My mom used to call me "half a job Megan." Clothes half put away, drawers left open, notes scribbled on random pages, a kitchen I'd tear apart at 7am because I couldn't find one thing. I'd decide at 6 in the morning that the washing machine needed to be taken apart and cleaned immediately. My whole life felt like 100 open tabs in my brain, and I could never close a single one.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 37, and it changed everything.
I remember the first time I took my medication. I sat down at my desk and worked, uninterrupted, for over four hours. Then I cried. I called my husband and asked him if that was something he did regularly. He said yes, every single day. I couldn't believe it. Focus like that was so foreign to me that I didn't know it was possible.
But medication wasn't the whole answer. My brain still needed somewhere to put everything. So I started doing one simple thing every morning: I opened a blank space and emptied my head into it. Every thought, every worry, every random task. I called it my morning brain dump, and it has been the best thing I have ever done for myself. That never-ending list in my head finally had somewhere to live besides my head.
That one habit slowly grew into this planner. Now I start each week with everything I need to do, work, personal, all of it, and give each task a day. Every morning I do my brain dump, then build my schedule. And I mean everything goes in there: when I walk the dog, when I shower, when I eat, when I get ready.
Does it always go to plan? No way. But I finally have a plan. Unfinished tasks follow me to the next day instead of disappearing into the noise. The timer keeps me from stalling. I'm more productive than I've ever been, and my head is quieter than it's ever been.
I built this for my own brain. If yours works anything like mine, I built it for you too.
Megan Vant, creator of The Hormone Edit