The first step is realizing it. The next step is coming up with a plan to modify your life to fit your needs. Alot of the organizational skills I have learned when researching for Cait has helped me, and alot I have looked into and tried for myself helps me recognize what might work for Cait.
On that APOV site I showed you the other night are at least 1 or maybe 2 articles on organization. One I wrote myself about what I do to help me.
2 of the biggest things I have found that have helped is flylady and franklin planner. Oh and computer.
I don't follow all of flylady, I don't have that level of organizational ability. But definitely some of the ideas work for me like setting a timer and working on something for 15 minutes but making sure to only work on THAT thing for 15 minutes. Ever do this...go to clean the kitchen, find somethng that belongs in your room, bring it too room, discover laundry that needs to be done, go to get a laundry basket and discover a dish that was forgotten to go to the kitchen, etc. With this flylady tip the point is that during these 15 minutes you work SOLELY on the kitchen so if you have that thing to bring to your room, you bring it. drop it and go straight back to the kitchen. It works honest.
Same with franklin planner. Not all of it works for me but some of it definitely does and I have modified it to fit me.
Another biggie for me is my yahoo calendar but you can use outlook as well. It is a bit labor intensive to put all my appointments in both places but it is neccessary for me. I have my yahoo calendar set up to send me reminders of activities. You can set up regular activities to repeat and to send you reminders how ever many days in advance you need. This is especially great for birthdays so you get that gift ontime. Oh and doctor appointments.
I keep my franklin planner with me so when I am making appointments somewhere I know when I am free and don't have to guess at it. I also use it to plan what I need to do. Last night I went through my sylabus for one of my classes. It had all the assignments already listed so in my planner I wrote when assignments were due and basically took a look at what would take the longest and made my self some to do lists of what I could start now.
I have learned with my classes that I need to get as much done in advance in the first few weeks of school as possible. As the semester goes on it gets incredibly more busy and I can't keep up then. If I have given myself a good headstart then I can finish and still get a good grade. This often means getting the texts in advance as possible and reading them prior to class, etc.
Best way to read something and study for tests, lol.
Survey (skim. Look at the topic sentences, the bold type, get an overview of it)
Question (what do you want to know from this article? what is of interest to you?)
Read (this is where I modify for my ADHD - read those sections under the bold face that are most likely to answer your questions. Typically if you read the first few sentences of a paragraph and the last sentence you get a good idea of what is there. If it is of high interest read the whole paragraph, otherwise skim it)
Recite and review only if you are having a test or want to...lol. Since this is personal reading is it not neccessary.
I do this even with the posts here by the way. I cannot focus to read through a whole thing on most days which is really silly if you consider how much I can write.
LOL@ flylady. I really need to go back and look at that site. I tried once, and read about the part of keeping the sink sparkling clean, but thats as far as I got, and it frustrates me cuz to keep my sink sparkling clean means never having any dishes in the sink, and thats am impossible feat in my house lol.
My sink won't shine for the same reasons but I don't take her literally. I figure for me it means getting the crap in the dishwasher at least after breakfast and dinner. I try to clean my kitchen at least 1 time a day after school well and then again after dinner.
Keeping it shiny constantly with 4 kids and a job is not feasable but like I said, I modify flylady to meet my needs.
Wow!
The first step is realizing it. The next step is coming up with a plan to modify your life to fit your needs. Alot of the organizational skills I have learned when researching for Cait has helped me, and alot I have looked into and tried for myself helps me recognize what might work for Cait.
On that APOV site I showed you the other night are at least 1 or maybe 2 articles on organization. One I wrote myself about what I do to help me.
2 of the biggest things I have found that have helped is flylady and franklin planner. Oh and computer.
I don't follow all of flylady, I don't have that level of organizational ability. But definitely some of the ideas work for me like setting a timer and working on something for 15 minutes but making sure to only work on THAT thing for 15 minutes. Ever do this...go to clean the kitchen, find somethng that belongs in your room, bring it too room, discover laundry that needs to be done, go to get a laundry basket and discover a dish that was forgotten to go to the kitchen, etc. With this flylady tip the point is that during these 15 minutes you work SOLELY on the kitchen so if you have that thing to bring to your room, you bring it. drop it and go straight back to the kitchen. It works honest.
Same with franklin planner. Not all of it works for me but some of it definitely does and I have modified it to fit me.
Another biggie for me is my yahoo calendar but you can use outlook as well. It is a bit labor intensive to put all my appointments in both places but it is neccessary for me. I have my yahoo calendar set up to send me reminders of activities. You can set up regular activities to repeat and to send you reminders how ever many days in advance you need. This is especially great for birthdays so you get that gift ontime. Oh and doctor appointments.
I keep my franklin planner with me so when I am making appointments somewhere I know when I am free and don't have to guess at it. I also use it to plan what I need to do. Last night I went through my sylabus for one of my classes. It had all the assignments already listed so in my planner I wrote when assignments were due and basically took a look at what would take the longest and made my self some to do lists of what I could start now.
I have learned with my classes that I need to get as much done in advance in the first few weeks of school as possible. As the semester goes on it gets incredibly more busy and I can't keep up then. If I have given myself a good headstart then I can finish and still get a good grade. This often means getting the texts in advance as possible and reading them prior to class, etc.
Renee
How bad is this?
I tried to read the article twice, and I didn't have the attention span...
Where's the executive summary? ;)
-Paula
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
SQ3R baby.
Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review.
Best way to read something and study for tests, lol.
Survey (skim. Look at the topic sentences, the bold type, get an overview of it)
Question (what do you want to know from this article? what is of interest to you?)
Read (this is where I modify for my ADHD - read those sections under the bold face that are most likely to answer your questions. Typically if you read the first few sentences of a paragraph and the last sentence you get a good idea of what is there. If it is of high interest read the whole paragraph, otherwise skim it)
Recite and review only if you are having a test or want to...lol. Since this is personal reading is it not neccessary.
I do this even with the posts here by the way. I cannot focus to read through a whole thing on most days which is really silly if you consider how much I can write.
Renee
The only way my kitchen sink is going to shine is if
You are too funny Evelyn.
My sink won't shine for the same reasons but I don't take her literally. I figure for me it means getting the crap in the dishwasher at least after breakfast and dinner. I try to clean my kitchen at least 1 time a day after school well and then again after dinner.
Keeping it shiny constantly with 4 kids and a job is not feasable but like I said, I modify flylady to meet my needs.
Renee
thank you so much for posting this Renee.
my next IEP meeting is on the 30th, I'll be sharing some of this. :)