New year, new me! And by that, I mean I've changed my name, and have been going by Raine in my personal life, and now on the internet as well it seems!

Keeping New Year's resolutions has a lot less to do with willpower and resolve than it does with being realistic and setting goals you're meant to keep instead of goals that allow you to give up immediately.

If you need help with your goals, join my discord server! https://discord.gg/JkPbnhb

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Music

Kawai Kitsune by Kevin MacLeod

Link: [https://filmmusic.io/song/4990-kawai-kitsune](https://filmmusic.io/song/4990-kawai-kitsune)

License: [https://filmmusic.io/standard-license](https://filmmusic.io/standard-license)

About the Ex-Gifted Podcast:

If you are a former gifted kid who grew up to struggle with basic adulting, then you need the Ex-Gifted podcast.

Host Ren Eliza talks about gifted kid burnout, and the damage that lasts long into adulthood. Damage like battered self esteem, decimated internal motivation, and a continued failure to live up to expectations even while we were placed on pedestals and alienated from our peers.

Ex-Gifted will cover failure, procrastination, imposter syndrome, and chronic anxiety and depression, and a whole lot more.

Each episode also offers suggestions to deal with your executive dysfunction in adulthood so you can rebuild the systems that allowed you to shine so brightly in childhood.

We’re making exceptional children into functional adults.

Thanks!

Problem: It's hard to remember that June and December have different struggles when it comes to productivity, mental health, and executive dysfunction if we don't actually mark the passage of time through the year.

Solution: Celebrating the two solstices and two equinoxes is a great way to welcome a new season and actually tangibly remind yourself that things are about to get different. For the upcoming autumn equinox, try some autumnal decor and recipes, but also don't forget about cleaning and decluttering to prepare your home for the winter months when you likely spend more time indoors.

Check out the rest of my Ko-Fi page! It’s been redesigned and I’m posting so much over there as I work on moving to a new website. I’m hosting challenges, posting previews for blog posts in progress, and of course uploading the video versions of this podcast right here. And the challenges are entirely free for anyone following along while they’re currently active!

I also have new membership options. The natural 20 membership is ridiculous and includes the entire roleplanning system catalog, plus ongoing membership in the Quest for Chaos with a 1-on-1 session and weekly small-group sessions, plus a private podcast, plus a ton of other stuff.

The natural 1 membership is for normal people and only costs $1 a month, but still unlocks every single post that you can only get otherwise with a minimum of a $3 donation, as well as the challenges and on-demand content in the Members Hub.

Join the Natural 1 membership for only $1/month!

And all monthly subscribers at either level will get a shoutout at the end of each episode of Ex-Gifted!

My current goal is to reach a lofty $120 in a single month. This is approximately my monthly budget for podcast hosting, web hosting, email service, and all those other little things that add up. Once I reach that point – I’m having a party and will look forward to putting out some rewards and coming up with some kind of fun goal other than just breaking even.

You can also find me at https://instagram.com/chaotic.organized on Instagram and https://chaoticorganized.com for more executive dysfunction tips and commiseration.

—

Music

Kawai Kitsune by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4990-kawai-kitsune

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

About the Ex-Gifted Podcast:

If you are a former gifted kid who grew up to struggle with basic adulting, then you need the Ex-Gifted podcast.

Host Ren Eliza talks about gifted kid burnout, and the damage that lasts long into adulthood. Damage like battered self esteem, decimated internal motivation, and a continued failure to live up to expectations even while we were placed on pedestals and alienated from our peers.

Ex-Gifted will cover failure, procrastination, imposter syndrome, and chronic anxiety and depression, and a whole lot more.

Each episode also offers suggestions to deal with your executive dysfunction in adulthood so you can rebuild the systems that allowed you to shine so brightly in childhood.

We’re making exceptional children into functional adults.

Thanks!

• pick it up every day (note this doesn't mean you need to do anything elaborate in it)
• time management consists of two parts: what you do and when you do it. This results in 4 possible combinations

1. Plan what you do AND when you do it
2. Plan when you're working, but not exactly what - aka time blocking. Combining time blocking and to-dos can be a great system for ND people who need some structure but also need the flexibility in their system to work on their current interests
3. Plan what you do, but not exactly when - aka to-do lists
4. Plan neither what you do NOR when you do it. Wait what? Remember how I recommended intentions a few weeks ago? If you're not trying to rein in the chaos, but let it flow free, while still having a bit more ownership over the flavor of your days, setting intentions can actually work great without a schedule as such.

• think about planning style (more strict or less)
• don't start with a plan. Planning is exciting, but following the plan often isn't. Starting with an elaborate plan can kill any interest in picking up your planner every day. In the beginning, productivity comes second to actually using your planner.
• track your time (but only temporarily)
• Check out my post on the ABCs of time management to learn more about time blocking.
• rolling weekly (can be used in a bullet journal or any planner with enough space to make it)
• Intention-setting can be systematized to some degree in order to use it more effectively, without turning it into an overbearing task list. This is especially useful when you're just getting started by boosting your results early on, instead of just kind of flapping about, forgetting about your intentions almost as soon as you set them.
• Future you is a pal. You need to always take care of future you.
• Schedule time to plan
• Think about the buckets of your life and the tasks you need to do for each. (home, personal, family, work, friends, school, etc...)
• consider keeping a record of all the recurring things in each bucket (can work great for the rolling to-do list)
• feel free to sketch a plan on a sheet of paper, or in a rocketbook before committing it to your planner
• but also don't be afraid to make mistakes. Go to the last page and create a pen test page (little coffee fox has some great tips for getting started - skip to the end to see how she recommends to deal with fear of getting started) or a grid spacing page. If you start with something kind of ugly and purely functional, you'll feel less paralyzed when it comes to messing something up later on
• erasable pens (Frixion)
• If your current planner style isn't quite working, or if it's feeling too stale, try something new on the next page instead of trying to push through. Don't fix what isn't broken, but don't hold onto something just because it used to work.
• If you're using a preprinted planner, think of your planner pages more as....suggestions...than actual rules you need to stick to. Ignore parts that don't work, or change them to something that does work.
• if color coding really isn't your thing, use a different code - symbols/signifiers, columns/boxes, etc... There are ways to separate your tasks without use of the Multicolor pen.
• brain dump daily or weekly (as needed or as your planner allows) and translate this into to-do lists. Not everything in your brain needs to go on the to-do list
• Consider using more checklists to proactively help you remember what to do, and fewer trackers to retroactively judge what you did (or didn't do) Trackers are still great for...