It’s time to get strategic around Christmas.

If you’re a person who finds organization a challenge the rest of the year round, it may reassure you to know that you’re not alone in finding Christmas a mega-challenging time.

Christmas is a crazy-making time precisely because all the challenges come at once. That means all the strategies we need throughout the year are needed more than ever. You will need to bring out the strategies, tools, and techniques you have for managing yourself and your stuff to avoid getting overwhelmed.

Unless you want to start your Christmas preparations months before the merry day (and personally, I find that prospect extremely unappealing), all the preparations need to be done within a fairly short period over a few weeks. On top of all the other day-to-day stuff which still needs doing.

Just the kind of thing that we ADHDers find challenging. There’s so much to do and so much to remember. That’s because there is a lot to do in a short timescale. In some ways that can be a tremendous advantage for those with an ADHD brain. We are great at sprints so you can view a time-limited event like Christmas, just like a sprint or series of sprints. It’s only a few weeks away, and then it’s finished.

What kind of strategies are particularly useful at Christmas time?

1. Simplify: 

 Instead of feeling bad because you haven’t time to personally send out 100 cards to all your friends, relations, and people you want to thank at the end of the year, why not take the pressure off yourself and send some of your greetings another way, which doesn’t involve doing it all at the same time? People will be glad to hear from you anytime; it doesn’t necessarily have to be done before Christmas day, does it?

2. Do what you can in advance to make life easier on the day:

I have spent nearly every Christmas Eve of my life hurriedly wrapping presents at the last minute, but not this year! This year I will be relaxing with my feet up, with my presents already wrapped and under the tree. I set myself the challenge of completing this just a bit at a time so that on Christmas Eve, I can focus on enjoying the company of others without this task hanging over me.

3. Ask others for help:

Attempting to do all of the Christmas preparations on your own can be a recipe for martyrdom and resentment, especially if you’re providing meals for people. You won’t get brownie points for feeling put upon!

For some reason, our ADHD brains think it is necessary to do everything ourselves, even if we nearly collapse with the effort. Delegating can help you by reaching out to others to see what part of the preparations they would be willing to take on and share. If you ask yourself, “What’s preventing me from asking for help?” you may come up with some interesting answers that could help you move forward.

You can feel calmer and more in control by using straightforward strategies such as these examples to reduce the overwhelm that comes from having so much to do in a short time.

Simplify – reduce the sheer number of Christmas things to do.

Do what you can in advance – by doing things in advance, you clear your path for a more effortless and enjoyable time on the day itself.

Ask for help – many hands make light work, and are you aware that people love to help?

Why not pick just one thing you will do differently this year to make Christmas less stressful and more enjoyable? After all, if you end up having a good time, it’s much more likely that others will too.

Get Where You Need to Go On Time, even with ADHD.

Getting to places on time, is a common scenario that my clients struggle with. Here’s how I helped one client get to her very first job successfully!

Client X was a young woman who had just landed her first job. She was delighted with herself about how she handled the interview and was looking forward to working in this new position. However, she was extremely anxious about how she was going to get to the job on time each day. According to my client she had a track record of being late for everything. Completely focused on her past negative experiences of being late and with her imagination running overtime, in her mind’s eye she was already losing the job by not being there on time.  This negative belief about herself was threatening to derail all the hard work she put in to get the job in the first place.

I pointed out to my client that she had in fact got to our coaching session in good time and asked her how she had accomplished this. She was a bit taken aback to grasp that here was evidence of her being somewhere on time. She began to realise that her attention was fixated on the occasions she had been late. She laughed and told me she’d used a reminder alarm on her phone. Because she was in the habit of having a phone with her everywhere she went, this worked well for her. Here was one tactic we could put to good use in order to help her get to work on time.

Next, we took an in-depth look at my client’s time estimation skills. I wanted to find out whether her way of judging how long it would take to accomplish tasks could be contributing to her challenges. Those of us with ADHD commonly have difficulties with estimating time accurately, and this can be one of the factors that leads to consistently being late.

We broke down the time after waking into all the tasks my client would need to accomplish before she left the house, and looked at each of them as separate entities. It turned out she was underestimating the time it would take her to get ready in the morning by a good 30 minutes. No wonder she was so often late. She simply had not been allowing enough time for all she needed to do in order to leave the house in the morning. I also helped her to understand that factoring in some time for whatever might arise unexpectedly was a key part of estimating time successfully.

 As a result of this new understanding, my client was able to adjust the time she would set her alarm to wake up and wake up 45 minutes earlier.

At this point my client said she already felt far more confident about getting to her new job on time, but there remained a tiny bit of uncertainty. As there were a few days left before the first day, I explained to my client that practising first with the pressure off can be a valuable way to start creating a new habit. She was very enthusiastic about this idea, and realised that in this way, she could tweak her timings if anything cropped up that she had forgotten about.

One week later when we met again, my client was excited to report that she had practised for the few days leading up to her first day at the job and had indeed discovered a couple of tweaks to her timings which she had addressed. She proudly told me that on the first day of her new job, she had arrived on time! On top of this she said the feeling of being in control of her time had allowed her a calm and confidence which made the whole day go well. This was a new and extremely positive experience for her.

Here’s what you can do to help yourself be on time:

• Find out which negative beliefs about your capabilities may be getting in your way. You can certainly get a coach to help you with this.
• Look at strategies you already use successfully in other parts of your life.
• For issues with time, use timers, alarms, and reminders to help you.
• Examine your time estimation skills for what you are trying to accomplish. Are you over or under-estimating time?
• Chunk things down into their constituent parts so you can see them more clearly.
• Factor in some contingency time for the unexpected.
• To create a new habit, start practising when the pressure is off.
• Make adjustments and tweaks as required before any critical points.

By selecting the right strategies, ADHD doesn’t need to be a barrier to getting where you need to be on time and in control.

If you found this post useful, you may wish to sign up for regular e-news bulletins so you can receive more articles straight into your inbox. Please use the blue form to the right of this message to subscribe, thank you.

If time management and/or organisation are a challenge for you, please do get in touch to check my availability for one to one coaching.

I’m coach Anna Schlapp, B.A., ACC, coaching people with ADHD and other co-occurring conditions for 8 years in the UK and worldwide. You can get in touch with me here

Studying with ADHD: a Success Story.

My coaching client was intelligent, creative, and committed to making the world a better place once he gained his degree. Just one thing was getting in his way; lack of understanding of how his ADHD traits were having an impact on his revision tactics for his end of year exams. ( “Revision” in the UK means “study” or “review” )

We started by precisely analysing his current approach to revision. He was certainly putting the hours in, yet no work was being done. Time was ticking by and this situation was beginning to undermine his self-esteem. His confidence in passing his exams was at a low ebb.

I started by asking him some clarifying questions, and these revealed that the environment he was attempting to study in played a big part in his difficulties both in getting started, and in maintaining focus. I discovered he was trying to study in the same environment where he lived, ate and spent time relaxing. I recommended he firstly try separating out his study area from his living area and see what happened as a result.

He agreed to check out this new strategy and came back next session full of enthusiasm at the insights he had gained. He realised as a result of this new awareness just what a key role environment did play in his ability to study and revise.

Knowing it wasn’t some kind of character flaw holding him back, but simply the way he was going about his revision, was a pivotal moment for this particular client.

 After a couple of weeks of experimentation, he came to the conclusion that trying to study in his flat was not going to work for him, and he took the decision to go to the library to revise.

From there I helped my client deepen his understanding of how his ADHD trait of distractibility was hampering his efforts. I was able to identify exactly which distractions were throwing him off course and when. I encouraged him to use his strength of creativity to come up with some solutions he would enjoy putting into practice. I was also able to help him see the benefit of taking regular breaks, to refresh and recharge.

Working together we came up with a plan that worked with his ADHD traits. We tailored it to his unique circumstances, course modules, and the time he had remaining to complete his studies and revision. Armed with this new information my client was able to go from hours spent sitting staring at his book bag, beating himself up for not revising day and night, to completing a realistic goal of several hours a day of revision.

He regained confidence and was filled with new hope as he understood that completing his revision in a timely manner was now within his grasp. He was able to pass his end of year exams with a better grade than expected and was excited to share the good news with me.

You can make your study and revision easier and more productive by paying attention to these factors:

• Find a comfortable place to study that helps you feel like studying. Don’t try to study in the same place you live, eat, and relax.
• Give yourself permission to take regular breaks from study. Set a timer if you need to.
• Identify the things that distract you, then eliminate them so as to maximize focus and concentration.
• Every person with ADHD is different. Notice what specific elements aid or hinder your own studying and make adjustments if needed.

Just a few changes to your environment and work habits will pay dividends in your ability to focus and concentrate. ADHD doesn’t have to hold you back from being an excellent student.