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Toodledo for ADHD
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pocketapocketaqueep |
Hi all,
[The following is a complicated series of questions relating to GTD's suitability for ADHD and Asperer's syndrome. Those uninterested in these questions or unable to read an involved post, do not read on.] First an apology. I imagine that many, if not all, of the questions are about to ask are answered elsewhere. I can imagine this is frustrating. My excuse is that I am turning to Toodledo having tried numerous other such applications, have a limited budget of time and money, and very limited resources of concentration. I have ADHD. I do not have the time, concentration, or patience to further research this area, which was intended to save me time, but has perhaps done the opposite. I would like to ask a few questions about functionality. Again, an apology that I am going into great detail here. 1> Can I postpone or defer (skip) tasks which are intended to repeat at regular intervals. This is important to me and some of the alternatives, such as Omnithink, became quickly unuseable when, for example, I set tasks such as repeating tempo runs [I was training for a marathon] which I had to skip when I became injured. If I had ticked them as completed, I would have a false impression of my achievements. If I had cancelled the repeting task, then I would not know that I am falling behind with the necessary business of training for the marathon etc., or, alternatively, I would not know that the task is unrealistic for me as some things are. The deferment/skipping of a task was useful because I knew I was doing it. Ideally, deferring a task in this way should be logged. 2> Is there any way of making the status of a task - ie. active or otherwise - dependent on the completion of another task? There are many occasions in which I consider this very useful. It would help me to have a less cluttered To Do box. For example, a motorbike test in the UK is done in stages, and I cannot progress with the second stage until I have passed a Theory Test. Ideally, I would love to have this possible even on a micro-scale, and/or, for the productivity rating of a task (if such a thing exists), to be contingent on whether a different task has been completed prior to it on the same day, eg., maybe I want to check the balance of my bank account, enter a question into a GTD forum, and read the newspaper, but perhaps these things, though productive, is less so if I am using it to procrastinate from my main task of the day, continuing the writing of a short story. 3> I like to conceptualise tasks as mood-states rather than concrete places. I have never been sure if this works in a GTD. For example, since I have x number of mental health problems, from high functioning autism to ADHD and fluctuating mood, I need sometimes to tailor tasks to my mood: ie. I may be a little aspergic (autistic) and may only [meaning exclusively, rather then merely] be able to focus on geeking out on photo editing on Photoshop LightRoom. Alternatively, I may be very restless and need some high stimulation physically active creative tasks such as cooking or running. I may be depressed and perhaps ought to activate positive routines such as exercise or getting out into nature. I may be lacking all structure - something that leads for me to states of high anxiety and can quickly lead to a motivational paralysis, self neglect, eating foods that trigger my ADHD etc. - and in such a state I ought really to reassess my priorities, goals etc, and reassert those that are positive.. Sorry, I realise that this is a complicated business, but I have a complicated head. Maybe I am misunderstanding what GTD is and should be, but if I could label tasks as being appropriate to more than one such "context", perhaps a mood state and a physical space, ie. 'restless' and 'exercise', or 'geek out' and 'computer', then that would seem to suit me. 3> Can I downgrade and or "turn off" projects as being current/not current? The problem is that I have two competing sides of my personality, the obsessive autistic side, and the scattershot, centrifugal ADHD side. One wants to focus on writing, learning grammatically compllicated languages and reading long and complicated books. The other wants to run, do greenwoodwork, play guitar, and learn to climb. The two do not get on, and systems created for one do not suit the other with the result that a system with too little flexibility, locking me into reading one book at a time which I genuinely want to have read, and usually even enjoy reading, tends to lose out to piecemeal forces of entropy ie., having eaten badly one day, I do not sleep, and so don't want to read Jaroslav Hasek's Svejk in Czech, but instead pick up a graphic novel; having done so I feel compelled to shoehorn it in now and again, until Svejk doesn't end up in my daybag being read in those gaps in my day, but the graphic novel does. Meanwhile, I start to make a spoon, and have to keep going with it before the wood dries out... The other way around, with too much flexibility, I don't have sufficient structure to my day, and the books and projects I need to lock down on to see them go anywhere, don't get done, and I progressively get the feeling of a kind of drifting along doing endless urgent but unimportant tasks. I wonder if one way of addressing this is to occasionally turn on and off those less important tasks to indulge my ADHD side. Really I suppose this is an open question though. What the hell I can do to deal with this. I suspect then that some of the difficulties I am finding with GTD come from my replicating the chaos of my mind in the software, so if anyone can suggest any ADD-friendly ways of using this system, that would also be much appreciated, since I find it difficult to maintain these systems for any period of time. I would love any thoughts or responses to any or all of these questions. I will admit to being a little confused about how to go on using these systems. I hope to get somewhere with them though because I constantly get the feeling of so near but so far... Observations: Toodledo's functionality regarding negative tasks is ideal for me. I am glad that this is part of the program. I need this, as do all other users with ADHD. Since I may soon be running a support group for ADHD, possibly discussing GTD, and possibly blogging about my experiences with it, I am glad to see this. |
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Salgud |
I'll try my best to answer your questions. I too am ADHD, which has necessitated my keeping task lists since my college days. I understand at least that part of your plight.
I'll start by saying I'm not a GTDer, so I can't help you much in it's application. I'm not a GTGer because I find it soul-less. With apologies to those who do use GTD, I picture someone with hundreds, if not thousands (we've had people post here with more than a thousand tasks in their list, even wanting us all to post how many tasks we have on ours!) of tasks, who never says no, and probably isn't doing a very good job at anything. I think that "busyness" addiction is a common malady, at least in the US (I dont' have much experience elsewhere) to which I refuse to subscribe. (Now I'll get back down off my soapbox.) I prefer the approach described here: http://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-system/ which is all about setting priorities for my life and doing less instead of more. Don't know if that would work form someone in your situation or not. As to your points: 1. TD does not have a "postpone" feature like you describe. If I remember correctly, it is on " the list" of over 1600 enhancements they are planning to implement eventually. 2. Task dependencies are on "the list" also. 3a. I would do the mood states as tags since, for now, statuses are pre-programmed and non-editable (making them editable is on "the list"). Create your tags, then create Saved Searches for them to make them easier to access as your mood changes. 3b. There's no built-in feature to turn down your projects. However, it is easy to do if you give each task in your project a unique identifier (which I do) so you can filter for that unique identifier, then multi-edit all the tasks and change the status to something like inactive, waiting, holding, etc. I would use status to do this, but you could use something else if you prefer. The unique identifier could be a certain status, a tag, or a keyword in the task names. So there are lot's of ways to handle this. Of course, you can also use Starring to control which tasks you see and don't see in a Saved Search to handle other issues you mention. I think that TD is probably your best bet to do all the things you need, even though it doesn't have them all at this time. I don't know of any other task manager that does. The other you might consider is OmniFocus. I've never used it, but I understand it is quite flexible and powerful. Another factor you might consider is support. Having spend many years using online forums to help with software, I can tell you that TD has some of the best support you'll find, along with a friendly atmosphere and frequent responses from the developers. To me, that's worth a dozen great features. YMMV. Best of luck, whichever way you choose to go. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Salgud hit on most of what I would have said.
I'll add: To postpone a repeating tasks, the easiest thing to do is click on the due-date and move it forward by however much you want to postpone it. This only takes a few clicks. I use tags to mark tasks with certain "moods". For example, I have "sunny" tasks which are mostly gardening and outside the house stuff. I have "dull" tasks which are good for when I have low energy and want to slog through some boring chores. Then just make a saved search that grabs the tasks you want by their tag. For example, I have a search called "Night chores" which filters out everything that must be done durning the day, like calling people or shopping. I use tags for most of this. Hope that helps |
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pocketapocketaqueep |
Hi Salgud & admin
I'd like to thank you both for the helpful responses. Salgud, I'm glad to hear that TD's working for you. Your comments on GTD are also very helpful. I do know where you are coming from with that and I'll take a look at your link. "busyness" is to a lesser degree culturally problematic here than in the US, I think, though I'm certain it's increasingly growing in London (I'm now based in the mountains of rural Wales, and have spent time in the post-industrial West Midlands [something like our Detroit] where "busyness" is not the principle problem). I was a little worried about trying to use a further TooDo list system having tried so many, but I'm now looking forward to using TD. And yes, Salgud you're absolutely right that support is massively important. Cheers for being a part of that. Thanks again both! |
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