The most ADHD Friendly Way to Organize Your Ideas and Get Things Done

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Do you ever feel like you have too many things going on in your head? Do you feel like you’re juggling more than you can handle? Is it hard for you to figure out the details from the big picture? I wanna show you some of the ways I have used mind mapping to transform my ideas into real productivity.

Even though I’m a psychotherapist and coach that specializes in ADHD I have ADHD.  And. even to this day I’m still looking for ways to increase my productivity. I’ve figured out some incredibly powerful ways that have allowed me to work around my challenges and get big results by leveraging my strengths.  I wanna share the lessons I’ve learned along the way you.

Are you constantly looking for tools or and solutions to help yourself be more productive? I know I am.

If you were visually or kinesthetic learner meaning that you need to touch it

and interact with it in order to understand it, mind mapping has the power to transform

the way you planned and give your productivity a real boost.

Tools to solve problems. We have clocks and timers because our internal clock never came with batteries.  We use time tools because our brains tend to have a two time zones…now and not now. To help us remember things that are not in front of our “not now” time zone we have calendars and alarms and sticky notes and all other kinds of tools and technologies to help cue ourselves to a pay attention it to the things that we’re trying to do you to do to help meet our goals and other responsibilities of life.   Using location-based reminders on my iPhone is my go-to tool to help me take the right action at the right place and at the right time.  This is known as the point of performance.

In order to be reminded of the things that you want and need to capture it in the moment. We need to capture everything and have processes in place to help us process what we’ve captured.

We know we can trust our memories so we have to capture everything.  One of the best ways to capture and process your thoughts and ideas is through mind mapping.

So, you may be wondering what is a mind map and more importantly how do you create it?

It is my goal over the next few minutes to answer all these questions and to show you a number up specific examples how you can use mind mapping in your life.  There are a number of ways to create a mind map.  You can begin simply using a pencil and piece of paper or you can use sticky notes and the wall and maybe some string. Or you can use one of the many pieces of software or an apps that are out there.  I’m going to show you and app that I use called simple mind. Let me through with you some of my most a recent mind maps.

As you will see I use mind mapping to organize my ideas, plan my projects and even map out

my to do list.  Are you ready? Let’s do this

In a recent episode ADHD reWired, I created a mind map to discuss how to be successful using a calendar so you will see in a center is my main idea with the word ‘calendar’ and by zooming out you can clearly see each topic and I follow a clockwise motion so I know where to go next because I used it as an outline during my podcast. And as you also see, I use graphical icons to emphasize the order in which I wanted to talk about each topi.  What I find is universally true regarding ADHD related tools is that it needs to be easy to use, fun and visually appealing. I find mind mapping meets all of these criteria

Even if you don’t have ADHD seeing pictures: is a much more powerful than just seen words. Having the right tools that tap into how you learn best can truly transform your life. If you do best best by seeing and doing anyone not to tried mind mapping, I would really encourage you to spend some time and put yourself in the middle of the map and ask yourself what is important to you. You might just be amazed with what you come up with.

If you’re anything like me you have a lot of ideas and hopefully these ideas are related to your personal goals. Often our personal goals involve projects we break down our project into tasks

One question you should ask yourself is, how much to be your day is spent doing tasks

that are on other people’s priority lists persons your own priority verses you own list.

When our tasks are connected to our projects and our projects are connected to our goals

it is then easy to connect the things that we are doing with the things we are wanting to do. Mind mapping can help you see how your ideas connect.  We all see  things differently. Some of us just see the big picture while others focus on the details. If we use our time wisely our tasks will be the parts for projects broken-down into small actionable steps.

Let me show you a mind map that I created when I was planning out my website.

What you are about to see is the project level of my website when I was putting it together.

Just notice that in the middle I have the word ‘website’ and around it are different, larger areas of the website. Branching up from there are all the different subparts of the website. And if you notice when I click on domains that brings me to a whole new page where I was thinking out ideas for domain names.  So that the website project. Though a website is one big thing with lots of little things, sometimes it’s a lot of little things that can cause us to feel overwhelmed by all the things that we have to do. So if you ever felt stuck, using a mind map to map out what you have to do you can truly breakthrough the overwhelm.

In this mind map, I start with the main idea, my to do list for the weekend.

As you will notice, I’m not that good of a speller. And notice, as I create different items there was an item I wasn’t being specific enough about so I actually revised it to create more clarity in exactly what I need to do. and you’ll notice that right here where a change ‘arrange’ to ‘call’ because if that becomes the more specific action. So the fact you can move things around change the colors are things and manipulate them really helps me process information. I think you will help to you process information too.

One of the things that I also noticed is that sometimes when we’re coming up with ideas we’re not really sure what it’s gonna look like until we’re able to actually see it.

so mind mapping really allows us to create and formulate the idea right in front of us.

Don’t ever underestimate the power making things shiny by using different colors fonts and making it pop.

Are you beginning to see how seeing your goals connects to you living your life the way you want to? If not, pullback and gain perspective. Look, somethings you can’t change (like ADHD) but there are so many things we can. If there is one thing I’ve learned is that when you keep searching for solutions, sometimes you will come upon things that have transformed your life

so much that you have to share it with others.

I’m Eric Tivers. Please share your thoughts with me. What are your biggest barriers to being productive? And is there anything else you wanna know about mind mapping or being productive?

I wanna invite you to join our Facebook community and if you’re not on Facebook it’s okay I understand. I wasn’t on there until recently. So you can contact me through my website, ADHDrewired.com. and I do look forward to hearing from you. I look forward to talking with you again soon. Create your map, and have a great day.