I have used many methods in my life, couldn’t get enough of finding and trying more and more. And some worked, even pre-diagnosis.
But here is a new one that I just found recently after watching Dr. K. here, and reading about Rubicon model in more detail.
When to use
- Already got a todo-list
- hard time getting started
General idea
Create internal motivation, rather than the pain of being driven by external motivation, such as deadlines or hunger.
How to do it
- Take the todo-list
- Look at each of the items for 30 seconds and run a “simulation” in your mind: What would it be like to start that now, what would be the effort/pain, and the short-term gain. Short-term gain is not when it is all done, but a few steps in. E. g. what it feels like when I just put the first piece of laundry into the machine. I even write notes about the “simulation”.
- Then pick one, IF you really feel like it. Otherwise, back to your shows & Lemmy - have fun!
Example
Initial list:
- shopping
- laundry
- cleaning
- online form
List after “simulation” phase:
- shopping
- get up from comfy chair
- away from tea & cookies
- shoes, bag
- outside in the rain
- at least would be on the way
- probably a no
- laundry
- get up
- some spread around, collect
- might just not do that one
- pretty low effort,
- feeling ok about it
- cleaning
- do I even have the cleaner
- probably better after shopping
- nah, let’s not
- online form
- at least not getting up
- one hell of an annoyance though
- show could keep playing
- might take 10 minutes
- could do
Based on that, I’d pick the online form task and go.
It’s weird, it makes no sense, but it works! This weekend, I got 6 out of the 10 things done I was supposed to do (better than 0, right?), but getting started required no discipline or pain. I just wanted to after doing the “simulations”. Other semi-successful weekends, I had to force myself to do at least the ones that create the most pain when not done, and it hurt.
A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
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I love this, thank you so much!!
I’m going to add another thing I’ve learnt in the past couple of years. No organisation method is perfect, and IT’S FINE to ditch a method and try a new one. No shame.
No, you haven’t failed, no, you’re not “incapable” of doing GTD or using Kanban or Todoist or whatever. It can be the case that your life has changed and what seemed like a good method 6 months ago, just doesn’t work anymore.
The reality is life changes quickly, and when you’re a student at 22 you need different strategies and methods to when you become an intern at 23 to when you have a decent but different job at 26 or when you become a manager at 38. And in between all those things there are many small steps - you move countries, you start living with your partner, you have a child, you start your own company, you decide “fuck it, I’m not working a 9-5 anymore and I’m going to live off advertising things on Tiktok”.
Whatever happens with your life, it’s a process, not something static. So as tempting as it is for us NDs, you can’t blame yourself when your method fails to contain the huge chaos of the neurodivergent mind. Plus let’s face it, if you have ADHD you’re likely to get bored of it and at that point it’s better to find something new than to just give up altogether on the idea of organising.
(Same advice applies to many other fields, e.g. exercising - gym might stop working for you but you can always start swimming, or bouldering, or whatever, up until your life changes and you get bored).
Thanks, same. I tried so many methods, most do NOT work for me, but the ones that do make all the difference. This one will certainly also not work for everybody.
Just by reading this, I really like the concept. Need to try it out and see if it sticks. Thank you!