser at the end of the day, but in a good way.

And instead of giving myself a mental picture of making lunch at 12:30 I can skip ahead and just imagine that I’m sitting down at 1 o’clock to eat.

As I say that now I’m wondering – Does everybody actually sort of visualize themselves through the day in one way or another?

Hmm, maybe that’s a whole other post to consider.