Zander's Inside Voice

The time is currently 12:05pm my time. This is the hurricane that is currently going on in my ADHD brain:

1. We leave for our Spring Break trip on Friday morning
2. I need to make plans to get our animal helpers over to learn what to do and I think I want them to come tomorrow
3. Girl has a birthday party next Friday (her birthday was in December)
4. I still need to email a couple parents to invite some other kids
5. The house needs a lot of minor cleaning and organizing projects done
6. I need to talk to my parents because it’s been too long
7. The first week of April is nuts because the ex and Boy #1 are coming, as well as the ex’s parents
8. I need to order a cake for the birthday party
9. Wait…what about gift bags?
10. Oh shit, there’s Easter too to prepare for
11. My friend sent me the directions for the project I’m helping her with. How the HELL am I going to fit that in this week?
12. It’s lunch time, am I even hungry?
13. Wait a second…what about the chaos of extraneous crap from the Sam’s trip yesterday and the never ending circle of Amazon subscribe and save deliveries?
14. Shit, I wanted to get my pizza oven set up soon too
15. Plus Boy #3’s smoker is still hanging around and needs to be prepped to cook
16. Still haven’t bought him any meat to get started with smoking and I think he gave up on me getting it any time soon
17. CRAP, to actually use my pizza oven, I need another propane tank
18. Who cares because I also need to build the stand for the pizza oven
19. What’s coming up first…oh right, the trip
20. Which means animal people, packing, cleaning, organizing, and figuring out what again?
21. Did I remember the correct place to check in when we get there Friday?
22. I can’t forget to print the receipt that has the tickets on it
23. What was that thing that I was going to order yesterday that felt really important at the time?
24. Where do I even start?
25. The easy stuff, the coming up the soonest stuff, the stuff I really want to do, or something completely different?
26. What will take the longest and matter the least? Because that’s generally exactly where I end up starting. If I can figure that out before I actually start that thing, I might actually get a bunch done because I won’t waste time on that thing
27. Shit, I have wasted three hours this morning doing what, exactly? I can’t even remember.

This is me MEDICATED. I will find the answer on where to start in a few minutes because I just remembered a list my wife made for cleaning projects. I can’t go wrong starting with that. Or maybe the couple of easy emails. Maybe I need to make a to-do list of each project and the steps to complete with those and then go from there. That makes sense. How long will that take me? Will that be the project that takes a long time and doesn’t matter because I won’t follow that project list anyway? What if I just say to myself “Send the invite emails and order the cake because those take about two seconds each online and then the birthday party way-out prep is done. Anything else can probably be figured out when we get back. Gift bags aren’t necessary because these guys are getting to jump at Sky Zone. Ok, no gift bags. That helps. Also, Easter? Can I do that real quick? Oh, but wait, that would mean deliveries when we aren’t here. I try to avoid that. Wait, I still didn’t start that to-do list and it’s been 10 minutes since I wrote that. SHIT! I need to do something. Anything. Ok, I will take care of the party things and then I will make the list, without the two party tasks because they will be done. Ok, Brain, let’s gear up and start doing something.

But wait, isn’t it lunch time? Should I eat first, before I do anything so I won’t forget to eat lunch at a reasonable time? Ok, no, that’s a way to get completely distracted. Do the party things, make the list, and THEN eat, and start on the list. Yup, that works. Ok, time to finally just get going now.