Bonus Episode 12: Procrastinator’s Christmas Prep Plan – Day 12 – 10 Ways that Pending Lists are Magic for ADHD Moms and Procrastinators

Why a Pending List Beats a To-Do List

Wrapping up a run of daily prep content with a deeper dive into the tool behind all of it: the pending list. It’s a sticky-note system that swaps a traditional linear to-do list for something far more forgiving to an ADHD brain, and it turns out there are quite a few reasons it works.

It grows without getting messy

New tasks can be added at any time, as many as needed, without cramming things into margins or squeezing in extra lines. Each one is its own separate sticky, so there’s no sense of a list becoming cluttered or out of order, because there was never an order to begin with.

It breaks down overwhelm automatically

If a task feels too big to tackle, that’s the signal to split it into smaller stickies. “Buy gifts” becomes “buy stocking stuffers,” “buy teacher gifts,” “buy stuff for the kids,” each one far less daunting on its own. Noticing which sticky keeps getting passed over day after day is itself useful information: it’s usually a sign that task needs to be broken apart further.

Nothing has to stay unfinished, it just gets decided

A pending list allows for genuinely deciding not to do something, and that decision still counts as movement. A task like a home improvement project that no longer fits the current priorities can get a note, “not this year,” and move straight into the completed pile. No crossing out, no lingering guilt, just an honest decision recorded and moved on from.

Everything reaches a resolution

Every sticky ends up somewhere, either genuinely finished, adjusted, or consciously set aside. Nothing is left hanging indefinitely the way tasks in a traditional planner often are, silently rolled over week after week until they start to feel like failures.

It’s flexible and reusable

Because nothing is written in a fixed order, you’re always free to grab whichever task actually interests you that day, which turns out to be a real motivator against procrastination. And because it lives in a folder or box rather than a bound planner, the whole system can be closed up, stored, and reopened next year, or reused for any other big project, without having to rebuild it from scratch.

It’s harder to lose

Loose scraps of paper and backs of envelopes are easy to misplace. A dedicated folder or container gives the list more permanence, and snapping a quick photo of it means it’s always accessible from a phone, even away from home.

Your practical, actionable step

Grab a stack of sticky notes and a folder, box, or envelope to hold them. Write down every task weighing on you, one per sticky, breaking apart anything that feels too big. Sort them into pending and tackled sides as you go, and give yourself full permission to move a sticky to “tackled” simply by deciding not to do it this time around.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.