One of the biggest clues to my ADD was my obsession with organizers. I have had so many organizers in my life and have always been in search of what I deemed the “perfect” organizer. This was a Holy Grail that kept me going through life, tunnel vision like a horse to a carrot. I have always been interested in having what I called a “system” and in my search I have had so many organizers, I swear I have put many of the Franklin Covey employees children through College and have played a huge part in keeping some of these companies alive and on the market. Basically, kidding aside, I am telling you that I have spent upwards to thousands of dollars on organizers and it is a bit embarrasing.If my relationships with planners were like love affairs, than I was a slut. Harsh word, yes, but it's true. People who are promiscuous are so because of deep rooted low self esteem. They are needy people (obviously) and my neediness was channelled towards planners. In some ways I used to think that this was good. I mean, when has a calendar every given someone an STD?
It is embarrasing because of the obsessive part. I truly am addicted to planners like someone is addicted to alcohol. I have actually bought a brand new planner (when the old one was working just fine) and I HID it from friends, family. I was afraid they would notice (as they had in the past) and comment, “Oh no, not ANOTHER one. Is this a NEW one?” And there would be laughter and it would make me nervous and it would make me want to sneak out to Office Depot and get ANOTHER planner.
So WHY the planner obsession? A therapist I worked with once told me that I was hoping that the planner would do all the things that it advertized. I was hoping that it would ORGANIZE my life. I was always talking about my quest for clarity. The planner promised this. Having everything in once place, having a place to write my goals. Having it all in this magical land special book that I would keep with me wherever I went regardless of how cumbersome it might be. My problems of course could not be solved by a Daytimer, it was just a tool. It was always STILL up to me to get it together. Clarity was not to be found in glorious multi-colored tab dividers. Clarity was not to be found in beautiful leather or shiny vinyl. NO matter how many pockets, paper pads, calendar views it could hold, it was just a vacant empty book that I would have to DO something with.
Much of the time I would get a planner and I wouldn't want to write in it because I didn't want to mess it up. This would lead me to procrastination. Someday I would fill all the information in. Someday I would actually USE the address book section. Usually I would just take the guts from the old planner and if it were the same size, put that stuff in there and go about using the new stuff (as long as I didn't mess it up). I admit that there have been times where I messed it up in writing in it and seriously, took the paper supplement out, tossed it and went and bought a whole new one. Yikes. This is where I put their kids through college.
So my planner was infamous. Rob's planner. I would see people look and smirk as I pulled it out in meetings and opened it, my grand book to write notes. The thing of it is I was so self conscious about it that in my obsessive awareness of it I blew so many things and rections from other people out of proportion.
I have had every size and kind. It started with interest in my Grandpa's calendar books. He always had a calendar book and I got to have one once. I think it was from the wrong year but he let me have it. It was red. I loved it. I was also very interested in my teachers planning books with the big squares for each day of the week and she would write in them what we would be doing in class. It was the legend. It was magic because what she wrote then became reality. This fascinated me.
My Dad would come home with any manner of office Christmas gifts that were calendar books. I would inevitably get to have one. I would be afraid to write in it because I didn't want to mess it up. Perhaps I was just afraid to write anything because then I would have to commit to it. (Ah-ha! Lightbulb moment!)
My path through organizers was thus... DayRunner (a beautiful grey leather planner), Daytimers (a friend of mine turned me on to these. She was a very successful model and I thought her success was related to her planner. It was pocket sized and you could store the monthly booklets in a small plastic file box.) Filofax (another “successful” friend used a filofax. I trotted down to the stationary store and bought one. I remember seeing a business woman on the street with a very FAT filofax. It was practically spllitting at the seems. I thought she must really have it together. I wanted my planner to be just as fat.) Then I found out that Daytimers didn't just have these pocket version but loose leaf desktop versions. I fell into THAT hole for many years until a friend of mine had sitting on his dining room table, a FRANKLIN planner. He gave me the catalogue and off I bought. Then I discovered the Seven Habits and the Stephen Covey planner. I liked the format and now I wanted THAT one. Just as I was about to throw myself down THAT hole, Franklin Covery announced their merger. I have spent MORE time in the Franklin Covey store. The original charm of the Franklin Planner became too corporate for me and as much as I loved the system and the whole nine or ten yards of it all, it was THEN that I realized I was obsessed.
This is where I would lie about it. I would be at the mall with a friend and suggest we split up and run off to our own stores and shopping and I would do this so that I could SNEAK into the Franklin Covey store. They would end up finding me, knowing where I was and boom, I would be found out and embarrassed. I would make light of it. I would ALWAYS joke about it even though I knew that it was a serious issue.
This was a way of hiding even further. If I HAD it together, I would actually USE the planner and my days of searching would be over. Obsessed people love the distraction of the search. If I had THAT planner then my life would be PERFECT. I paved a long path of disappointment.
The next level of planners became more expensive. It was like going from pot to crack. I discovered the PDA. (Insert dramatic music and thunder here). It began actually with computer based organizers. I have had them all. The only one I could never have was the Franklin computer software. They had a MAC version but it was terrible. I LOVED it's concept though.
(Side note: I DID love the Franklin system. It was very well thought out and logical. For a person with ADD though it was HARD to stick to just like it was hard to focus on ANYTHING).
I went from computer to palm and then the two synced up and it was crazy. I would use a Palm and then it would get screwed up, I would get mad and go back to paper based. Then I would see the newest Palm and HAVE to have it and it was a cycle that went around and around as my bank account went down.
The interesting thing is that ADD when you aren't diagnosed is the lowest thing on the totem pole of medical problems to understand. I FLAUNTED my ADD (even before I knew what it was) with my parade of planners. People would comment, make jokes but it wasn't something that you thought was a serious problem. Now, had I been DRUNK at 8 in the morning, had I been DRUNK while driving and gotten into a serious accident, if my personality changed after a bottle of vodka and I became this horrible mean human being, THEN you are told you have a problem. Not so with ADD. If you are a drunk and you are at a party and everyone thinks you are terribly funny and the LIFE of the party, as soon as they smell the booze on your breath or get to know you more and realize that you are the LIFE of EVERY party, then the warning signals come out blaring. With ADD, nobody knew the warning signals. ADD was something that obnoxious little children had. They were the ones who couldn't sit still in class and so pump them with ritalin and they calm down. Adults don't have ADD. It's a kids disorder. I was a grown up. I didn't have ADD, I was just unfocused and lazy. I was a scatter-brain.
Finally in my planner obsession I moved up a notch. I began to realize the importance of APPLYING the techniques of organization to get things done in my life. I wanted to devise my OWN planner for creative people. Before I was diagnosed with ADD, I just assumed it was my creative free spirit that made me so scattered. I was an artist and THAT was why I wasn't “normal”.
Even after I was diagnosed, I was still obsessed with planners and it wasn't until just this year, through the assistance and support of my boyfriend that I realized that it was an obsession and I had to do something about it.
My first instinct was to go simple. I thought that the less things that made up the system, the less I would be distracted. I remember marveling at people who just carried around a inexpensive pocket monthly calendar or a small weekly calendar that was small and sweet and simple. I thought of that as a challenge. Could I ACTUALLY be able to use something as simple as that?
I am a journal writer and a notetaker and list maker and I knew in my heart that those tools were the foundation of what kind of system I would need. The fundementals of the Franklin system was writing a to do list and keeping daily notes that you could use as a record to refer back to at a later date. So I knew that a simple pocket monthly calendar wouldn't work for me alone.
I began to research and discovered and agreed that it was important for someone with ADD to be able to schedule their entire day. I knew I needed to see an entire day at a time and I there had to be room to write things down and take notes. I also knew that it was good to have an overview. Having an overview a week at a time is important because it gives you the opportunity to challenge yourself to make deadlines and to be able to not just dump all your tasks in one overwhelming day but to live life week to week. So this led me to wanting to have a weekly format.
The pocket size, even the standard Franklin desk size was too small. If I wasn't going to have a zillion tabbed sections and dividers and the ability to add loose leaf paper for notes, I needed a weekly size that could suffice. I chose At-A Glance's weekly format. It's nice and big and gives me a great overview of the week with lots of space to write notes and make commitments. I did however realize that I needed to also have a place where I could keep important information and so WITH At-A-Glance comes an extremeley affordable zipper portfolia you can keep the calendar and a pad of paper in. You can also keep credit cards and important things in the various pockets, etc. I have to admit that even though I am pairing things down, I still LOVE planners and wanted to somehow appease my planner gremlin and have some fun with this.
The weekly format works great and it gives me space to put in appointments and where there aren't any appointments, I write in my tasks and draw a little checkbox in front of them so I can see them as tasks and have a place to check them off as I complete them. Instead of checkmarks, I make an “x” to designate that it's completed. This works well because what I do first is to just draw one slash “/” to designate that the task is activated (as in I left a message or have begun the task) and then when it is truly completed I finish off the X with the other slash “\”.
I tossed the paper pad. I made up project pages out of cardstock that fit in the weekly calendar and that is where I keep all project notes, I also inserted a plastic organizer that has color coated tabs (I know... I still LOVE a tab) and I have that in there so that I can keep the various projects separated. This plastic organizer thing is my “project file” and I also keep a zippered plastic envelope to keep stamps and stickers and post-its, etc.
I know it sounds like I have overcomplicated things again, but what I have actually done is to truly MAKE my own system. One of the things about buying into someone elses system is that I admit that I can't do it on my own and that eats away at my already fragile self esteem. This is all about self empowerment. This is a flexible system that will evolve with the way I change and grow.
Another aspect of my “system” is a portable pocket monthly tickler. I use that as my monthly overview and this way, the weekly calendar and all my notes, etc. can stay (most times) at home and my pocket calendar can come with me if I have to make appointments outside of my home office.
So that is that.
Yikes!
It means a lot to me and it also means a lot to me to continue to hone it and develop it. I would love to come up with a system like this that other people with ADD can use. Keep it simple and fun and interesting. Those are the key ingredients to make a successful ADD planner.