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Angel
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 4:14pm | IP Logged
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I need more help getting organized, but the typical book on organization is generally no help to me. Therefore, I often avoid books on organization. I just ordered one from amazon, though: ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life.
Can anyone recommend more books/websites/threads on this forum for highly absentminded mothers of many? I haven't had great luck with flylady, and I also need help with keeping track of paper, bills, etc. (And I need to be able to impart this knowledge to my 8 yo dd and 10 yo ds, who share many of my problems.)
--Angela
Three Plus Two
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: May 09 2007 at 6:35pm | IP Logged
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I really like Ned Hallowell's books and website. I blogged about it late last summer and have since loaned out my books. (Note to self: do not loan ADD books to people who are ADD. You will have to replace the books  )
I quoted Hallowell pretty heavily in the post and find that those principles alone are really helpful.
BTW, I re-registered for Flylady last week, since I've switched to Gmail and thought I could manage her reminders better. I've gotten 280 emails since April 28th  . Talk about screensuckers! If I read all the testimonies, I'd never have time to do the things on the reminder emails...
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Anne McD
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| Posted: May 10 2007 at 8:09pm | IP Logged
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Angela,
Though I've never been diagnosed ADD, I figure the symptoms fit me a bit too well!  On that note, I found a couple of books helpful. One was The Messies Manual by Sandra Felton, in which I think she talks about ADD, and my absolutliest mostest favoritest book, (how's that for an English major! ) Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. This book is fantastic. Where most organizing books say things like "use a pretty basket on your sink to hold your daily beauty supplies," Julie actually helps you to figure out why you have so many shampoo bottles around the house in the first place, then determine where you actually use them so that you are not trying to retrain yourself into storing them other than at their point of use, and once you figure out how many you want/need/will use, THEN she suggests that you count and measure just how much space all those bottles you've determined to keep will take up so that you can go out and buy that pretty little basket to hold them, that's actually the right size! Instead of being a book of tips, it really teaches you the skill of organization, s/t I wish I learend YEARS ago!! 
Aside from that, I hired a professional organizer once who was pretty much "schooled" in the Julie Morgenstern philosophy of organizing, and one of the best things I leared from her was to keep an inbox. Since the mail usually ended up on my kitchen table, I put a basket on a table halfway b/twn the back door and the kitchen table. Absolutely every piece of paper I come across, starting with the mail, goes into that basket. For instance, I ran out to pick up a FHC and Mother's day gift, and left the bag there until I could act upon it. Unfortunatly, since its been crazy around here, the gifts are late! Anyway, any papers I come across when I'm roaming the house all day (reciepts, recipes, s/t I might subscribe to, messages or numbers or notes I've jotted down) all go into the inbox. The idea is that you don't make a million decisions througout the day regarding each piece of paper-- its much easier and faster to do it all at once. The trick is, you have to process the inbox every day. If you keep up with it, it doesn't take five minutes, but I usually let mine go about a week or so, and my husband asks if I've seen such and such a bill come in . . .  but at least now, we know exactly where to look and there it is! In terms of "processing" the inbox, we set up a set of 7 or 8 file folders that I (theoretically) process into every day, such as coupons, to file, bills to pay, things to read at leisure (the idea is to grab this one and bring it with you on those rare occasions you don't have the littles with you!), things like that. Bill paying is s/t you schedule to do (or have you dh do b/c after all, he's in fincance and doesn't that make sense!! ) at certain intervals, filing you do once a month, etc.
Finally, for me, its the decluttering that's making it all come together. If I don't have so much stuff, it can't get all over the house and it won't become so overwhelmng. That's always been my biggest problem--- when s/t is too overwhelming, I just shut down instead of eating the elephant one bite at a time. Thanks to this incredibly long nesting stage I've been going through, I've been decluttering my house like my sanity depends on it (oh, wait, it does!) and that has really helped me so far, though there is still more to go!!
This is incredibly long-- I'm so sorry!! I hope I was able to help with some of the stuff I learned so far, but BELIEVE ME-- I have LEAUGES to go
__________________
Anne
Wife to Jon
Mommy to Alex 9
James 8
Katie 6
William 3 1/2
Benedict Joseph 1
and baby on the way! 10/14
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missionfamily
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| Posted: May 10 2007 at 9:30pm | IP Logged
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A great book by a homeschooling mom that will help you laugh at yourself plus get some great ideas is .If I'm Daipering a Watermelon Then Where'd I Leave the Baby?"This is the description from th website...Carol's newest book, "If I'm Diapering A Watermelon Then Where'd I Leave the Baby", chronicles her own journey of distractibility, shares unique coping strategies she's found, and promotes a view of one's self gifted rather than broken.
The website is also full of great resources and sends a newsletter with helpful hints.
Colleen
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: May 11 2007 at 12:20am | IP Logged
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I have a lot of the symptoms of ADD.. and while I have no problems getting organized.. keeping things that way looks hopeless at times 
The biggest help I've found is "A Mother's Rule of Life"
It wasn't so much her schedule that helped me.. but right at the beginning when she's describing a rule a religious order might use.. the one she shows.. is so simple and general.. huge blocks of time for doing something.. and that's what really helped me. The doing this particular thing at this particule time is enough to drive me crazy and never get done to boot.. but I can for instance put in an hour block of "school" and then whatever we happen to work on.. whether it's math or read alouds or science.. it fits in that block. And if something happens.. then we just shift the critical items later in the day and don't have to worry about "making it up".
For some reason that whole concept just made a schedule seem possible for me. Of course I had no sooner gotten a schedule to try.. and my life was turned topsy turvy.. but I've got it and I'm going to try it as soon as ever I can.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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EmilyC
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I second A Mother's Rule of Life.
Something that really helps me, is to see other peoples homes--real ones, not the fancy magazine versions. I like to see how real people organize their things (blogs are fabulous for this!).
Emily
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Angel
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| Posted: May 14 2007 at 5:31pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for the recommendations! Elizabeth, I remember when you blogged about those books -- actually, I remember that I thought I ought to look into them, but then of course I forgot I was going to do that and didn't remember until now. Argh.
Anyway, I am hoping to spend more time with this thread tomorrow afternoon, when things quiet down a bit. This week has been really nuts, with dh out of town, getting ready for my parents' visit (now they're here)... and then lightning blew out my cable modem and killed my desktop. This after the dishwasher and DVD died, and the dryer needed a new cord because the old one had become a fire hazard. I keep wondering, what's next???
--Angela
Three Plus Two
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Celeste
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| Posted: May 14 2007 at 5:53pm | IP Logged
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Angel wrote:
| This week has been really nuts, with dh out of town, getting ready for my parents' visit (now they're here)... and then lightning blew out my cable modem and killed my desktop. This after the dishwasher and DVD died, and the dryer needed a new cord because the old one had become a fire hazard. I keep wondering, what's next??? |
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Aaaargh twice, one for you and one for me! I've had a similar series of problems--I've had to replace my microwave, dvd player, and computer; plus the dishwasher shorted out on me (thank goodness it was a simple electrical fix); we discovered a broken storm window in our living room (have no idea how long it's been like that, since usually the sheers are closed ); and the front window pours water every time it rains. I don't know if I'm ADD--reading these posts makes me wonder, since I keep seeing myself in them--but I have so much trouble keeping up with the daily stuff that whole systems fail when there's the tiniest glitch. I am really trying to learn from the recommendations here . . . that is, when I remember. . . . Hi, I'm Dory.
Celeste
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Fuzzy
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I LOVE it, Celeste! That is perfect!
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 Fuzzy
Mom to DS 12, DD 10, DS 7, and DS 4, and DD 1!
Fuzzy Memories
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SuzanneG
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Angela -
I came back here to post a title that I read about in [URL=http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/]Life Learning Magazine[/URL from the last issue a couple of weeks ago. I remembered you asking for books about ADD-organization, etc.
Anyway, it IS the title you mentioned in your opening post. ]ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your life. . So, nevermind, I'm not very helpful.
The title of the article is "It's About Time" (The fear of lost time felt by many adults is an alternate reality to the daydreaming time we nurture in children.)
Anyway, I thought this was interesting.....She (M. Jeanne Yardley) cites from the "ADD Friendly Ways To Organize Your life".....
"....time does not occur in neat little experiential bundles of minutes and hours.....Instead of being able to carve out discrete activities that would create a sensation of separate moments, for the ADD person everything runs together, unbraked, uninhibited. Because she experiences time as a constant, unpredictable flow, it is extremely difficult for her to gauge the passage of time." Furthermore, "for many adults with ADD, life is experienced as a series of 'nows'," making it difficult for them to focus on longer-term priorities.
And, wondering what you've thought of the book if you've had a chance to read it.
__________________
Suzanne in ID
Wife to Pete
Mom of 7 (Girls - 14, 12, 11, 9, 7 and Boys - 4, 1)
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Angel
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| Posted: July 19 2007 at 5:47pm | IP Logged
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Suzanne,
I like the book a lot! In fact, it was funny in sort of an embarrassing way as I read it... I felt at many points that she had actually come into my house and looked around. I need to go back and reread the book for many of her points to really sink in, but many of her organizational strategies made a lot of sense to me. I think what I liked most about the book was the general message of working *with* your tendencies instead of against them all the time. For instance, she devotes an entire chapter to "Out of Sight, Out of Mind". Because most people with ADD seem to be like this -- and very visual --, she recommends forgetting about filing cabinets and making a filing system that will allow you to *see* it on a regular basis -- by using color, staggered filing racks, wall pockets, etc. For the first time in my life I realized why no filing system I had ever tried really worked! (And why my wall calendar, the front of the refrigerator, and bulletin boards seem to work so well.)
I'd highly recommend it!
--Angela
Three Plus Two
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Books on organization for ADD Moms?
