Keeping Organized

[NotAChevy]

“It’s 2am, you’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, with a thousand things running through your head. You can’t sleep, and you know, if I could only clear my head, I could get some rest. You need the sleep to allow you to escape from all the stress of the week, but there you lie”.

We’ve all experienced this at some time in our career, maybe you’re experiencing that now. Nothing seems to work. What do you do?

Now, for those of us with ADHD, imagine it happening every night-365 days a year, every night of our lives. According to WebMD, “approximately 5% of US adults have ADHD in some form- that approximately 8 million adults! WOW. That’s a lot of adults! So, here’s a couple of tips that work for me to help mediate my ADHD, and keep as little as possible in my head, so it’s harder to forget:

· Every evening, to help clear my head, I do a “brain dump”. What’s a brain dump you might ask? It’s a journal where I write down all my thoughts for the day in a “stream of consciousness” format. I don’t care if the spelling is correct, if there’s any grammar, or even if the ideas make any sense. I just want to clear everything out of my head so my brain can rest so I can be ready for the next day. These entries vary in length- some are 1 page, and some are only 2-3 sentences. Someone once said, “We only have so much bandwidth, and we need to clear our heads nightly, so we have the bandwidth to deal with tomorrow”. I go back once a week and reread what I’ve written to ensure I haven’t neglected anything of importance.

· The Second tool I use religiously, is Evernote. I keep all my ideas, articles I want to read, posts I want to make on Linked-In, and all my crazy ideas there. I have them separated in folders, along with hashtags so I can easily find anything I need. I now catch myself going into the app 5-10 times a day just to look at little snippets of info I’ve stored there. My notes for this blog we’re added to Evernote, including the topic which came to me while sitting in a tavern and talking with a good friend. I quickly jotted the idea into Evernote and our awesome conversation continued.

· The final one I’ll bring up today, is my OCD obsession with Smart Tasks +. It’s my go to Task Manager and I keep it open all day. I believe in keeping my head clear, so I write everything down, so there’s nothing to remember. With the touch of my finger, I can move things around, so I keep the most important 3-4 things at always at the top. I’ve learned not to stress if I don’t finish everything that day, as long as the top 3-4 are completed.

I don’t want to have tons of apps that I scroll through, making it difficult to find something, or to know something, so I’ve simplified my life with these 3 apps. I know everyone must find their own system, but I hope you’ll consider these apps (programs) if you aren’t using them currently. And finally, what do you find works the best for you?