Get a Whiteboard or Dry-Erase board!

[Anonymous]

Better still, get three of them! And the bigger the better, don’t skimp on the size.

We are terrible procrastinators and forget to do things. Endless lists get written but they get lost or forgotten. Here’s what we did this week:

1. I got a large whiteboard for my production room, to write down my orders as they come in and to track my production daily. A whole lot better than trying to print off a list of ever-changing orders or make little lists that get lost.
2. I got a 17 x 23″ dry-erase board for our household tasks. Trouble was finding a place we go to frequently enough to see it. Solution: over the toilet, believe it or not! My husband now checks it every day (with prompting) and even adds his own items to it. No more lost lists or nagging.
3. i got another 17 x 23″ board for the kitchen, still have to put it up, but it will have the week’s menu on it, as well as a place to write down things we need to buy.

The boards are also magnetic, so you can stick up flyers or coupons that you get in the mail or online.

So far this is creating some stability in our daytime routine. It also gives us some satisfaction to check off things we’ve done, and see what we’ve accomplished. I am careful not to put too much to-do on the list, so we don’t get discouraged (the real household to-do list is somewhere else, but at least now it’s getting a bit shorter from day to day).

Thanks to whomever suggested whiteboards, I could not find your post using the search function on this website.

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[Tiddler]

Great idea. Thanks.

I bought a(nother) diary last week plus a book to write my ‘to do’ lists in and one for general ‘stuff’ that I scribble on the back of my hand.

I can’t find any of them.

White boards on the walls make a lot of sense.

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[BabafredDenandenanda]

I think this is actually an awesome idea which can be applied to ADHDers and non-ADHDers alike. I have a white board already, and all I need now are some new markers; and I’ll suggest it to my wife as a way to keep track of the family menu. She may even go for it too!

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[Anonymous]

They are really great for planning – my husband and I sit down at least once a week and try to plan a schedule of stuff we need to or want to do. And sometimes it actually happens that way – often not, but at least it’s up on our radar and we are making conscious decisions rather than forgetting stuff completely.

And like the high-five thread, I use one of them to track what I’ve completed during the week, to give myself a lift when I see how much I’ve accomplished!

You can never have too many coloured markers – get a dry erase eraser and some of the spray cleaner too.

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[quizzical]

I write with dry-erase markers directly onto my bathroom mirror!

It’s incredibly reassuring to know all those random thoughts you have at bedtime can be put in a place you know you will see them first thing in the a.m.

I keep a container of those little cosmetic cotton round pads on the vanity and use them as disposable erasers.

This works best for those messages that change frequently; otherwise it’s hard to get the marker off the mirror.

I have also found that I get a lot of thoughts and ideas when I exercise. So the whiteboard in my exercise room, which used to be for writing down useless stats from my heart-rate monitor watch now has space for all those little random brain pings that happen during my workout.

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[Anonymous]

Hey quizzical, thanks! I never thought of using the bathroom mirror as a dry-erase board! I do put post-it notes there all the time so both of us remember to do stuff.

I have found that some markers are harder to remove than others. I have a dry-erase spray that gets anything off, I wonder if glass cleaner would work as well?

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[caper]

My kids have some crayola window markers. I’ll try them on my bathroom mirror!

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[nellie]

no_dopamine I’ve been thinking about a dry-erase board for a while and keep seeing your posts. I didn’t get one because I couldn’t find a place to put it and was worried I’d end up not using it. Well yesterday in a characteristically ADD move, I decided on the spur of the moment to reorganize my office which involved some complicated switching around of stuff . In a nutshell I avoided it for ages because on one side of the room I had a L shaped desk full of craft stuff and off-loaded piles of paper to sort. A serious mountain. the other side was my computer desk less than a third the size and with twice the stuff on it. ANyway making the switch was kind of an overwhelming task but somehow I managed to focus ( probably due to meds!) and s got it done in under 2 hours. the place is still a mess but I now have a way cool new working area and better yet ROOM FOR A WHITEBOARD because I cleared some wall space.

As a test today I bought a cheapie not much bigger than an 81/2 x 11 sheet of paper for 2 bucks at the dollar store. it;s magnetic and could stick to my filing cabinet. ANyhow played around with it and can definitely see using a big one. So Will go out and get one tomorrow.

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[Anonymous]

Hooray for whiteboards! Have fun with it. I have a really big one I got for $25 at a used office furniture store. That one is at work, used as a log of my daily/weekly production, and the mid-sized one is now a large 2 week calendar with notes on the side to tell me what the priorities are (after my husband tells me what the priorities are, I can’t figure them out myself). Both at work.

The two at home are sitting on my living room floor, propped up against a chair. One is a calendar for home, where we plan every few days (looking at the whole week). The other has a column for my husband, a column for me, and a column for both of us, and on that one, we wrote down what we each or collectively needed to do and also what we wanted to to. That whiteboard feeds the other one.

I also use them when I need to figure something out, like a floorplan, and it’s better than scribbling something down on a little piece of paper, we can both work on it and both see it.

Congrats on your office reorg!

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[nellie]

Well got the big one for the wall today. Think this will be great. Made columns for different “project” areas all in a different colour.

Only now as long as I don’t look behind me where all the mess is my office looks pretty organized Maybe that’s the key – don’t look at the mess and it doesn’t exist Works for when a tree falls in the forest right

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[Anonymous]

LOL, my house is still a mess, but my new business workplace is looking GOOD. I guess I need to spend some time this weekend cleaning up at home. Thanks for the reminder, Nellie.

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