Re: Organization and Time Management HELP!

[Anonymous]

I’m undiagnosed, but my husband has ADHD and we’re sure I do too (scored 8/9 on both parts of the test here). This week I started taking my husband’s Ritalin and it’s helping a lot. My doc is on holiday but next Monday I am going to call and book an appointment to see her. I’ve talked about my symptoms with my psychologist and he’s going to write a letter to her as well. So I am definitely not in control of my ADHD but here’s what’s been happening organizationally.

I have to make lists or I stay awake at night thinking about stuff I have to/want to do. I’ve read David Allen’s book and it was useful to a point, but my problem is that I am continuously thinking of great things to do or that will improve my business (I’m a self-employed entrepeneur) and adding on to my lists. Lists are a crucial thing to me and I can’t just put only one thing on a list, that would drive me around the bend (I’m halfway there already).

I use the task list in gmail for some things, it’s useful for dating tasks, but if I want to segment tasks, then the online http://www.todoist.com is more useful. The trouble is, the lists and projects grow and grow! I haven’t used todoist in awhile, should probably get back to it but I’d need to purge everything and start over as it’s overwhelming.

I can get extremely off-track just organizing and never acting on the organization. It’s like searching out and buying the right book, admiring the cover, even admiring the layout inside, but never getting down and reading it from cover to cover. Actually, on the topic of books, I am a book junkie and have banned myself from bookstores as I have a huge stackful of books (never mind the ones in the bookshelf) that I bought and really want to read, but can never find the time to read. I’m reading ADHD and its effects on marriage right now, and that’s the one that is spurring me forward right now to try to get this resolved and under control since symptoms have definitely worsened in the recent past, particularly inattentiveness.

I agree with the poster who says that there is an adrenal rush in checking off things, the downside is that I do low priority things in order to feel grounded and then get the rush of checking them off. I like to spend time reading headlines on the internet first thing in the morning (I work from home) and get distracted. Sometimes I clean house. I cut my nails. I check my email constantly (no smartphone). I bug my husband to do something other than sleeping or hanging out on the computer. I look out the window. I organize my piles of books and papers. I make a cup of tea, drink it, make another. I remember that really great idea I had and decide to “just spend a few minutes researching it on the internet” but end up working on a project that in the end I abandon – “what was I thinking, it won’t work”. So that combination of activities means that my business day starts after lunch, and sometimes it starts even later (yesterday I only really got down to “productive” work around 7 pm). And I usually feel that I wasted most of the day (I did) and next day becomes even more of a scramble to get things done.

I also have problems with sitting on BIG orders until I feel like producing them, and then I have to really work hard (hyperfocus) to get them done in time. I can’t seem to get ahead because I don’t like doing routine production work. I guess I’m addicted to the rush of getting a lot of orders and then focusing on them to the exclusion of all else.

I liked one list-making idea that I read somewhere, you divide the list up into three columns, one column is called BITES, the next GOBBLES, and the third MUNCHERS. In other words, things that take less than 15 min to do, things that take hours to do, and things that take days or weeks or months to do. It helped me get through things by identifying some of the things I could do quickly to get them off the list. The only problem was the list was neverending.

Since I work from home and work/homelife are completely intertwined and inseperable, my latest list has three columns, one for each of my two businesses and a third for home. I’ve only written down the things that I need to do in the next few days, and I’ve circled in red the really important things that HAVE to get done.

I struggle, it’s hard to get started, I know what I should be working on, but all of these other tasks and distractions are hard to resist.

Does anyone else have this problem?

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