Brief Summary
This video addresses the ineffectiveness of traditional calendar blocking for individuals with ADHD and offers alternative productivity strategies. Lindie Botes shares her personal experiences and provides practical tips to manage time, focus, and distractions. The key takeaways include reframing time through task batching, leveraging tools like speech-to-text, using accountability partners, and building habits with rewards.
- Calendar blocking often fails due to vagueness, ease of rescheduling, and the perfectionism trap.
- Batching similar tasks, changing work environments, and using visual timers can improve focus.
- Accountability partners and distraction lists help manage tasks and maintain productivity.
Intro
Lindy introduces herself as someone diagnosed with ADHD two years prior and acknowledges the common struggle with calendar blocking among individuals with ADHD. She highlights the tendency to over-plan without executing and the disconnect between the promise of calendar blocking and its reality. Calendar blocking, defined as scheduling the day in advance with time chunks, often doesn't work for ADHD brains.
3 reasons why calendar blocking doesn't work for ADHD
Calendar blocking can be ineffective for three main reasons. First, it's often too vague, leading to decision fatigue when tasks like "clean my house" lack specific starting points and time estimates. Second, it's too easy to reschedule, especially with digital calendars, delaying the sense of accomplishment. Finally, it can lead to a perfectionism trap, where any disruption to the schedule causes the whole plan to fall apart.
Overblocking, distractions and helpful tools
Calendar blocking can be a double-edged sword, providing a target for attention but also leading to overblocking without considering cognitive load, mental energy, and distractions. Answering emails is presented as a significant productivity challenge due to the overwhelming number of unread messages. Speech-to-text tools, like Willow Voice AI, are introduced as helpful for productivity, allowing for faster dictation than typing across various applications and languages. Willow Voice AI is a voice dictation app that lets you write anywhere across your computer on voice.
Tip 1: Reframe your time and batch tasks
To address the issues with calendar blocking, Lindy suggests reframing how you see time and work by batching similar tasks together, especially for administrative work. Instead of scattering tasks throughout the week, dedicating specific time blocks, like Friday nights for all admin tasks, can be more effective. This approach creates a sense of excitement and accomplishment by completing similar tasks in one go.
Tip 2: My favourite productivity tips
Changing things up is beneficial for ADHD brains. Lindy finds it helpful to work in different environments, such as coffee shops, to minimize distractions and create a sense of urgency. Switching tools, like using a simple jotter notebook with a prioritized to-do list, can also be effective. She uses symbols to denote priority, urgency, and estimated time for each task, helping her decide what to tackle based on her mental energy.
Tip 3 and 4: accountability and timers
Having an accountability partner is very useful. Lindy and her friend Riley have weekly accountability calls to discuss top priorities and schedule co-working sessions to stay focused. She also recommends timing yourself instead of timing ahead to gather accurate data on how long tasks actually take. Using a visual timer can help visualize time and stay motivated, especially for those with time blindness.
What to do with distractions
Lindy's favorite productivity tip is to maintain a distraction list or "parking lot of ideas" on paper to avoid getting sidetracked. Writing down distracting thoughts allows you to address them later without derailing the current task. A clean, uncluttered desk also helps minimize distractions.
Bread is back!
Lindy addresses viewers' comments about the absence of bread in her background from the previous video. She also shares that she has finally put up her YouTube plaque and her dad helped her decorate the room, making it feel more cozy.
