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Hi, I'm Patti. I'm an Executive function and ADHD coach and I created ADHD Friendly to share tips and strategies that I have found create ease in my life with my ADHD brain and I love to bring them and share them here in the hopes that they might be able to do the same for you. If you'd like more support than I can offer in this podcast, I invite you to check out my ADHD Friendly community and membership and@adhdfriendly.com where people with ADHD get more things done. In this episode, number 219, we are going to be celebrating the holiday prep that I got done early. I'm going to talk about what that looked like and how I got there. I'm still fussing with my sweater. If you are listening to this, I invite you to check out my YouTube channel ADHD friendly for anything that I visually share to during this episode. I'm also going to share an ADHD Friendly tip and my main topic for this episode are holiday lessons. You'll forget if you don't capture them today. And then of course I will have not one book of the week, but I'm going to share my top 10 ADHD friendly books of 2025 in this episode at the very end. So hang on till the end to hear that. In case you are looking for some books to add to your list. Foreign. Let's kick it off as we always do with a celebration. My celebration is I talked last episode about how I have been working intentionally to create more ease in my holiday so I can have some more calm time, some more stillness, less hectic holiday season. And one of the things that I intentionally have put a lot of structure on around in the last five years or so is finishing all of the busy what do I need to get, what do I need to wrap? What do I need to do at least two weeks before Christmas so that those last two weeks I can watch Christmas movies, I can knit, I can listen to Christmas music, I can read. It's just allowing me to be in the space that, you know, I can go out in the snow, which we have right now in Chicago that makes me so happy. So two weeks before Christmas I have all of my my Christmas card set and my newsletter done. I have wrapping paper, gift bags and tape ready to go. My family that flies in, they typically ship ship their gifts here for the person they got for Secret Santa and they and so then it wraps so I have everything ready, all the supplies so there's not no last minute running around I have tissue paper, everything that anybody would need. I also buy all of my baking supplies for all the things I'm going to bake as well as my Secret Santa. Gifts are purchased and the stocking stuffers are all done at least two weeks before Christmas. It just literally allows me, it feels like to exhale. Like I'm like, okay, now I can enjoy it. Used to be I was running around up until the morning of Christmas like still frantically trying to put things together and and finish up last things and I just never really I felt like Christmas was over and I did not enjoy it. So I just want to celebrate. It was definitely a long process, but as with anything, if we don't start, we won't be able to make progress. So progress is something I always want to underline and celebrate again. It's not perfect, but it's so much better than it was. So that's my celebration is I created the reality that I'm now enjoying by making small changes year after year. What I purchased this week is nothing because it was the holidays and I finished my shopping early and I had nothing I still needed to buy. So I also don't have a product this week. Yay. Yay. No spending. All right, so now for my ADHD Friendly tip. And as I've been sharing the last few episodes, I really trying to be intentional about sharing my ADHD Friendly membership with those of you who are adults with adhd. If you're looking for some support, it's a great time to carve out some time for yourself and give yourself permission to focus on supporting you where you are and putting things in place that will make your life a little bit easier so that you're struggling less and thriving more. So if you're somebody that doesn't like to plan or maybe even believe you can't plan or you can't manage your time, take a deep breath and let it out. Because here at AD for ADHD Friendly we do we love to plan. It is one of my absolute favorite things. But again only because I've learned how to plan in ways that work for my brain. Working with planners that other people made and told me how to use or expected me to do certain things have never worked for me. It wasn't until I let myself tweak what I needed, keep continue to notice what worked and didn't work that I created a system that works for me and ADHD Friendly, I support you to do the same. So if you're interested in supporting yourself to manage your time and plan more effectively and more realistically around the time you actually have, instead of the time you wish you had or the time you believe you had. Remember, with our ADHD brain, sometimes we feel like we can stretch time, but it feels like it. I invite you to check us out. We are focusing on a new planning program that's kicking off in January, so literally like in the next couple of days. So the timing is perfect. You can jump in anytime. But if you want to start from day one with us, I invite you to check out the ADHD Friendly membership where it's only $95 a month. $950 for the year. If you want to join for the year, you get two months free. Once you join, as long as your membership remains uninterrupted, your membership fee will never go up. I think that's so UNADHC friendly to keep raising the prices on people who have been consistently participating. So I don't do it. We do a First Friday webinar every First Friday, so that will be in two days on January 2nd. And we do typically a live event every Wednesday and sometimes on Fridays like the First Friday webinar, but that's pretty much it. So if you're looking for a membership that has events every single day or even multiple times a day, that's not ADHD friendly, so that's not me. We often think it is. And I have been one of those people where I've joined things, where they have things every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or every single day. Morning, afternoon, evening, choose your time, choose your session, choose your whatever. We really struggle to maintain that. And I'm all about creating a program and a membership that is not only actionable but is also sustainable. So I invite you to check it out. There's no long term commitment. If it doesn't work for you, you can quit anytime. It's very easy to quit. I made sure of that. Because also that wouldn't be ADHD friendly if it wasn't. You want to go right to the membership and join? I invite you to check it out atadhdfriendly.m as in Michael, n as in Nancy. CO not c o M just C O. Which really threw me for the first few times. I think I was saying it wrong. So less letters to type. Again, little ADHD friendly there. All right, here's my timer. I apologize for the background noise if you're hearing that. Onto the main topic for today. And that's capturing holiday lessons that you're going to forget if you don't capture them today. So the holiday season is wrapping up right now. We are at New Year's Eve, and I really encourage you, capture the lessons you've learned this holiday season while they're fresh in your brain. Our brains will tell us very convincingly, oh, my gosh, there's no way I'm going to forget this. This was so stressful or so amazing. Whatever it is, we firmly believe that we will remember it and we will resist taking any action to capturing it because it feels unnecessary. Why would I do that? There's no way I'm going to forget. These holidays come around once a year. Trust me, your brain is not going to remember the details in any way close to the way it remembers them right now. And if you don't believe me, I just invite you, challenge me and try it. Write them down. And just notice next year, if you're surprised at the things that you're grateful you wrote down. I have never yet worked with somebody that did not have that pleasant surprise of, wow, I can't believe I thought I would remember that. I'm so glad I wrote it down because I would not have remembered, like, even reading it, I'm like, okay, I kind of remember that. But without capturing the details, we just don't hold on to it. So I want to share five lessons. Actually, I think there's six. Six lessons that you might want to explore. Even if you just look at one, don't try to do everything. Something is more than nothing. So pick the one that's most sparkly or the one that you're like, yeah, that's going to help me. I don't want to forget that. So lesson one is, our brains with ADHD do not do well with time management. So whether it's how long something actually took compared to how long you took it you thought it would take, whether it's like mailing your holiday cards or ordering gifts, wrapping gifts, baking, whatever it is, capture those details now so that your future brain can tap into them and use it again next year. Lesson two, seating arrangements. If you have family members over and you have, like, a big group at the table, maybe there's a configuration that worked this year that you want to remember and recreate. I like to take pictures of everybody sitting at the table so I can remember where everybody was, especially if I thought something didn't work or something did work, because I will not remember where everybody sat next year. So maybe you want kids on one side, adults on the other. Maybe you have an adult table and a kid table, or maybe it's you know what? I'm not going to see sit grandma next to Uncle George next year because that was not a good fit. They, they did not have a lot in common or maybe they bickered or whatever. Making those notes so that it's going to help you remember. Maybe even want to make a note, like have place cards so that people will sit where you have already planned it out and pre decided instead of just hoping it works out that people sit down next to people that they're going to have a good conversation with and it's going to keep the holidays in that positive, friendly spirit. All right, lesson three. Anything about the gift giving process that you want to remember? I literally mean like Christmas. My, my holiday personal owner's manual, my holiday palm captures the details for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning traditions. And one of them is, what order do we open presents in? Because I'll forget every year. So I just, I don't have to rely or drain my energy trying to pull and stretch it back to remember what we do. I just have it written down like, oh, okay, we go youngest to oldest, so youngest starts first and then oldest is last. Maybe you do kiddos first and then take a break. And while the kids are playing, adults exchange gifts. Or maybe you do one category at a time. We did this when the kids were really small. We would start with Santa gifts and then we'd have gifts from relatives that didn't live near us that mailed them to them. Then we'd have immediate family and you know, family that were there live to celebrate with us. And then finally we would do stockings. But again, I wrote this down every year so I'd remember the order. Or maybe you space out how you open gifts. Maybe you open some gifts in the morning and then if you like, then have breakfast or go to church or whatever you do, you open some after lunch or whatever it is, capture what either worked or what you would change for next year so you remember it. Lesson four. Anything that you want to remember about supplies, groceries, any hiccups, or anything that worked really well. So maybe you like me. A couple of years ago, I ran out of K cups for the Keurig and I ran out of creamer. So having those on my holiday shopping list. So I just double check and make sure I have what I need on hand is really helpful. Maybe you needed to run to the store for an extension cord. So you just want to make sure you're like making a note like, okay, next year, maybe in, you know, a month before you're seeing the note like, yeah, get a couple of extra extension cords just in case. Never hurts to have some extras. Or maybe you have a master list of supplies so that you can just check it off each year and add anything to it that you want to remember for the next year. So that's for groceries and supplies. Lesson five, anything that you want to remember lesson wise, for your energy. So notes about which events did you go to that were energizing, which events were really draining? Maybe what do you want to remember worked for the kids or what really created stress and drained everybody? What pushed them over the edge? Maybe there was like just too much going on or too much clutter and it became visually overwhelming. Whatever it is, maybe you want to prioritize sleep schedule next year because you noticed that the kids just unraveled or maybe you noticed that you didn't get enough sleep so you weren't your best self and you got, you know, kind of easily, you were short with people or maybe easily flustered or frustrated. So just note any energy lessons that you want to remember. And then finally, lesson six, what money lessons do you want to remember for next year? So where did your holiday spending stay within budget? Where did you tend to go over budget or forget the budget? Whether it's travel, last minute gifts, whatever it is, just notice where your budget worked or where it didn't work. Maybe there were traditions that you have been doing that aren't worthy of continuing price wise, or you know, the expense, you might want to tweak it in some way or maybe you want to just discontinue certain things that are no longer serving you. Maybe your family has just evolved and now what you used to do is no longer really needed. I've started doing that. I bought my kids Hallmark ornaments every year. And then I realized as my oldest hit 25, I was like, am I going to keep this up forever? And I thought, no. Okay. When you hit 25, 25 is your last Christmas ornament. And it just is something that it's making it easier for me to keep up with over time. It's less spending over time, you know, especially if they're getting older and they're like living in their own places, they're going to be getting their own ornaments. And so it just feels like, okay, having like a tradition that you're excited exploring about, where would you cut back? What would you add if there's something you're not doing but you'd really like to so that it's working for you. All of these six lessons are just things to explore. If there's anything you want to remember, I'm going to encourage you to create either a Google Doc, a Word doc, something that you can capture it in. It could be a physical notebook, you know something, but capture the lesson somewhere that you will see them. I have mine in both physical and digital format. I print out my Christmas and Christmas Eve traditions and the calendar that I mentioned because I do decorate like really early and so anything Christmas related is printed in inside my ornament box so that as soon as I open it up, it's right there and I can see it. But I also have like Thanksgiving notes printed in my holiday palm. Everything is also in a Google Doc so I can edit it. So do what works for you, but make yourself a note about where you put the holiday palm information so that you can go back and use it next year. Maybe my favorite hack for that is if this is something you've never done before, put a reminder in your calendar with an alarm that will go off a reminder note that's, you know, something like Christmas notes inside. Something to remind you of what you've done to help use it next year so you remember that you took the time to write down some notes to support your future self. Okay, that's it for holiday lessons. Now for my top 10 ADHD friendly books of 2025. I've shared a book of the week almost every single week this year and I've read over 80. So I thought let me go through my list and pull the top 10 that really stood out for me this year. I'm going to be honest, I'm not going to remember all of the really detailed pieces about these books, some of them, because I read them much earlier in the year. So I invite you to check them out. I do. I can tell you the genre and the title and the author and what I rated them. I rated them on a scale of 1 to 5 and all of these scored a 4.2 or above. So let's kick it off with the first one. And that was the measurement by Nikki Ehrlich. And this was what I would call a fantasy book. Very, very quick read. A friend of mine recommended it to me and it was about a day where every person on earth got a little box delivered to them with a piece of string inside. And the string was the measure of the amount of time you had left in your life. And it was just a really interesting idea and it brought up a lot of interesting conversation amongst my different family members and friends that read it. So it's a great book club book. It was really engaging, quick read and I really did like it. My next pick is one I don't remember a lot about, but I did like it a lot. I gave it a four and a half out of five. It's Speak to Me of Home. It's by Janine Cummins and it was fiction. It was in the Real Simple Magazine list of books to check out and I really liked it. I just don't remember anything about it. The next one is Not Quite Dead yet by Holly Jackson. I had read some of her other books and really do like the way that she writes. She's a fiction writer and I gave this a four and a half out of five stars. Quick read, very easy to get into. So I recommend that one as well. The next one is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. This one I read recently, so I do remember it. It's about a woman who applies to the space program at NASA in the 80s and is accepted and goes through training to be one of the astronauts for the space shuttle program. It's fiction, but it reads very much like a historical fiction book because it is happening during the 80s when the space shuttle program is going on. But it's a definite fictional group of astronauts that are picked to go through the training. So it was really interesting in terms of the historical aspect of the program, but also women and what they could and could not do at that time. So really enjoyed. Very fast read. The next is American Dirt. This is by Janine Cummins. Another one by Janine Cummins. Again, I told you I really did like her book, so she made the list twice this year. This is also a work of fiction and I gave this one a 4.5 out of 5. Remember? I just remember it being really, really good. But that's it. Sorry, my brain. See, this is why I write things down. The next one is Pretender. That was by Joe Harkin. This is historical fiction. This was about a prince who did not know he was a prince and was in hiding to make sure that he was not killed as he was seen as a threat to the throne. Really enjoyed it. I love historical fiction. It's among my favorite genres to read. I gave this a 4.2 out of 5. If you are a historical fiction fan, highly recommend that one. And then the other historical fiction on my list for this year is Hamnet and I just did this review recently on my podcast. So this is by Maggie o'. Farrell. It's another historical fiction. I gave this one a five out of five. I really liked it. It is about loosely based on the idea of Shakespeare's real life son having passed away and in his grief of his son Hamnet dying, he supposedly wrote the play Hamlet. And I found that really fascinating. And even though a lot of it was made up because they don't really know a lot of the details about his son at that time, he did have an actual son named Hamnet that died. So I found it really interesting. The Next is a nonfiction book and that is Destiny of the Republic by Candace Millard. I gave this a four and a half out of five. It is also a Netflix miniseries based on President Andrew Garfield and his assassination and I did like the Netflix show, but the book is so much better. So if you also like History, but this is non fiction, highly recommend this. I found it captivating and I really mourn the loss of a president that I didn't even know about. Like I really barely remembered his name from history class growing up and because he was only president for three months. But oh my gosh, when I think about what maybe he could have done if if this person who had some serious mental health issues didn't take his life. All right, the Next is also non fiction. It's also true crime. It's say Nothing A true story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. This is by Patrick Radden Keefe. I gave this one a 4.2 out of 5 and just like its title, it's about kind of centered around the disappearance of a woman in Northern Ireland back in the most of this takes part in the 60s, 70s, early 80s, crazy true. Like the things that that are shared is really really interesting and most of it, I'd say 90 of it I knew nothing about and so I found it really interesting to read and highly recommend it. And then my final this is number 10. I just finished this one and I just reviewed it. So if you've seen a recent episode, you know how much I love this book. It's Last Rights by Ozzy Osbourne. This is an autobiography. I gave this one a five out of five. I just loved this book. It was published right after his death this past summer and just showed me a side of him I didn't really imagine was even possible. And I found myself searching for old videos and old stories to read about him and and other people's, you know, write ups about him. It was just fascinating. Really really enjoyed it. So whether or not you are a Black Sabbath or Ozzy Osbourne fan, I highly recommend this. It was just a great read. And then my bonus book that I reread and also gave a 5 out of 5 again was pride and Prejudice. This is under my classics. It's just a bonus recommendation. I reread it this year and I also re listened to it. The audiobook. I just love this book so much. So I had to include it as well because it got another five out of five this year when I reread it. So as always, I'm ending with a quote. And my quote for this week is from Brad Paisley, the country singer. And he said, Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one. And that's so true. Tomorrow is the new year. Happy 2026. Here's to a fabulous and very ADHD friendly New Year. That's it for this episode. Until next week, Tally H.