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How do you stay organized/avoid procrastination?
After my last post on procrastination, it got me wondering what are successful strategies that are used by other Tilders to keep their lives on track.
When I was in university and needed to get myself on track to graduate after a bad year of school, I adopted the Getting Things Done methodology which worked great for me then, but I didn't find myself applying it as consistently post graduation.
I've been reading Atomic Habits lately as I want to improve my own habits, but I'm also thinking about a more general "how I want to organize my life" and be more proactive on managing things.
Are you a user of to-do lists, calendar reminders, sticky notes, or something less conventual? I'm interested in hearing about it.
By many metrics I am not really organized and procrastination is still something I deal with and is never truly going to be a non issue. But, that also comes with the territory of having ADHD. It also means that a lot of the methods mentioned in posts like this are unlikely to take hold at best and effectively absolute dog shit at worst (from my perspective, anyway). I very much recognize that they can work for other people. I just figured I'd throw in a slightly different perspective. Although I think that hyper-focussing on specific methods and trying to implement them as is without accounting for your own personality is a pitfall for many people.
I have met few people with ADHD who have been able to stick to a single system of staying organized. A lot of them feel guilty about it, which I think is the wrong mindset. It doesn't mean that I have given up on staying organized, it just means I have to approach things from a slightly different perspective.
One thing I have made peace with is that systems and methods sometimes stop working for me. Which has very little to do with discipline, it's just the way my brain is wired. The way I try to account for it is to keep whatever system I use as simple and low effort as possible. But also just accept that my ADHD brain just sucks at motivating itself once it gets bored. So, whenever a system stops working, and I can't trick myself in using it again I switch to a different system. New systems have a novelty factor which makes it easier to work with them and keep my brain engaged. One of the benefits of having ADHD is that if I haven't used a system in a while it also becomes "new" again. There are a few things I've used in the past I know I can sometimes pick again for a little while.
If there is one thing I have gotten good and consistent at, it is being aware of a system starting to fail and why, so I can start to figure out what to pivot to.
There are some consistent patterns to whatever I use. Specifically I need to actually write things down, not type them down, write them down. A large part of that doesn't have to be structured. In fact, most of what I write is stuff I will never reference again. But the act of writing out my thoughts does help me in creating order and helps me a great deal.
While typing this out I did remember a similar thread from a few years ago where I commented about having a system with two notebooks. That system is no longer in use. For a while I still used the bigger notebook for journaling, with various other things to keep track of daily tasks.
More recently I got myself a Supernote Nomad (e-ink writing tablet) which removes the need for different paper notebooks. For now, I just have different line based notebooks on the device for various things, I very much expect some of them to slowly be ignored and me exploring other ways to take notes. For that last bit, there are a ton of community made templates available for me to have fun with.
In that thread from a few years ago I also mentioned this
This is still true. I make use of a calendar for appointments both at work and personal appointments. But those are just tools for after I get my thoughts organized enough to be able to use them.
To wrap it up, for me it is an ongoing journey to see what works at the moment and making sure that whatever I try works for me. Regardless of people having ADHD or not, I think the latter really is important for anyone and many of the organizing methods out there don't leave room for that. Which, slight tangent, is true for a lot of methods for doing anything. As they are often the result of someone finding something that works for them and then assuming it works like that for everyone. Which, of course, is bollocks.
I am a procrastinator.
I have gained some insight from books written by therapists who have invested careers in exclusively counseling procrastinators.
Some procrastination is emotion driven and it can be fueled by several different types of emotion.
Some procrastination is a form of perfectionism about conditions needed to start tasks.
Some procrastination comes from fear of failure.
Some procrastination comes from resentment of the task.
Some procrastination comes from habitually underestimating the time needed to accomplish things.
Starting a task intending to only spend ten minutes can be effective because once started, people tend to spend more time.
I am still a procrastinator.
Funny that you mentioned Atomic Habits, which is a book that I want to read someday, as well the thing (habits) that has helped me.
I can’t remember who I learned this principle from, but years ago, I was made aware of the pitfalls of relying on willpower to get things done and avoid procrastination: When we wake up in the morning, depending on how we slept and a whole bunch of other factors (some of which we can control, while we can’t control others), we’re “given” a certain amount of “power of will” and “power of decision” (they overlap a lot, but I just want to give them different names to clarify what I mean).
As the day moves forward, and we become mentally and physically tired, that “power” decreases. Its “battery” begins to run low. It is drained both by general activity, as well as by “using” that power itself. Every time we, for example, resist eating unhealthy food for the sake of sticking to a better diet, our power of will decreases a bit. Every time we, for example, are confronted with a decision about which groceries to buy with our weekly budget, given the overwhelming options at the store, our power of decision decreases as well.
This is a side note, but my wife and I will check on each other whenever we bring about important decisions that are not absolute emergencies late in the evening. It just becomes frustrating. We wait until the following morning, and often find that the overwhelm that we felt the night before suddenly vanished, and it becomes easier to make a decision. For us, the evening is the absolute worst time to worry about problems that we need to deal with or decisions that we need to make.
But I digress.
Keeping in mind that power of will and power of decision are finite and unreliable at best, I have, over the years, developed strict habits in some aspects of my daily routine, which help me to make the best use of my time almost unconsciously, and without feeling drained in the process. They also become the foundation for building habits of productivity on top.
To give you an example of what that looks like, I’ve had a fairly consistent morning routine since about 2017, when I got married. My wife and I both go to bed at around 9 PM. We wake up at 5 AM (yes, every morning, without fail). We each spend 30 to 45 minutes reading (my wife also journals). Then we read a few more pages of a book together. My wife then takes care of the cats, while I prepare breakfast. We then eat breakfast together (we often also watch an educational YouTube video while we eat). I then wash the dishes, while my wife takes care of other chores.
Somedays I wake up feeling pretty exhausted and not quite present, but by the time my mind is fully awake, I have somehow sleepwalked through this entire routine. It sets me up for a good and productive day even if I didn’t wake up with a lot of energy or willpower. And again, this has been a habit of mine (ours) since 2017.
And of course, since we have these habits, we can built other ones on top of them more effortlessly. For example, I have been unemployed for a few months, so to not waste my time, I have been writing in the mornings. Last week, I published a book on Amazon. I was only able to spend several hours writing in the morning for all these months, because I arrived at my desk almost unconsciously, after going through my usual morning routine. I didn’t have to force myself to do the hard task. Once I opened up that .docx file, my mind was set on writing.
I should add that we also have an evening routine.
Now, to some, this routine may seem excessively strict. I don’t want to make it seem as though a break in my routine would completely derail me. On occasion, we do make changes. For example, sometimes my wife goes to visit her grandmother who lives about two hours away by bus. On those mornings, we change our routine up a little bit so she can leave the house on time. Furthermore, once I get employed, my routine will obviously have to be tweaked somehow. We’ve tweaked it a lot over the years, always in accordance with our current needs.
What matters to us the most, is that we stick to a routine, of whatever kind. Changing circumstances often require us to be flexible, but as soon as we have dealt with them, we make an effort to return to a routine and to the habits necessary to maintain it.
I am a firm believer that habits are more effective than willpower.
As for lists and things of that nature, years ago, I tried to build my habits around them, but it somehow didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s a personal thing, but I feel better when I follow my habits unconsciously. If I follow them consciously, then my routine outside of my workplace begins to feel like an extension of work, where I’m checking off tasks and whatnot. I want my routine to be a conduit for a better work-life balance, and not just another way of keeping myself busy (my routine also includes recreation, by the way). So, keeping track of things isn’t something that I do. But again, that’s just me.
I use the Reminders app on my iPhone Xr, but not a whole lot. Checking on it now, I have a total of five recurring reminders, ranging from when my next hair cut appointment is, to a weekly reminder to shave my face, a biweekly reminder to trim my nails, and two reminders related to paying bills. All of these are things that aren’t daily routines, so I would forget about them if I didn’t set reminders.
Hope any of this was useful or inspirational.
Regarding your sidenote, my spouse is fond of quoting the proverb "Mornings are wiser than evenings," from various Russian fairy tales (namely Vasalisa the Beautiful, but also Vasalisa the Wise, Finist the Bright Falcon, and many others depending on translation). It's become a shorthand in our household to remind each other to avoid panicky decisions when we're tired.
I appreciate you taking the time to share this! My morning routines went out the window a bit after having kids, but now that they're older, and I'm working more regularly, things have started coming together. I've found that making sure I wake up early enough to get through my own routine helps me in the mornings. Sadly my kids will throw things off, like this last week when my wife had a work trip and my kids were sick, everything from our nightly routine and morning routine were thrown off due to their sleep schedule being out of sync.
I think your reply was very useful, and I'll probably come back to reflect on it again later once I'm back home from my current travels and start getting into the swing of things.
I am someone diagnosed with ADHD but not until I was in my 30s. The only way I have gotten past procrastination is to just get started. It doesn't matter how small the task in the larger project, just start with something. I do use lists for personal and work projects but I find it hard to keep them updated. However if I know the vague idea of what needs to get done and I can get started ..that's when progress happens. Need to clean the entire house? Just pick up your socks under the bed. Need to build a planter box for your yard? Maybe draw a picture of the finished product.
It's solid advice. Apparently, for people with ADHD, a lot of procrastination is due to the difficulty of breaking up big tasks in smaller tasks. And from there, what then to start with. It basically isn't as much procrastination but a sort of deadlock that is difficult to get out of. Just picking any part of that bigger task, even if it might be the "wrong" thing to start with will help in breaking out of that deadlock.
I agree with this advice.
And as another user, boxer_dogs mentioned, perfectionism is a part of some procrastination, and this advice "to do something", anything regardless of where it falls in the linear description of the process is helpful to break that barrier as well.
I will say it's extremely frustrating to feel you can't even break a task down into smaller tasks, and forcing yourself to do something or to actually move on/not do it can be really confusing. Thanks, ADHD.
If I stay off social media and let myself be bored usually I’m more motivated to do the task in front of me.
Sometimes I end up cleaning the house instead.
Progress either way
I'm 67 and a top procrastinator. on a PPA scale of 4.0, I'm a strong 3.8, have been all my life. Who cares, not me.
I used 3x5 index cards and a yearly planner (physical book) [leuchtturm1917 - Weekly Planner 2025 # 801617, size: Paperback (B6+) 5 x 7.5 in., Softcover, forest green].
I just moved off Google calendar and using the book planner with a med black ballpoint pen. I've used the 3x5 cards for about 45 years.
Thanks for sharing! I enjoy having physical reminders, but I ended up going digital since I work on my computer most of the time, and it was more convenient being able to have the system follow me around between systems or be easily transferrable.
My wife still does physical planners, which work well for her and her work.
I used to be an excellent procrastinator. At some point in my mid 20's though I realized I kinda had to do something about it or my life would fall into ruins. So I guess I just stopped putting stuff off and started doing things immediately (if possible). That helped a lot.
There's a bit of brain training there where getting the task and then immediately completing it so never even makes it to the to do list feels good.
Obviously that doesn't work for everything. I've tried lists and I don't use them very well. I usually set myself some time in the day and talk myself through (or preallocate) what I need to do in that time. Like last week I remembered I needed to change the tires on the car, so I decided I was going to do it on Sunday afternoon.
I won't pretend it's a great system, I'm working on it!
I appreciate the candor, I feel like I have some things that I'm great at getting started on, but there are others that will get put off for one reason or another (which is me making excuses).
As I'm reflecting on this, I think taking your approach and just scheduling a time to do it will probably help with a lot of this, since adding in that actionable time is a big piece in doing something in a lot of cases.
The one thing that has helped me is, to not acknowledge that I'm starting the whole process, I'm not going to necessarily clean all of the blinds in my place, I'm just going to start and go for a few minutes. I just have to start.
And if I just start, like I'm just going to do it for a few minutes - then I'll always keep going until I'm finished. I just need to do the first thing or the first few minutes of the thing and the momentum carries me through the whole thing.
It really only takes like a second of willpower.
That's a fair point, I know that once things get going they tend to have their own momentum.
One thing that has "helped" me be more productive was realizing that when I'm stressed about work or something, putting my environment in order helped. So instead of scrolling or not doing anything I stress clean which helps me feel like I'm doing something, gets me to move around, and takes care of a chore later.
I need to just take that first step for a few things I've been putting off when I get back home from my trip, and I'm guessing that will be enough to get me to finish with those tasks.
First, speaking for myself, I schedule a rest time. I realized a few years ago that procrastination isn't a laziness thing but an emotion and energy regulation issue. I might not want to do whatever task, because I'm either too tired or mentally hung up on something. That rest period allow me to mentally and physically check out, but do this in a healthy way like watching some TV or take a nice bath. Something that recharges you. Then, I use those rest period as a motivator to get shit done. Like if I do xyz, then I can rest afterwards.
Second, try to do the smallest task first or whatever is easiest to do. Mentally, I'm trying to figure what's the easiest way to get back on the horse so to speak, so whatever I have to do doesnt seem so daunting. Personally, I prefer to do easiest task first then the hardest, and then go from there.
I've always been a procrastinator. I don't have ADHD. It's someone I've thought about a lot, though. How bad my procrastination is ebbs and flows over time, and there's a pattern.
I have noticed a combination of things that make my procrastination worse.
The first is priorities. If I start reading a book that I become obsessed with or playing a video game every day, my procrastination worsens.
The second is what I've taken on. I'll keep adding more and more plates to spin until it all eventually comes crashing down. I realized years ago when talking to a therapist about what I do in my free time. My answer was something like, learning ASL, studying for the HAM test, learning to draw, and I think there were a couple more things I was doing every day. He suggested that it was too many things at once and that I should pick one or two. I didn't listen, but it made me pay attention when most of it collapsed on me. I ended up sticking with two things after that.
The third is that I keep taking things on that I want to have done but don't actually want or even need to do.
So now when I'm feeling overwhelmed in my personal life I make a list of the things I'm doing to see if I can drop or delay some of them. This is a complete list and includes things like chores, I might be able to get help with one or two. There is no magic number here, just an acknowledgement that it feels like too much and an honest look to determine what is currently the most important to me.
There are only so many hours in a day.
All of this is coming from a place where I can choose what to do with my time and there are no strings attached. I'm not a parent. I don't have one or more sick relatives to take care of. The only things relying on me to live are my cats, who I got an automatic feeder for.
I'm a chronic procrastinator (and even moreso recently) but something that's helped me in the past with my job is a to-do list in my notebook. The way I format it is I'd have the to-do list at the top of the page, in its own persistent strip. I'd put check-marks next to things I've finished. At the end of the day, I'd review the list and put crosses next to things I didn't get to. Then, I'd take as much space as I need to for notes for myself. I'd put stars next to things I know I'd refer to later, like notes from code pair sessions or technical discussions. It was a great way to both log my work day by day while also keeping notes for future reference.
I've been using Tasks.org since back when it was Astrid Tasks, before Yahoo bought it, shut it down, and it was resurrected as an open source project. Now there are a few useful features in the premium version, but it provides a lot of value for a very reasonable price.
The most important feature is that dismissing a task takes a series of conscious clicks. If I accidentally swipe off the notification, it comes back 15(?) minutes later. If I restart my phone, the task notifications come back. Not losing the tasks or accidentally dismissing them is key.
The second most important feature is the snooze. With three clicks I can snooze it to one of a preset set of times. For example, late in the evening, I can snooze it "for an hour" or to 9 AM, 1 PM, 5 PM, or 8PM of the next day. I can also choose a custom time and date to snooze it to.
I can make recurring reminders. I have lots of daily reminders for things like "take your pills". I have weekly reminders for things like "do your kids laundry". These are very flexible, so they can be every day, every Tuesday, the 1st of each month, etc.
In addition to my recurring reminders, I make a task for anything I need to remember to do when I first think of it. I set it to come due when it will be actionable for me for some things, that means setting it for when I need to remember something, like "remember <daughter's> clarinet" coming up on the mornings of lesson days. For things that are not immediately time sense I've, I set it for the next time I think I might be able to do / work on it. If I can't do it then, I snooze it to the next time I think I can work on it, and so on.
What's great about this is that when I hit a lull in my schedule (like the time between dinner and bed, or early Saturday morning), I have a list of things waiting for me. If I'm not feeling motivated, as long as it's not urgent, I allow myself to kick the can down the road.
If I do too much snoozing, I end up with a larger number of tasks coming up at once. That can help though, because then one will feel "easiest" relative to the others, so it will be easier to start that one. As others have noted, getting started is often the hard part. Once I clear one task and get the dopamine hit from checking it off, it becomes easier to do the next one. So I'll often go a while with things piling up, then clear a bunch of things at once.
The app has list views, sorting, tagging, categories, etc. But I almost exclusively interact with it through notifications. The only time I open the app is to create a new task.
One other way I use the tasks is to remind myself to cancel things when I sign up for a trial. I'll set the reminder a few weeks back from the actual end date, which gives me some cushion to find a time to cancel it.
I'm a big procrastinator as well, and I've not found the thing that works for me, but I was recommended a very interesting article on "The Zeigarnik Engine", which flips the whole problem on its head, in a sense, by doing the opposite of what Getting Things Done wants you to do.
I've not figured out how exactly I can do that while also grappling with burnout-y things, but it has definitely broadened my perspective.
Easy, I put off procrastinating until tomorrow.