Out of the many challenges we all deal with, most of us have, at least once in our lives, felt there would never be enough time to do all that we have to do. The truth is, while there will probably always be time to do those things we have to, it is highly unlikely we’ll ever be able to do everything we want to, especially if we’re in any way enthusiastic about the world!

Meagan over at A Certain Lack of Focus describes very well what it’s like to want to do a million things at once, fail to follow any one thing through, and wind up doing nothing. She also has come up with something I consider to be pure genius, the simplicity of which puts it in a class my BlackBerry can’t touch: the Big Box of ADHD.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in university, which was when I started thinking these diagnoses were a pile of doneky manure. I do not believe I have clinical ADHD. I believe I am an exceptionally enthusiastic individual who occasionally has difficulty working on a project to the necessary exclusion of other projects. It’s almost like I’m afraid thinking too long about any one thing will cause the other things I’m interested in to vanish. Having often come across a forgotten cross-stitch project or a folder with half a website in it or a book I didn’t quite get going on, it’s safe to say this fear is at least somewhat founded.

And it has really held me back. I am the kind of person who learns foreign languages for fun, who has dissected an animal without being required to for a course, who once filled entire notebooks with plotlines and characters and ruminations on “voice”. When I was younger, I picked up the violin for kicks. I went to poetry readings, or the opera, or museums in other countries. But as the years pass, we get older and responsibilities creep in and stake out claims on our time and energy. And the world just keeps on getting bigger and more exciting. I had begun to feel intensely frustrated with my inability to manage any more than one or two interests and have seen a real decline in the things I engage in since hitting 30. I felt like whatever deficiency there was in my brain had won.

Reading Meagan’s post gave me an incredible thrill of excitement. For all my schedules and planners and gadgets, I still struggle against the slipping away of the hours and my own flitting concentration. The Big Box of ADHD struck a loud chord in me and I saw endless possibilities springing out of those little drawers.

Here is a way to first of all, decide on eight projects or areas I need and want to spend time on. Then I can figure out how much time I’m spending on each one simply by moving the coins/buttons/tokens from the time drawer to the others. Once I have figured all that out, dividing the time more equally as necessary will be a cinch.

I cannot wait to get it into action here at the Casa de Caos. In a few weeks, I’ll report on whether it’s done what I’m hoping it will!