Personally I’d like hear some of your experiences with different types of organizational software, no matter if it runs on a PC, phone or the cloud:

  • What are you using and in what ways does it help you with the troubles you are facing with your ADHD?

  • Do you use different tools for different use cases (e.g. one to organize and track bigger projects, one just for reminders or one as a knowledge base etc.)?

  • Is there any software you would specifically avoid and how so (e.g. cause it is distracting, pricey or you due to lack of data privacy)?

  • Or is there things you’d really recommend to try out, because it helped you immensely in a way?

To start it off: Personally I got diagnosed as an adult rather recently. I somehow have haphazardly kept my life together without meds and ADHD-Therapy/Counseling/Coaching so far, but got no idea how. I made use of all sorts of organization methods and tools without it ever occurring to me that I could have ADHD.

Looking back it became painfully clear, I never consciously took my brain being different into account at any point. Therefore I failed very often and very spectacularly with my organization. I still do, especially at work.

Personally I use synched calendars (Thunderbird & Fairmail synched over Nextcloud) on my phone and PC at the moment. I also found I use ToDoList-Apps a lot (currently TickTick) to put at least some structure to my chaos. I am really awful with reminders though: I have too many and not enough at the same time. There is no structure to the types of reminders I have and I geht them from too many different sources. And sometimes they are too distracting or worse yet, sometimes not noticeable enough (Looking at you there, Outlook).

What have your experiences been like?

  • BearOfaTimeEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    I recently discovered the PARA method: the idea that most of what we do falls into one of 4 categories:

    Project

    Area of Responsibility

    Resource

    Archive

    I’ve setup a OneNote notebook and a paper planner using this approach, and it’s been very helpful with de-chaos-ing so much stuff. Now it hasn’t halped much with specific tasks, other than I can more easily record and then find them.

    Lately I’ve been using my shopping list app (Anylist) for my daily to-do’s since it syncs with Android and iOS, and I’m in it all the time for other lists on every device (I keep a browser window open just for it on my laptop). Unfortunately it doesn’t have reminders.