Prioritizing takes so much effort, should I make an app?

[gregory]

I’ve always been inattentive. Listening to people and hearing their voice, but simply tuning out before they could finish their sentence. And then having to ask what they said. I used to blame it on my parents when I still lived at home, haha, because they kept repeating stuff to me that I already knew. I still have this habit of tuning out when my dad speaks to me, ha ha, that’s probably never going away. But really he doesn’t seem to know that he’s repeating himself all the time.

I’ve unknowingly compensated for it by using auditory memory. Now that I’m older, I’ve gotten better at keeping my attention on it when someone says something important, like a boss or coworker. And when I missed a part, I can play back the sound fragment in my head, and listen again. This is why it takes me longer to answer a question. But it works.

Anyway, that’s not what this topic was going to be about ;p

I’m almost 27 now and have spent a lot of energy over the years meditating and learning to concentrate. That’s made my life easier, because I can just ‘decide’ to do something boring now, and force myself to do it. Like emptying the hundreds, sometimes thousands of emails out of my inbox. (ADD hell to stay focused on that :P) Or do a boring work project. You know.

The problem I’m still having, and have had all my life, is deciding what to do first. I always have between 10 and 60 things that must happen urgently at one time. I just don’t know where to start, so I don’t. Because none of the things I really look forward to, and once I pick something, it’s very easy to change my mind and pick something else as the most important thing. Also I just don’t believe anymore that I will ever get to the end of the list. I haven’t gotten there in 10 years.

So my mind saves me the trouble and doesn’t start. I stay in overwhelm mode.

Many days I have wished: “if I just had someone with me to tell me WHICH of these 40 things I should do first! That would help, because I change my mind all the time.”
But then I think that no, I should be able to do it alone.

I’m tired of walking around my house for hours, changing my mind about what to do first, not doing anything.

In college I came up with a formula: I could calculate for each task what its priority score was, and the one with the highest score I knew without doubt I must do first.
But calculating that formula for every task became too much work and I didn’t stick to it. I thought about turning it into an app or something, to sort my tasks for me so I only have to think about the top thing and can forget the rest.

Who can relate?

How do you solve this issue, if you recognize this?

Hugs

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[bridge]

I always found the simple grid/square with the 4 questions
Top priority

1. Urgent and important (do)
2. Urgent not important (delegate – not sure who to!? Back burner)
3. Not urgent, important (schedule)
4. Not urgent, not important (don’t even bother right now – drop)

Don’t know if anything like this would help?

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[gregory]

YES, omg, that matrix is a handy system! I’ve heard of it before.
Thinking of automating the process though, so I don’t have to do it by hand for every task….

I’m envisioning a mobile app that does the prioritizing and scheduling for me. But according to what is important in my life. So I can go through my day, just emptying my mind into it, and it will tell me what would be the best thing to do right now. So it would free up mental space for all that decisionmaking.
Would you use something like that?
If yes, would would it have to do for you to be useful? If no, do you have any tools that work for you and didn’t get annoying/too much work yet?

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[bridge]

Hiya,

Re app try Ike.

I cant post a picture of it here but it works on a similar principle. I gce the natrix thingy in my phone cover,as you have to prioritse yourself.

I think i over did it by making seperate ones for work home and emotions and predominately i used it for mentally dumping emotional overload but u liked it, may be i should cut it down a bit and restart with it.

Have a look see what you think.

Have you xme across any apps you like?

Bridge

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[gregory]

Hi Bridge,

Yeah, someone recommended Priority Matrix to me, which I haven’t checked out yet!

I do indeed recognize the need to dump mental overload, as you say. It’s a common situation for me as well.

-gregory

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by gregory.

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[gregory]

Hey guys,

I’ve decided I want to move forward with trying to make something.

But it has to be good and helpful. Somehow it has to be different, so that we don’t stop using the system, like so many other systems we’ve stopped using.

With some people from another ADD/ADHD-PI group, we’ve put together a list of features it could have.

Your input and opinions are crucial to our project!

I posted the list here: https://personalized.typeform.com/to/C1dvXJ

It’s only 3 questions.

For whoever wants to contribute their thoughts, thank you!!😄

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