Monthly Bingo Boards

My ADHD has always made executive functioning skills, like goal setting, an uphill battle – not that I understood why for so long, given that I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 26. I did all but the final year of my Masters degree battling with this invisible force in my brain, trying to find my way out of an invisible maze, and even then, the only change was that I knew what was causing it. I reacted terribly to medication and I’ve had no support from anyone in managing my ADHD but, over time, I’ve managed to dig up a handful of tools that make things a little easier and I thought I’d share my newest discovery…

At the beginning of the year, my friends and I got together to have a chill planning session where we all set up our various planners and diaries for the year, setting goals and drawing up habit trackers and so on. I’ve been keeping a personalised version of a bullet journal for years now and that’s worked for me but I’ve always struggled with setting goals, especially long term ones, because I’ve never found a system that hasn’t withered under my executive dysfunction. But during this planning session, one of my friends, Blossom (who runs the fantastic Tea With HB), showed me the Bingo Board she draws up for each year and although a yearly one wouldn’t work for me, it did give me an idea: a monthly Bingo Board. My goals for the year – like reading more books and rebuilding my physio and hydrotherapy routines – felt too big and overwhelming to fit into single boxes and the motivation to put a cross through the box (and get the resulting dopamine boost) would most definitely fade over the months: my executive function just can’t sustain anything for such a long period of time without intervention. The bones of a good system were there but it needed some tweaking and that was when it clicked that this format might work better with smaller goals over shorter periods of time, hence a Monthly Bingo Board.

I looked at some the goals I have and the habits I want to build for this year…

• Read more books.
• Watch more new movies.
• Get back into a routine with my physiotherapy and hydrotherapy/swimming.
• Do more public access with my Autism Assistance Dog, Daisy.

And I started to break them down to what I could do in a month:

• Read one book a month.
• Watch one new movie a month.
• Add my physiotherapy to my daily to-do list.
• Build in days and times to go to the pool.
• Choose a new place to take Daisy every month.

After breaking down the goals to something I can achieve in a month, I fill in the boxes on the Bingo Board and then I can cross them off during the month. I get such a dopamine boost from crossing things off so I’ve got more motivation to complete the goal and by having goals that take different amount of time to complete, this continues throughout the month. I have the long-term goals and habits broken down to make them less overwhelming and more achievable but I also have the one off tasks on my Bingo Boards, like preparing for a specific event, and bigger projects that I have to break down into smaller pieces in order to not get overwhelmed, like rearranging and decluttering my room, including my clothes and books. The twelve boxes fill up fast and I’ve found that having my goals for the month (rather than in my head) all on one page makes that part of my brain feels less messy and anxious. Sometimes the page just serves as a prompt – to help me remember to look at my to-read list, for example – and sometimes the Bingo Board imposed deadline helps me to get my shit together and just do the thing if I’m struggling to start, task initiation being another executive function skill I struggle with.

So far, I’ve found it really motivating and I’m consistently crossing off nine or more of the twelve boxes and more often than not, not completing the remaining goals teaches me about that goal: for example, I was initially overenthusiastic about how many times a week I could swim so I adjusted the goal to something more realistic and have been able to build up from there. Each month, I’ve been able to look at my goals and adjust them according to what I’ve learned from the month before. And something I never expected was how much I’ve learned about myself from doing this in just three months: I’ve been able to get a better sense of my limits than I’ve ever had: physically, where I need more support with stuff, etc. It’s made a real, measurable difference in my life and I highly recommend giving it a go if you also struggle with these executive functioning skills.