Today, I’m pleased to introduce two firsts: my first Personal Organizing Case Study and my first video post.
I hadn’t initially planned to combine the two, but I struggled with how to create graphics and text to give you a proper tour of my most critical organizing tools. Despite my unwavering belief that I’m a much better writer than talker, video seemed like a natural solution.
Here, I talk about Bullet Journaling, and how I combine this system with concepts from David Allen’s Getting Things Done and Stephen Guise’s Mini Habits. I give you a tour of my Daily Log, and explain how and why I organize it the way I do.
As a first effort, this video might feel a little low-budget. I want to hear your feedback so I can direct my future efforts toward what would be most helpful. Please share your questions, comments, and requests in the comments below.
Links to books and resources mentioned in this video:
Bullet Journal
David Allen’s Getting Things Done
Stephen Guise’s Mini Habits
My Moleskine journal
A cheaper alternative to the big Moleskine
Hey there! Are you enjoying The ADHD Homestead?
Here's the thing: I don't like ads. I don't want to sell your attention to an advertising service run by the world's biggest data mining company. I also value my integrity and my readers' trust above all, which means I accept very few sponsorships/partnerships.
So I'm asking for your support directly. For the cost of one cup of coffee, you can help keep this site unbiased and ad-free.
Below you will find two buttons. The first lets you join our crew of Patreon pals and pledge monthly support for my work. Patrons also have access to my Audioblogs podcast. The second takes you to a simple donation page to pledge one-time or recurring support for The ADHD Homestead, no frills, no strings. Do whichever feels best for you!
Thanks for this video! I especially love the mini habits and the separate This Week section. You have given me some very helpful ideas to make my bullet journal work with my brain. Thanks again!
P.s. the video quality was more than fine. Easy to watch ☺
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Jaclyn,
I’ve found your website after recently being diagnosed at the age of 56. Out of all the websites, yours is the one that resonates the most with me – at times it’s like you’re inside my head!
Before I was diagnosed I knew at a subconscious level I was disorganised, but I just thought it was because I didn’t have time to be organised. All the ADHD websites talk about being disorganised, but yours is the first one I found that talks about time blindness. And when disorganisation and time blindness co-exist, meeting deadlines is a nightmare.
So I was excited to see your video post on how to bullet journal, because I think it could be a solution to my calendar/diary/postit note/list/scrappy note chaos. I like that your approach combined elements from different systems and it evolved as you figured out what did and didn’t work for you. I also need the tactile sensation of writing things down, and I like to colour code with pens and highlighters to help categorise items and determine priorities.
Do you find you use the index very much? And do you have a place where you keep a general ‘to do’ list of the things that need to be done and you’re likely to forget if you don’t write them down, but you know you’re not going to do in the next month or so? (You might have covered this in your post but I can’t go back and check it while typing this, sorry.)
Also, I use baskets too, as well as other types of ‘containers’ to hold things in one place such as ceramic bowls and Japanese lacquerware.
Thank you so much for an amazing website!
Toni
Toni — welcome! And I’m glad you enjoyed the video, it was a new thing for me and I hope to do more in the future.
I’ll actually be sending out a survey to my email subscribers soon to assess interest in a number of “extras”: audio versions of posts, more videos, short ebook tutorials on specific skills/issues, etc. Responses to that survey will directly impact my priorities in the future, so make sure you’re signed up! You should see a pop-down reminder at the top of the page, but if not, there’s a link on the Order from Chaos page as well.
Speaking of which, I’ll try to answer your questions briefly here, but a lot of this will be covered in depth in my upcoming book, Order from Chaos. It’s all about the daily grind of staying organized and figuring out works for you and your unique brain. Info on preorders, advance copies, and release date will also go out to my email list.
But I want to make sure I say here, too, that the index is the most important part of the Bullet Journal! I’ve kept a notebook for over 20 years running, and only when I discovered Bullet Journaling did I create a formal index. This allows me to find stuff after I write it down (previously quite spotty), which is a huge plus, to say the least. Without the index, my notebook would be far less useful, and I wouldn’t trust it for anything important.
My to-do list lives (mostly) in an app called Toodledo. I swear by David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) and the Bullet Journal isn’t quite powerful enough to handle all of that. However, people with fewer projects/to-dos might be able to use a Bullet Journal only for GTD. I go into this in far more detail in the book, but hopefully this is an okay overview for now.