Re: Organization and Time Management HELP!

[Anonymous]

My coach has me doing the following things to help me in my ADHD micro-world so that I can better get along in the Non-ADHD big-world (my little twist on life if you will… pardon the parody).

With my employment I typically deal with financial and administrative matter in tremendous volume. So, it becomes imperative for me to ensure that I am organized and functioning at a high rate of efficiency and accuracy.

One of the very first things that my coach had me do is to ensure that I have color coded folder files. In my case the following work:

– Yellow – Vacation

– Blue – Claims

– Red – URGENT

– Purple – Awards

– Green – Promotions

– Orange – Travel

– Grey – Filing

– Brown – Follow-up

Within each of those folders, on the left side when they are opened, is a short label that is affixed that outlines for me the criteria with respect to organizing the work within this folder – why particular items are done prior to others.

She told me to bring out my ‘smart phone’ in my case I have a iPhone which has some very nice applications that you can get for ‘free’… most of mine are… LOL

My coach suggested that I set my cell phone with calendar alerts to trigger me at certain points of my day to perform particular tasks. I was to eliminate all sounds except for the calendar alerts which would serve to trigger me to do particular tasks. The very first alert is for my filing. She has me performing my filing – an ongoing task which is always added to – at the least busy time of my day. So every morning between 7:00 – 7:30 am I do my filing and only spend 30 minutes doing it… no MORE! If I don’t get it all done, it placed back in the folder for the next day.

My office phone provided a major distraction for me. The ringer was one thing but that flashing red light would drive me up the wall and really would knock me off my train of thought because it was flashing right under my nose – the curiosity to know who it was and what the message was because an obligation (in my mind) but it never was.

My coach suggested that I limit myself to never answering my desk phone, that I only return messages which was the next step with my alerts from my cell phone was to set two alerts, one for 11:00 – 11:30 am and the next for 2:00 – 2:30 am where I am to stop and review all voice mails and return them all within that half hour time frame.

She also told me that for me, that email would be my best friend because it would provide a record of all discussions, conversations and directions from superiors and others. It would serve to eliminate the need for me to try to remember every thing all the time – impaired memory being a co-morbid condition that is underlying the ADHD (she being aware of this gave me more home work in connection with that).

I will post more a bit later… I will also add some of my own developed ‘time management’ tips that I have developed over the years – which oddly enough never properly been capable of implementing due to the ADHD – strange but true story.

Distracted66

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