Dealing with lots going on at work: how to get organised

Some weeks I feel quite content because I don't have lots of things going on. I may have big things but not a long list of stuff and I don't like long lists...

It's when my to do list becomes the length of the weekly shopping list that I become panicky and I don't know what thing to do first. I get mentally overloaded by everything I need to do so I sometimes ignore things, hoping they'll magically go away. I end up burying my head in the sand because I am so overwhelmed by what I have in front of me. When deadlines approach, my utter hatred of failure and messing up puts me into overdrive and I meticulously work through the most urgent of items at the last hour.

But this approach put a lot of stress on me. I find that it triggers migraines and makes things all the more unproductive. I don't like it so I do what I can to avoid things stacking up in the first place. I believe that prevention is the best way to avoid a lot of the autistic meltdown/shut down reactions, if that is at all possible!

Yesterday I felt like it was getting too much at work. I had tasks coming in from one manager and another lot from another manager. All the tasks felt urgent and my head was swimming with so much to do and not a lot of clarity. So I decided I would be methodical and spend a bit of time to work out what I had to do so I could work with a bold aim in mind.

I use Microsoft Outlook for my work e-mail and I use the flag tool (follow-up) to help me identify work I have been given and I can set myself a reminder attached to the e-mail so that Outlook automatically reminds me when things need to be done. The idea is that e-mails can be "flagged" with reminders and I can colour code them with categories as well based on the type of work I have been set for my categories (also brilliant in highlighting events in my calendar). Microsoft have helpfully provided web pages to show us how to use the follow-up tool in Microsoft Outlook and how to use colour categories in Microsoft Outlook. The follow-up tool then builds a to-do list and marks what needs to be looked at in order of the dates I have set for reminders. This then helps me see at a glance what I need to do first and I can work through things in order and add to it as new things come in.

I try to keep the to do list short or the sheer length of it makes my brain hurt. I remember from my web design days of reading about the psychology of web design. The idea was that the human brain rarely can process more than seven things at a time so a website with a menu of over seven items will be hard for the end user to browse through. I take the same design concepts into my lists. Its why I have to scan each item of the shopping list to find the item to check it off since I can't easily glance at the whole thing (where it is long) and see an item quickly. Its important that my to do lists don't grow to unmanageable lengths. So my list is a reminder to me to keep flagging my e-mails so I remember to go back to them and so things aren't lost. I ensure I keep my task list not too long or else it will make me overwhelmed and I will run away until I come back with fresh and less stressed eyes.

There's often talk about reasonable adjustments and the onus being on the employer to provide the support and workplace chances but I believe we need to also help ourselves if they aren't suggesting the right things. The one way is to maximise the benefits of the tools we might already have in our workplace.

As a former ICT lecturer and IT trainer, I think that not enough time is given to staff to learn how to use their computing tools. It is assumed that we somehow just figure it out on our own. We don't. If we don't know a function is there, we won't be magically looking for it unless we have that curious disposition. Many IT users are scared of doing something wrong. Its understandable.

I have trained people to organise their e-mails so they automatically go into different folders based on the contents and who its come from. At the end of the session I see real impact to these IT users because they are no longer faced with such an unmanageable wall of information but that it is sifted by topics and senders automatically into clearly labelled folders. It reduces the stress and helps aid productivity.

I know that creating e-mail sorting rules in Microsoft Outlook or flagging and categorising isn't the only solution to information overload but its a start, right?

Reference:

McCracken, DD. & Wolfe, RJ., (2003) User-centered Website Development: A Human-Computer Interaction Approach, Prentice Hall

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How I was triggered by pasta

At one of the sites I work at, I have a little lunch time routine.

I quite like pasta and I am blessed to work at a place where the food is generally good. The pasta on offer has some proper decent sauces that extend beyond the usual tomato and basil. They appear to be made on site by a bloke who at least seems to be a proper chef rather than a 'microwave operator'. And the pasta itself isn't mush.

So anyway, part of my routine is to get my food and walk up three flights of stairs back to my desk with it.

Unlike usual, the server gets a china bowl out and spoons pasta bowties into it. I freeze. No cardboard pots?!!? What am I to do with a china bowl? Where do I return it? I have no tray. I don't know the procedures for getting rid of metal cutlery and crockery if I don't eat in the cafeteria. I panic but trying to hide it. I can't compute this change in my little routine.
So there I try and figure out an alternative food. Maybe a jacket potato as I spy throw away boxes. Then if I have that, my pasta routine is interrupted.

All this goes on in my head over no more than 10 seconds but I am acutely aware that I am holding up a queue.

I go with the pasta and add my cheese then making my way to the cashier.

As I climb the stairs back to my desk, my anxiety melts away. I remember we have a little kitchen across from the administration open plan office and there lives a dishwasher. I now have a strategy for any future changes in food containers. I am at peace again.

And all this because our catering people ran out of cardboard cups.

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Supermarkets, Motherhood and small kid tantrums

Once a week I go to a supermarket on my day off from work to do the 'big shop'.
Supermarkets are often places of nightmares for autistic people and when I am feeling low in myself, they can be my nightmare.

The lights can be bright. Too bright. I remember my mother saying she couldn't stand a particular supermarket because the lights flickered and triggered her migraines. She's not alone there. I don't like the brightness and the flashing of lights on some displays during some seasonal promotions.
However, I believe the local Abercrombie and Fitch store has gone completely the other way and one requires a bloody torch to find one's way around the shop, to be edgy or perhaps they just use extremely low watt bulbs to create even more profit. I've so got to take a torch there one day.... That's got its own unique challenges for autistic people and the visually impaired!
And don't get me started on them only hiring shop assistants who are pretty since they are 'models' not checkout assistants...

There can just be too much to look at too, making my head feel overwhelmed by the sheer range of choice with each product trying to get my attention through its packaging. I think though this can be offset a little by the way in which the supermarket is laid out so that shelves and people do not feel too close to each other. There are people all over the place with their trolleys too, trying not to ram each other. There's always the stupid one who makes me think that if that's how they push a trolley, I really hope they are not going out into that car park later and drive...
There is the social anxiety of having to get passed someone who's in the way and me wanting to look at a shelf and someone is blocking it whilst on their phone. There's the boxes in cages in front of the item I want because it's seen as a good dumping ground for it. I never quite know if I should move the cage or not.

I don't tend to have many problems with smell and I think perhaps the combination of my asthma and rhinitis limits the extent of it but I do not have a huge trigger in terms of that sense. I don't personally mind the smell of the on-site bakery and I have fond memories from 15 years ago of waiting at a bus stop next to a Tesco supermarket early in the morning breathing in the glorious smell of baked bread. However, there's the people who go crazy in the toiletries section and must sample every scent to make some hideous gas cloud. That will make me feel overloaded and disgusted, as I think most people would, autistic or not.

There's so many people all chattering away to their shopping buddies and to people on the phones. Other noises like the sound systems and public address announcements appear with no warning and can shock if its particularly loud. A particular shop in my home town has a poor quality sound system and pipes the local radio station through it. Alas, I can't easily shop under one of the ceiling speakers as the sound is so distorted and unpleasant that it does my head in. Way to go, M&Co!
Things can go wrong with trolleys and people bang them about into pillars and all sorts.
Children can be screaming and parents call out for their child to come back as they run off to the toy section.

That last one is all very familiar to me on a personal level and I know that it isn't always easy to have a child who has model behaviour out in public.
I have my young child with me who is now 4.

When she was a baby it was complicated as I wanted to get in and out as fast as possible, mostly because no new mother wants a child with a dirty nappy and half a trolley of food all at the same time. As any sensible parent can attest, one feeds their child and makes sure they have a clean bum before leaving the house. At least sudden changes of plan don't normally happen and anxiety doesn't have to occur about what to do about that smelly poo and the unpaid for tub of ice cream in the trolley.
Most of the time it was simple enough if I picked my timings well. The baby would sleep and I would have to fend off irritating people who wanted to ask annoying questions about my child. I generally coped okay because the conversations were very formulated and predictable but occasionally there was the odd person who thought my child was public property to maul over. Setting boundaries with the general public isn't easy for anyone.
Maybe I was lucky but I found myself doing okay. I was more focused on getting about the place and getting back before she woke up and I needed to get back home to express milk for her. I felt like I was mostly in control and holding myself together.

I won't go into this now as I think this merits a post in its own right but I expressed milk for my baby to when she was just over two and a half years old. I found that my tolerance levels to a lot of sensory overload was lower during this time than it normally was despite facing a lot more difficulties with a new child and all the things that a mother will face.
When I weaned, my tolerance levels dropped and the change of routine was difficult for me. There is some research out there about oxytocin and autism. The hormone is associated with creating feelings of love and bonding and it triggers the letdown reflex in mothers that pushes the milk out. I don't know much about it so it requires some looking into but I can say that my time with all that extra hormone in me made me cope well with things that would otherwise have caused me a lot of panic and meltdowns.

However, as my child got older and wanted to no longer be in the trolley, I found my ability to keep her under my control increasingly difficult and I was no longer having my daily top ups of oxytocin. Sometimes we would have peaceful trips but other times the little one would have a tantrum and a battle of wills broke out. If she doesn't get her own way (wants to look at something or have a toy), she might lay on the floor and scream. She can scream and refuse to move. It is a nightmare and I am acutely aware of my social anxiety with people judging me to be a poor parent. Then my tolerance levels for all the sounds and people can crash where I feel everything is coming towards me like all the sounds and people are suffocating me and I need to get out and away, Its like in that moment I become hypersensitive to everything and the world slows down. I feel a tad disconnected from the rest of the world but only for a fraction of a moment, Its extremely weird but it happens over seconds. I have to walk away from her to reconnect and reboot myself and this helps me get the focus I need to be a good parent. I never walk away where I give up my parental responsibilities or so that her safety is compromised but I now distance myself from her by a few metres. I am unsure if this is the best parental technique but it is the best for me. There is no good me having a meltdown whilst in charge of a preschooler having a tantrum. I need to be the strong one when she can't be.

Now, I am able to battle through my anxieties and sensory overload to get myself and my daughter into a place of safety, such as home where we can recover. I can get myself into a state of logic to deal with her rantings by talking to her and understanding why she is upset so most of the time its easier to prevent things from escalating than to firefight. I can do that fairly okay and I can pay for the shopping and drive us all safety to home. BUT, I am tired. I am in a poor way that evening and she's not going to get a complicated dinner that day!

I do acknowledge that a child who misbehaves in a shop is hard enough for any parent (whatever the reason) but when mixed with an autism in the parent, it can make for a stressful experience. All I can do is try and prevent things and take extra care as we head into the busy Christmas period where shops turn EXTRA crazy and not at all autistic friendly.

Interestingly. ASDA is running an hour a week in the Manchester area for an autistic shopping experience, Whilst it might not tick all the boxes for everyone, its great for those who will benefit from less noise! See the article here

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Blinded by the light: how I manage night driving

The nature of my job means that sometimes I drive to my place of work, other times I go by train to other more distant sites. I am happy with the arrangement and have no complaints. I have for many years been comfortable with my regular half hour motorway drive. I like it and I have no worries about that kind of high speed commute. The train I don't mind either, except the cost plus reliability (a rant for another day!)...

However, we are now entering into winter and it won't be long until its dark before I finish my working day. By this point I am tired and my tolerances to life drop a little. I am in no way near a meltdown place but night driving after a long day is something I have to be cautious about.

When I first got a car, I had terrible sensory overload at night. My eyes would catch the headlights of the oncoming traffic and I would seriously struggle to filter out the glare. Over the years I have been getting much more tolerant to this and recognising when best to make car journeys. A lot of it is about making sure my eyes are not drawn too much to those lights and to keep them darting around onto other more important things. It came with practice and confidence. I feel much safer too.

When I first started driving, I couldn't have music on. Now, I almost need it to keep my anxiety low. It's not that it's essential but feeling happy keeps the stresses down. The only times it goes off is when I'm doing complicated parking manoeuvres and driving in places I do not know, where I need to be at my peak of concentration and calm.

I hasten to add that I have never put myself, my passengers or other road users in any danger. I would never allow myself to get to that point. I have at times refused to drive and got my husband to when I have been with him. Or I would pull off the road and relax for 10 minutes so I could continue my journey. I would prepare in advance so that I never get into a car whilst feeling frazzled.

So here's my point: I seem neuro typical in that I can do all sorts of travelling in all sorts of conditions. I take it in my stride as a rule. But I do often have a long downtime after. I get home from work and turn the radio off my husband has left on. I sit down and do nothing. I just sit in the nothingness around me, enjoying the lack of stimulation to my visual and aural senses. I curl up on the sofa and veg. I allow the day to drain away from me and recharge so I am ready for when my young child comes home with her father.

So maybe I do have an hour or so between getting home and them getting back and perhaps jobs should be done and I should have eaten.

But I am having to look after myself so that I can face the evening.

This is why I take the train to the other office. Driving would just be too much. But I get there and my struggles fall under the radar because I have made my own reasonable adjustments to my life.

Sometimes we are our own greatest advocates of our needs!

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