It actually rained today! Beautiful, fast falling wet strings of liquid falling from a dark grey sky. It was utterly glorious, and of course, I just had to take Milo for a walk in it (and I didn't even wear a coat!)
Walking along the nearby country lanes, accompanied by the sound of circling buzzards and greeting grazing horses with a polite hello as we passed, I was thinking about how (and this is going to sound quite bizarre) productive I've been recently.
How I've actually started doing what I have been wanting to do for eternity.
As an example, I've had a whole box - actually 2 - boxes of Chilly's water bottles stored in our cloakroom for a few months.
They are all brand new, beautiful, bought as a first product for the Tangwystl store, and they have been sitting quietly, waiting patiently, for me to do the relatively simple job of adding them to the website.
Except I didn't actually have a website to add them to.
That was on the 'list'.
Every so often I would notice the boxes and think, I really need to get those listed.
And then I would get busy doing something else until I guiltily noticed them still sitting there weeks later.
What should be a seemingly small task (especially for someone who has mucked about and created websites and online stores for years, as I have), became one of those enormous invisible jobs that seemed to take up far more space in my head than it ever would have taken to actually do.
I am sadly very familiar with this feeling.
Procrastination and ADHD are well acquainted, and I have spent most of my life wondering why on earth it was possible that I could desperately want to do something and yet still somehow not do it.
Why on earth can't I just get on with it?
For most of my life I didn't know I had AuDHD.
I didn't know that there was a reason my brain could find a completely ordinary task strangely impossible to begin, while simultaneously allowing me to become completely absorbed in something else for hours.
I just thought I was a failure, lazy, difficult, inconsistent and disorganised.
And so I did what we are generally told to do when we need to get organised and do things.
I made lists.
So many lists.
For years.
Beautiful lists. Sensible lists. Quickly scribbled down ideas lists. Paper lists. Phone app lists. Colour-coded lists. Category-separated lists. Tasks-broken-down-into-steps lists. Jobs in order of importance lists and time block lists.
I tried so hard to stick to these lists, to tick the boxes and complete the chores. But each day seemed to end with a reminder of how I was a failure, how I was a try hard but not good enough, how I was just not as good everyone else who were seemingly more capable..
Just how could I be so busy and seemingly never stopping but not have the to-do list ticked off to prove it?
Strangely, I have learnt that I am actually way more productive when I don't make one.
When I don't start each day with a catalogue of tasks to complete, and when I don't monitor my 'progress' by ticking off boxes or crossing off words.
Instead, I start the day with an idea of what needs to be done and I do a visual check to see what else could be a possible to-do.
And bizarrely, I have been getting way more done. As if releasing the weight of the list has created a freedom in my brain and we no longer feel the need to rebel against being told what to do!
Without a to-do list this week I have created a website, set up a community for kindreds on Skool, added a shop to my site, finally listed the bottles, taken longer walks, got in at least 10,000 steps a day, been organised enough to cook dinners in the slow cooker (love, love LOVE!), exercised on the rebounder multiple times, picked up my husband's prescription, wrote multiple blog posts, taken photographs and short video clips, scrubbed and mopped the kitchen floor, rearranged the kitchen counters, and kept on top of the laundry (including putting it away!)
And not a to-do list in sight!
Isn't that weird? How can you be MORE productive without a plan? It goes against so much of what we are taught as the norm.
I didn't realise just how much of a weight we carry when we know we have things to do or unfinished things calling our name. That phone call that we put off making, that email needing a reply, that cupboard we were meant to declutter, that floor we were meant to clean.
Each job in itself may only be small and take a few minutes of time - but for my brain, it feels mountainous and I struggle to equip myself and get started to climb.
But then we start to doubt ourselves, we start thinking we can't be relied upon and that we even let ourselves down - so what useless people we must be! Or is that just me?
Those repeated broken promises of I'll do it tomorrow soon take their toll.
But I've realised just how powerful and pleasing it is to collect small pieces of daily evidence that we can indeed rely on ourselves, and I have been seeking snippets of that each day.
I said I would take the walk, and I did.
I said I would make a website, and I did.
I said I would write a blog, and I wrote 3.
I said I would walk 10,000 steps a day, and so far I have.
I said I wanted a quieter internet corner, and I've set up my own community.
I said I would list the bloody water bottles, and finally, I did it!
It isn't really about water bottles.
It isn't even about productivity.
It is about beginning to believe myself when I say, I am going to do this.
Today has been thoroughly ordinary.
I cleaned a slate kitchen floor. I watered tomatoes. I peeled potatoes. I collected tablets from the pharmacy. I bought mushrooms. I walked the dog. I cooked dinner.
But somewhere amongst all of those ordinary day-to-day things, I moved this little dream of mine forward too.
Another small promise to myself kept.
Another tiny piece of evidence gathered.
Another brick in the trust wall added.
And it feels good to be able to say I am one step closer to the dream than yesterday.
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