Now, Not Now, Not

During a recent coaching session, I was helping a client to explore her need for a simple filtering system that would help to prioritise the large number of opportunities, demands, goals, projects etc. currently swirling around in her world of possibilities. 

Without this type of filtering system the ADHD brain is frustrated by basic executive skill challenges such as time management, goal setting and visualisation, planning, and organising. 

With this client, we talked about a publishing deal, a new business (and the need to dig into the nitty-gritty grunt work of business planning, marketing etc. without getting bogged down, distracted or demotivated), exciting and potentially lucrative speaking opportunities, the real life day job (that distracts from the new and shiny side hustle), learning opportunities and, of course, the usual and unending stream of mundane tasks required to keep the wheels on a family, home and marriage.

So many shiny things! Which reminds me of a Bill Bailey joke, from his Part Troll tour; The reason that the pages of the Argos catalogue are laminated is to catch the tears of joy - “so many shiny things, I cannot possess them all!”

From an ADHD perspective there is a rather harsh irony to this, which is that there are often too many ‘shiny things’. Or, the shiny things are all equally bright and our interest-based nervous system has problems with the ability to make intentional choices. This therefore causes procrastination while the brain chooses not to actually think about the choices because not thinking about them somehow feels easier. 

Alternatively, the shiny things start to build up as more shiny things arrive, eventually leading past stress and towards being overwhelmed, which is obviously not fun. Therefore a simple way to resolve this distraction and prevent becoming overwhelmed has the potential to make a big difference in quality of life and career success.

You may recall me having previously spoken about my own personal experiment of breaking my year into 12 week blocks with each 12th week a week off. If you’ve forgotten or you’re playing catch up, it looks like this; I work for 11 eleven weeks on the projects I have determined will be my priorities for that block (you might prefer to call it a term, semester or season). I then use the final, 12th week to celebrate my successes (no matter how few, or how small), enjoy a little R+R and plan what the next block’s goals and priorities will be. 

The goal is to be conscious and intentional about only working on what is in front of me right now whilst also choosing what will be in front of me later and what will not be in front of me at all, ever. 

It is important to understand and accept that we cannot do everything and we cannot serve everyone. Therefore we have to be very intentional to avoid being sucked into stuff that doesn’t deliver our desired goals, such as high enough levels of meaningful contribution, or that sucks us down into the places we no longer want to inhabit. 

If you want to learn more about intentionality in this context try Greg McKeown’s book ‘Essentialism - The disciplined pursuit of less’. Another book that might be useful here is ‘The Twelve Week Year’ by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. 

So here is the template for a basic but very important filtering system. It has been so useful to my coaching clients that I decided it would be only fair to share it. And it’s so blissfully simple! Four columns (three of which are simple tick boxes), some rows (not many, we’re keeping this simple right?). Maybe add a fifth column for any notes you want to make.

The first column is called ‘Task’. In this column we can make the ‘to-do list’. It is for you to decide if this is your to-do list for today, or bigger; this week, this month, this block, this season, this year, before I’m dead bucket list etc. Whatever timescale you choose this is your list of possibilities, options, projects, goals, tasks, dreams etc. It works for so much! 

Two thoughts occur to me at this point:

The first thought is one from my coach training about the need to actually pay attention to what we’re paying attention to. 

The second thought is that our time, like our attention, is a limited resource. Perhaps, instead of thinking about how to spend our time, we should focus on how to spend our limited attention and, by extension, the things that we want to spend our attention on… So many shiny things, remember?

Once you’ve listed your goals/tasks it’s time to turn your attention to the second column, called ‘Now’. Ask yourself, “Is this a thing for now? Does it warrant attention now? Right now? Am I prepared to push other stuff out of the way for this and then ring fence and protect this against distractions and new possibilites?”. If the answer is yes then put a tick in this column.

I’m going to borrow and modify a quote from Mark Manson, author of ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ here;

“The Law of F*ck Yes or No states that when you want to get involved with something new, in whatever capacity, you must be inspired to say “F*ck Yes” in order to proceed.”

This, I think, is the root of intentionality. [The original article relates to dating and relationships and can be found here]

The third column is called ‘Not Now’. You tick this box if the possibilities/goals in your Task column are,”Things I’m interested in but have questionable capacity for right now”. Or, “I know that overloading myself with ‘stuff’ does not enhance my ability to get ‘stuff’ done.”. 

I can happily place future possibilities into this column. However, sometimes intentionally putting something in the ‘Not Now’ column is more challenging because it requires turning my back (temporarily) on something my brain finds more immediately interesting.

The ability to differentiate between what is ‘Now’ versus ‘Not Now’ is the ability to choose how to spend my attention. It’s ok to put things here that deserve further thought later.

The fourth column is called ‘Not’. This is stuff that isn’t going to play to our strengths. This is stuff that makes your creative brain turn cold and start shivering. This is stuff that quite often has to be done but for which additional support or resources will be needed. Ideally you can delegate: “Can you make this go away please?” Add a note in the final (fifth) column of who you think you can delegate to or enlist support from. Add contacting them to the Task column and tick ‘Now’, or ‘Not Now’ as you deem appropriate.

This simple filtering can be added into your journaling method or digitised - whatever works for you - but it is an essential first step in being intentional and essential about what you choose to spend your attention on. Choose wisely!