Productivity – Take a Look!

For most people, productivity is about meeting deadlines and experiencing forward momentum on projects or to-do lists. It can also be about feeling efficient and … most importantly … about feeling effective.

With ADHD, developing a toolbox of skills and strategies that support time management and task management, including prioritization approaches, are critical. With the more relaxed pace of the summer behind you, the fall is a good time to evaluate your needs in this regard. You might want to consider:

  • How well am I managing time?
  • How effective is my use of a calendar or planner?
  • How is my to-do list approach working for me?
  • How well am I keeping track of longer-range as well as short-term goals?
  • What’s my relationship to getting started with tasks? 
  • How about following through?
Here’s a link to a blog post I wrote that addresses the critical, yet sometimes challenging, skill of initiation, offering eight strategies to help you with this foundational piece of managing productivity:  8 strategies to support improved task initiation!

Here’s a link to another post addressing a common source of failing to move forward with tasks and priorities – self-defeating beliefs – offering a creative and effective strategy for addressing thoughts that get in the way of forward momentum: When self-defeating beliefs interfere with productivity.

Another post I wrote addresses one aspect of difficulty with follow-through: monitoring and regulating one’s actions to support follow-through with tasks.
But productivity is more than just planners, to-do lists, getting started, and checking things off … fundamentally it is about feeling effective at what matters to you. It’s about knowing your values and building your goals based on those values. It is about what matters most to you and about living a meaningful life.

Wow! … sounds heavy!? But, yet, knowing what matters most to you is critical to prioritizing, and to feeling fulfilled and effective, and, yes – productive – in life.

I invite you to consider coaching as a way to achieve more clarity as well as to sign up for the fall session of my tele-course on mindfulness for ADHD starting in October, based on Lydia Zylowska’s research-backed book, The Mindfulness Prescription for ADHD. Coaching can help you clarify your values. Developing a mindfulness practice can support attention,  self-regulation, efficiency, and the self-awareness that can help you live out your values. All of which lead to improved productivity and satisfaction with life.

Here’s to a productive fall! And a meaningful life!

Posted in Blog