Order from Chaos Quotes

“The only thing more overwhelming than the need for order was the difficulty of getting there.”
― Jaclyn L. Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“•I lost money in every way possible: I misplaced checks and sometimes found them when they were too old to take to the bank. If I did find them in time, I missed out on the interest they could’ve made in my savings account. I paid late fees on bills, even though I had money in the bank — I’d just forgotten to pay them or lost the bill in my piles. I bought new items because they were on sale with a rebate, but forgot to mail the rebate form. •I dealt with chronic health worries because I never scheduled doctor’s appointments. •I lived in constant fear of being “found out” by people who held me in high regard. I always felt others’ trust in me was misplaced. •I suffered from nonstop anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop. •I struggled to create a social life in our new home. I either felt I didn’t have time because I needed to catch up and calm some of the chaos, or I wasn’t organized enough to make plans in the first place. •I felt insecure in all my relationships, both personal and professional. •I had nowhere to retreat. My life was such a mess, I had no space to gather my thoughts or be by myself. Chaos lurked everywhere. •I rarely communicated with long-distance friends or family. •I wanted to write a book and publish articles in magazines, yet dedicated almost no time to my creative pursuits.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“If you take nothing else from this chapter, remember this: you won’t just do it. Getting organized is not a matter of simply buckling down and trying harder. If you’re currently unhappy with the level of disorganization in your life, take some time to figure out why that is — and what you’re looking for. You need a reason for getting organized that will be its own reward. Something that will make you feel so good, you won’t want to lose it, and even if you do, you’ll fight to get it back. Humans, and especially humans with ADHD, need to feel compelled by something urgent and important.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“it’s easy to feel ashamed when you fail at a basic adult task like paying the cable bill, meeting a friend for coffee, or acknowledging that all the rooms in your house exist. It’s easy to get personal, call yourself mean names, and throw in the towel. But you still have to fix it, just like you have to take the car to the mechanic.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“What is ADHD, anyway? For those still wondering what ADHD is, here’s the briefest summary I can muster: ADHD shows up in two areas of our brain function: working memory and executive functioning.[7] Working memory allows us to hold more than one thing in our brains at once. If you’ve ever run up the stairs, only to find yourself standing in your bedroom wondering what you came for, you’ve experienced a failure of working memory. Again, everyone experiences this from time to time. People with ADHD experience it nonstop, to the point where it impairs our ability to function normally. Working memory holds onto information until we’re able to use it.[8] In addition to forgetting why we opened the refrigerator, having a leaky working memory means we lose information before our brains can move it to long-term storage. We forget a lot of things before we have a chance to act on them or write them down. Our executive functions, on the other hand, give us the power to delay gratification, strategize, plan ahead, and identify and respond to others’ feelings.[9] That’s some list, isn’t it? In the same way a diabetic’s body cannot effectively regulate insulin, imagine your brain being unable to control these behaviors. This explains why ADHDers’ behavior so often defies norms and expectations for their age group — and this persists throughout their lifespan, not just grade school. ADHD isn’t a gift. It isn’t a sign of creativity or intelligence, nor is it a simple character flaw. And it’s more than eccentric distractibility, forgetfulness, and impulsivity. ADHD is a far-reaching disorder that touches every aspect of our lives. If we leave it unchecked, it will generate chaos at home, at work, and everywhere in between.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“All this to say, ADHD isn’t your fault. You aren’t selfish, reckless, or irresponsible by nature. Most people seem to have a double standard for chemical imbalances in the brain, as opposed to elsewhere in the body. One would not — we hope! — tell a person with Type I Diabetes to try harder because everyone’s blood sugar gets out of whack sometimes. We’d expect this person to maintain their condition with insulin and a healthy diet so they could live a normal life. Why would we expect someone with a chemical imbalance in the brain to correct it by sheer force of will when we don’t expect them to do it with their pancreas? The sooner you accept your ADHD as a part of your unique biology, not as a personal failing, the sooner you can begin to build a better life for yourself”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“We get uncontrollably distracted by random thoughts and stuff happening around us (people chatting near our desk, remembering we were supposed to send Uncle Steve a birthday card, a spider building a web in the corner, you name it). We make impulsive decisions without thinking things through. We have a lot of inertia. Once we start an activity, we may have trouble stopping when we need to (even if that means dropping the ball on something important). We don’t read or listen to instructions carefully (this makes paperwork especially arduous). We can have a hard time completing tasks in the right order. We struggle to organize our behavior and tasks in a way that makes sense.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“A little brain science: ADHD primarily affects our prefrontal cortex, the seat of our executive functions. This part of the brain controls what we pay attention to, how we respond, and what thoughts have the floor at any given time.[2]”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“BOTTOM LINE: ASSUME YOU’LL FORGET EVERYTHING AND ACT ACCORDINGLY”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“Don’t set yourself up to fail by watering down your calendar. Make sure it contains only items that are time-sensitive, and only on the day they are most important.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“If you fill your calendar with items that don’t “absolutely have to get done that day,” writes David Allen in Getting Things Done, “it will dilute the emphasis on the things that truly do.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“All of these things left me feeling anxiety, panic, guilt, and dread every single day.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“Most important, I want you to know you needn’t feel ashamed. Never, ever let shame kill your motivation to get better.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“You can’t wait three months to read a book and learn how to get organized. By then you’ll have accrued more late fees on your bills, gotten into 87 more arguments with your spouse, and perhaps invited a rodent infestation into your messy kitchen.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“Life with ADHD tends toward chaos, leaving us in a near-constant state of course correction. From now on, you’ll define yourself not by your success this week or next, but by how you manage to claw your way out of the chaos and back onto the organizing wagon.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“Bottom line: ADHD provides an explanation and a reason for a lot of things, but be very careful about using it as an excuse.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD

“Build [systems] around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. In other words, find your Why and get to know yourself. In your eagerness to get an organizational system up and running, make sure you’re motivated for the long term. Know why you’re doing this work — why it’s important to you. Motivation must come from within.”
― Jaclyn Paul, Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD