Checklists are very simple time management, and organizational tools. Pilots have used preflight checklists for years, as a means to ensure that everything that needs to be done before take off is complete. Most medical facilities have incorporated checklists for safety in operating rooms, prior to procedures. As a mom with ADHD, getting my kids and myself out the door for school and work in the morning can feel overwhelming. I wrote about this last year in this POST. In that post I talked about creating morning checklists for yourself to help organize your mornings. Checklists are an easy way for adults and children to overcome the difficulties with organization and distraction that individuals with ADD/ADHD battle every day.This year the kids want to manage their own checklists. As they are just starting to read, I added visual clues to the checklists to help them and laminated them so that they can use dry erase makers and reuse them. Our mornings are not effortlessly organized, but they are a heck of a lot better than they are without the checklists. Checklists can help both adults and children feel more in control, and relieve the anxiety that can accompany ADD/ADHD that occurs from the chronic worry that we are forgetting something important. “But what if I lose the checklist?” I hear you saying, and prior to finding an application for my phone, my checklists were on scrap paper, and I would loose or misplace them and create more stress for myself as I ransacked my house or desk trying to find them. Trello (HTTPS://TRELLO.COM) is an application makes it easy to create note cards and checklists. The best part is that it is free, and no, they do not pay me to recommend this app. Unless you are using it for your business the free version is powerful enough to use for most people. Checking a list electronically lacks the joy that comes from scratching through a paper checklist but the benefit of not loosing my checklists has me hooked.Analog or virtual, checklists can be powerful weapons against forgotten items and tasks, try them and see if they make a difference in your life.
Did you procrastinate paying bills and get hit with late fees and bank charges? Did you put off getting the oil changed and now the repair bill is thousands of dollars because the engine is blown? Did you wait until the last minute the report was due to write it and miss the deadline and now the opportunity for career advancement is blown and you might lose your job? The root of all these terrible events is not bad luck it is procrastination.
Procrastination is a way of life for many individuals with ADD/ADHD. Overwhelmed by details and the noise in our heads, distracted by every little thing, and haunted by memories of impulsive decisions, we often put off doing what we need to do, and wind up forced into last minute decision making, bad choices, and the negative fall out.
Let me be clear, there is a difference between procrastination and forgetting to do things because you lose track of deadlines and details. I talk here , and here about using planners and timers for time management. I am talking about knowing that you have to do something that must be done and putting it off. Missing deadlines, appointments, not doing what you said or promised to do, damages your career, relationships with family and friends and can have catastrophic financial effects. Trust is built on keeping promises and commitments, repetitively missing commitments, and failing to complete tasks destroys trust.
Some people think that they work better under the pressure of a deadline. Research does not support this, and others judge procrastinators, labeling them as lazy. Most often people who chronically procrastinate are most often overwhelmed, are fearful of making a bad decision, and are paralyzed with fear. There are also chronic procrastinators that are perfectionists who rework a project to death and never finish it, leaving others to think that they are incompetent and lazy. If any of the above situations resonate with you, try these seven tips for over coming procrastination.
Procrastination has such negative effects, do not let it continue to derail your life. For more about how to get things done in your life and creating a time management plan that is personalized, I recommend this book: Time Management from the Inside Out by Julia Morgenstern
(http://www.juliemorgenstern.com/books/time-management-from-the-inside-out) .
I hope these tips help and as always do the best you can and be kind to yourself.