ADHD and time blocking does this even work and how well yes it does work how in a bit different way than the neurotypical because as a neurod Divergent person you are wired differently so any time management technique could work for you as well but in a slightly Twisted way so in this video I'm going to show you an evidenceprof technique that works for ADHD people when they want to optimize their time management and we're going to call it time loocking but you're going to see how it's bit different than what you expect and it has four main components but before we dive into that let's clarify a couple of things for example the essence of time blocking is a to-do list and why does a to-do list even help ADHD people well for two main reasons first is that you get to visualize your tasks when you have your things written down in front of you they are less abstract they're less ambiguous and just about anybody struggles with ambiguity but for ADHD people this is particularly frustrating so if you can reduce the ambiguity and increase the objective factual real things in front of you such as your tasks then you increase your chances to execute them and the second way how having a to-do list helps you as an ADHD person is that you don't have to remember things and I'm not sure anymore who said that but there's this quote how your brain is for thinking and creating and not for remembering things and I love this mindset because first of all as an ADHD person you are either frequently distracted by different moods and thoughts and ideas or you're just a normal human living in this information overload of society in fact our brains do not develop so quickly biologically as our Industrial Revolution develops so in a way our brains are not fit to perform that well in the society if we buil because the information we expected to process per day is beyond words so if you rely on your memory in order to be productive you're likely to fail classical time blocking versus the ADH DOA in a very quick way why classical time blocking doesn't work is because as an ad person you have different levels of dopamine per day and it's very difficult for you to decide how you're going to feel tomorrow at what time of the day you'll be able to execute what kind of tasks because classical time blocking looks something like this you have your calendar and you have everyday scheduled part tasks and within a certain time frame and the classical time blocking that you can learn a lot about from somebody like Ali abdal for example can really help you with productivity absolutely but for ADHD people it's extremely difficult to stay true to such rigid structure in the long term because as somebody who drives on challenge interest and deadlines having such rigid time blocking schedule will either bore you to b or make you very miserable or bold all right after all this let's now talk about time blocking by the ADHD way so the time blocking will start with a to-do list and the first step that you have to take is decide between digital device and pen and paper personally I would advise you to use pen and paper for optimal results because having it written down on paper with your own hand with your own handwriting in front of your own eyes gives more sense of ownership and then you're more committed cuz it's your own thing also writing things down is more complicated than writing on a device where everything is so quick and easy and there's a lot of research and psychologist is showing that we value things more when we put more time and effort in them so if you write your to-do list on a paper given how much time and effort you invested in it you will value that to-do list much more than the quick and easy digital device and the second Point why I would recommend you to use pen and paper is that it will actually allow you to disconnect a little bit from your phone because then you can literally put it away have the to-do list with you on a paper walk around and do your stuff and just really well pay attention to this I find it very difficult to have the phone even if I stop my notifications and yet focus on only my productive things I'll be tempted to check my Instagram maybe my email maybe my WhatsApp I don't believe in willpower I don't think you can achieve that much just because you're very self-disciplined I think you can achieve a lot more when you make the success easier than when you keep it complicated and try harder to overcome yourself like it's not not worth the struggle keep the Temptation away from you and then just focus on what is in front of you the Second Step will be to decide whether you would like to plan daily or weekly and here is where I recommend you have this combination of devices and pen and paper because I would say for the long-term commitments that you have for weeks and months that are planned in advance yes have the calendar use your device but for the daily task sit down in the morning and think about what would you like to do today what would you like to achieve today what would you like this day to look like and then make the list because first of all this is a lot more accurate than trying to plan it in advance but second of all this is how you start the day in a lot more intentional way because you're spending those 10 15 minutes literally designing your day versus running on autopilot hoping that the right mood will hit you at the right right time and you achieve your stuff like honestly I've never seen a sustainable productive technique that relies on hope so okay you may be one of those extreme cases that can achieve that but if you're one of the 99% of the population on this Earth don't rely on Hope just sit down think about yourself think about your goals think about your responsibilities write it down and then go ahead and kick ass step number three is color grading and for this two makes sense I have to give you a little bit of a story so when I was doing my psychology education I was very stubborn and I was very determined to finish quicker so I took two years for one I was studying in the Netherlands where we have four exam sessions which means you have seven weeks of lectures and then have exams in my case I had twice as many because I was squeezing two years into one and I was so stubborn to succeed that I was like you know what I will definitely use some time management Tech techniques I need to organize myself I need to do something extreme and this is the mindset that really helped me realizing that I'm doing something extreme this year is like nothing else therefore I will be doing something like never before and to me this is important to also tell you and encourage you to recognize time management techniques very often for ADHD people are only possible in the short term I know You' like to hear that you can start some thing and execute it forever but when it comes to structuring your studying structuring your days and having time blocking even when you modify it usually it will last until you achieve your goals but it's very difficult to have that kind of living every single day just because it's good ad people have that difficult relationship with dopamine and with attention with executive functions it's unless you are medicated all the time to like regulate it then I would just advise you use techniques when need it and then keep parts of them for the rest of your life okay but do not expect from yourself to be that perfect productive person 24/7 all right and after this little lecture on healthy productivity let's go into my color grading so I use four categories red was for responsibilities yellow for chores I'm going to explain the difference green was for it would be nice if I could and then purple was for things that make me happy now first of all what is the difference between category red responsibilities and category yellow chores responsibilities in red are things that are somehow connected to another human being your appointments at the dentist your work meeting even your appointments and dates with your spouse those are things that you you have committed to and they are involving another person you must do them otherwise you're going to lose money respect relationships you're going to lose something because this other person is somehow involved this is red yellow on the other side is chores that you better do but nobody will come and knock on your door if you don't do it for example going to the groceries that's a chore cleaning your house that's a chore paying your rent is also a chore as long as you don't overdo your Rend day but whether you're going to do it on Monday or Tuesday usually doesn't matter whether you're going to do it in the morning or in the evening doesn't matter chores that are not exactly specified in terms of time in another person yellow green again is it would be nice if I could for example cooking is a nice thing to do it's not the end of the world if you don't do it but it would be nice if you could cook instead of having a sandwich so having those healthy behaviors listed in front of you not only encourages you to do it but it helps you recognize when you don't have them because now that I'm talking about this you may find out that it's very difficult for you to find green items to add on your to-do list which is a signal that you should be paying more attention to those little improvements that you could do for yourself and category number four was purple things that make me happy and here we have to explain a few things first it doesn't need to be purple actually in general I'm using Color grading because I'm very visual person but if you instead prefer other types of categorization let's say you're more geeky you can use the Harry Potter houses for example anything that will keep you entertained because your ADHD brain will fail to follow if it's not entertained so you take the technique and you make it fun for you if you are to stick with it and the second important thing about this category is that you should choose at least one one purple item per day and that thing should be not hurtful to you and pay attention being not hurtful is not the same as being healthy very often I hear those like used interchangeably and I'm just so f up with it we're not robots that's not our goal our goal is just to feel well and to achieve things that matter to us so something that is hurtful to you for example is to drink all day yeah alcohol hurts you okay but scrolling on Instagram for example for an hour does it hurt you it's arguable if it's during the day and it doesn't affect your sleep if it's like between tasks and you're having your aone time for an hour even having your coffee and just scrolling and depending also on your content like for example in my case most of my content that I'm fed up by the algum on Instagram is actually educational I love to watch things about physics and psychology or space and I learn learn from those things also I have bunch of cat videos they make me laugh but if you find yourself indulging into this for hours and hours then of course that will be hurting you so use your common sense to make the difference between hurting and being healthy it's okay if the things that make you happy are not necessarily healthy that's fine you allowed just avoid the hurting things because again the goal is to feel well now I'm going to show you real quick some example of all this so for example during that period of my life I obviously had lectures and I had to read chapters for my exams and here you might be surprised to see going to the gym in purple but honestly I'm having the hyperactivity type of ADHD I find it difficult to stay still and studying or working on a desk just drives me nuts I need to move but I also live often times in countries where it rains all the time and my spirit anymore is cat I do not want to get wet so going to the gym actually something I very often look forward to do also it's my time when I allow my brain to be as silly and as not focused as it wants to be so it's like playtime like I go there I just do random things without any routine and I allow my brain to be final step number four is actually the thing that gets this technique the closest to time blocking so this is how a classical time blocking would look like you have the exact time the exact day the exact activity again very unsustainable for ADHD people but I highly recommend you that besides using whatever it takes to make the color grading fun also try to be a bit intentional with what time of the day you're going to do certain things because if you leave cognitively heavy tasks for later in the day there is a higher chance that you're not going to do it so I think about this a bit like in Netherlands and Belgium for example when you're trying to book a train ticket the app usually gives you options for like morning uh noon or evening uh trains and you kind of like set up this filter in advance so that you see the trains in certain category of the day and I kind of do the same with my tasks I'm like okay this is like morning afternoon evening and of course it's flexible that is the beauty of having a to-do list once you have the objective task in front of you and I actually like to call them items because psychologically if I call it items it puts less stress on it versus task because task to me sounds very corporative and I'm like I don't like it but okay I have the visual items in front of me and to me they're like blocks and they're different colors so I kind of like could move them around you know and this is the flexibility I need I may not do it because I would try to stick with like the categories of morning afternoon and evening but the fact that I could and if something pops up I could just take this and move it here that thought that autonomy that flexibility makes it more realistic to to me to keep up with this technique and I highly recommend you experiment with this as much as possible until you find your way to do it the way exists and oh my gosh this is the way I cannot even say that phrase without thinking about the mandelorian at this point but nevertheless the point here is that I want to encourage you stop trying to copy paste a technique and when it doesn't work you blame yourself for being too lame to use it or the technique being too broken and unefficient neither is the truth you just have to tweak things into your own way of [Music] living thank you for watching guys I hope this video helped you and I'm going to see you in the next video [Music] bye