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ADHD Productivity Fundamentals

by hxii on 3/26/24, 5:45 PM with 27 comments

• by manzanarama on 3/26/24, 5:58 PM

  I feel like I am at odds with the scheduling one so much. If I time box all these little things, I get so distracted and I hate switching. I would rather go all in on something for a few days and ignore everything else, then circle back around and clean up the damage. I feel like this leverages the hyperfocus aspect of ADHD some might have.

• by hyperman1 on 3/26/24, 6:23 PM

  Well, I wrote down everything(Joplin). And now I have an absolute mess of half a zillion notes with no structure whatsoever. Trying to bring some structure in the madness.

  Now a while ago, I saw on HN a system of 7 folders, each containing 7 folders,.... It seemed to make sense. The person named it after himself, something like JeffFolder. But I can't seem to find it. Does someone remember the name?

• by SubmarineClub on 3/26/24, 7:50 PM

  Where I stumble with "Write Everything Down" is constantly bouncing between form factors.

  Digital vs Paper

  Large vs small notebooks vs notecards, etc.

  Anyone else have this issue who was finally able to settle on just one method of note-taking?

• by justdroppingin on 3/26/24, 6:19 PM

  This post describes my note taking/task management system pretty well.

  Some points from my experience that have stuck out for me:

  - Timestamp. Every. Single. Page. ISO8601 works nicely here. You can now link to other notes. You can also use the context provided by the timestamp to corelate your note with emails and call history around that time. Huge leap in QoL here.

  - Being flexible and adaptable is important. As long as your note is timestamped, it can be anything. Your notes should be able to adapt to the task at hand, if you're trying to fit the task into your note taking system you're just creating overhead. Think of your notes as capturing raw analog output. You can do all sorts of post processing later, but your task notes should basically just be a raw dump of what happened at that time.

  - One thing under "write everything down" is to take notes on all of your business related phone calls. I even do a preamble before each call, where I write down the number I'm calling, any information I might need for that call, links to other relevant notes, etc. During the phone call I write down the person's name, the gist of the call and and any information they give me. This has saved my ass more than once.

  - Just use a paper notepad. There's no batteries to run out, no software to go wrong, and by writing everything by hand with pen and paper, you'll be more likely to remember it. Legal pads work nicely, they lay flat and the binding rings dont get hung up when you remove it from your backpack.

• by pvg on 3/26/24, 6:01 PM

  Huge related thread form a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38274782

• by the_sleaze9 on 3/26/24, 6:00 PM

  I know several very high productivity - as in ultra-productive, super human level with the compensation to match - people that use timers. Everything they want to follow up on they toss into a phone timer. When it goes off they deal with it. Whether that's putting it into a formal calendar whatever. Pretty no-muss no-fuss solution.

• by walteweiss on 3/26/24, 6:05 PM

  Surprisingly, his rules are applicable to what I came up with over the years of my ADHD as well! What I learned is that the tools must be as simple as possible, and the complexity kills quite many intentions.

• by binary132 on 3/27/24, 12:10 AM

  1. Stay off hackernews

• by Teckla on 3/26/24, 6:09 PM

  This may not work for everyone, but it works for me:

  Use good old paper and pen to keep track of stuff (where reasonable).

  For me, it had a strong positive psychological impact.