Organized... or Not.

Hello again, faithful readers. Been a somewhat busy past few days, hence my lack of posting. I appreciate the feedback I've been getting about this; feel free to keep it coming.

Today's issue is probably going to be confusing even for me to talk about, as it's something that I can never really seem to get right: organization.

I'll start with the obvious: It's good to stay organized with homework, jobs, and so fourth. I have in fact seen that I get more done when I make lists, plan, and keep my work sorted and neat. One of the most useful tools in CROWN has been a master list I make of all my subjects. I would make a Word document with a category for each individual class, list any work I had in each subject, then create a separate section called "Yet to Do" where I would copy and paste everything, and erase it as I went. This REALLY helped me see at a glance what I had left, and figure out what else I needed to do.

Another aspect of my system, and one that I would recommend to anyone trying to organize their work, was that I would try to be flexible with it, and would change it as my needs changed. When I forgot to pack things for Friday classes, I made a list of things to pack. When I had issues keeping track of what I've already DONE each week, I would create a section for that. At times I was REALLY worried, I even grouped remaining assignments together on what days I could attempt to do them, or highlighted them by difficulty so I could get harder stuff out of the way.

A danger of relying on lists like this though is that they can be overdone. And what was often my most useful tool often became one of my most frustrating distractions. Updating the list alone would often take about 30 minutes to an hour at the beginning of the week (which, with my focus, often translated to a whole afternoon lost). And editing and adjusting it would often take longer than needed. Other times it was just something for me to stare blankly at trying to choose which assignment to do (I highly recommend this task to anyone who needs to be prevented from actually choosing and doing an assignment).

One thing I often tried that I could never make work for me is schedules. Being homeschooled, I am somewhat used to flexible schedules, as is the rest of my family. Schedules are hard to stick to when you have to plan around things like appointments and visits, siblings' plans, and, most frustratingly, my own unpredictability of focus. On the rare occasion I tried to stick to an hour-by-hour plan, it failed after a few days, if that. (If anyone has figured out how to make schedules work, let me know)

So altogether, where is the perfect number between planning and overplanning? I'll let you know when I find it, but experimenting alone has helped me find things, like my list, that help to at least some extent. So feel free to experiment! Just... stop when you see something isn't working. I suppose the trick is making sure you know yourself. The more I figured out my patterns, and what distracted me, then I could start working around it. When I found something was more trouble than it was worth, then I would stop it. Self-honesty about what you should and shouldn't plan around is useful not only for Aspies, but to people in general.

So what about you? What kinds of lists or schedules do you use? Have you found any kind of "perfect number" for yourself? Leave a comment and tell me your story. High-fives and Vulcan Salutes to all!

-Caleb