BEST STRATEGY I HAVE HEARD YET TO GET YOUR HOUSE CLEANED!!!
If you follow my blogs you may be wondering what the heck…she just wrote this big thing on politics and mental health and substance abuse teleseminar and now she is writing on cleaning her kitchen??? Why can’t she stay focused on one thing??
Well duh! That is why I am writing on mental health and substance abuse because those of us with “mental” health issues are driven to drink when you have a brain that doesn’t work right and we aren’t respected or valued because we are differently abled so to me, they are of course related and for those of us with ADHD we can see the red thread much easier than others.
So yesterday, when I was talking to Heather Breitenfeld, my colleague Jason’s wife about how to narrow my focus on my marketing she was telling me that se understands the ADHD thing but has learned strategies to stay focused that I have not used before and I am going to give it a try!
I know there are zillions of you out there who feel like you never get anything done because you can’t stay focused in one spot and finish a task. You are in the kitchen and you see that there on the dishwasher is a book and some bills so you go to take them and put them away in the office and on the way back you see that the cat knocked over a plant so you clean that up quick and are putting the cleaning supplies away when you see the watering can and remember you forgot to water the plants. You get the plants watered and start heading back to the kitchen when you notice that the fish are swimming frantically around the tank and you realize you haven’t fed them in 2 days and so while you are feeding the fish the phone rings and the kids need to get picked up. You pick up the kids and when you get back it looks like you haven’t done hardly anything in the kitchen…..Why? Because you haven’t….but you did do other stuff so pat yourself on the back anyway.
Sound familiar??
Way too familiar to me!!! Even this blog is a typical example of why I don’t reach my big goals because I go off on tangents on random thoughts that may be good and beneficial but not always timely and there are just too many of them to be humanly “doable” for one person. So Heathers’s suggestion is great and I am looking forward to using it.
All you do is put up a gate or other barrier in the door of the room you are cleaning and it will remind you NOT to leave that room until you are done!! You just get a bin or a box and you just put all the stuff you find that needs to go in another room into that box. When you are done cleaning that room THEN you pick up the box and go and put EVERYTHING away and then put the box back where you found it so it is out of the way.
I need reminders like that. Putting a note on a door is pretty worthless because I blow right by it. Now my step daughter thinks I will either step over it or go outside and come in the other door (she was joking) but fact is, I NEED that type of accommodation!
We need these kinds of strategies at work too and I cover that whole thing on accommodation in my coaching program on Workplaces That Thrive- Creating a Mental Health Friendly Environment. Mental Health Friendly Workplace
Hope this helps!
