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Hi, welcome to ADHD Friendly. I am Patty. I'm an ADHD and executive function coach. And every day I look for ways to create more ease in my life, make things more ADHD friendly, and I bring them here and share them with you in case they do the same in your life. This is episode 244, and today I'm going to kick it off with a celebration about June 21st. I'll get into that in just a second. Then I have a tip about city parking, if you're ever finding yourself in need of parking in the city at nighttime. And then our main topic for today is ADHD summer survival. So I'm going to share five simple ways to keep your routines from falling apart. And then, of course, as always, I'm going to share my book of the week. Okay, let's jump in and start with my celebration. So if you are a in any way regular follower of this podcast and YouTube channel, you have a strong sense that I don't like the heat. Summer is my least favorite season, really, because I just don't tolerate the heat well. So for me, one of the happiest days of the year is when we pass the longest day of the year, which is on June 21st. And that's when the days start getting a little bit shorter, a little bit less light at night. And it's, for me, starts the countdown to fall. So I'm celebrating that I made it to the part of the year that I look forward to the most, which is shrinking daylight, cooler days leading into fall and winter, which are my absolute favorite seasons. So that's my celebration. I don't have an update for a purchase this week or a product of the week. So we get to go right to my tip for this episode. This came from My Life Hacks 2026 calendar. I thought this was simple and easy to remember, so I'm sharing it here. So it's just if you ever find yourself needing to park in a city. So if you live in the city or you live close enough to a city that you're finding yourself driving into a city where you might be parked somewhere when it gets dark. Or if you're just traveling and you happen to be in a city, this little tip can help. Look for a spot in front of a bank, because banks typically are better lit, they have good lighting outside and they have lots of security cameras around them. I thought that made so much sense and it really never occurred to me. I thought about police stations, but not a bank. And banks. There's a lot more banks than there are police stations downtown. So I thought I would just pass that around along because it's a pretty simple thing to think about. If you're going to be parked somewhere, if you get there when it's daylight, if it's an option to park in front of a bank so that when you come back, if it's going to be dark, might be a place that's a little bit safer to return to. So there's my little tip. Okay, now for our main topic for this episode, and that is ADHD summer survival. I'm just going to share five simple ways to keep your routines from falling apart during the summer months. I don't know about you, but my summers typically follow a pretty consistent pattern. And that's. It looks like this. They start with lots of intentions, lots of lists of things I'm going to get done during the My summers are typically like lighter schedule wise because my students typically don't work with me over the summer. They take a little break. So my schedule is a lot lighter and it feels like I've got all this space and time to get things done and then somehow they don't happen. My routines get forgotten and before I know it, it's September and I'm wondering where did it go? Where did all that time go? And I'm not getting those things done that I anticipate I'll have time for. So summers can be challenging when we have ADHD brains. A lot of times summer comes with less structure. If you have kids that are school age and they're home from school, that's gonna throw a monkey wrench in your schedule. Or if they're going to different summer camps and your schedule's different and you're kind of juggling to navigate that. We also typically have more travel, more changing schedules, more long weekends. You might have guests coming. Just a lot of disruptions to our routines. You may have, like I do, more open time. I know a lot of companies and businesses will have half day Friday or even they'll close on Fridays throughout the summer. And we can really struggle with what to do with a lot of open time, how to put structure around it and use it. So there's a lot of challenges. But here's the good news, they're not all challenges. If we look at your routines through an ADHD friendly lens, we can find ways to get out of perfectionism and rigidity and make them work for us so they're more flexible and holding us a little bit more structured in that goldilocks way that just right amount, that's going to work for us. So I wanted to share five simple routines to explore to keep your summer on track. As with everything I share, take what works for you, leave the rest behind. If I share something that you're like, oh, I don't like that, let it go. No expectations, just in case something might hit you in a way that feels helpful, that's what I'm here for. All right, number one, this is one of my favorite things and it's create an anchor routine. So I would encourage you think about 1, 2, 3 at the most, anchor habits that can help keep your days grounded. I think of those as literally things that are like tethering you to your time. They're not restricting you. They're keeping you from flying and bouncing around in space by just anchoring you down at a couple of points. So to keep your days grounded, it might be helpful to focus on an anchor routine such as you look at your planner while you're having your morning coffee. It's just your check in, I'm having coffee, I'm looking at my planner, that's it. Or maybe you're anchoring your evening reset so you just kind of look ahead to what's coming tomorrow. Maybe you're sending out your clothes for the next day, just a really quick reset. Or maybe you are really going to anchor in your daily walk. Right? Just knowing you get out and you get some movement, get your brain fired up, supported, that could be one of the anchors. It might be around meal prep. I know I don't like to, I don't like to cook, period. But I certainly don't like to cook in the summer with everything already feeling warm. I don't want to do anything that's going to make the house warmer. So for me, it's the perfect excuse to do cold sandwiches, cold salads, really easy meal prep things. Or it might be just around a bedtime alarm to remind you of what time it is. With it being lighter later, we really can lose the thread of bedtime. So even if everything else changes in your summer, having these little anchor routines can create tethers to create that stability around your summertime. Again, we don't want to be flapping in the wind. We want just enough to kind of hold us in place. Number two, this one is to create summer sized routines. So if you have a lot of structure around your weekdays or your weekend or your kids schedules and you don't have to do that for, you know, summer reasons instead of abandoning them completely summer size them. So think about that simplified meal planning I talked about a minute ago where instead of making like you know, a big, you know, multi, like a big stew or a big like hearty multi course meal, just keeping things really simple like sandwiches instead or instead of a really deep clean, giving yourself permission to do a 10 minute tidy, a little, you know, just a little spiff little cleanup maybe for me it's giving myself permission to be outside less for my walk. So I'm still walking, but maybe not as long if it's just too hot. So it's focusing on consistency over intensity that we're going to use there to make it more ADHD friendly. Tip number three is to use more visual prompts. You guys know I'm always recommending those visual supports. So if your summer schedule is different and you're trying to navigate something that you're not used to, it is harder to hold on to in your brain. Mentally it's a heavier load. So explore ways to do that with more ease. It could be using external calendars. External like whiteboard calendars or getting lists out of your head and into a physical way that you can keep up with it. Maybe you're using more physical sticky notes, visual checklists, phone or calendar prompt reminders. Our brains with ADHD do better with external support. So think about where would you add more visual prompts to support yourself with more use? My fourth tip is to plan some recovery time. So if you think about what your summer typically looks like, we have a tendency to fill our space or get overwhelmed with too much space. So either way it's not really working for us. So think about if you're planning trips, build in that recovery time when you get back so you're not throwing yourself right back into your routine. Maybe carve out, you know, a half day or a day to catch up on email or get the laundry going. Adapt to the time change. If you traveled someplace in a different time zone, really just thinking about recovery breaks, you might want them. Also, after a busy workday, allow your evenings to be quieter so that you can recover. Or maybe if you have a really busy week, lots of social things going on on top of your work schedule or running the kids around to playgroups and camps that you have like nothing weekends where you don't have anything planned except just chilling at the house, maybe wandering off to if you have like a neighborhood pool or you know, something that's that's easy and relaxing. Make rest and recovery part of your summer plan and keep in mind that we're all different. So if you're like, no, no, I'm good, I'm going to keep going. Maybe one of your kids would benefit from some recovery, or your spouse or your partner might need a little bit more or less downtime. So remember, not one size fits all. It's a checking in to say, hey, I'm good, like, as soon as we get back to jump right back in. But what would you need? What would help you to recover? Okay, the last tip is to do weekly resets. So if you think about your pattern over summers in the past, if you know you typically fall off routines or your intentions kind of vaporize and you forget about them, if you're doing a weekly reset, that structure can help hold it in mind and help you to make progress. Again. We're not going for perfect for perfection. We're going for progress. So let's anticipate that our summer is going to disrupt our routines. Let's just plan for it. A weekly reset helps you to reconnect with your schedules, with what you're prioritizing for your time over the summer months. Maybe it will help you to reconnect with your plan for meals. So if you're like, oh my gosh, like, I'm picking up fast food much more than I want to, just for the ease of it, it gives you a chance to check in and just reset from where you are to be a little bit more in line with what you want more of. Some good ways to experiment with this could be during, like a Sunday morning or afternoon planning time or Monday morning before you kick off the rest of the week, or even a Friday afternoon, like, review, like, okay, what went well this week? What do I want to tweak for next week? Think about structure that pulls you in, that feels sparkly, so that you're more likely to play with it and just try a reset and see how it works for you. Remember, ADHD friendly summer survival and thriving, not just surviving, thriving is about creating that just enough structure to work for you so that it's supporting you to get the joy, the rest, the connection, what you want more of in these warmer summer months. And those small intentional routines can absolutely be game changers for our ADHD brains. So think about what it is that would support you to get more out of your ADHD friendly summer. If you would like more support, check out my membership. ADHD friendly. That's what we're doing this whole summer is making the summer ADHD friendly. And all of the live events and materials are supporting that focus. Check it out. ADHD friendly.com all right, we're at the end and it's that time where I share my Book of the week. This is the second in the series of three books from Neil Schusterman in his arc of the Scythe series and it's called Thunderhead. And this, this book leaned more this is definitely a dystopian sci fi heavy book and series. This one was even more into the sci fi and world building elements than the first book, which was just called Scythe was. And while that typically is not my favorite genre at all, I really don't like reading sci fi. For some reason, Neil's books have broken me out of saying that that's always true for me because I really do like the way that he writes and it really leaves me with a lot of things that I'm thinking about. So they stretch my my own mind. I really like them. So it still, even with those pieces coming in, kept my attention. The story ends with a cliffhanger. So this is, like I said, the second of three and it was a major cliffhanger. So I am now plunging into book three. I gave this second in the series three and a half out of five stars. I gave the first one four out of five stars. So I still really like this, but it wasn't quite as good as the first one for me. But I still absolutely enjoyed it and am really looking forward to finding out what happens in the third. So that's my book of the week. And now for my final bit of information. And that's my quote of the week. And this week it's another goodie from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. And James says you can take things seriously without taking them personally. Our tendency is to turn any criticism or complaint into a personal attack. This makes me think of rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. So rsd, he said, we reply to it, we defend against it, we build a counter argument, we lose sleep over it. Yeah, like I check all those boxes, he says. You don't have to eat everything that is served to you. You can respond to criticism without digesting it. Take what's useful, do your best to improve, and leave the rest. James, I couldn't have said it better. That's awesome. All right, that's it for this episode. If you try something I've shared in this episode244, please post it in the comments. Would love to hear what worked for you, what you learned, or what things you do to make your life more ADHD friendly. Until next time Tally ho.