Overwhelmed? Try Goals & gravy!
Executive dysfunction tends to result in long lists of stuff we need or want to do. Sometimes theyâre prioritized, sometimes theyâre categorized, sometimes theyâre broken down into smaller steps. The common trait is that theyâre ridiculously long and overwhelming.
Hereâs one way to manage that overwhelming list when your âcanâ has fled the premises but stuff still needs to happen. (I call these âBad Brain Days.â)
Goals & gravy is a deceptively simple way to help yourself feel like youâve accomplished something in spite of your brain giving up.
Choose three tasks that need to get done in the next three days.
Choose three tasks that you want to do.
Do a Goal, then do a gravy. The gravy tasks are fun rewards for getting Goals done.
Donât forget to celebrate every task you completeâthat helps with more than just habits!
If you do other tasks on your list, they are bonuses and thatâs even more awesomesauce!
Triplets are sets of three tasks that you follow with a break. This gives you a much smaller focus to look at when you have a long list of tasks, and that keeps it from being quite so overwhelming.
Try to keep the tasks you use for triplets smaller.
A triplet consisting of two or three large jobs that will each take longer than 20 minutes to complete isnât going to work as well.
If thatâs what youâre looking at, take one of those big jobs and break it down into three segments for your triplet.
No, it isnât cheating. The whole point is that youâre trying to trick your brain into letting you do stuff. If you have to make it think that youâre doing less than you are, so be it.
Sometimes we have to use weird analogies to get us through things. You probably arenât really tricking your brain, youâre actually reminding it that things arenât as hard as it thinks they are.
Itâs still not cheating, though. You have executive dysfunction, and that makes it hard to do stuff. Which means that if something makes it easier for you to do the thing, itâs an accommodation and youâre fine.
Our lives arenât a game or a test. Making lives easier is what people do every day, and doing something differently from other people isnât wrong if the result is that it gets done.
(Caveat: if your alternative method causes harm to someone else, you probably need to find a new one.)
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