Tracking the Days of our Lives

By George, I think she’s GOT IT!

I just got off the phone with Kay Odell, the delightful genius who created a brand new way to track time for increased follow-through and productivity: WeekDate: a calendar like no other.

Her relatively new paper-format calendar is the first totally new take on planning and tracking I’ve seen in YEARS

– and this one’s ADD-friendly!  

Here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com, I have already introduced a pending Time Management Series (excerpts from some of my books  in preparation to become e-Books).

In one of the articles in draft, I describe how my own calendar system works for me “out of the box,” and what I need to tweak to fit my own personal flavor of ADD.

(One size never fits ALL very well; that’s why movie stars have tailors!)

That particular article is still on the schedule, but I have a feeling I’m going to have to revamp the “how I use my datebook” portion totally.

My own WeekDate is on order.

I’m going to go way out on a limb here . . .
and say that, sight unseen, Kay Odell’s system just might be
THE answer for a great many of us.

I’m rushing to get the word out about this product AHEAD of the debut of that particular Time Management Series article, because I just found out that - really no kidding - supplies are limited.  

• Her company is a few years old, but word-of-mouth has started to gather speed MUCH faster than expected.
• It turns out she drastically underestimated this year’s increased demand.
• She may just sell out in January this year, so if you snooze you lose has never been more apt!

BY THE WAY - I’m not related to this woman, nor is she a student, a client or one of my best friends. In fact, I didn’t even know of her existance until I stumbled across her post in the Time Management section of LinkedIn a few weeks ago and clicked to investigate the calendar she’d developed.

I don’t make a penny personally, and I actually ordered my own calendars (yes, plural!) the old fashioned way: I BOUGHT them!  This is a genuine rave because I am genuinely impressed — and I think you will be too. (Read on to find out a bit more about ADD – along with why I’m excited about this particular system.)

The Devil You Know

It’s significant that I am advocating for a change in tracking & calendaring. Those of you who are familiar with how I work with ADD know that I am the queen of “Don’t make changes just for change’s sake.”  

Unless the change will be significantly better than what you have now,
for most ADDers, whatever you have now will probably be more effective
than “the new and improved” version.

Save most changes and upgrades for the unavoidables: when products die, technology becomes obsolete, software MUST be upgraded, new schools MUST be attended, your company transfers you – you know, the unavoidables.

How come? 

The attention required to manage the learning curve while you are developing new habits of use is likely to rattle your brain — and just may wipe you out.

Don’t set yourself up to struggle!

Until the new and improved becomes habitual — so that it no longer requires the increased “bandwidth”  that unlearning old habits and systematizing new ones always requires — you are just like a circus clown juggling at the limits of his ability when some other clown tosses an egg and a flaming sword his way.

What happens then?  

He not only bobbles the new objects,
he drops EVERYTHING he’s juggling.

Back to the drawing board!

You are attempting to juggle a great many additional balls any time you need to accommodate new information and create new systems.  THAT means you are increasing the likelihood that EVERYTHING you are juggling is likely to come tumbling down around you.  (Ahem, like that important report due next week, your parent’s 30th anniversary party, picking up the kids because it’s your day for carpool, and that dinner quietly burning in the oven!)

Your LIFE is not like a rehearsal for a circus act, however (despite any evidence to the contrary!)  

My point is that “back to the drawing board” isn’t likely to work very well for you.
You really can’t risk dropping all the balls you are frantically trying to keep in the air
JUST to satisfy a whim, can you?  I certainly can’t.

So THAT is why the ADD rule is, “NO changes for change’s sake alone!”

Why NOT?

Effective Executive Functioning requires pre-frontal cortex reserves of glucose (“brain-food“) – and when those stores are gone, they’re GONE — until your body has a chance to build them up again. Logically, supplies deplete more quickly the more you call for them.  Any glucose you use up is subsequently unavailable to fuel other items requiring your conscious attention.

Once those stores are almost gone, driving your brain becomes like driving a car sputtering on empty: you’re sweating bullets, hoping desperately to make it to the next exit before you run out of gas!

• It can take up to a half an hour to restore depleted reserves.
• What happens functionally during that time?  NOT MUCH!

ADD-flavored brains seem to use up those stores faster than the average “plain-vanilla” brain. But that’s a little like saying that the souped up muscle car with air conditioning set on high uses up gas faster than the basic model whose AC system is “roll down the window!”

ADD and Juggling

Because the filtering and focusing components of Executive Functioning are “impaired,” relative to the “norm,” we ADDers are already juggling a few balls that those other guys don’t have to juggle – what I refer to as “invisible” balls.

Since most non-ADD brains automatically filter out ambient sensory information (persistent background “noise”)  and ours don’t, we are tapping our stores of glucose to filter OUT more distractions than they are even aware of.

• There is a limit to how much anybody’s brain can handle before their effectiveness is impaired.
• There is a point at which everyone becomes so overwhelmed they boggle.
• All brains need “brain food” like cars need gas, and
• All brains use more “gas” for Executive Functioning than for habitual tasks.

The biggest difference between ADDers and neuro-typicals
is what it takes to juggle those darned invisible balls!

I’ll be writing more later on THAT concept, but the take-away here is:
you are complicating your juggling routine with every change.

So unless you have a good reason to adopt the new and different, stick with the old and familiar.

Changing from – changing TO

I have used the same well-known calendar format since I was introduced to it by an employer FORTY years ago.  I have added pieces from other systems occasionally, but my DayTimer™ has been my constant companion because I have learned how foolish it is to “make changes for change’s sake.”  

So I hope that alone tells you that I DO believe the WeekDate calendar will be significantly better than what I have used since I was 18 years old.  

What do I think is so great about it?

1. It works like a digital application but it’s PAPER-based!!
   (NO risk of a “quick” check of my schedule sending me off-task
   for HOURS while I click around in the ether!) 
2. It combines the features of a Time Map with the features of a calendar
   - at a glance
3. It folds to a size small enough to carry with me at ALL times
4. It opens up to a larger size that has enough useful space to write on
5. You only have to record a recurring event ONE time
   • unless it changes – then you only have to change it in ONE place!
   • it is a simple matter to record the random exceptions as well
6. It’s color coded — so you know where you are in the month at all times.
   (1st week, 2nd week, etc.) – no matter whether you are looking in:
   • the middle section (tasks for the day)
   • the bottom section (what’s up this week), or
   • at the section on the top, for an overview of  activities that occur
   every month on the same day  (last Sunday each month, etc.).
7. The WeekDate FaceBook Page serves as a “virtual coach” – daily tips that serve as reminders to USE the darn thing!  (The customer service is ADD friendly all-around, by the way).

I could go ON – but time is ticking and supplies are running out!  
CLICK HERE to read about it in Kay’s own words.

There is ALSO a nifty video on the site that shows you better than I can tell you
– go see for yourself.

But don’t ADD-out if it sounds like your cup of tea and you’d like to start using it in 2012. Like I said, supplies really are limited!

A Few Related articles

• The WeekDate website (weekdate.com)
• ADHD And Glutamate: Neurotransmitters Evolve (Dr. Charles Parker’s CorePsych blog)
• Can the body convert glycerol into glucose (wiki.answers.com)
• Why do plant store starch rather than glucose (wiki.answers.com)

• Design Process (long term): a concept for a time management tool (designthinkingseminar11.wordpress.com)