Hi everyone, today I wanted to share some structures I've put in place. This is just a random list for a family that is on the neurodivergent side.
A Bit of Context
To give you context, I do have one child who has been officially diagnosed with ADHD. The other one, we're not going down the diagnosis pathway, but he certainly has a couple of nuances that sort of stand out in terms of his nervous system. From a family history perspective, I'm pretty sure they've got it from me. I haven't been diagnosed, but I certainly identify with a lot of the key markers that would be for ADHD. It runs in my family – I've got extended family who are diagnosed, and who have kids who are neurodivergent also.
So these are some of the things that I have found really, really good. I started really implementing this in the last couple of years. I took on examining our lives as a family, looking at where our weak spots are, where the issues that we constantly come up against are, and how we can make this better.
The Cleaner
The first one I want to speak about is that I have a cleaner who comes in twice a month, every second Saturday at the moment. This has been a game changer for a number of reasons.
Before we had our cleaner, my husband is the type who thinks that we could just get up and do four hours on a Saturday morning, clean the house from top to toe, and then get on with our lives. But I know I don't function like that. I also know the kids don't function like that, because we're just not going to do it.
I also know my energy waxes and wanes as a woman. I'm on a completely different cycle to a man – I'm not on a 24-hour cycle like my husband, I'm on a 28 or 30-day cycle. I also know, being neurodivergent, that if you try and make me do something and I'm just not in the energetic space, it's going to be painful.
So when I moved, I decided that I would get a professional cleaner. I went through an agency. We have a really great guy, he's a student. We agreed on two. He comes in for three hours now.
With the structure that we have in place, it's not a deep clean. It's actually probably more of a basic clean. It's vacuuming and mopping, wiping surfaces, cleaning the stove, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the toilets – that sort of thing. There's a section of the house that he doesn't even touch because it's a bit that we need to renovate.
But the way that this works for us is – and listen, they fought it at the beginning, but now everyone's on the same page – the kids know that on the Saturday our cleaner comes through, they need to pick up their rooms and they need to free up one of the surfaces in their rooms to be wiped down. So this can look however they want. I don't really care, but more often than not what they do is pick up everything off the floor and throw it on their bed. That means the cleaner can come through and sweep, vacuum, and then mop, because we have hardwood floors all through the house.
They have to nominate a surface, because they're very creative, crafty kids. They've got bits and pieces everywhere – Lego sets, paper, cardboard things, handmade weapons everywhere. They have to have a surface wiped.
This is a great structure for me too, because it resets me and the little piles that I might create as a neurodivergent person. That's my kind of thing – I'll get into a space, I'll create something, I'll be going through certain books, I'll be researching something, and then I'll put them down, I'm going to come back, and then the moment's gone. Then the piles are there and I might move on to something else.
To sort of manage that, this is where the cleaner is also useful, because I'm aware of when he's coming. I'm like, "Oh, I'm not going to start another little pile because in two days' time I'm going to have to put that away," or I put it away immediately. Doesn't mean I don't also pile stuff on my bed or in the office or whatever, but at least it's a structure.
And it's great because I'm going to be honest, I am not someone who would voluntarily vacuum and mop. In fact, if I was doing it, I would take it so personally and be much more grouchy with the kids if they ran in from the back yard and brought sand in and I'd just cleaned. I would get upset. So at least if someone else is doing it, I still get a bit cross with them, especially, and I say, "Well, I paid for this and you've just messed this up." However, I take it far less personally if they're just being kids. I can take it in my stride.
So that's the first structure. I know somebody might go, "Well, I can't afford a cleaner." I have sort of found that I will weigh up doing other things and go, "Actually, I'd rather have those three hours of cleaning every second week, and I will do my own nails," or "I'm going to stretch out my haircut or something."
Listen, I'm not judging anyone who doesn't. I know that self-care is a really important piece for mental health and wellbeing, and self-care looks different for everyone. But there are ways that I can justify freeing up this money and go, "Yeah, this is actually a priority for me."
Exercise Subscription
Which probably segues into the next one – a structure that I've put in place now. This one might work for some people and not for others, but I am on an exercise subscription with a Pilates and yoga studio. This means every week £50 is deducted from my account, but that enables me access to unlimited classes.
There are two pieces that are key here for me. One is it's a class, and they're so popular that you have to sign up in advance. It's not a "just rock up if I feel like it." I actually have to go into the system and book them. Now, when I've done that, it means I'm accountable. If I don't go, I get charged a cancellation fee or late fee. I'm also letting down my yoga instructor, my Pilates instructor, Lauren, who I love and I want to support her in her business.
The fact that it's a class and it's structured – I have built my schedule around dropping the kids off and picked certain classes around being able to get to these classes very reasonably.
So that's the first piece of it – I'm held accountable. But also, it gamifies it for me, because the more classes I go to, the cheaper the class. Right now, normally I do maybe six classes a week, and I choose the back-to-back. This is the other beautiful system about how Lauren's got this set up. We do a Pilates class and then we do a yoga class, and the yoga can be a very stretchy breathing class, or it can be a lot more movement and flows where you build up a sweat. And I'm okay with that. I love it, it's really great.
It took me a while to get to know the other people that go along, but now I've got some friends that I go with and we keep each other accountable. It's a point that I can go and say hi.
For example, I'm sitting in my car waiting for a class that will start at 9 o'clock. I also chose it in an area that's close to a regular structure in our lives. For me, it's one of my kids' schools – his high school. I'll drop him off. He has to be at school at a certain time, and then I come across and I'm ready for my 9 o'clock. In fact, look at me now – I'm recording a podcast episode and I know I have a little bit of space, so it's not rush, rush. That's the other piece.
Listen, if the timing of the classes was a bit rush, rush, I would be talking to my kid about dropping him off a bit earlier. That might be a whole other kettle of fish if you've got a child who's resistant, but my kid likes to go along and talk to his friends and socialise with his little bros. So that works for us – we might leave the house a little bit earlier to get him to school, and then I can come across and be ready for my 9 o'clock Pilates class.
Yeah, and not least enough, I've chosen a studio that has variety. Lauren's amazing. We cycle through different props – the circles, the balls, the bands. We have chairs, we have sticks or poles, we do dumbbells. We do a number of things, and that keeps it interesting for my neurodivergent brain as well.
So that's where an exercise subscription works for me. But I'm going to tell you, if I had a subscription to a gym where I had to go along and today has to be leg day or today has to be arms – forget it. I would be one of those people who's on the subscription and has all these emotions and embarrassment and doesn't want to go, and I would just have my bank account drained every month. I would have all of this guilt around it and it would be a really negative point of thinking.
So this is where I've set it up to empower me, to keep me accountable, and also to make it a little bit fun. How many classes can I get in this week? And then how much does that cost me per class? So that is a point that works for me. That's a structure that works for me.
Household Structures
Now, the rest of them are sort of more structures around the house. One of the things I have is what I call a wellness trolley. I'm a naturopath. I actually have a lot of herbs and supplements and different modalities around my house to fix X, Y, and Z, or for general health and wellbeing, or to detoxify my lymphatic system. The kids are sick, or someone's hurt themselves, and so I've got a lot of stuff.
To keep us on track, I have this trolley. I guess you could think of it like a drinks cart. When I was setting this up, I was like, "Ooh, this is a bit like those carts they have in the Mad Men offices where they have all their alcohol" – except having all the alcohol out would not be a good thing for me. What is nice is to have all my supplements, vitamins, and bottles out on this trolley.
We do have another set of stuff that sits on the kitchen bench, and that is people's everyday vitamins, tissue salts, whatever they're taking. So that helps me in terms of triggering my brain to take my supplements regularly. It also helps me if a kid comes to me and goes, "I've got a sore throat, what do I do?" And then I'm like, "Bam, bam, bam, here we go." So that works really well. It's out and I get to see it.
The other structure around the vitamins and minerals in our house is I have some over near my toothbrush. These are things that I obviously will probably take at night, so my magnesium's over there. But also, it's just that it's a habit that I'm definitely going to be brushing my teeth before I go to bed. So this is a habit where I know that there's stuff there that I've got to take, and I'm reminded to take it.
That's a big part of how I think we need to work as neurodivergent people. That's how it works for me and my kids – we do need visual reminders.
The Whiteboard Marker System
The other part of that is I have big kitchen tiles as a backsplash. They're sort of 50cm by 50cm squares. I have a whiteboard marker and that's where my lists are. That is where the grocery list goes – we write it on with the whiteboard marker. That is where I might write down a couple of things that need to be done that I keep forgetting. I can't put them in my notes in my phone. I'm hit and miss with a notebook – sometimes a notebook goes missing. But if that's sitting there when I go to the kettle in the morning and I see "I need to organise that and organise that" and "we need this stuff for dinner or what have you," that is a structure that works really well for me.
My friends come over and they laugh because there are all these notes and bits and pieces on the tiles. The cleaners know not to touch the list, but it's a really great structure.
Listen, I actually started using this when I lived in a share house in Thailand and I had a lot going on. I was studying and then working, and then I was just enjoying life in Thailand, in Bangkok. I started doing this on my bathroom mirror, so you can do this with a mirror as well. I even would put affirmations or bits and pieces. But what's nice is I'm not carrying around lots of pieces of paper. I make sure that when I leave the house, I take a photo of the list so I've got it on my phone, and then I know what I need when I go to Coles.
What can be helpful – sometimes I've updated the list and I've forgot to take a photo, and then I'll end up in Coles and I've gone, "Oh shoot." But at least I've got the list from maybe a couple of days ago, so I might not have everything, but I'm sort of reminded of the things that I have needed for a few days.
So that is a really great structure. Yeah, it's a whiteboard marker, so other than using the whiteboard marker and taking a few photos, I'm not making a mess, I'm not using lots of paper, and I'm not... it's a sustainable thing. We just wipe it off and then start again when we need to, and it's quite satisfying, the whole "tick it, tick it, wipe it off."
Okay, and the cleaner does the sort of... there's less I have to do in a way.
So that's another structure that has worked for me for years, even before I had children, but especially now.
Business Booking System
And then the last thing I wanted to talk about was specific to me as a solopreneur. I operate my own business. I work for myself. I have really structured my booking system so that I am in control of the amount of time and how available I am.
This is something that helps for me. I actually need to be really protective of my time, otherwise I feel overwhelmed. I just feel really exposed, I feel like my boundaries are out.
So what I've created is: if you're a new client and you're booking in cold and you haven't contacted me, you can actually only book in with me on a couple of days a week. If you're an existing client, they know they can text me and go, "Oh, do you have availability outside of what is in the booking system?" And then we can work with it. But I don't feel like it's a free-for-all. That is a structure that from a mental health perspective really, really works for me.
And then the other thing I've done is limit the times that I start on certain days so I can fit in my exercise classes, because those are really important to me and I book them four weeks in advance. So I know on a Thursday morning I'm not going to start seeing clients until 11:30 in the morning. That's what's available in the clinic and on my booking system, and that really protects my mental health, makes me feel taken care of, it calms me.
Closing Thoughts
All right guys, I'm actually about five minutes out from starting my exercise class, so I'm going to go. But that was all I really wanted to share today. Anyway, hope some of that helps. Let me know if it does. I would love to hear some of your structures you use that just keep you running – sort of points that create calmness in your world, help you function. Yeah, that would be awesome. Then we can all try them.
Okay, hope everyone's having a good day. Speak to you soon. Bye!