Structure is the prerequisite for my ADHD brain to get things done and thrive.
Without structure, I plunge into chaos; the borders of important, fun, and urgent blend, and it becomes hard to make tangible progress. I've been experimenting with to-do apps for years and tried various ways to organize my to-do's. Some worked for a bit; some were quickly dismissed because they didn't provide enough of something - flexibility, structure, ease of use, sophistication. I always returned to pen and paper, and no digital solution retained my attention long enough.
Until 6 months ago.
And the combination of apps that worked for me turned out to be dead simple: Apple notes + google calendar. That's it.
Apple notes (or OneNote for Microsoft users)
Apple notes is an insanely powerful app disguised under its simplistic-looking first impression.
you can create to-do lists
you can organize notes into folders
you can create smart folders, and auto-assign new notes there based on different rules. I use hashtags to organize my notes
and, most importantly, Apple recently introduced hotkeys to open Notes on macs, or you can assign one of the hot corners to it as well
Google Calendar (or any other calendar)
There were tons of posts about why organizing your to-do's on your calendar is one of the most effective ways of boosting productivity. The key argument. is that we're often too optimistic about how much we can accomplish and plan too much. Scheduling your to-do's on the calendar gives you a realistic overview of the available time.
(Dead simple) process
All new tasks go into the inbox note (the one assigned to my shortcut)
Tasks that have to be done on certain days are then added to my calendar as an event. They are crossed off the note
Other tasks remain in the inbox until prioritized
Every morning, I move tasks from my backlog to 'to-do next' and create events in my calendar
Morning between 10:30 and 12:00 and evenings between 20:00 and 22:00 are my most productive hours. I try to do the most challenging things during these hours. Everything else goes in between.
Rinse and repeat
What is your process?
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