00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:02
Arianna
What's up, suckers? It's me. I'm back. And today we are going to be talking about command centers, which is something that I think a lot of us have seen, but we don't really necessarily know what they are. Or if you live in Pinterest land, you probably just assume that they're for families, but they're not and they're super ADHD friendly.
00:00:26:04 - 00:00:50:25
Arianna
And yeah, I just wanted to talk a little bit about why I think that these are worth trying if you have ADHD. So for those of you who are not well versed in what a command center is really like I said, you can just go to Google or Pinterest and spend a lot of time looking at ideas for command centers, and many of them are for families.
00:00:50:28 - 00:01:12:29
Arianna
So I spent a lot of time on the parenting sphere online, and that's how I kind of found out about these things. They're really neat and they go everywhere from being super complex and having like three or four giant chalkboards with multiple different colors of chalk and really cute calendars to being super duper simple. And mine is actually super duper simple.
00:01:12:29 - 00:01:37:15
Arianna
You'll get a chance to see it in a bit. But the point of a command center, the reason why they exist is to give you one central place where you can keep track of all of the things that might come your way. And in their case, it's usually all the things that might come your way for family. But you can also use this for work.
00:01:37:17 - 00:02:07:09
Arianna
All that you need when you're putting together a successful command center is four things you need a calendar, a place for two dos and ad hoc tasks, things that just happen to come up all of a sudden a place for important papers or documents. And if applicable, you want to go ahead and pick a a place or set up a place for things that you use every day, like keys or pens or your cell phone.
00:02:07:09 - 00:02:32:21
Arianna
If you're the kind of person who can actually put it down and walk away. I'm not. The point is that you want to make sure that everything that is important to you or everything that is important to getting things done and being productive is in one place in an area that you visit every single day. Now, let's get into how this would work for someone with ADHD, because I know that people probably look at this and they're like, There's no way I'd use this.
00:02:32:21 - 00:02:59:11
Arianna
Like, I don't need backpack hooks if I'm not going to use a a chalk board, I'm not going to remember to use a calendar. I already have a calendar hanging on my refrigerator that I regularly forget to check and that I regularly forget to look at. And it's going to be a little bit different, but it's totally and completely possible to successfully have a command center that you use that works for you.
00:02:59:13 - 00:03:26:05
Arianna
The first thing that you need to realize, by the way, is that if you set this up in the right spot, you absolutely will use your command center and maybe you won't use it perfectly every day. But I can guarantee you that like 99% of the people who put these things up on Pinterest also don't use it every day because it's also a lot of these people have kids and kids generally, no matter how many times you tell them, Hey, hang up your backpacks on the hook, go ahead and put your homework in the slot for your homework.
00:03:26:12 - 00:03:46:08
Arianna
They're not going to do it. Okay. So this isn't about using it perfectly. It's about having a spot that, you know, you can go to to keep track of dates, to keep track of important information, to add things that you know, that you're going to need to get to sometime that day or even. Yeah. To be able to find your keys.
00:03:46:10 - 00:04:11:03
Arianna
That's really all this is about is knowing that you have that central place, that center to be in command of your life. Imagine that. So here's the thing. The way that a command center is going to work for someone with ADHD is as a supplement to something else. You're not just going to hums command center and it's the only thing you use and it's the only thing you pay attention to.
00:04:11:03 - 00:04:37:16
Arianna
And you never do. You never use anything else to keep track of your day. What's actually going to happen is you're going to have this command center and then you generally want to have something. I would suggest something that you can take take with you when you leave the house like your phone calendar, for example. That information is going to be input into from your calendar, from your command center.
00:04:37:20 - 00:05:08:24
Arianna
Right. Because the important part is that this information goes with you. It is great that it is where you are when you're at home. But we also want to make sure that you're not going to miss anything when you're gone. Because, again, out of sight, out of mind. Right. And if you're looking for a command center just for family management, there are quite a few apps out there that can actually be your command center and your digital solution.
00:05:08:26 - 00:05:33:00
Arianna
I talked about family wall in one of my one of my app videos, and I actually love family wall still. I use it for family management here. I don't use my command center, my personal command center for family management. So this family wall app is what I use. And most of those, like maple or family wall are actually dedicated to handling all of that.
00:05:33:00 - 00:05:57:22
Arianna
It being your calendar, being your to do list, being your your photo wall, whatever. So if that's what you're looking for, I would definitely suggest one of those all in one apps. But if you are wanting to use it for yourself or for work, then it's going to be a little bit different. And in those cases, yes, I would absolutely suggest that you either have it on your phone or that you have it in a separate app.
00:05:57:22 - 00:06:24:12
Arianna
If you're using it for work, like click up, for example, just something where you're going to be able to take what you put into your command center and input it each day into your other solution. So my command center is super duper simple, like, look at these pictures, guys. They are not at all Pinterest worthy. It's not anything fancy.
00:06:24:12 - 00:06:55:18
Arianna
I literally went to the Office Depot down here in Costa Rica and just picked up two cork boards and a whiteboard calendar. But that's because it was the function that was important, not necessarily what it looked like. I really wasn't worried about esthetics so much as I was worried about its function. And it does everything that it's supposed to or that a command center are supposed to rather for me without me having to be fancy with it.
00:06:55:20 - 00:07:17:29
Arianna
As you can see, I've got my my whiteboard calendar and the main reason I have that is because and I'm sure a lot of ADHD, those who work from home or who work for themselves can attest to this. I set my own days off and if I don't have something to remind me that today is supposed to be my day off, I will sit my ass down and try to get work done.
00:07:18:01 - 00:07:42:12
Arianna
And if I'm too tired or if something gets in my way, I tend to get upset at myself for not getting work done on a day where I wasn't supposed to be getting work done anyway. So it's really nice to just kind of have that up there to remind me that I don't have to work if I'm not feeling well and that if I am feeling well and I decide to work but not get a lot done, that's okay too.
00:07:42:14 - 00:08:02:18
Arianna
But it also helps for, you know, if I happened to be walking past and I remember that there's something important on a certain date or if there is something very, very important that I continue to keep forgetting to do, and I just need it to be directly in front of my face at all times since I'm usually sitting at my desk and working.
00:08:02:21 - 00:08:32:18
Arianna
Great to have it up on that calendar to remember and then this corkboard. So I decided to kind of take a left turn on my own role here and I didn't really do it to do list or an ad hoc tasks list. Instead, what I did is a task options list. The idea of the task options list is so that while I am working, if it suddenly comes to me that there is something that I need to work on that I'm not supposed to be focusing on at that time, I can go ahead.
00:08:32:18 - 00:09:02:20
Arianna
I write it on a sticky note. I put it under its corresponding category and then I will worry about it when I start to work on that category. This is kind of based on Lawrence's adult school method, and I will leave a link to a podcast interview that Lauren did with another trace the speaker, Lisa Zani, where they specifically talked about how Lauren did this to kind of time block her day.
00:09:02:22 - 00:09:24:12
Arianna
And, you know, the concept is really, really awesome and simple, and I'm not going to give anything away because I think you guys should absolutely check it out. But the whole idea for me anyway, is that it's kind of a mixture of that and theming where I'm making sure that I actually going according to certain categories throughout the day.
00:09:24:15 - 00:09:49:23
Arianna
And so if I am in the middle of writing time or content creation time and I think of something that's an admin or ops task, instead of suddenly being like, Oh, I need to get to that now I write it down on a piece of paper. I put it under that ops category and when it's time for me to work on admin or office, I look over there and I see what tasks I have kind of hung up there that I know I need to get to.
00:09:49:27 - 00:10:20:03
Arianna
And now I have options of things that I can work on during that time. So it just kind of helps to keep focus. It helps to make sure that I know what does need to be done and it makes sure that it gets done at its particular time. And then you have this other third corkboard that I showed you guys, and that one is for really that one's more for motivation just because I hear little quotes here and there, but I absolutely love and then I need on days where I feel really low, but I have to get stuff done anyway.
00:10:20:05 - 00:10:37:08
Arianna
And then it does have my daily schedule hung up so that I can keep track of how my day is supposed to be split. And I made sure that it was a way that is easy to switch out because according to Lauren, this method, you definitely want to make sure that it can be adjusted within about six weeks.
00:10:37:15 - 00:10:56:13
Arianna
So it's this, but it might be something different later. So all of this together makes it so that when I sit down at my desk every day, I can turn and look at all of my different boards and they all kind of have that same information that you would need at any command center. Yours does not have to look like this.
00:10:56:14 - 00:11:18:10
Arianna
You could make a huge esthetic product project of it and, you know, had plans and add like really cute boards and things like that. And there is nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with doing what I did or even doing a smaller version where you don't get any boards and you just get like a paper calendar and like a couple of clipboards with some paper on it That is also totally fine.
00:11:18:18 - 00:11:50:10
Arianna
The whole point is that you want to be able to have all of the relevant information for your day right there. You want to make sure that it's easily updated as things happen, and then you just want to make sure that you are able to transfer that information to whatever you're going to use later, preferably that you take with you wherever you go, to be able to remind yourself of the information that you need to be keeping track of the read the stuff that is the reason that you have that command center in the first place.
00:11:50:11 - 00:12:16:24
Arianna
So hopefully that helps. If you have any questions whatsoever, drop them in the in the comments. I'm more than happy to answer. I feel like this is something that feels way more complicated than it is at first, and it's something that really lends itself to overthinking. Don't worry too much about making it perfect. Don't worry too much about making it work exactly the way that your brain works right off the bat.
00:12:16:26 - 00:12:46:25
Arianna
Just kind of get started and adjust as you go. But remember that your whole point is to just make it so that you feel a little bit more in control of the information that hits you throughout the day, even if it's not coming through your computer. Thank you very much for watching this video. Drink plenty of water and I will see you in the next video or on the next podcast episode by.