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[dragonlady7]

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The problem with most organization tips is that they tell you WHAT to do, but not how to make yourself actually do it. That’s because most people can just, like, do something because they’ve decided they should. “oh yeah just put everything in a calendar” haha yeah i’m stuck on step zero which is “do the thing”.

we low-executive function types have to do things differently. identify and remove obstacles that prevent you from keeping a calendar/notebook/whatever. e.g., i used to write stuff down on random scraps of paper, or in different notebooks, or i’d forget to write it down entirely, even if I had a specific notebook that i was supposed to write everything down in.

Obstacles that kept me from writing everything down in the notebook: notebook was in my bag, I didn’t want to get it out. notebook was too big, so I didn’t bring it with me. I didn’t have a pen or pencil. The thing I wanted to write down wasn’t “important” enough to put in the “important stuff” notebook. The noteboook didn’t have an appropriate place to write down that particular thing, and it didn’t fit in with the category of stuff on the current page.

Solution: small, pocket sized notebook, with a pen loop, and a really nice pen that ALWAYS stays in the pen loop- I cannot separate the pen from the notebook for any reason. Notebook can fit in my pocket, and I made a rule for myself that the notebook comes EVERYWHERE with me. EVERYTHING goes in the notebook, no matter how trivial, and it goes on whatever page i’m on, no matter how disorganized it feels. Key feature of the notebook: ribbon bookmark, so I can easily skip to the page I’m on, and an elastic band to hold it closed, so I don’t lose pages in my pocket.

I also stuck a number of colored annotation tabs inside the front cover, so when I write something down that’s REALLY important (like a date), I can mark that page with a tab.

Another thing I do with my notebook that makes it really work for me, is every once in a while, I’ll go through the pages, cross off shit that’s no longer relevant, and rewrite EVERYTHING that I still need to think about on one or two pages. Then, I stick a red tab on the page that has everything I wrote. That way, I know that everything behind the red tab is irrelevant, and the red tab page is full of important stuff. Bonus, the process of re-writing makes it easier to remember the stuff. I also try to write a page number and the date on the corner of every page, but if I forget, it’s no biggie.

It’s a simple system that’s easy to maintain. The process of summarizing everything and moving the red tab is a self-motivating one, because I do it when I get annoyed at paging through twenty or thirty pages in my notebook.