ADHD + Time Management – what 4 years of coaching has taught me

Head's up, there could be affiliate links ahead!

A lot of you write to me sharing your frustrations about how there’s so much more you want to do with your life. You have goals and dreams, but the minutiae of daily life—those endless tasks of adulting—are consuming all your time and energy. I get it. Personally, I know how overwhelming it can feel to just go through the motions without making any progress towards your personal aspirations.

While I haven’t completely figured it out myself, I’ve learned a few valuable lessons that might offer you some perspective on breaking out of this cycle. Let’s dive in and explore how to manage life’s minutiae effectively, starting with a reader’s heartfelt question.

The Daily Struggle: A Reader’s Perspective

One reader shared:

“My brain is so exhausted keeping track of the minutia that needs to be done daily and weekly in my life—bills, groceries, errands, maintaining a house, and having two senior cats. As a single female working full-time, there’s no energy or focus left over for important goals.”

This really struck a chord with me, and I know it will resonate with many of you as well. It’s a feeling that many of us know all too well: the many little things overpower the important goals, no matter how many brain dumps you do.

The Problem with Brain Dumps (Hint: It has nothing to do with Time Management)

First, I want to commend this reader for doing brain dumps. They’re therapeutic and can help clear your mind. However, there’s a common pitfall: turning your brain dump into a to-do list. This can be particularly dangerous for those of us with busy brains. The brain dump should be a way to release your thoughts and emotions onto paper. But it requires a crucial next step—discernment.

The Art of Discerning How to Prioritize Your Time

Building the skill of discernment is critical when it comes to prioritizing your precious. Look at your brain dump and ask yourself:

1. What needs to get done?
2. What can be delegated?
3. What can be deleted?

Honing this skill will help whittle down the overwhelming sense of minutiae. Acknowledge your non-negotiables—things like holding down a job and taking care of pets. But let’s be honest, some tasks feel urgent and important but they’re not.

The next step is to identify your goals clearly.

Identifying Your Goals

Do you know what specific goals you want to achieve, or are you overwhelmed by the idea that everything needs improvement? If it’s the latter, that’s akin to throwing fuel on your anxiety fire. Deciding what area of your life you want to improve can provide a clear path to a solution.

And when you know what you want, it makes time management a LOT simpler.

Setting Clear Goals

Assume you know exactly what you want to improve. Here’s what you need to consider next—your capacity meter. This includes not just your time but also your energy, focus, and financial resources. Your capacity will fluctuate, and it’s essential to be honest about your current level.

This is honestly a place where a lot of ADHD’ers get caught up, not only because we struggle to prioritize, but we also struggle with time blindness. So we tend to think we can do a LOT more than we actually can with the time we have.

If that sounds like you, then it’s time to start getting real about how long things take. How ever long you think something will take to complete, double it. Trust me, on this one.

Once you know what you want, and you have a reasonable estimation of how much time you can dedicate to it, it’s time to start planning for it.

Plan Your Week, Prioritize Your Goals

It’s crucial to have a structure and a plan to make your dreams and aspirations a priority rather than letting them be overrun by minutiae. Your minutiae will never go away and will always fill as much capacity as you allow it to. So how do you make your big rocks—or primary goals—a priority?

The Big Rocks Approach

1. Identify your big rocks: What are your most important aspirations that you identified above?
2. Plan around them: Schedule your week, month, and year with those at the top of your list.
3. Leave some white space: Life is unpredictable, and a little wiggle room helps you handle unexpected issues without losing focus on your goals.

A Practical Example

Imagine you’re this reader doing daily brain dumps. At the top of each page, write: My big rock is……..

Now, when you’re writing out everything you have to do, you have your north star in your mind. Then, when planning your weeks and months, ensure your daily schedules reflects your big rocks this by asking, “What is one thing I can do today that will move me towards my goal?” This doesn’t have to be the first thing you do each day, but it should be one of the first.

Non-Negotiables and Optional Tasks

Next, plan your non-negotiables: work, feeding yourself and your pets, paying bills. Be discerning with your brain dump list—what must get done, what can wait, what can be delegated, and what can be deleted?

If your to-do list exceeds your available time, cut items from the list but never remove your big rock tasks. Shrink your priority tasks if necessary—focus on what you can realistically achieve each day.

Using Tools to Visualize Your Goals

Let’s look at how you can visualize this system. I’m a huge fan of the Vision to Action Planner, which helps me prioritize and organize my thoughts. It’s not just a planner; it’s a whole life organizer. This system can be recreated with any tool you prefer, but the key is to always start by planning your big rocks first.

The Biggest Time Management Trap to Avoid

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from today’s post, it’s this: don’t let your goals and aspirations stay at the bottom of your to-do list. Routine tasks will always seek to dominate your time. But by prioritizing your most important goals, you’ll live the life you want to live instead of being stuck in autopilot.

Think of it this way, at the end of your life, would you rather be thinking about the big goals you chased and the dreams you fulfilled, or all the tasks you managed to check off your to-do list?

---

Here’s the TL;DR on Time Management (As I See It)

1. Daily Brain Dumps Are Fine: But don’t let the clutter in your head dictate your daily priorities.
2. Identify Your Big Rocks: Write down your primary goals and make them visible.
3. Plan Weekly: Dedicate a time each week to prioritize tasks aligned with your big rocks.
4. Use a Planner: Whether it’s the Vision Action Planner or another tool, find a system that helps you structure your thoughts and plans visually.
5. Be Honest About Your Capacity: Recognize that your time and energy are limited and plan accordingly.

Thanks for reading! I hope it inspires you to stay proactive and intentional about our goals.