How to Not Get Derailed When Life Gets Messy
One of the most common scenarios I hear from moms around routines and systems is around when life gets messy.
You know... the kids get sick. Or you get sick. Or the whole family gets sick. Or you go on a trip. Or school is cancelled because of a snow day. Or you have a tragedy in the family. Or your spouse travels for work. Or the seasons change. Or your kids stop napping.
Let's use the analogy of a train for your neurodivergent family. Creating systems and routines to help your family function is a lot like getting a train in to motion. It can take a lot of energy to get that train in to motion and then when you encounter a challenge or set back, it can feel impossible to get the train moving again.
And somehow instead of working to get it back in motion, the train goes off the rails and we throw out every good habit and routine that had helped us in our past because we think they must not work since the train came to a stop.
This is a very, very common thing for those of with ADHD and can create so much shame and frustration. We spend so much time and energy searching for and creating routines and systems and then it feels like the slightest interruption and it all gets flushed down the toilet.
We then spend an enormous amount of energy AGAIN finding new strategies to help us when in reality the routine wasn't broken, we just weren't able to get the training moving again.
Okay, I'm not completely sold on this train analogy but hopefully you're still with me!
Why do we get so easily derailed?
Well, there are a few reasons.
Working Memory Challenges
Working Memory is a real thing and a big part of our executive functioning challenges. I talk about that a lot more in this blog post. Our brains can easily forget the basic ongoing tasks of life and need help remembering our routines. If you have ADHD, you have to accept this challenge and find ways to accommodate.
We Blame Ourselves
Life happens and things happen and they are inevitable. Unfortunately, we tend to blame ourselves and internalize when things happen instead of showing ourselves grace and compassion. We feel like it was OUR fault that life came to a halt and we expect that we should be able to get right back up to full speed right away. When that doesn't happen, we blame ourselves and we blame the train and so we knock the train off the tracks thinking that we need a whole new system or strategy for doing life. We have to learn to give ourselves grace and realize that it might take a week or so to get back up to speed and that's okay. It's actually not good or bad.
Mindset + Overwhelm
So the whole family gets sick and all of the bedding and towels need to be washed and the sink is full of dishes and it all feels chaotic and urgent and overwhelming. Sound familiar? I think part of that overwhelm comes when we feel like the state of our home is a reflection of us. If looking at the sink full of dishes sends you in o a shame spiral thinking "I'm the worst mom in the world" because I let it get this bad... you are headed towards derail territory. I definitely prefer a clean and tidy home and clutter stresses me out big time but when I don't internalize it, it's much easier to take small action to change it.
Lack of Margin
We tend to overcommit and overextend ourselves because busy feels more fun and energizing. This is itself is a whole other thing that I will unpack on the blog here soon, I promise! But when our lives have no margin for these messy things of life, it makes it really hard to recover. If you are relying on procrastination as your main tool to do the boring things of life, this means you are leaning in to chaos as your strategy for doing daily life. When the surprise chaos comes (sick kids, lost jobs, snow days), you don't have the margin to deal with it.
How Do You Not Get Derailed When Life Gets Messy?
Set Realistic Expectations
Well first off, please notice that I didn't title this blog "How to stay consistent as a mom with ADHD" because though I believe consistency is possible, 100% adherence to any system, routine or schedule is not. Life happens. The train will come to a halt. Sometime these messy things can be planned for and many time they aren't but we know that they will happen. The more I've learned to expect and plan for the "messy" days, the easier it is to rebound and to not internalize the mess.
- My home management system plans for at least one week out of the month to be a messy week.
- I know that every Saturday I won't have the energy to do a massive home project. At least one weekend a month my family tends to need a down weekend where we don't get much accomplished.
- After trips or big events, I've learned to plan for a recovery day.
Automation + Visuals
Whenever people come to my house and see all of my visuals, they say things like "wow, you are so organized!" but no that's not it. I realize that I need these tools in order to remember what in the heck that I'm doing. Left to my own devices, I will forget what to do on any given day. I will then get overwhelmed with what the options and end up spending my time doing some random thing that doesn't really matter but is more interesting. These visuals help me get back on track when life gets messy. I don't stress as much when life comes to a halt because I have a clear plan for getting us back in motion. I also have so many alarms and automated reminders set up already to get us back in motion.
Give Yourself Time to Get Back to Speed
Okay, I think this train analogy is really picking up speed. 🤣🤣🤣 But seriously, I do give myself time to get back up to speed. So for example, my family is currently recovering from a massive stomach bug. I spent Friday,Saturday and Sunday in bed resting. I did very minimal home things. I managed to do my daily three a few of the days but not every day. I didn't do any of my weekly tasks or monthly tasks. I will not try and "catch up" on those things that didn't get done in the past. Instead, I will focus on getting back up to speed moving forward. So this week, I will try and do my daily three and add back my monthly tasks. I plan for this so even after a weekend where I was mostly "unproductive" my home fairly pretty calm and tidy. And by the end of this next week, we'll be back to our normal routine. I explain this daily/weekly/monthly system in this blog post.
Slow Down
I had zero margin for a long time. I didn't really understand my capacity and was constantly overdoing it. I thought I needed to do more and say yes to everything to be a good mom. Over the last few years, I've really scaled back and slowed the pace of our life. This was definitely a process and required me to rewire my vision for family and motherhood. I've learned that my whole family is much happier with a slower pace of life and fewer ongoing commitments. Having margin doesn't mean that messy things don't happen but it does make it a lot easier to recover and rebound when they do. I highly recommend this book if you struggle with having margin.
