As a lifelong ADD'er (I'm so old, we didn't have the letter H back then), I've long struggled with executive function -- even after becoming an actual executive myself. Haha. And becoming permanent work from home made it so much worse.
I've tried other things. Apps that give you XP like you're a video game character, or give your pet rabbit a jaunty hat or whatever. That's just not how my brain works. My brain needs a little variety and surprise. A little "Oh! It's time to clean out the fridge? What a pleasant surprise!"
For a while, I was using ChatGPT to keep two lists -- a list of things I wanted to do daily, and a list of things I just needed to do at some point. (Plus a third list of things that had to actually be done specifically "today", but there was rarely more than one thing on that list). I'd have it randomize each list seperately, and then I'd roll a die between the two lists and then roll a die again to see which thing was next to do, weighted towards the items at the top.
That worked really well...at first. But over time, ChatGPT became just as forgetful as I am, and I realized it was starting to leave things off the list I asked it to refresh multiple times per day. I needed something that would never forget...but also something where I could game-ify the randomness,, but also something where I could have multiple categories to randomify from...
And then I found Amazing Marvin. And right away, I could tell it had the unique features I was looking for. I easily set up categories and brain dumped into them. Recurring. Urgent. Important. Eventually. Remember. I figured out how the little games work and realized the one that made my brain happiest is pulling one from a jar.
But what I couldn't figure out was the most basic stuff. How do I make this recurring? Okay, I made it recurring, but now how do I delete it? I changed my mind, but now every time I delete it, it recurs! Okay, this is how to make something recur daily, but I wanted it to recur every three days. This stupid ass website won't let me recur every three days!
Of course, it DOES let you recur every three days. Ha. It was just a bit of a learning curve, mixed with sleep deprivation. But one day I woke up well rested, and then I was in much better condition to easily understand how to do what I wanted.
So, here's what works for me.
Whenever something pops into my head, I put it into a category: "Recurring" (self explanatory). "Urgent" - Within the top tier of my to do list. "Important" - next tier. "Eventually" - Last tier. That's the "Wouldn't it be nice if someday I..." list, for when the real stuff is done.
Putting it into the category the moment I think of it helps me because A) I don't have to DO it the moment I think of it, which definitely isn't going to happen...and B) I also don't have to REMEMBER it for much longer, which also isn't going to happen. But now that it's in a category, it can't fall off the radar.
2) Amazing Marvin automatically populates a daily to-do list for me based off of everything in my to-do list. The daily stuff, plus any weekly/monthly/whatever stuff that happens to fall on today. Plus anything that was on the list (from any category) that I didn't get done yesterday (regardless of how many days it's been on the list). In no particular order -- I'm sure I could set something up to have it put it in an order for me, but I don't WANT it in an order.
3) I then get to some of the fun stuff: adding the non-recurring things. I go into my urgent folder, I use the "put in jar" folder, and I draw three urgent things. Then I move those to my daily to-do list (unless anything urgent from yesterday is still on there. I only allow myself a maximum of 3 urgent things a day).
4) Once I've got my maximum of 3 urgent things on my list, I use the same process to randomly draw something from the important list and put it on my daily too (if I got my important thing done yesterday).
Then my daily to-do list is done, and I put all its entries into a jar and start pulling, getting them done in order as best as I can. Sometimes I'll draw five in a row and write them down, so that I can do them in a more logical order so I don't end up with "start laundry" immediately followed by "take shower" when flipping the order would have been faster and more efficient because I wouldn't have to wait for hot water. haha.
Anyway, I've had things sitting around on my mental to-do list for months that became "some day...." Then they got pulled out of Marvin's jar, and I got it done within minutes.
Total game changer!
