ADHD and Planning

Planning especially prioritizing is difficult for most people. Few are born natural planners. Doubt me? Just take a walk through the self help section of your local bookstore. Teaching people to prioritize, plan, and manage projects is a multi-billion dollar industry. When you add ADHD the equation becomes much more complicated.

I have struggled with organization and time management most of my adult life. Long before I was diagnosed with ADHD. I did not understand why time management was so difficult. I went to the same classes as my co-workers. I bought the same planning systems. Yet, months later many were experiencing organizational success and my planner was gathering dust on a shelf.

I searched everywhere for an answer. I bought additional books. My personal self help library is over 500 books. I bought any planning system I could think of. Each time they would work for a short period of time but eventually would sit on the shelf. It was not until several years later that I would be diagnosed. It was like a light bulb clicked in my head. It was the missing piece of the organizational puzzle.

I have focused much of my ADHD research into the area of planning, organization, and time management. I have went from feeling like a failure and rarely finishing a project to being well on the way to my college degree and a successful professional. I am not any better than anyone else with ADHD. I just resigned myself to one fact, "my mind works differently and conventional systems do not work".

If the mold does not fit, change the mold.
Once I realized that conventional organizational systems did not work, I decide to devise my own system. I did not throw out what I had learned about conventional systems. I decided to merely tailor the existing systems. It is definently a work in progress. I would like to share with you my knowledge as it stands today, what I have learned, what has worked, and what has not. I call them my truths to ADHD planning.

Space does not allow me to explain each ADHD Planning Truth in one posting. I already tried and it would end up a book. Instead, I am making this the first in a series. I have listed each of the ADHD truths below. I will explain each truth in detail with a following article.

ADHD Planning Truths:

1. ADHD is not a mental disorder
2. Quit Trying to Focus
   
3. Keep a Master Task List
   
4. Free flow is important
5. Daily Planning will Kill You
6. Change Things Up
7. The System is Never Finished
   

I realize that some of these sound incredible. I promise you that each one has solid research and testing behind it. I hope you will return for each article. I promise you will look at ADHD and your potential differently, even if you do not agree with my findings.