Sunday Check-Ins and Second Brains for ADHD Planning

Who ND OutLoud is

Danielle: Hello there. I’m Danielle Ralston. I am the founder and head coach here at ND OutLoud. What is ND OutLoud? ND OutLoud is a team of neurodivergent coaches. We are neurodivergent, every single one of us. TBI, PTSD, ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, all of the things. We also have a passion for supporting others like us, so you don’t have to struggle like we did in our past. We have all taken trainings and certifications so that we can support you in living a better life and upgrading all of the things that are frustrating about your life. What is this session going to give you? Actionable tips. Yes, we’re going to talk about our programs, but I want you to walk away with something actionable for something that is overwhelming, frustrating, or just plain annoying you right now in your life. Or, if you’re a parent or a spouse of someone with neurodivergence, something to help them as well. I want you to walk away with something today. So please sign up for a free call so we can learn more about each other.

The Sunday meeting: a weekly check-in with yourself

Danielle: Good morning, everyone. This is Danielle and Katie with ND OutLoud, and we are talking second brains, and why the Sunday check-in is the key to a lot of your success. Then I’ll talk about how I handle that too. So Katie, tell us more about your Sunday check-ins.

Katie: Yeah. So I call them my Sunday meetings. I put it on Sunday because that’s the day before the whole week begins for me. I have a visual, I think I showed you guys last week, and it takes me through different questions so that I can reflect on my week: realize what went well, what strategies I was using, like whether I was using body doubling or not, whether I socialized a lot that week or not. It gets me to reflect on my past week and get in gear for the next week.

Danielle: I do something similar, but I do it on Monday mornings, because my brain knows that Monday is the start of my week and I can do stuff. I write everything down, on multiple post-it notes and things, to track what I have accomplished. Then on the following Monday, I go through everything, and I actually make myself write out what went well for the previous week. So I’m celebrating and acknowledging all my wins. That’s a big thing for me, because I tend to be like, “Oh, there were 9,000 things to do and I only got 5,000 things done,” or “I got four things done this week and there were 9,000 things to do, and I just didn’t complete anything, and I suck, and I’m never going to get better at this.” You get stuck in that rejection sensitivity and that shame loop unless you’re actually taking a look at what you have accomplished. So that’s a big piece of it for me.

Katie: And I actually just tweaked my Sunday meeting from what you said. I have these four little prompts: “I feel…”, “I learned…”, “I celebrated…”. And sometimes I have a really hard time filling in “I celebrated,” like, how did I celebrate myself last week? So I just added “I celebrated / what went well for me.” Because I like to celebrate my little wins, but sometimes in the moment it’s really, really hard. So my Sunday meeting is a chance for me to do that. I also color code everything that I do, and some weeks are more colorful than others.

Danielle: I use stickers, and I color code and highlight, and post-it notes and stickers and all of the stuff. That really helps me take a look and see what I actually got done. Because I so often feel like, “Well, I didn’t get everything on my list done, so I suck.”

The list will never be finished, and that is not failure

Katie: But what did I get done? The reality is that list will never be finished. That list is always growing, so it’s impossible to set that expectation for yourself. And our ADHD brains kind of trick us. They’re like, “Oh, but you still have more on your list, so therefore you didn’t get anything done.”

Some days, because of the way my brain works, because of my hyperfocus, I just work really hard day after day, and then Wednesday hits and I realize I have no food in my fridge, or no more clean clothes, or my sheets are gross. And sometimes I think, “Okay, maybe I need to take a day to get all of the adulting chores done.” You know, sometimes the voice says, “Well, you should just get everything done on the weekend, because that’s what normal people do. You should get everything done after work, because that’s what normal people do.” Well, that doesn’t always work for my brain, because some days I am just so exhausted. I work with kids. I work with people with ADHD. And sometimes after the workday, your brain is just fried. I give myself grace for that, because some days after the work week I’m still ready to go and can work four more hours, and other days I’m not.

Danielle: And that’s okay.

Katie: That’s completely okay.

Same framework, rotating tools: planners, stickers, and sticky notes

Danielle: So, I love that you have a system for this. I obviously have my own system that I’ve taught people. But whatever system works for you might work today, might work this week, and then I switch my system. I have the framework, I always use the same framework, but I switch the things that I use. Sometimes it’s handwriting and stickers. Sometimes it’s completely digital. Sometimes I use an actual planner, where it’s already all planned out for me and everything’s laid out, so I’ve just got to fill in the blanks. Other times I want to create it myself with stickers and things like that. It’s knowing that it doesn’t have to be any one way.

Katie: Same here. My main calendars that I love to live off are my physical one and my Google calendar. But I also sometimes need sticky notes. I love these extra long sticky notes, because I found myself using multiple sticky notes, and the long ones are like a perfect little list. And I have them in all different rainbows of colors and all different sizes.

Danielle: I have all kinds of stuff. I also have lots of things like this, just note cards, and double-sided sticky tape. I will sometimes just add things in: scrap paper, paper with stickers on it, paper with patterns on it. I’ll tear the edges and color the edges. It doesn’t have to be this boring “use a planner, it will solve everything.” It can be whatever you need it to be, with as much success as possible for yourself.

Katie: I had this tutor growing up who was wonderful. I think about her all the time. Joanie was an artist, an art teacher, and she would get these big sketch pads, and that’s how we would make our plans and review. We would create stories out of books. Her way to do it was having this giant blank page and just drawing doodles, making notes. I think that’s where I fell in love with this idea that I have to make my planners colorful and bright and shiny for myself, personalized. I just bought my new one for this upcoming year and I’m so excited for it to come in the mail. It’s personalized. It has my name on it. I get to choose what’s inside of it. I decide what colors stand for what things, and I change that too, to keep it interesting for myself.

Danielle: Tara’s with us in the chat, and she said, “My desk calendar is still on February.” So there is that. I stopped buying desk calendars after a while, because three months later I’d be looking at January still, going, “Yeah, I’m not using that.” But you can see behind me, I have these erasable calendars that I can use when I’ve got something big, so I can really plan it all out. They’re fantastic. I used to keep them with dates, and now I just write stuff on them when I want. It works for some things. Knowing you need a system doesn’t mean you have to use the same thing all the time, or even in the same way.

Dry erase markers on the mirror: building in self-care

Katie: Oh, I have another system that I really like. Dry erase markers, not Sharpies, please don’t use Sharpies when you do this. Dry erase markers on mirrors.

Danielle: Oh, that’s fantastic. My office used to be right outside our sliding glass door, and I used the sliding glass door to plan out a launch once with wipe-off markers so I could map it all out. That’s fantastic.

Katie: That’s part of my strategy for when I catch myself in just work mode, going and going and not thinking about my mental health. Sometimes I’ll just write on my mirror: “Take a deep breath.” Because here’s one thing I know I have to do: my medicine makes me drink a lot of water, so I go to the bathroom a lot, like every hour. That means every time I take a break to go to the bathroom, first, it’s a reminder to wash my hands, because that’s something I also need reminders on. And second, I look in the mirror and it’s just there: “You’re doing a great job. Take a deep breath. Give yourself a hug.” Just these little things make me stop and take a second, like, “Okay, you’re doing a really good job. Even though today’s really hard, you’re doing a good job.” And then I go right back into work.

Danielle: Yeah. And you don’t have to function at the same level all the time. Evaluating what your second brain is giving you, your Sunday check-in with yourself, all of those things give you permission to fluctuate and move to what works best for you in those moments.

Katie: Absolutely.

Danielle: I love that. Well, I hope you got a lot out of this week. If you have questions, if you need support, please reach out anytime. If you want to join us on one of our adventures, just check out ndoutloud.com. The link is below. We’re here to make life easier when you are neurodivergent. So just ask questions. Have a great day, everybody. Bye, everyone.