Tag: schedules

Week 2 of Finishing Soft
ADHD · rest

Week 2 of Finishing Soft

Christine Hennebury

In this past week, I have been experimenting with my schedule to see how to create the softest day for myself.

To be clear, the softest day has nothing to do with whether I have work to do, it’s actually about minimizing any time-related stress and static. And I don’t mean stress and static from other people, I’m trying to work more cooperatively with my own brain here.

I’m figuring out at which point in the day my regular activities feel easiest or most straightforward. Or, to put it another way, when do these activities require the least thought and effort?

This will take longer than a week to figure out, of course, but I have to start somewhere.

Here’s what I’ve found out so far:

1- There are a lot of benefits to walking the dog earlier in the day.

Generally, unless I have a commitment that affects my schedule, I walk the dog either right after lunch or when I finish work for the day. Recently though, I have been walking her right after breakfast and before I start work and it’s been great.

Walking Khalee earlier means:

  • I have a clear time to start my work day (I work from home so this has always been a challenge.)
  • I don’t have to wonder when will be the best time to head out for our walk (my brain will mull that over all day if I let it.)
  • I get a good brain boost from the exercise (I can always use a bit more focus.)
  • I can free up my late afternoons for other things.

2 – I can get a lot done between 4:00-5:30PM.

I had a hint of this a few weeks back when I had some afternoon meetings and I had to shift my work later in the day. (I had walked the dog right before lunch a couple of days in a row so the end of the day was free.) I have always been trying to end my day around 4:00 or 4:30, thinking that it would be good to have the work day behind me as soon as possible.

Instead, it turns out that putting some of my ‘after work’ tasks in the middle of the day so I can work (especially on my writing) between 4:00-5:30pm is a really good idea. I don’t know if my brain just likes the break from work in the middle of the day or if it likes the ‘deadline’ feeling of 5:30pm (my husband and son finish work at 5:30 at get home at 5:45) but, either way, it seems to work. I feel really focused and determined at that time of day and I finish my work feeling good about it.

Oddly, I have also found that working until 5:30pm makes it a lot easier to head out for any evening commitments, too. I guess that supper feels like a break rather than feeling like the end of the day so my brain doesn’t mind doing something else afterwards?

3- I like doing yoga first thing in the morning AND right before bed.

As you can see, Khalee also likes to do yoga first thing. Image description: A photo of Khalee, a light haired dog, resting on my yoga mat. Our couch, book shelf, and lit Christmas tree are in the background of the photo. ​
As you can see, Khalee also likes to do yoga first thing. Image description: A photo of Khalee, a light haired dog, resting on my yoga mat. Our couch, book shelf, and lit Christmas tree are in the background of the photo.

Doing a little yoga when I first go downstairs in the morning feels good and helps me adjust to being awake. Doing a longer yoga session before I head to bed helps my brain tuck away the details of the day and helps me feel more rested.

Neither of these things are huge revelations but I was paying closer attention this past week and I really can tell that it is good for me to bookend my day that way.

Softer but still a ways to go

It’s obviously going to take more than a couple of weeks to undo the stress and challenges of a whole year. Being in stress mode is a habit now and it takes a while to unlearn a habit.

I am making progress though and I feel like I am learning some really important things about my schedule and about my approach to my day to day life.

The softening continues!

Wondering what this Finishing Soft business is all about?

After a challenging year, I have committed to Finishing 2023 Soft and here’s my report from Week 1.

What Are YOU Up To This Summer?
ADHD · fitness · time

What Are YOU Up To This Summer?

Christine Hennebury

Now that the stresses and fun of the past month or so have passed, I’m looking forward to the mixed blessing of a flexible summer schedule.

I mean, I love having my evenings free and since I work for myself, at home, I can shift things around to take advantage of good weather or some pop-up fun.

A GIF of a meerkat popping up from its den and looking around.
This is fun, right? Pop-up fun? Image description: a light-coloured meerkat popping up from its den in a sandy surface.

BUT

Since my brain has a very casual relationship with time under any circumstances, the flexibility of summer can also be a challenge for me. If I don’t make my decisions in advance or if I don’t pay close attention to how I spend my time, I can suddenly find myself at the end of summer, frustrated about all of the things I missed out on for no good reason.

So, one of my projects for this weekend is to figure out how I want to spend my summer.

An outdoor shot of a patio railing, a shed, and trees with blue sky in the background.
One thing is for certain, I want to make sure this view plays a big role in my summer. Image description: the view from my patio chair on a bright sunny day. In the foreground is a chair with a red cushion and a table with flowers in a pot next to the rail of my patio . In the background is my red shed, wooden fence, and green trees against a warm blue sky.

I’m considering when to work and when to rest (and thinking about what ‘rest’ includes). I’m figuring out what to include in my day-to-day and which larger summer activities I want to organize and do. I’m thinking about the projects I want to complete in the house and in the yard and deciding when I’d like to work on them.

Basically, I want to make sure that I actively choose a shape for my summer instead of just reacting moment by moment.

(By the way, if a summer of reacting moment by moment is your ideal, please have at it! Do what works for you.)

I’m planning to include things like revising my novel, practicing my TKD patterns outside where there’s more room, hula-hooping, going swimming, reading in my hammock, taking a few hikes, taking Khalee on longer walks, going for longer bike rides, creating some zines, and spending a lot of time hanging out outdoors with my friends.

A GIF of a child using a hula hoop in a department store. Even after their hoop drops to the ground, they keep wiggling their hips.
This little one and I have a lot in common with our hoop skills but I think we both have fun all the same. Image description: a GIF of a small child with long brown hair and glasses in a department store aisle. They are trying to use an orange hula hoop and even after it clatters to the ground, they keep wiggling their hips back and forth.

What do YOU have planned for your summer? Let me know in the comments!

Or if it isn’t summer where you are, what do you have planned for the next few months?

Three Things From Christine
fitness · holidays · self care · yoga

Three Things From Christine

Christine Hennebury

I tried to make this into a sensible, all-encompassing post with a unified message.

It didn’t work.

So, here are three fitness/wellness/self-care things that are on my mind right now:

1) Being in the in-between

I am feeling no need to try to be productive or to try and accomplish anything this week but I don’t want to fall into the mindless blah of the in-between.

Writing my daily ‘Making Space’ posts and taking walks with Khalee are just enough to keep my days from being too aimless while still being pretty chill.

A dog on a lit leash stands on snow.
Khalee and I like walking on the squishy snow on the path near my house. She sniffs it a lot more than I do, though. Image description: Khalee, my light-haired dog is on her LED leash the path at night. The snow is pitted with footprints from people and dogs.

2) 12 Days of Yoga

This has proven to be more challenging than I thought it would be. I have done yoga everyday but sometimes I am doing the practice from memory rather than going along with the video.

It’s not that I don’t have time and I am physically able to do it. I just have had some unexpected things crop up and I’m surprised at how tricky it has been to work around them and get the video on at a time when I can do it.

That being said, though, I am finding a real difference in how my hips feel when I do the circular sort of movement that Adriene demonstrates to get into extended child’s pose.

A small dog stretches on a purple yoga mat
I kind of wish Khalee would follow this dog’s example and do yoga on her own mat instead of trying to share mine! Image description: a small dog does a big stretch on a purple yoga mat

3) Making Space -> Go Team

Since December 1, I have been doing a daily ‘Making Space’ post to remind us to make space for ourselves in our own lives.

On January 1, I’m going to switch over to ‘Go Team’ daily posts. Those posts will be about encouraging you to be kind to yourself as you adopt new habits and routines in the new year.

Obviously, you can start a new habit or routine at any point in the year. But, since lots of people enjoy using January 1 as a starting point, I’m going to gather up a big bag of encouragement and travel along with you, handing it out like snacks on a road trip.

And, as always, I’ll be awarding gold stars for your efforts.

A gold star on a black background.
Just one of the many gold stars I have in store for you in January. Image description: a thinking gold star against a black background.

Sooooo, what have you been up to since last Tuesday?

fitness · health · planning · self care

Christine H says yes to Holidays but no to Holi-daze

Christine Hennebury10 Comments

For those of us who celebrate Christmas, or some Christmas-like event, or at least for those of us who end up on a different schedule between December 24 & January 1, we are currently at the time of year when the days all run together.

Routines are off kilter – meals happen at weird times, we’re eating a lot of different foods, and our sleep patterns have gone out the window.

This is when we lose all sense of time and end up in a holi-daze.

An especially dangerous thing for those of us on Team ADHD who have a tenuous grasp on the concept in the first place.

Two drawings of stick people. The one on the left is wearing a red santa hat and has the words '1st-26th Dec' above their head and the word 'Festive' as a caption below. The one on the right has a piece of cheese in their hand. The words '27th-31st Dec' above their head and the words 'Confused, Full of cheese, Unsure of the day of week.' as a caption below.
I’m more likely to be full of raisin cake than cheese but this is the feeling I mean! Image credit: Hurrah for Gin

In this odd year, that out-of-phase feeling has been recurring for most of us. The things that give shape to our year have been changed and time has been expanding and contracting around tasks/plans/activities as they mostly moved online.

I think, though, that having that out-of-phase feeling recur so often this year has made me realize (Re-realize? Possibly!) how important schedules are for my mental health.

In previous years, this week would find me with all kinds of lofty ideas about just letting the days progress in any old way, seeing what might appeal to me to do at any given time.

Text above the image reads 'Me, during that weird time between Christmas and New Years where I don't even know what day it is:' and the image is of the free-spirited character of Phoebe from the TV show 'Friends.' She is wearing a striped onesie and drinking a pink drink through a long straw while she lies on the floor with her head on a pillow. She is being asked 'Do you have a plan?' and she responds ' I don't even have a pla.' "
Phoebe, from the TV show ‘Friends’ might be able to get away with a lack of structure in her days but I cannot. Image source

I have encountered some fun days that way in the past but mostly, I end up feeling a bit scattered and let down by the end of the day.

Because, as much as the idea of spending a day drifting from task to task might have appeal, in reality, I know that I won’t drift pleasantly from task to task.

Instead, I’ll spend the whole day feeling vaguely dissatisfied and with a looming sense that I should be doing something else.

So, I create a plan for my week and then a shape for each day so my atemporal brain won’t leave me in the in-between with a feeling of frustrated sadness.

Making a loose plan for my week and then giving each day a shape makes me choose how I am going to spend my time. It helps me notice if I am trying to cram too many different things into the time that I have. And creating that shape lets me do important preparatory things like saving enough time to actually make the meals I plan to eat or to drive to the places I want to be.

And, yes, giving my days a shape does include a (fairly flexible) schedule and some rough time limits for my chosen activities.

I know to some this will sound like ‘Christine doesn’t know how to relax.’ but this approach is actually the key to my relaxation.

Khalee, a medium-sized, light-haired dog, sleeps on a blue flannel pillowcase decorated with frogs , crowns and hearts.
My dog, Khalee, does not need a schedule in order to relax. She apparently just needs to sleep on my pillow when I run downstairs for some pre-bed ginger tea.

For starters, these plans and shapes do not necessarily involve work. My plan for the week includes holiday activities, some special meals, and hanging out with people on Zoom. My shape for a given day might be to read a book for an hour after breakfast, to do some drawing for 45 minutes before lunch, and then to take a long walk at 3pm.

And having that plan, that schedule, is actually restful. It means that time won’t gallop away from me.

It means that I won’t spend the whole week figuring out when to do which activity. And I won’t spend each day continuously trying to decide if now is the ‘right’ time to read, to draw, or to head out for a walk.

And, having that plan, that shape, lets me make stress-free decisions when someone asks me if I want to do something else. If my plan is to go for a walk at 3, and someone asks me to watch a movie at 2, knowing the shape of my day means that I can more easily decide whether to change the time of my walk or to say no to the movie.*

If I know that I have enough time for the things that I really want to do, that I won’t run out of time, that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing at any given time, my brain will stop looping around ‘Now? How about now?’ and give me some ease.

And if that’s not a recipe for a holiday, I don’t know what is.

A small, green, holiday tree is sitting on a white shelf. It is decorated with gold star lights and has a gold star topper. Two points of a large cardboard star can be seen to the right side of the photo and part of a ukulele decorated with the image of a Polynesian-style statue can be seen to the right.
The gold stars on this tree celebrate my self-care efforts this holiday season.

*Perhaps, to the Neurotypical, this may look like overthinking, or as if I am making a big deal out of something simple, but for my ADHD brain, a holiday schedule is a relief. And, I thought that anyone who finds themselves in a holi-daze might borrow some of these ideas for themselves.