Examples:
- Kid’s electronic toy that we loved is broken. Instead of throwing it away, I put it in a box because “surely, I’ll find the time to fix it”
- After moving, valuables are “temporarily” in plastic bags, because I’ll buy & assemble a showcase soon enough.
None of these things ever happen. I make the planning as if I did not an attention disorder. Although I had it all my life.
Now that I’m in treatment, I would have thought that my brain works in a way I’d need to get used to. But no, it just works in the way I always assumed when I made a plan.
It’s just so strange that the planning seems to assume an intact prefrontal cortex, rather than adjusting to how it actually works.
I always write myself a list of things to do in a day that’s so long I’d never get all of them done in a year. Yet the next time I make my to do list it’s just as long.
I’m trying to switch to making a “brain dump” list and then pick 3 things from there as my “to do.” It’s really hard to stick to my limit of 3. And if I get one done to I find I want to add a new thing so items 3 again, but that defeats the purpose of the limit.
I recurring problem is that I keep thinking “It’s just 3 things, plus that other one that happens on the way to #2 anyway, no need to write a list”. Then I keep wondering why I fall behind.
Only when I make a list, I realise how much there is to do, and that my plan is entirely impossible for one day!
On the other hand, it’s surprising how even the biggest “backlog” melts away like snow when I really do one backlog thing per day. In addition to “the dailies”, of course.
I struggle with this as well. Sometimes I let myself go into what I call “if you give a mouse a cookie” mode and do the things as they pop into my mind instead of following the list. It’s nice to not have to spend energy trying to keep my brain on task.
But usually I try to stick to my list. Things get on the list because either there’s an imminent deadline or it’s been bothering me and taking up too much of my mental bandwidth.