Work planning with ADHD (or not)

Work planning helps me be productive even though ADHD makes it challenging for me to regulate my attention and direct my focus. Of course, everyone finds it hard to focus sometimes! So these work planning strategies can work for everyone, not just people with ADHD.

My approach to work planning evolved over many years while I was part of a small but ambitious team at Lawyerist. Now I am using the same system as part of the small but ambitious LIT Lab team at Suffolk Law.

This work planning system:

• Takes inspiration and elements from well-known systems like Getting Things Done, Kanban, and Scrum
• Encourages ideas and gives you a way to collect them so they don’t get lost
• Helps you avoid getting distracted by shiny new ideas
• Gives you a variety of things to work on that are all worth doing

This is a long post, but I promise the system is pretty simple. Still, if it seems overwhelming, feel free to skip to this tip. Otherwise, read on!

Inspiration for this work planning strategy

Collecting everything in one place

I had been doing a simplified version of the Getting Things Done productivity system for years—especially the part about getting everything out of your brain and into a trusted system. I can’t trust my brain to remember things, but I can write everything down so I can find it again. It’s the only way I can actually set work aside at the end of the day and relax.

So collecting every idea, task, project, etc., in one place—the inbox—is key.

Quarantining new ideas

I was an entrepreneur full of ideas and I started a business with another entrepreneur full of ideas. Later we teamed up with a third entrepreneur full of ideas. We were all constantly dropping in on each other to say “hey, you know what we should do …” We would usually kick around the new idea for a while, and sometimes I would get so excited about the shiny new idea that I would drop everything and start working on it.

A lot of good things came from those ideas, but we also spent a lot of time (and money) getting distracted by shiny new ideas that didn’t work out. To help us avoid this we decided to “quarantine” all new ideas.

Quarantining new ideas means separating the idea from the decision to do something with it. We did this by collecting ideas in an inbox and not doing anything with them until later, at our weekly work planning meeting, when we decided what to do with them.

Deciding what to do next

At the same time I was struggling with focus. I didn’t know about my ADHD yet; I just knew I was bad at deciding what to work on and then getting it done. Quarantining ideas helped, but I would still pick whatever caught my interest.

GTD doesn’t really include task prioritization. You’re supposed to sift through a list of “next actions” and decide what to do next based on context, energy level, etc. ADHD makes this challenging, at best, and I would often spend hours on something interesting that could have waited instead of something I really needed to do. I needed fewer, better-prioritized options.

My solution was to carefully curate my to-do list. With help from my business partners I made sure everything on my to-do list was a good use of my time now, realistic for the time I had available. I also made sure there were a variety of things on my to-do list so I wouldn’t get bored and distracted as easily.

Core components: three lists and a work planning session

The core components of this system are three lists and a weekly work-planning session. They are easy to understand, use, and maintain—hopefully even intuitive. It can be adapted to many list-making tools, but I have shared my Notion work planning template to help you get started. (You can use Notion and my template for free.)

The three core lists are:

• Inbox (stuff)
• Backlog (stuff worth doing)
• To do (stuff worth doing now)

(In my template there are some additional lists that I will explain below, but they are optional.)

You will also need to set aside time for a weekly work planning session.

Inbox

The inbox is a list for capturing every idea, task, project, question, problem, issue, request, proposal, book to read, etc. (I use task and project more or less interchangeably to mean any of those things.) Get them all out of your head and into your inbox until your next work planning session.

The point is to introduce a pause between the idea and the decision to do it. If it was a good idea at 2:34 a.m. on Saturday morning or 4:59 p.m. on Wednesday it will still be a good idea when you consider it again on Monday.

The only time you should skip the inbox is for an actual drop-everything emergency, and those should be rare once you have gotten organized.

Backlog

The backlog is a list of tasks and projects worth doing that you have scoped and prioritized during your work planning sessions. Everything in the backlog should be ready to pick up and work on, with an actionable title, size estimate, checklists, notes, dates, etc.

I keep my inbox and backlog separate from my to-do list so they don’t distract me from getting work done.

To do

This is the list of things worth doing now, limited to what you can realistically accomplish between one work planning session and the next. This is the list you will work from.

Weekly work-planning session

The weekly work-planning session is where the system comes together. Do your best to make it a “sacred” time block at the start of each work week, and if you have a manager or business partner they should join you.

Here is the agenda:

1. Review the previous week
2. Scope and prioritizing the backlog
3. Populate your to-do list

Let’s break those down.

Review the previous week

Take a minute or two to reflect on the state of your lists at the end of the previous week? Is your to-do list still full? Do you have a bunch of blocked tasks stuck in progress? Were you as productive as you thought you would be?

If there are too many tasks unfinished—or if you finished all of them—you must have under- or over-estimated one or more of these:

• The size of things on your to-do list
• The number of things on your to-do list
• The hours you would be able to focus on the things on your to-do list

Use what you learn to make adjustments going forward.

Scope & prioritize the backlog

Go through your inbox, one task or project at a time, and decide what to do with each one:

1. If it is worth doing, move it to the backlog, scope it, and prioritize it
2. If it might be worth doing but you can’t decide now, leave it in the inbox or move it to a someday/maybe list
3. If it is not worth doing, delete it or move it to a list of abandoned ideas

Scoping means clarifying what the task or project is and estimating the time required to do it. To scope a task or project:

• Make the title actionable—a complete sentence that describes the work to be done
• Add sub-tasks (also with actionable titles) for each step necessary to complete the primary task
• Add any notes, links, or attachments you’ll need
• Add a size/time estimate for the task or project

When it comes to estimating the size of a task or project, just use “T-shirt sizes.” Here are the rough time equivalents to T-shirt sizes as I think of them:

• XS = less than 1 hour
• SM = 1–4 hours (half a day or less)
• MD = 4–8 hours (1 day or less)
• LG = 1 day to 1 week
• XL = more than 1 week

Obviously any of these might stretch over multiple days, weeks, or months. The T-shirt size is just a starting point to help you keep your to-do list (and if you have a manager, their expectations) reasonable.

Prioritizing just means moving each task up or down the backlog so that everything above it is more important, and everything below it is less important. If it is not obvious which of several tasks is the most important, it probably isn’t all that important which order you put them in. Don’t get hung up on prioritizing. Just get close.

Keep going until you get through your inbox, or until you have 10–15 minutes left in your work planning session. Make sure you leave enough time to populate your to-do list.

Decide what to do next

The goal when populating your to-do list is to fill it with a variety of tasks and projects, all worth doing now, but only as much as you can realistically do over the next week. Or maybe a bit more so you don’t run out of things to do. I aim for about 120% of my available capacity.

In order to do that, you need to estimate your capacity—how much time you actually have to be productive during the coming week. Start with your total work hours and subtract meetings, breaks, and administrative tasks like, email, team chat, etc. (It’s probably a bit more or less than two thirds of your total work hours.) Multiply your capacity by 1.2 to get your to-do list target.

For example, if your capacity is about 25 hours, your to-do list target should be about 30 hours. (My Notion template displays the total estimated time at the top of the column.)

As you populate your to-do list, consider time and variety. A reasonable to-do list has one or two big projects to work on but not necessarily finish, plus a handful of smaller tasks. Small tasks give you easy wins that help you stay motivated to keep the big, important projects moving forward.

Optional lists

If you checked out my Notion template you will notice several tabs/views and a few additional lists that I didn’t mention above. I don’t think they are essential, but I do think they are useful. Here is what they are for.

On the GSD (Get Shit Done) tab/view: In progress and Done.

• The In progress list helps me remember what I was working on when I open my computer in the morning or after lunch
• Moving cards to the Done list triggers a release of dopamine and reminds me that I am getting shit done!

On the Backlog tab/view: Scheduled.

• I use the Scheduled list for anything with a deadline, because deadlines are a different kind of priority

Other lists: Someday/maybe, Abandoned, and Archive.

• I prefer using the Someday/maybe list over leaving things in the inbox. I don’t look at it very often, but everyone once in a while I check to see if there is anything that should move back to the inbox, delete, or abandon.
• The Abandoned list is for ideas I’m not quite ready to delete, or that made it to the backlog or to-do list but were later dropped. I never look through this list, but sometimes my notes about a project are useful for something else.
• After I review last week’s tasks I move the cards to the Archive list so I have a record of what I did.

Using my Notion work planning template

I’ve mentioned my Notion work planning template a few times. I have been using and refining it for a while now. Here are some tips specific to my Notion template that may not apply if you adapt it to another tool.

• Click Show description above the title (visible when you hover the cursor above the title) to see the t-shirt sizes I use and add your to-do list target.
• Use the Backlog tab/view during your weekly work planning session, but ignore it after that. Work from the GSD tab/view.
• Checking the Blocked checkbox automatically moves the card to the bottom of its column and gives it a gray background in the GSD tab/view
• The Start date and Due date properties will automatically populate the Start/due label property, which will be shown on the front of the card
• The number next to the column title (i.e., To do 17) is a rough estimate of the total hours of work represented the cards in that column, based on the size estimates

Now, get to work!

When you sit down to work, start by opening up your work plan. After all, this only works if you use it! Keep it open in an app or browser tab all day, or on your desk if you use a paper work plan.

Start your day by reminding yourself of what you are working on (the In progress column). If you get bored with what you are doing, check the To do list for something else you could work on. Or send a round of nudges for blocked tasks. When you get an idea, put it in the Inbox and move on.

If you commit to work planning—with ADHD or not—and make it your trusted productivity system, you will see results!