Well, the world has changed quite a bit since I wrote a blog post about 10 days ago. Thankfully, my family and my friends are all well. I have three freezers and am a classically trained chef… so we aren’t going to starve. I hope all of you reading this are well and secure. Of course there are many long term, societal, and economic consequences of this situation. But for those of us with kids, the battle is more day to day at this point. As there is talk of school being done for the YEAR, I’m pretty psyched my wife and I survived week one. I thought I would share some insights over the next few weeks about how to survive our sequestration with ADHD kids… and an ADHD dad.  First check out the picture below. SCHEDULING IS KEY! It’s less about the specifics or even if you stick to it. But it sure beats the, “what do we do now” discussion. That’s usually when my kids go off the rails. Bear in mind that I have a relatively independent 11 year old and an extremely needy almost-six-year-old. Your needs and results may vary.  Here are some specifics of what I try to put in my schedule every day.  I need to work out every day. That can be spin bike, weights, or digging out a bed in the garden. Generally my parenting is more on point if I get my workout in earlier in the day. Even though life is crazy, I’m making time to practice the drums every day. I’m not very good and haven’t been playing for that long. But I enjoy it; it’s “me” time; and it’s reasonably physical. My wife and I are insisting that we get 1/2 an hour of time together without…

I work with many ADHD adults who have wonderful marriages / relationships. But I also work with many ADHD adults who have significant relationship struggles. It is well established that ADHD can make things difficult in any partnership, especially a romantic one. Here are a few of the highlights of how your ADHD can lead your relationship down a challenging path. ADHDers often hyperfocus on new “shiny” relationship and set an unrealistic bar for excitement and novelty that can’t be sustained for the life of a relationship. Being an executive function disaster certainly has consequences when we’re single. But when our lateness, disorganization, forgetfulness, poor time management effect our partner, it’s not just our problem anymore.  The more people are involved, the more complex a system is created. You, your partner (who both work,) and two or three kids is a lot of responsibility. If one partner feels like they are shouldering significantly more than half of that responsibility it will likely lead to resentment.  Often ADHDers unintentionally select a partner who compensates for their weaknesses. For example, someone who is super structured and organized and runs their life like the german train system down to the minute. This usually works for a while but often deteriorates into a parent/child dynamic or learned helplessness. If the ADHD partner isn’t expect to be organized, they will never learn. And that can become a burden for the non-ADHD partner.  The same dynamic can often lead to resentment for the ADHD partner too. Who wants their wife to nag them just their mom did for 18 years?  Lack of attentiveness in interpersonal interactions, if consistent, can make the not ADHD partner feel unheard, unappreciated, and unvalued.  Alright, so we’ve established that it can be a challenge to me married to an ADHD adult. But, if…

I was talking with a client today about relationships And I articulated something that I don’t think I’ve said in such a clear and concise way. So I wanted to pass it along.   It is my opinion that much of the success of long lasting relationships has to do with finding a way to prioritize things that are of importance to your partner, even if they aren’t inherently important to you. Of course this is even harder for ADHDers because we have a hard finding the time or energy for things that we aren’t inherently stimulated by.  As for how to address this… I don’t know about you, but I enjoy doing nice things for my wife. And frankly, if you don’t enjoy doing nice things for your partner, I’m not sure you should be together. Now you just have to figure out what’s “nice” according to her, not necessarily according to you.  This concept can apply to everything, from the mundane to the monumental. As a small example, maybe starting her car on a cold morning is something that makes her feel loved. You might not care about your car being warm, so you don’t want to bother to put your boots and jacket on to do it for her?  On a larger scale, maybe you both have very different needs on vacation and need to understand each others’ points of view to be able to make it a vacation for both of you.

I saw my ADHD Dr. on Wednesday and he told me about this new texting program that he developed with MGH to help parents manage their kids’ ADHD. Anyone can use it. The first month is free. And, it may be available for adults in the future. Please check it out and let me know if you like it.

When dealing with brain chemistry issues it can be really difficult to know that what we are experiencing isn’t “normal.” After all, we don’t have anything to compare to how we feel. ADHD is particularly hard to identify because it doesn’t develop later in life. Depression, for example has an onset. So there is an opportunity to compare how you feel when you are depressed with how you felt before you were depressed. Not to say that that is always easy. But I feel like we, as a society also have a better vocabulary to talk about depression.  As ADHDers we also get so much negative feedback telling us that we are lazy, unmotivated, not reaching our potential, that it’s hard not to internalize at least some of that. I guess my point is that you should trust yourself. How you feel is unique. Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t valid. 

As I continue to recover, here’s a low hanging fruit post. Great article on ADDitude about Gaslighting… really about how classic abusers operate. I’ve seen it far to often in my practice. Check out the link. https://additudemag.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=05c078d02e79a07f64018da62&id=d046363c36&e=56e9d42595

Wrote this before I got sick… hope it’s still topical… and useful. One more important note on last week’s post. Scheduling your day is just a mini version of scheduling your week or month. The only difference is that it is a smaller and more detailed. It is no secret that many of us with ADHD struggle to transition from one activity to another. I have found that one of the best ways to manage this weakness is to have a plan. If you have to stop and think about what’s next everytime you finish a task, that layers additional executive function on top of the difficulty with transitioning.  But if you have a plan/ a schedule for your day that is reasonably detailed and accurate, you always know what is coming next. I think that if you know what is coming next you can get your brain to start the transitioning process earlier. Then you are much more likely to be able to flow from one thing to the next. For example, when I’m with a client, I’m fully focused on that client. Yet, somehow, it still helps me to know if I have another next, or if I’m going to the gym, or if I’m picking up my kids, or if I’m doing office work, or writing a blog post. Somehow my brain can begin the transition and be ready to move to the next thing when I have it planned out. Try it. I bet it will work for you too. Standard Disclaimer:  In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts muh,  if at all. Please excuse typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. In my humble opinion, an imperfect post posted is…

Great topic in this week’s ADHD weekly from the NRC. What you need to think about before traveling with your ADHD meds.  It is also very important to think about when you are going to be out of your meds. Don’t want to run our while on vacation. I recently had a client deal with this. It really just required coordinating with the doctor, pharmacy, and insurance… which in her case actually went smoothly.

Hello everyone. You may have noticed that I haven’t posted and entry in about 2 1/2 months. Well, without going into the gory details, I got really sick. Like, 16 days in the hospital, nine of them in the ICU, kind of sick. I’m expected to make a full recovery. But it has been slow going allowing my body and my brain to recover. My plan is to start posting shorter, less attention intense entries to get myself back in the swing of things as I work toward full health. Just know that I haven’t given up on sharing my thoughts on ADHD and related issue and that I hope to be back to more in depth and more expansive topics as soon as I can. I thank you all for your patience. 

As ADHDers we are often a mystery to others and to ourselves. Our behavior regularly contradicts itself and as a result can be very difficult to change. We generally have difficulty being mindful in the moment and being aware of what we are doing on some levels. Though sometimes we are so immersed in the moment that the rest of the world might as well not exist. Yet we also struggle with planning for the future and perceiving time. Though at the last minute we can often pull off miracle of focus and planning. But often a great personal cost. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the real estate adage, “Location, location, location.” Well, for ADHD, I always say, “Planning, planning, planning.” That is one of the main skills I’ve worked on over the years and one of the key skills I work on with most of my clients. But the fact is that we can’t only look to the future. We have to learn to be more present in the moment in order to plan for the future and create the future that we want. I like to think of it as having both feet firmly planted in the now but always having one eye on tomorrow through next week.  I guess what I’m saying is that as we attempt to strengthen our execute function skills we also have to manage our attention. We have to balance the attention we focus on today, while also devoting enough focus to what is coming up that we can be prepared for what’s next. Let’s take a very simple example. My wife and I are going to a concert next week, two actually. I have both on the calendar. It’s unlikely that I would forget about either of them. But…

It’s been a few weeks. My last post was about the importance of physical Mise en Place. But I’ve always adapted the term and thought about mental Mise en Place. That is the idea of being mentally prepared for what’s coming and mentally organized. I guess, now that I think about it, it is sort of a combination of the executive functions of planning, organization, time management, and working memory along with mindfulness/ presence in the moment.  If I can continue the cooking analogy… when I was a chef, my shift really started at the end of the night the day before. I would do the ordering, make my own prep list, look at everyone else’s prep lists and start to mentally prepare for the next day. What time did I have to come in? Did I need to leave any notes for the morning guys? What do reservations look like for tomorrow? When I come in, what are my priorities for my station? What are the priorities for the kitchen? What’s the staff look like tomorrow and who’s going to need help?  I learned these lessons well in the kitchen. Perhaps I owe the choice of my first career for many of the skills I have. Regardless, I’ve taken those skills into the rest of my life, so I know it’s possible to strengthen those abilities. One obvious place I’ve utilized those skills is in my own kitchen. I’m always thinking about what’s for dinner tomorrow and for the rest of the week. I’m making sure I’m using up ingredients that need to get used. I’m adding things to the shopping list as I get low on them. (Essentially the rule of thumb is that when I no longer have enough of something to get through NEXT week, it…

According to Merriam Webster: a culinary process in which ingredients are prepared and organized (as in a restaurant kitchen) before cooking. As many of you know I was a professional chef for about a decade before I became a coach and an organizer. I learned many of the foundational principles of organizing while I was a chef. Actually, that learning process began while I was at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA.) They are serious about being organized and prepared. Mise en place is actually the school motto. For me it was a survival strategy. I need to be organized to be successful. But that doesn’t just apply to the kitchen, but to my whole life. Here are some organizational principles that I used in the kitchen that in one way or another translate. Keep the things you use most closest.  If you can achieve the same end goal with fewer steps, do that! Get rid of stuff you don’t use Clean up after yourself constantly so there isn’t big project clean up at the end.  Be 100% prepared with everything you need before starting a larger project. It will save you time and completion will be more likely. That’s off the top of my head. I’ll post more if I think of them. Next week I’m going to discuss “mental mise en place.”