ADHD & Checklists are Frenemies

Apr 18
2 min read

In our search for a way to organize the chaos that swims in our brains, the tried and true go-to for most any situation - is a checklist.

But what happens when the very tool that's meant to aid us ends up making the situation even more stressful?

A person's brain has purple chaos spirals coming out of it. An arrow shows them going on to a to-do list that the person's eyes can then visually see

Checklists can be great for ADHD brains because they help us brain dump the chaotic thoughts and visually lay everything out.

They give us a starting point to begin planning and prioritizing our strategy to tackle the challenge.

But ADHD brains battle executive dysfunction, which means those two 'P' words are much easier said than done.

A person holds their face in overwhelm as a giant wall of check boxes with "To-Do" written next to them looms over her.

Checklists can also overwhelm and paralyze us. Once we get it all out on to paper or the screen, it can feel like an impassable wall of information that we’re not sure where to start on.

We can get overwhelmed by:

Not knowing what’s most important
What order to do it all in
How long everything is going to take

What can we do about ADHD checklist overwhelm?

Where to Start: Goblin.Tools Magic ToDo is an AI tool that allows you to write in any tasks you're struggling with and...
- Select how much you’d like each task broken down
- Estimate time
- Break down tasks further

When to Do It: Trevor AI is a tool that allows you to drag and drop your tasks directly into your calendar for it to break down and schedule around what you already have planned.

Need to do VS Want to do: Ask yourself the following questions to help determine this.
- "What’s coming up soon that has a deadline?"
- "Am I avoiding this because it feels boring, hard, or emotionally draining?"
- "Is anyone else relying on me to complete this?"
- "Am I using this task to avoid another one?"

Ta-Da’s After Your To-Do’s: The Zeigarnik effect is the psychological phenomenon where we fixate on what we haven’t completed yet, missing out on the precious dopamine from what we HAVE accomplished! Crossing off to-do’s is fine but try adding them to your Ta-Da list after they're done. It’s proven to help us feel better about our progress and achievements.

Become a master of your to-do lists with my FREE 'Focus Your Time' downloadable ebook

You've Got This,

Coach Brooke