Episode 05: 7 tips to making a better to do list (or maybe 8 steps)
1. Verb it. Make it an action list. –
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ADD Friendly Ways to Organize your life by Judith Kolberg & Kathleen Nadeau, PhD.
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Don’t write “laundry” – Do write “Start Laundry” or “Change Loads” or Put Laundry away” –
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Avoid pseudo verbs like “take care of” as in Take Care of weird car noise.
2. Time it.
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Guestimate the amount of time it will take.
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Wearing a watch with a timer function is highly recommended.
3. Schedule it
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Make it an appointment on your calendar.
4. Draw it.
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Picture it. Add icons
5. Capture everything.
- BUT only focus on 2-3 tasks per day
- If you think it, capture it then.
- If you tell yourself you will remember that, YOU’RE LYING TO YOURSELF!
- Add all details needed for that item to the list
- Brain Dump
- Mind Mapping simple mind+
- Use voice input with Location based reminders – Siri & Google Now
6. Tasks take less then 30 minutes. If it’s more than 30 minutes it’s a project.
- Things that are NOT to do items
- Paint the House, Buy a car, Clean the House, Write a report, CreatePresentation
- Things that ARE to do items
- Purchase the Paint, Create a list of cars I want to look at, Clean the upstairs bathroom,
- Break it down more – Scrub Toilets, Clean Bath, Clean Shower, Clean Mirror, Clean Counter)
- Shameless self-promotinal example: Go to iTunes give ADHD reWired a reView and a 5 star rating.
- Apps: Check Mark and Todoist have subtasks Text Editor
- The text editor I mentioned: WriteRoom
- Purchase the Paint, Create a list of cars I want to look at, Clean the upstairs bathroom,
7. Mix it up- Develop a toolbox of to do systems.
- Uses Just one, then rotate it when you’ve noticed you have not been using it.
- Make it shiny again
- Change the alarm sounds (App Alarmed)
- Do something to increase novelty
8. Set Reminders to look at your reminders –
- Set alarms to visit the list several times a day
- New reminder system? Set reminders about the new system
Other thoughts…
- It’s not just ADHD, Nobody ever gets through their to do list.
- Give yourself permission to occasionally purge items from your list of it has been there for way too long.
- Brian King Podcast“You don’t want to be normal to, you want to be effective.”
- You can do anything, but not everything – David Allen
Recommended Apps
Writeroom – Mac (Distraction Free) Text Editor
simple mind+ Iphone Simple MInd+ iPad Simple Mind+ Mac
Books Mentioned on this episode
ADD Friendly Ways to Organize your life by Judith Kolberg & Kathleen Nadeau, PhD.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity
2 thoughts on “5: 7 Tips to Make a Better To Do List”
This is a super interesting collection of tips – I hadn’t realized that what works well for people with ADHD is also pretty much recommended for everyone! What you wrote sounds a lot like the GTD method. I actually wrote a pretty comprehensive guide to it a while ago, if you’d like to take a look!
Hi there! Maybe you would like to come on the podcast and talk about it? You can follow this link https://go.oncehub.com/adhdrewired and choose “ADHD reWired Pre-interview call” and you can chat with Eric about it. Thank you for sharing.