<story><title>Why I Procrastinate (2019)</title><url>https://invisibleup.com/articles/27/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kleborp</author><text>The post linked within this post was really illuminating for me: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gekk.info&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;adhd.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gekk.info&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;adhd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The section on why notecards and todo lists have never worked for him (and for me) was particularly salient:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The problem with &amp;quot;systems&amp;quot; is that they are authorities. They have to be. If you decide &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ll prioritize things with a stack of notecards&amp;quot; then you are telling yourself the following:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The notecards replace my own brain. Everything that I do must be on a notecard. If it isn&amp;#x27;t on a notecard, it can&amp;#x27;t be done. If I want it done, it has to be on a notecard.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that when you have a crisis (a day full of emergencies) that forces you to break from this system you will lose all respect for its authority. Your brain will learn that it doesn&amp;#x27;t have to respect the notecards, that they aren&amp;#x27;t in charge, and this sense of freedom is addictive and will persist. Most ADHD sufferers have left a trail of systems - notecards, whiteboards, lists, post-its, apps, alarms - that worked great for [a month, a week, three days] but are now dead to them, scorched earth we can&amp;#x27;t return to.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tiglionabbit</author><text>Definitely right.  Sometimes I look at notes I made for myself, telling myself what to do, and then ultimately rebel against my past self because I don&amp;#x27;t want to do what I&amp;#x27;m telling myself to do.&lt;p&gt;Systems are better when they&amp;#x27;re an augmentation of your memory that you can appreciate.  For example, I always put events in my google calendar so I can remember when they are and catch overlaps early.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had a bad relationship with todo lists.  They get stale really quickly.  If I look at a todo list that&amp;#x27;s a few days old, I might think, &amp;quot;Why should I do that now?  Why should I factor the work in this way?  Just so I can say I&amp;#x27;m done with this item?&amp;quot;  In practice, the way I factor a task changes constantly.  So now the way I do todo lists is more like an aid to my memory.  When I have time to do stuff (which is rare) I&amp;#x27;ll write down the things that are most important at that exact moment.  Sometimes I&amp;#x27;ll skim through todo lists from previous days to jog my memory, but I won&amp;#x27;t copy over everything.  I&amp;#x27;ll arrange the things into an itinerary for the day and see how many of them I can get done.  Usually it&amp;#x27;s not all of them.  And that&amp;#x27;s OK.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why I Procrastinate (2019)</title><url>https://invisibleup.com/articles/27/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kleborp</author><text>The post linked within this post was really illuminating for me: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gekk.info&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;adhd.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gekk.info&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;adhd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The section on why notecards and todo lists have never worked for him (and for me) was particularly salient:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The problem with &amp;quot;systems&amp;quot; is that they are authorities. They have to be. If you decide &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ll prioritize things with a stack of notecards&amp;quot; then you are telling yourself the following:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The notecards replace my own brain. Everything that I do must be on a notecard. If it isn&amp;#x27;t on a notecard, it can&amp;#x27;t be done. If I want it done, it has to be on a notecard.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The problem is that when you have a crisis (a day full of emergencies) that forces you to break from this system you will lose all respect for its authority. Your brain will learn that it doesn&amp;#x27;t have to respect the notecards, that they aren&amp;#x27;t in charge, and this sense of freedom is addictive and will persist. Most ADHD sufferers have left a trail of systems - notecards, whiteboards, lists, post-its, apps, alarms - that worked great for [a month, a week, three days] but are now dead to them, scorched earth we can&amp;#x27;t return to.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aequitas</author><text>You can use this to your advantage to create peace of mind as I found out.&lt;p&gt;The mechanism you describe is what is the basis for the &amp;quot;Getting things done&amp;quot; framework. You learn your brain to &amp;quot;trust&amp;quot; the &amp;quot;authority&amp;quot; so it can let go of all loose ends that keep your brain busy (like stuff it needs to remember, like appointment, paying a bill, fixing something in the house, etc). But if you are able to trick your brain in not checking in with the authority (as GTD dictates) you are left with a lot of spare room in your brain to think creative, at least thats my theory.</text></comment>