Getting shit done with ADHD: defrag your notebook
Yesterday, we talked about the importance of writing everything down. I wrote…
I find it’s helpful to not be too precious about structure and organization.
Just get the stuff out of your head and captured in your notebook before your brain purges it from RAM.
Over time, you end up with notes that are a bit of a mess.
That’s ok. We’re prioritizing getting stuff captured over perfection. Trying to be too precious about it means you get analysis paralysis and write less stuff down.
But, you’ll periodically want to defragment your notebook.
Go through each item in your list or notebook. For each one…
- If it’s old, out-of-date, irrelevant or completed, delete it.
- If it’s an idea that you’re ready to act on, convert it into a todo item (with a checkbox).
- if it needs to happen in the future or on a specific date, add a reminder to your calendar or in your todo app.
If you’re working in digital, you can obviously just copy/paste stuff, delete things, and so on. If you’re working with a paper notebook, copy everything over to some fresh sheets.
A lot of productivity systems have rigid reviews that happen daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly. That’s… a lot!
I try to clean up my second brain “inbox” every week or so, and defrag other lists in my notebook when they start to feel messy or when the mood strikes.
As always, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, and don’t try to over-engineer it. Keep it simple!