Pluses:

• Instant Community:  Bike rack help on the bus-Biggest social contrast for one day: local homeless man in the morning. In the afternoon-business woman in full suit taking her bike off.
• Instant community II: hugen numbers of people offering parts, offering help, saying hi, etc
• Exercise without the gym
• Challenge–so, can I really make this work?-mental stimulation is good
• slowing down
• Spending more time outside: the weather’s been really nice so far.
• Being aware of community and my neighbors
• Canceling my insurance
• Experiencing the bike-part-cycling/trading ecosystem.
• Next Bus app shows bus arrivals in real time at any bus stop in the city.
• Orca pass lets me get anywhere on ferries, bus, train in the greater Puget sound area.  Training to visit a friend in Tacoma or Olympia costs as much as taking the bus to work.

Negatives/challenges

• 85 degrees when out of shape and living at the top of a 300′ hill?  Ugh.
• It still takes a long time to get places.
• I’ve had to adjust many activities.
• I’m much more dependant on others for “out of the way” activities.
• Learning about my environment in a new way–Oh, Seattle’s hills are more like mesa/plateau hills with 20% grade drops and you have to figure out where the edges are.  They run north south and there’s no real way to avoid a series of 200′+ climbs and drops going more than a couple miles in any direction.   Typical altitude in my last week:  50-400′ above sea level within a 5 mile ride to lunch.

Learning experiences:

• Bikes are great for covering the last 1/2 mile or 3/4 mile from the end of the line to home or a friend’s (expands the number of routes I can take getting somewhere)
• I can cover the last mile in 5 min or so instead of 15.
• Barrel adjusters–didn’t know they existed
• flips for quick release wheels go on the left.
• Downtown biking didn’t kill me
• One of the other major cross streets in my neighborhood is much scarier.
• The second number in 700×18-25 is something I need to pay attention to when buying bike inner tubes–Tubes with this measurement explode when put into a 700×35 tire and are inflated.
• 700×35 tires fit on my bike rims.  This does not mean my bike will roll once I get it on the front fork.
• Helmets add several inches to head clearance.  IT is harder to watch someone adjusting your bike when you both have helmets on.
• Google Maps bike directions work well in the city, not so well outside of Seattle, Same w/their transit directions.  I still benefit from local knowledge and adjusting their suggested routes.

So, overall it’s been a great experience.  The hills are getting easier.  The weather’s cooling off, and the next step is to find 28s for my tires!

There are so many new projects: coaching homeless youth, the ADHD Coaches conference in Chicago and all of the resources and people I met last week as I explore this as a coaching niche, there’s bills that need to be paid, business contacts to write back, cleaning and laundry are both necessary, but pretty low on that list.  For school, I’ve got three classes, several hundred pages of reading, 3 papers, and a research project.  I’ve got a need too, to make sure I eat, sleep, exercise and see my friends.  In the past, I might start sacrificing some of the things in this last category.  In my 30s, that’s less of an option, even if I feel society wants me to.  Growing into myself is hard. The craziest thing about this list is that this is what it looks like after I’ve said NO: no to dancing, no to rock climbing, no to feeling obligated to do the dishes right now.

I feel like I’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the last few weeks, but a lot of items on my list just feel like they’re things to check off.  Over the last year, I’ve spent time learning to recognize accomplishment in small things but this is still hard.  My brain always generates one more possibility of something I have to do.  When I haven’t done some of them it’s easy to say “oh, there’s another thing I didn’t do”, instead of looking at it objectively as “Oh, there’s another great idea, what of all of these does it make sense to act on?”

I think that once or twice I have forgotten about a meeting, but that honestly can happen even if I’m not stressed or overly busy.  I’m much more likely to feel or be late on the majority of projects.  One coping strategy I’ve got is to contain the damage to one or two projects and keep up with the rest.  However, this isn’t terribly good for my psyche, either.  I can think about several experiences from my last job, including management of a project  on case review,  and how I managed a class this fall.  I don’t like disappointing people, and even the admissions coordinator had some concern about my bandwidth available for additional new projects this spring.  I need to come up with a system that honors my own strengths, weaknesses and preferences so that I continue to feel excited and productive about my own life.

Some of the techniques that I already use include saying no, and having a better idea of what I’m capable of in a certain time frame.  I am also learning to find balance, and accept that  I am human, and that excessive effort doesn’t always increase the quality of the results.

I’m going to have to say no more frequently.  I also will benefit from starting the habit of looking at my week again first thing Monday morning and planning out general blocks of time to work on things.  I also choose to accept that my schedule is of my own making and I can alter it, and negotiate differences if it is not working for me.

What I need to do this week to manage my time: take a look at my top three priorities/projects and decide what % of my time I can spend working on them.  These are school: NSCC, and Invite Change—classes only;   Coaching Niche: ADD/ADHD & new Resources in Seattle & Chicago; Climb On Coaching/working with Seattle street youth;  In addition to that, I must sleep, eat, and take care of the rest of my life: bills laundry and more.  It’s funny to realize that looking at this list, I’m sitting here thinking it’s not fair that I don’t have more time. Once this paper is submitted, I choose to spend 20 minutes with a calendar looking at how the end of this quarter is going to work.

Time management and efficiency are going to be my keys, not scheduling myself to the gills.  Scheduling to the gills leaves me burnt out, resentful and really unhappy.  I need flexibility in my life, as well as the grace and aplomb to CHOOSE MY PRIORITIES and NOT SELF IMPOSED GUILT.

Do I tell my friends who envy my ability to sit down on the floor in the middle of Barnes & Noble that they’re too inhibited?

Did I scoff at my friend who was awed at my ability to run a community festival because I’m able to improvise and think on my feet?

When did having different talents become a reason to be labeled as deficient? I find ways to compensate for my weaknesses, if it helps me get where I want. 

Many high level executives have it figured out.  They aren’t expected to do it all themselves and they have an assistant.  An astute business owner and entrepreneur realizes hiring  an expert to help with an area of weakness–sales, marketing, or bookkeeping–frees her up to use her talents, drive, and passion to make the business work.

So many resources scream there’s something *wrong* with me.  Frankly, I think my talents are just as useful as the next person’s.  If everyone wanted to be an accountant, there wouldn’t be much work for them to do.  And, if everyone wanted to be in sales, or process improvement, there wouldn’t be much work, either. 

Today we need teams with multiple talents I have them. Don’t tell me I’m broken, or you may never see the benefits of the talents because I don’t believe I”m worth anything.  Or maybe you’ll find me walk on eggshells to prove I’m capable. 

Sometimes I wonder if finding out changes the way I cope or not.  In the end, I guess I can’t know.

The surprising news is that partial, or low-level, sleep deprivation has a bigger effect on behavior than either the short or long-term complete sleep deprivation experienced by residents (Sleep, May 1996). Until recently, the effects of partial sleep deprivation have been seriously underestimated.

Always deciding to play that last game on the computer or finish an online chat session before going to sleep might actually be more detrimental to my moods and functioning instead of staying up all night.  The article, while old, gives me something to think about.

http://www.drgreene.com/21_621.html

Today, I bought 30 pocketed dividers and labled them with days of the month. My plan is to stick anything I need for a day in the corrisponding pocket.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

I took a risk last night and brought up issues in a discussion.  Some might have called them minor, but  they’ve have been bothering me for a while. While it was the right move, the reaction stings.  I just have to look at the quote above and remind myeslf that it was the right move because the more I thought about the more agitated and worried I got.  The ruminating process is quite powerful and I would be a mess today if I had put off the discussion.

Personality is the way we react to the world given a preset dispostion.  Sometimes I take things too literally, or I’ll ignore important issues when someone is being serious because I don’t recognize it as demanding that level of attention. This is part of who I am.  Some of it I can learn to modify.

Just think about this:

Noun

personality (plural personalities)

1. A set of qualities that make a person (or thing) distinct from another.

• Researching VOIP due to an email? Check.
• Reading About ADD? Check.
• Setting up plans to go swimming? Check.

While I’m extremely grateful that I”m interested in what I’m doing and that the Internet can provide so many great resources. It’s a bit amusing to realize that I haven’t necessarily accomplished what I set out to do.  But, on the upside my business knowledge has been enhanced.

Today’s Strategies  for coping:

• shut down distracting windows like IM clients
• make plans to go swimming
• find the timer and set it and work on a project for at set amount of time.

In 3…2…1…

Page 75 #2 Wipe out: Self-distortion makes you believe that others cannot see the good in you or value any of your positive qualities as long as the difficulties of your AD/HD are detectable. Which of the following statements best describes how you feel when others see you blunders?

• If you have a good opinion of me, it is just because they don’t know what I’m really like.
• If they saw the mess I left behind, they wouldn’t have the same good opinion of me.
• If I let people get too close to me, I would be “found out” as the impostor I am.
• When AD/HD happens, it wipes out for me all sense of worth and accomplishment.

For me, the last one really struck home. I’ve always viewed myself as someone who should be accomplished, and somehow fool the world into thinking that I am. Mostly things like setting up a meeting incorrectly or forgetting something to send someone I’ve said I would. If it isn’t beyond someone’s expectations, it isn’t isn’t good. So, most of the time, I’ve just felt neutral about anything “good” I’ve done. This opinion is changing though.

Some researchers have proposed that the sharp rise in asthma and allergy cases over the past century stems, unexpectedly, from living too clean. The idea is that routine exposure to harmless microorganisms in the environment—soil bacteria, for instance—trains our immune systems to ignore benign molecules like pollen or the dandruff on a neighbor’s dog. Taking this “hygiene hypothesis” in an even more surprising direction, recent studies indicate that treatment with a specific soil bacterium, Mycobacterium vaccae, may be able to alleviate depression.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/raw-data-is-dirt-the-new-prozac

Of course, I’d come to the appoitment with 30 or 40 pages of material culled from the 150+ pages I’d read and deemed to be the most important, but had left my cell phone and the self-diagnosis test sitting on my desk at home before the appointment. Needless to say, I’d already made three trips back inside to pick up something I’d forgotten.

Entreprenuers do seem to be a group that self-identifies as ADHD. Diverse interests, and drive for something you love (even to the point of hyperfocus) may be a savior in the job market. Famous ADD people I’m aware of? Founder of Zipcar, Southwest Airlines, Benjamin Franklin (suspected), and others. My biggest challenge in being an entreprenuer? Remembering I don’t have to do it all. Which is hard when I was raised as someone who is self-sufficient and should be able to do it all–even the things I don’t like including billing and record keeping.

http://adhdhunter.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/youre-too-smart-to-have-adhd/