The Word - Schedules
with Heather René Dunaway
September 2024
Maintaining a schedule is hard when you have ADHD. The time blindness is real. While I’m not the most on time person, I still have folks asking me how I keep up with all the events and coordinating I do for and outside of work. I wont lie, its not easy.
These past few weeks have been filled to the brim with endless tasks. I did my artist talk and opening reception for my solo show “Fix Yourself a Plate.” I closed my call for my 8th Annual October Spooktacular and send out notifications to those artists selected. Designed the flyer for it and sent it off to the printers. Then, I did some social media things for it. Back at work, we are getting ready for Arts in the Heart – and on top of that doing our normal jobs, which for me includes the newsletter, social media and galleries. Last week I got to install one of my favorite shows of the year, the “Now and Then” Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival exhibition. It has a lot of old stuff, and y’all know I love old stuff. We have posters from as far back as the 80s when the festival first started. Plus going through all the old photos is always so heart warming.
The key, for me at least, is maintaining a schedule. If I didn’t have all my things written down, physically, on my calendar I don’t think I would know what to do with myself. I also am a “to-do” list keeper. The endorphins I get from crossing something off my list alone is *chefs kiss*.
I think I got this from my days working in customer service. Both Food’n’Beverage and Retail require you to prioritize tasks. Which is super important when you have a lot of them all at once. For me, I try to highlight the most important ones with the closest deadlines in yellow. Though, this time of year, everything seems to be highlighted in yellow. Which makes me resort to plan be, putting out the hottest fires first. If you have ever worked F’n’B you know what it means when I say “we are in the weeds” over here. At some point, you are just along for the ride and going with the flow.
So, I guess my advice is this:
Plan A: Create a to-do list with your calendar/planner and have a concise schedule of all life and work events. Prioritize things by urgency. Plan A is a lot less stressful as it’s more organized.
Plan B: Thrive in the chaos and just get it done because you’re amazing and you got this. Maybe drink some water though and buy more post-its (you’re going to need lots of those).
The end,
-Heather