Month: October 2016
You know what happens when you pick up your phone?
Yeah, you know it. Your phone buzzes because of a text and then you reply and ten minutes later your phone is still in your hand and you’ve scrolled through 100 tweets, 50 Facebook posts, and checked your e-mail three times. And probably sent 3 more texts and 2 Facebook messages about things you saw in your travels. Right? I know this isn’t limited to ADHD, but I find that with ADHD when I notice I am doing it, it takes a LOT to re-shift my focus back on what I was doing.
Enter Pebble.
I’ve been a Pebble user for a couple of years now. Sometimes I feel a tad cyborg-y with my Fitbit on one wrist and my Pebble on the other, but whatever.
Because now my Pebble vibrates with an alert, I check it, and if I don’t want/need to deal with it immediately, guess what? My phone stays happily face-down on my desk or in my pocket. In a much different way from Forest, I find my Pebble one of the great reasons that I check my phone less. I less haphazardly go check my phone every time it buzzes, because I can simply clear notifications from my watch and go back to what I am doing.
No, I absolutely do not have to clear notifications immediately. A lot of the time I don’t—I glance at my watch and hit back—not dismiss—and done. The alert stays on my home screen, ready for the next time I want to pick up my phone because with a quick glance, I decide if I should read/reply to it now or later. There’s less of an abyss to get sucked into on my Pebble (which is why I’m not really interested in an Apple watch, because I’d probably just get sucked in there with the interactivity anyways).
Another nice feature is reminders coming up on my watch. This is especially great if I put bus rides in my calendar—with a down button tap, I can re-check what time the bus comes from my Timeline view.
Although I totally need a Moovit Pebble app for the 90% of the time I don’t put bus times in my Google Calendar… That would be rad.
Seriously, I am not doing particularly well at this blogging challenge thing anymore. They say it takes three weeks to make a habit—I take 3 weeks to get out of what’s becoming one. I guess maybe that’s where the ADHD comes in: the novelty wears off, and so does the motivation.
I think I might be mildly more successful at this if I didn’t spend the majority of my work life writing. Which is great and I love but sometimes, you know, I don’t want to think about putting words together anymore. Or I want to go to bed at a reasonable hour to get up at a normal-people-time three days this week. (Which is super overrated by the way. Just saying. Like yes I am getting up for decent reasons, like coffee and business seminars or meetings but you know, bed is nice. Especially when it’s still dark out.)
So, yeah, I totally lapsed on this blogging thing. Which was, I suppose, possibly a bit of a self-care type move to not start seeing the world in white and black like a text composer window. And I’m almost at the end of the month, so here it is… The catch-up. Maybe November’s self care will look more like practicing self-care rather than just writing on it half-assedly. (Is that a word even?)
Challenge Update:
I can’t even catch up on the challenge update. Meditation’s been going the best but I still haven’t integrated a morning meditation—maybe a goal for November…
Planks = so hard, but so good.
It’s Monday. Saturday has passed.
Sunday has passed.
Hello Monday.
My head’s been in words lately—I am not creating in colours or pictures, but in words. And sometimes that is the only creation of something I can get out because, hey, that’s work for ya. I’ll try better next weekend :).
So instead, from Sunday, here is a ridiculous panorama from Goalball, in which Gerry’s arm is falling off. It grew back, per his wife, because she was sending him out to do yard work. 😉
Day 22 Challenge Update:
Plank: 155 seconds, day 2. (2:35)
This one felt super terrible. I’m not sure if it was the difference between doing it on carpet vs. the foam tiles in my office, but as much as I tried to correct my lumbar spine felt super concave and my shoulders and left knee felt unstable.
Tomorrow is 165 seconds. I’ve made it this far without hitting the did not complete X button in the app—I just hope I can keep that up another 9 days
Meditation: I did a 1 minute mindfulness guide last night, and fell asleep right at the end. I woke up at 9 am, about 6-6.5 hours later and I had my alarm clock running in the background, started before the meditation, and the meditation still awaiting me to hit finish! That’s what I get for FaceTime-ing till 2 am, I guess :).
Week Three Fact:
ADHD sometimes comes with the opposite of being unable or having difficulty focusing. Hyperfocus is just what it sounds like: intense periods of focus, which make attention deficit disorder all the more confusing.
Yes, it seems paradoxical. Yet hyperfocus is very real to many ADHDers, myself included—ADHD is an “attention regulation disorder”—as difficult as it can be for us to focus on tasks that are boring or not mentally stimulating, it can be equally difficult for us to redirect our attention from something that is fun or interesting.
Hyperfocus can be the saving grace of people with ADHD with a deadline ahead of them, or a massive obstacle when we find something fun or enjoyable… and should be doing other things. However, sometimes we get so sucked in that it can be extremely hard to break our focus. Even people talking directly to us might not be enough to interrupt us—the polar opposite of what people perceive as our attention deficit selves.
For myself, I think hyperfocus is the reason I could read book after book when I was younger, especially when I had nothing else mentally interesting to do: if the book was interesting, that was the only place my attention went.
Day 21 Challenge Update
Plank: 155 seconds while on FaceTime with Kat. Which made it easier, actually.
Meditation: I completed the Bite Size Meditation series on Smiling Mind.