Year at a Glance - Day 30 of 30 - Things That Make My Life Easier

Each day I talk about one thing that makes my life easier as a neurodivergent mother raising neurodivergent kids while going back to school full time in my 40s.

Check out the free printable version I posted on my blog here

Welp. We made it! 30 days of things that make my life easier.

What better way to go out than to tell you about my year-at-a-glance calendar.

You can buy these year-at-a-glance calendars online, but if you want to make one at home like I did, here's how:

• Tape together 8 sheets of paper

• Draw 12 equally spaced columns (I do this in pencil first so I can erase later)

• Add numbers in rows down the lenght of each column for each month. (31 for January, 28 for February...)

• Figure out where your weekends are (look at a calendar online) and draw a doubled thick line to denote your Saturdays & Sundays

• I draw a single line of the same color used to mark the weekends for the Fridays

• Then I add a dot for the Wednesday to denote the middle of the week, this way I don't have to write M,T,W,Th,F,S,Su for each column over and over again. I always know the dot means Wednesay and a single line means Friday

• Finally, I go over everything in pen or marker and erase any pencil markings I don't need

Why this year-at-a-glance calendar helps me:

It helps me keep things in perspective.

I am a bottom-up processor. I have difficulty zooming out to see the big picture unless tools like this are visually available. It allows me to step back and see my day within the context of a larger span of time - like a year.

It helps me reverse-engineer how to prepare for things like exams, packing for a trip to see family, etc.

Being able set smaller goals for myself based on a due date helps offload some of the cognitive overwhelm that comes with mothering and studying in a different language.

For example:

If today is Monday and I know I need to work out three days per week before my weightlifting exam next Monday, I know I can space my workouts a day or two apart giving my muscles time to recover in between now and then. I can mark those workouts on my calendar and all I need to worry about is following through.

Aggghhhhhh. Follow through and ADHD. That'll be for another series.

Until then, which post of this series of 30 days did you find most meaningful? Leave me a note in the comments.

-J

If you'd like to print your own version, you can find that post here!