Risa Williams - The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit

by the same author

The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit

25 Tools to Worry Less, Relax More, and Boost Your Self-Esteem

Risa Williams

Illustrated by Jennifer Whitney and Amanda Way

ISBN 978 1 78775 770 7

eISBN 978 1 78775 771 4

The Ultimate Self-Esteem Toolkit

25 Tools to Boost Confidence, Achieve Goals, and Find Happiness

Risa Williams

Illustrated by Jennifer Whitney

ISBN 978 1 83997 474 8

eISBN 978 1 83997 475 5

The Ultimate Time
Management Toolkit

25 Productivity Tools for Adults with
ADHD and Chronically Busy People

Risa Williams

Illustrated by
Jennifer Whitney

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

An Hachette Company

Copyright Risa Williams 2022

The right of Risa Williams to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All pages marked with a 1 can be photocopied or downloaded at www.jkp.com/catalogue/book/9781839971785 for personal use with this program, but may not be reproduced for any other purposes without the permission of the publisher.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is not intended to replace the services of trained medical professionals or to be a substitute for medical advice. You are advised to consult a doctor on any matters relating to your health, and in particular on any matters that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress

ISBN 978 1 83997 178 5

eISBN 978 1 83997 179 2

Jessica Kingsley Publishers policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable, and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.jkp.com

For my goal sponsors:

Zach, Jennifer,

Ezra, and Eden.

Thank you so much!

Contents

I really enjoyed the time I spent writing this book and thats because of all the wonderful people who helped with the process: Sean Townsend (editor), Hannah Snetsinger, and the talented team at Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Jane Evans, who edited my last book, The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit , and my incredible book illustrator and friend, Jennifer Whitney. Thank you to my amazing husband, Zach, and my amazing kids, Leo and Max, who inspire me every day. Many thanks for the positivity boosts from Ezra Werb, Eden Byrne, Mike Sonksen, Romy, Anton and Veronica Yanagisawa, Maggie Lynch, Erica Curtis, Miguel Chavez, Camille Brown, Stevon Lewis, Irene Ashu, Dr. Michael Feldmeier, Dr. Scott Waltman, Andrew Ralles, Cynthia Siadat, Andrew Lawston, Michael Ian Scott, Joel Levin, Dulcie Yamanaka, Solomon Carreiro, and Amanda Way, and to editors Chiwan Choi and Catherine Kielthy, who published my wellness articles in Cultural Daily and Breathe magazine. Thanks to all the wonderful clients and students Ive interacted with over the years who tried out and used the tools in this book. Thanks to all of the readers of my self-care posts on Instagram (@risawilliamstherapy) and thanks to Yeukai Kajidori, Trevor Stockwell, Dr. Tarryn MacCarthy, and Dr. Tamara Soles for interviewing me on their podcasts. Thanks to Publicat and Alpina Publishers for translating The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit into other languages.

And a big thank you to all of readers of The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit for reaching out to me and telling me about your experiences reading the book and using the tools! Feel free to contact me through my website, www.risawilliams.com, and tell me what tools and techniques worked best for you.

Thanks to the empowering influences of authors Martin Seligman, Edward Hallowell, Judith S. Beck, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, Thich Nhat Hanh, David D. Burns, Esther Hicks, Bren Brown, Joseph Campbell, Jen Sincero, Marie Kondo, Victor Frankl, and Wayne Dwyer. I am so grateful to have all these positive influences in my life, and I really hope this book gives back a little positivity, too.

Please visit www.timemanagementtoolkit.com for more tools, tips, and exercises.

Visit www.risawilliams.com to read more writing by Risa Williams.

Do you have a complicated relationship with time? Do you often feel frustrated with time because you never seem to have enough of it? Do you feel like time is slipping away and that you never complete your to-do list as a result?

The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit provides practical techniques to help you organize your time, find your motivation, achieve your goals, and feel more emotionally connected to your successes. The tools in this book are designed to help you see time as something you can stretch by finding the fun in the things you have to do, rather than seeing time as something thats shrinking because of the stress youre experiencing.

In my last book, The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit , I wrote a little about my own experiences with anxiety over the years, and how this led me to want to create simple anxiety reduction tools to help others who were experiencing the same types of things. Similarly, I hope these time management techniques will feel relatable and easy to use in your everyday life.

My personal relationship with time didnt always go so smoothly. When I was younger, I often felt like I was always running out of time, and to compensate, I constantly raced around from one thing to the next. But no matter how fast I went, I still felt like there was never enough time.

By the time I was in my 30s, I was experiencing a high level of burn-out. Although I had never been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), I started to realize that I might have a few attention deficit traits , a term coined by psychiatrist Edward Hallowell (2005).

For people who have an ADHD diagnosis, or suspect they might have ADHD (which would include having five or more ADHD symptoms for longer than six months and can be assessed by a doctor or a psychiatrist), some common executive functioning issues can include trouble controlling impulses or emotions, problems with organizing and planning, trouble focusing on tasks and sustaining attention, losing objects and forgetting things, and trouble prioritizing tasks (see: Mental Health Resources , ADHD Self-Test ). However, sometimes people who dont have an ADHD diagnosis may experience some attention deficit traits when they are also feeling high levels of stress.

In my case, one attention deficit trait that I often experienced was going into hyperfocus for hours at a time, only to crash afterward and feel very anxious as a result. Although I often found myself slipping into this intense state, what I wanted to know was, how could I smoothly get out of hyperfocus when I needed to without all the anxiety and stress? I knew I needed to find some tools to help me do just this!

Around this time, I became a mom, and I was also juggling multiple careers: working as a clinical psychotherapist, running my own practice, writing, and teaching at different universities. I began studying books on productivity and time management as a way to manage my complicated schedule, and as a result, I started to develop tools to stay more organized and focused.