Adult ADHD and Free Time

Saturdays have long been the hardest day of the week for me. There is so much unscheduled free time and my Adult ADHD feeds off of it. I've gotten really adept at remember to make task lists and having that be what leads my day, but even that hasn't been allowing me to feel relaxed and easy going on a Saturday. My wife had a heck of an idea the other weekend that I found really worked: make more than one list for free time.I had about 30 things to do on my task list over my holiday break and I was going slightly bonkers. I wanted to vacuum, clean out closets, organize drawers and all of these other tasks that I thought up for myself in order to organize my apartment and make it happier for my brain. I had maybe six days at home to get all of these things done, but on day one I already felt overwhelmed. Oh, and even though my semester hadn't started yet, I already had a five hour project that needed to be done.

At one point on maybe day two of this break, wife noticed me walking around the apartment searching for something to do. It's a little nutty that I had a list of 30 things and was pacing our small space to figure out what to do next. This was where wifey's quiet brilliance came into play. Why don't I make smaller lists out of my lists?

It was so simple and so perfect!!! I made a list for Monday of five to six things, for Tuesday of five to six things and so on ... When I finished my few tasks, I no longer felt worried about the 20+ remaining items. I was able to do a puzzle or play with some legos or binge watch television (hey! it was my holiday break, that's when you binge watch, right?). Making lists of my lists allowed me to focus for a shorter period of time and to be able to feel a whole lot freer with my leftover time. It was especially great, because I am certain that had I completed my 30 items in 3 days, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SO BORED THE NEXT FEW DAYS. Having different cleaning tasks to look foward to also helped me to feel less anxious and gave structure to my day.

In sum, my wife is a genius and make lists out of your lists. The end.