ADHD Recommended Paper Planners
ADDitude Magazine, one of the best online resources for ADHD, recently asked readers to share their favorite paper planners. With the start of the new year, it seemed like a great time to share the article with my readers. For those of you looking for a little cheat sheet, below is my summary.
“...these readers had figured out what works for them and in the end, that’s all that matters. If you haven’t found a planner that works for you, these might be worth giving a look.”
First, many of the recommendations were general variations of the standard spiral planner. Some of the planners included reflective questions or goal setting. Some were simple and direct day by day or week by week planners. Others had their own “system” that went along with the planner. All were enthusiastically recommended by a reader. In other words, these readers had figured out what works for them and in the end, that's all that matters. If you haven't found a planner that works for you, these might be worth giving a look.
That said, there was one specific planner in this first group worth mentioning, the undated spiral planner. It’s straight-forward and simple and as the reader shared, it allows her “to populate the date. It saves the perfectionist stress that I’m ‘wasting’ a week if I need to skip it.” I always support anything that circumvents The Perfectionist!
Some of the planners did stand out a bit more to me. Two of these are planners my clients use: the Rocketbook and the Panda Planner. (Sidenote: these two companies have teamed up to create a Panda Planner you can use with Rocketbook that you can find here).
There was one planner system I had not heard of before, the Emergent Task Planner. I admit I am intrigued by it and will be doing a bit more research on it. David Seah has created a template that is free and printable on a one-sheet. It does involve a planning system, but seems rather straight-forward and simple. The one-sheets are simple enough with 15-minute tracking blocks and reminders for breaks. While I don’t think it would work for everyone, I have a few out-of-the-box thinkers I may recommend it for.
Finally, I was surprised no one included Bullet Journaling, a technique started by Ryder Carroll to address his own struggles with ADHD. Several of my clients use it to great success. It has gotten a bit of a bad rap from the overly beautiful and intricate "BuJo" Instagram accounts out there. However, it's usefulness is undeniable. It addresses one of my favorite quotes by David Allen: “Our minds were meant for having ideas not keeping them.” Whether with beautiful calligraphy or messy chicken scratch, your bullet journal is a space to capture everything. Every night I write out my schedule for the next day. I also write down all the movies I want to watch with my kids, and the books I want to read, the quotes that inspire me, and meals I would like to make in the future. I don’t rely on my mind to hold all those ideas because my mind would disappoint me and all those ideas would be lost. Instead, I rely on my favorite part of the bullet journal: The Table of Contents. At the start of every book, I write my table of contents to keep track of what page holds the movie list, the meal ideas, the packing lists, and ideas for future vacations. As I mentioned earlier, the key to a successful planner is that it works for you, and te bullet journal definitely works for me.
What works for you? Or, if you haven’t figured that out yet, what will you try next?