NEW TOY! NEW TOY! NEW TOY!

After I wrote my last post about my CRAP-tastic weekend, I went searching about, compared some reviews and voila: I was due for an upgrade on my cell phone...and we already have AT&T...and if you are even halfway hip to technology I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I ORDERED AN iPHONE! It arrives Thursday, and I am counting the minutes (at least until I am distracted by something more fun, or more delicious...and delicious could be very tempting right about now).

No, I am not worried about this becoming a problem distraction. I actually don't like being "tied to a phone"--the cell phone I already have gives me massive anxiety (long story...I'll tell it another time). I am MUCH more likely to get distracted on the computer. But I can't do everything on the iPhone that I can do on the computer anyway, so I don't anticipate unholy iPhone love rearing an ugly head or anything. Whatever...on Thursday when it arrives, I'll find out for sure if any of this logic makes sense or if it's just ADHD-think making craziness seem logical if not downright reasonable.

I am relieved by this purchase actually because in "my line of work" (one of them anyway...okay really all of them, but one slightly more than the others...jeesus, who let OCD girl in here today...) I need to be able to answer questions for people about things like "scheduling" and "availability" on the spot, and I always have to say to them "you know what, the best thing to do is to send me an email, and I will respond as soon as I get your message". That way, THEY are responsible for helping me to remember, lol...and I'm not sure that's the most proactive customer service technique, but it has worked thus far with all faces still smiling (at least while they're looking at each other).

Life was good...or uh, at least functioning...until the great Columbus Day Scheduling Massacre that I just went through. And then, with customers asking me questions about "scheduling" and "availability" this weekend, on top of everything else...godblessthem, I love my customers...but I pretty much just wanted to origami myself inside out to disguise my appearance, and run for the hills, all anger and angles.

Clearly the "have your people email my people" method results in MORE EMAIL, so this method, depensing on who you are can skew, oddly, to the "better for the sender than the receiver" end of things. And I'm gravely serious when I say that I DO NOT need to recieve any more emails in my inbox (in my FOUR separate inboxes that is, which all relate to different aspects of my life...I had to have separate boxes or I would have blown a fuse). I will now be able to answer very specific questions on the spot, and make quick scheduling changes on the spot...which will save me from having to answer a few dozen emails each week.

What am I going to do with myself when I've got 24-36 fewer emails coming through a very particular inbox in a week?

Well geez, I'm creative, I'll think of something. Or I will INTENTIONALLY try not to DO anything (I think my therapist would vote for that). Or stare at those fish on my blog sidebar until the next Great American ADHD Brilliant Idea Of The Day comes along to distract me from my iPhone.

But I can't be in three places at once!

My father's business had an unexpected crisis and me, my mother and sister all had to jump in to help...and may be required to continue helping for an undetermined amount of time while some issues are resolved. We have rallied and we will stick it out.

Enter my life-in-progress, which was already WAY too busy. There was no question that I needed to fully adhere myself to the family effort. But there is always danger ahead for me when I have to deal with too many unknowns all at once.

While working for my father, I forgot that I was supposed to be at one of my workplaces, filling in for a vacationing co-worker. I STILL KNEW as of Friday that I would need to be there on Sunday morning. Then, the family shit hit the fan, and I ended up working for poppy, running my OWN daylong business/event, and making deliveries for dad, then squeezing in a friend's wedding, then getting up the next morning with getting back to dad's shop on the mind. That entire time, I had no computer access. My calendar is on the computer. On the internet to be exact. And because normally I am always near a computer, this is beginning to work fairly well. But things were moving so fast and couldn't check my calendar, and I need that reminder to t prompt me to even write myself a note to remember and things moved so fast...until I picked up the ringing phone at my dad's shop and found a mushroom cloud on the other end of the line. My boss...calling to tell me I was two hours late and where the heck was I and what the hell happened.

Oops. I felt awful. I would recount that whole incident complete with tears and apologies, but it won't really make me feel better and it won't really enlighten YOU.

Then, because I wasn't as present at MY business/event yesterday, I had a couple of participants sneak out and leave early, which in this context is TOTALLY inappropriate, NOT done...very looked down on in this particular business because it is disrespectful to fellow participants, as well as the event itself. And how much does it suck to have people (who incidentally I have cut some MAJOR slack lately because of family problems that THEY were having) take advantage of you when you're in a shitty spot and can't really do anything about it?

Basically tried really hard to do the right thing, in every regard this weekend, and yet I feel totally shitty about the whole weekend. It was stressful, and disheartening. And I'm a little angry, and feel taken advantage of.

This isn't an ADHD-unique scenario. This would have been stressful for anyone. But add in ADHD...and clearly, this was way too much. It's enough that I was working a work shift that I don't usually work...and that I was literally too busy, and unable to access my one organizational lifeline.

I hated this weekend.

I am going to see how much a Blackberry will cost me. I need my schedule on my at all times, everywhere. It's bad enough trying to remember to use the calendar in the first place, but trying to remember to look at a calendar when there's no computer to even prompt you to "remember to remember"...yeah. You're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down, I'm sure.

It's 3:30AM

And I am up working. Because that's what I do. And that's the answer to the question "how do you get all of that done!?".

I meander along my ADHD path...and if there's still work that needs to be done when I am done meandering, and it happens to be well after midnight, and other people are depending on me to "get things done". Then I get them done.

I feel great because I just got a TON of work done...but I'm going to hate myself in the morning when I have to get up to go to work and start all over again.

Ack!