From someone with ADHD, who cant get shit done and finally realized she was trying too hard

Productivity systems work by two rules: the Inbox to catch ideas, events, tasks; and the review, the action that you take at the end of every day, at the end of every week, at the end of every month, at the end of every quarter, and at the end of every year. That seems like a lot of review, but the daily and one other larger time frame is really all you need. Macro and micro, if you will.

That’s all a productivity system needs to be. That’s is. Input and organization. The key is execution, actually doing the things, but the more complex the productivity system gets, the more likely you will use organizing your productivity system as an excuse not to do the task.

Feel free to add areas of focus, realms of reasoning, castles of concentration, sectors of stuff. Stock each task with labels and priorities, tags and project names, dates due, dates started, dates of progress, milestones, gallstones, way-stones, and rolling stones. Color code and pie a la mode. Whatever brings you to your tasks — the ones that propel you forward to your own goals– that’s what you should do.

If it makes it more exciting, if it gives you the jittery pants in the morning making you want to jump straight into your day, do it. And at the end of the day, when all the jittery-ness and stones have rolled away, review what you did (call yourself awesome, because you are) and do a quick plan for the next day.

Note: Be open to change tomorrow’s plan when tomorrow becomes a reality. You don’t know how you will feel, what your energy level will be, whether or not you were visited in the night by a succubus, nor if a dream gave you such a profound sense of piece you can’t imagine opening another spreadsheet, ever. Flexibility is key.

All the amazing, super, legendary, game-changing, mind-blowing, fist-bumping, jack-in-the-boxing system, or template, or PDF, or newsletter, or app are not the perfect answer to your problem. They are pathways out of your wallet into theirs. Spend your money on them, over and over, looking for the right answer and you can at least cross one thing off your list: “Acted like a sucker today.”

Note: That task on my list has been a little different: “Acted like a sucker today, again”

All you need, I humbly believe and I loudly proclaim, is an inbox, a review habit, and the nerve to do it your own way. That is all. Go forth.