Hello, gentle reader. It has been over a month since my last confession post, and while there hasn’t been much happening of note, I’m still frustrated with myself for such a span of silence. I was out of ADHD medication for a while due to shortages and miscommunication with my doctor’s office and with that sorted out my brain is now “back online,” so to speak, but time remains a strange and slippery little sucker—including thinking that we’re still in March when it’s fully a week into April. 😣 So grab a cup of tea and settle in for thoughts about time management, spending, and the strategies I use to keep both under some kind of control! (This got kind of wordy.)
Since I’m routinely out of meds and even when I do have them to help I’m kind of flighty, in the last six months to a year I have begun to work out more scatterbrain-friendly ways to manage my time. On the last day of the month I print a calendar sheet for the next month (courtesy of a 12-month pdf I downloaded from Wiki Calendar), write any important events on it, and mount it on some card stock to stick on the wall behind where I sit to do work. (I also have some regular art calendars by my front door, this year featuring Jiji Knight and Rosalarian, but I don’t like to write on them because I like to keep the art at the end of the year.) Next to the working calendar, I have a clip of halved index cards numbered 1 – 31 in nice big printing. I cross the day off the calendar and flip to the next card every night before I go to bed. Both of these things give me a visual cue to keep me “anchored in time,” so to speak. (The large numbers are so I can glance over my shoulder and see what day it is without squinting at the calendar. In related news, I really need to get my glasses prescription updated.)
Other ways I keep track of time: lists and spreadsheets. I actually meant to write about the spreadsheets for a post I was going to title “Managing the Unmanageable: Building Routines While Unmedicated with Severe ADHD,” but I got caught up doing a little research into the reasons for the medication shortage, and then got upset thinking about drug scheduling and how the extra hoops the ADHD patient has to jump through are not only cruel but ironic. A prescription for an ordinary medication that is not subject to drug scheduling—say, a blood thinner or beta blocker or SSRI—can be written for a fairly long period of time with a note that ends up on the medication label like “can be refilled (x) times before (date).” Once on file with the pharmacy, that medication will likely be autofilled every month, or whatever period of time between refills, and you can just go pick it up when you’re notified. In the case of ADHD meds, a doctor can only write three months worth of prescriptions—with an in-office visit every three months for this purpose, requiring the patient to make sure they have an appointment sorted ahead of time or remember to make one when they’re approaching the end of the three months—and then you must call the pharmacy to have the prescription filled at the start of the next two months worth of medication. (The label in this case says “Federal Law Prohibits Refill.”) The last doctor I had, who prescribed my medication reluctantly for reasons over which I am still puzzling, didn’t make these things clear, so in my confusion being medicated has been an inconsistent experience. It’s been a little better with my current doctor, but pharmacy outages and yet more confusion (this time with regard to the online portal system my clinic uses for making appointments and sending messages between doctor and patient) ended up delaying a switch to an alternate medication. To someone without ADHD I imagine this seems a bit overkill but also no big deal to navigate. I assure you as someone with the kind of ADHD that makes regular functioning an undertaking of Olympic training proportions: it is a very big deal. Anyway, if you’re curious about drug scheduling (aka how the Justice system in the U.S. has made blanket assumptions regarding certain chemical compounds that screw over people with non-standard brains), med shortages, and other fun stuff, here is an article on the matter from NPR (published in July 2023).
(I will, this time, skip over my opinions and feelings about the conflation of “dependency” and “addiction”—and how our cultural approach to “addiction” in the United States has been almost fully overtaken by the disease hypothesis and an associated program that has no basis in science nor any substantial changes in its core material for almost 100 years. I have a strong thesis but we don’t have all day. Dr. Lance Dodes’ book The Sober Truth, published in 2014, is a much better source if you’re interested in this concept. Joe Miller’s US of AA, published in 2019, is a good historical accompaniment.)
ANYWAY: spreadsheets and lists. I use spreadsheets in a number of ways. I have a spending/budget sheet to keep track of what I buy. This not only keeps me a little more cognizant of the day and month, but reels in less mindful spending. It’s frighteningly easy to rack up a number of book and movie purchases made “as a little treat” when looking for a burst of dopamine, and then forget that the money was ever spent. In the past I have been too ashamed and scared to step back and take a look at my habits, but this year I decided to face it head on and started tracking. Over the last few months I have refined my process by adding several tabs to the initial overview sheet for detail in general spending areas (like books, movies, clothing, monthly expenditures/subscription services, utilities, etc., etc.) and have several ways of cross-checking and making sure the numbers balance. This didn’t happen overnight, but is continually evolving. I use several colors to coordinate with the tabs and highlight the different kinds of spending so I can see at a glance on the main sheet where my money is going. Holding myself to writing these things down means that I’ve cut some spending significantly—for books and movies I wait until things go on sale, or I see what I can borrow from the library. Hot tip: If you have a membership with your local library, check to see if they can give you access to Kanopy. I have watched several great movies this year that way, and I can stream them from my device to the TV so I don’t have to watch on a little screen. (In my reading spreadsheet, discussed further down, I also keep a column totaling the value of books I have borrowed so I can see for myself what I saved by not just saying “aw fuck it” and buying the book—and then not reading the book. The time crunch imposed by a library due date means I actually get more reading done. Not always, but most times!)
Another way this spending spreadsheet has helped with time management is by keeping me on a regular grocery shopping schedule, and this is helped along by a printable grocery list that I also made with a spreadsheet. My old way of doing things was to write a hurried list, forget a third of what I needed (necessitating trips throughout the week), and end up ordering takeout anyway. The grocery list is still a work in progress, but it’s ordered in the most efficient route through the store with aisle numbers for reference. I still write little lists through the week but on Saturdays I can print the grocery spreadsheet and highlight everything I need to buy. This gives me a week to consider what meals I’d like to make and plan for them, so I only buy what I really need and don’t end up throwing out a whole crisper drawer full of rotten produce every few weeks. Additionally, this has expanded the repertoire of meals I can make—I do a pretty good veggie chili mac and minestrone, but now I can also make enchiladas with a sauce from scratch (and adapt them into a casserole), and tonight I’m going to make a vegetarian lasagna. Doing more cooking also justified the purchase of a food processor, at long last, and I can further cut my grocery budget by making my own hummus. In this way I’ve also reduced the amount of “fuck it, I’m tired” takeout, dropping down to mostly once a week and giving myself the anticipation of Friday pizza! (Which is also Saturday breakfast pizza and Saturday lunch or dinner pizza, making it possibly the best value of any takeout I might order, except for the great Chinese place nearby that packs enough fried rice or noodles into a large box that it also serves as two to three meals.)
I also keep a spreadsheet to track the movies I’m watching. I have undertaken a project this year to watch a new movie every day, which I first did in 2022. I have columns for: the date watched, title, director, writer, genre/category, length in minutes, streaming service, and an additional space for notes/one-sentence reviews. This carries across two main tabs: watched, and possibilities. (I had a few others, for 90 minutes or less, 90 – 120 minutes, and 120+ minutes, but since I started color coding those run times on my sheet of possibilities—yellow, orange, red— it streamlined the process and keeps me from uselessly duplicating information.) I don’t always remember to log or review a film on Letterboxd, but as long as I fill out the watched sheet every day I’ll have the information I need to go back and do it later. Keeping the organization of the two tabs consistent means I can fill out the information for films I’m interested in ahead of time and just copy them over to “watched” when I’ve actually seen it. If I have a spare bit of time I’ll go through my Letterboxd watchlist and “pre-log” a bunch of movies in the possibilities tab, which also cuts down on decision making time later on. The runtime column really helps on poor concentration days because I can just look for something yellow and not be intimidated by how much time I’ll spend. This was actually part of the reason for the 2022 version of this project—sometimes part of ADHD and the associated time management challenges means putting off doing things you want to do, but you might feel guilty about because they take up too much time, or you dither while trying to prioritize and then run out of available free time. When I made watching movies a priority and gave myself genres and titles to concentrate on (for e.g., in February 2022 I watched a lot of Disney animation I’d missed), it became easier to carve out the time and also not feel guilty about it. I also wanted to learn a bit more about different kinds of storytelling, so watching these movies was also an educational experience. Wrap it up with a spreadsheet and you have a whole self-management experience! (In terms of spending, this also helps track usage of various streaming platforms and whether I’m actually getting my money’s worth. There are at least two services currently on the chopping block—but on the other hand, the $6.99/month I spend for Shudder is paying for itself.)
As mentioned earlier, I also have a reading spreadsheet which I use to a lesser degree because I read more slowly than I can watch movies, but with it I’m able to track how long it takes me to read a book, keep on top of due dates for library books, and compare and contrast the value of a service like Kindle Unlimited or Audible Plus with the amount that I use them and the cost of the materials borrowed. Like the spending spreadsheet, this has significantly slashed what I spend on books and helps me choose what I do spend more carefully.
Finally, there’s the daily list, which I fill out at night before bed in anticipation of the next day. For this I use a 5×8” field guide type notebook that I keep open in a vertical position where I can see it. At the top goes the day and date and the things I track: time I take medications (so no doubling doses or forgetting), spaces to log the day’s movie (in case I forget to update the spreadsheet), what reading and writing I did that day, a weather log (I note the low and high temps, conditions, and sunrise/sunset), people I should text or communities I should check and contribute to, like the Discords I hang out on—this is to make sure I’m not isolating by accident when I lose track of time—and other things like health notes, evening medication, and a space for urgent to-do items/things I achieved that day. I also have a space for staying on top of the daily Wordle puzzle. I’m on a 53 day streak and I credit the book for helping me remember.
That was a lot, and if you’re still here, kudos! I honestly don’t expect anyone to want to read big walls of text anymore when we have TikTok and YouTube shorts, and I appreciate the time you’ve spent here with me. I’ve thought sometimes about narrating these—apparently WordPress has a “podcast” option—but I lack good recording tools and I’m always catching mistakes and editing things after publishing. Perhaps one day—if I can manage regular output! I didn’t even manage to touch on how Daylight Saving completely upended my established routines, my February and March reading roundups, some granny stitch obsessed crochet talk, or how I currently have no Tales of the Rink to share due to a health concern keeping me out of slightly risky activities, but—fingers crossed and medication willing—I will be back within the next week for more. In the meantime, I wish you good cheer and the hope that you may find ways to manage your life that give you ample time for hobbies, interests, and enjoyment. ♥️
P.S.: please enjoy this picture of my little orange goblin cat, Ziggy, foiled in a bathtub ambush attempt:
Cosmic’s Read-o-Rama 