64: Tips for Planning with ADHD – Part 1 – Quit Trying to Start from the Beginning!

Quit Trying to Start at the Beginning

“Start at the beginning” sounds like obviously good advice. But it’s worth questioning whether that’s actually true for us, or whether it’s just another piece of advice built for linear, tree-climbing brains.

Why the beginning doesn’t matter as much as we think

If you’re climbing a literal tree, sure, you start at the bottom, there’s no other way up. But think of yourself as a fish dropped into a river instead. There’s no value in swimming back upstream to find the river’s origin before continuing your journey, you’re going to end up wherever the current takes you regardless of where you first entered it. Insisting on starting “at the beginning” of a task, whether that’s a decluttering project, a habit, or a planning system, often creates more paralysis than progress. You freeze because you feel like you’re doing it wrong simply because you didn’t start from some imagined proper starting line.

Start where you are, with what you have

Whatever day it is right now is a perfectly good day to start something, regardless of the date on the calendar or how far into a month, project, or system you feel like you “should” already be.

A practical monthly brain dump exercise

Here’s a simple way to put this into action. Grab any notebook, one of those pretty ones you bought with good intentions and never used, or even a half-used school notebook with a few torn-out pages. Cross out whatever’s on the cover and relabel it your brain dump notebook. Then walk through your house and gather every scrap you’ve scribbled something on, sticky notes, the back of a receipt, mailer envelopes, the contents of your purse.

Open to a blank page and divide it into a few broad categories, personal, work, family, home, whichever loose groupings make sense for your life. Don’t overcomplicate this with too many categories, or you’ll spend more time deciding where something belongs than actually processing it.

Working through the pile

Pick up each scrap in any order, no need to sort chronologically. For each one, ask honestly: did I already do this? Is it still relevant? Then write it into the appropriate column and toss the scrap. Watch the pile shrink as your notebook fills in. It feels genuinely satisfying to see that chaotic stack of paper dwindle into a trash pile.

What you’ll notice along the way

Sorting through old scraps tends to reveal a few things. You’ll notice items that turned out not to matter after all, once you actually stopped to evaluate them instead of just re-copying them by habit. You’ll notice tasks you completed without ever realizing it, because you never went back to check them off, a genuinely nice realization that you accomplish more than you give yourself credit for. And you’ll notice how many of your notes are reminders that a more naturally structured brain would never need to write down at all, and that’s completely fine, that’s just how our brains keep track of things.

Starting fresh each month

When the new month arrives, gather any remaining scraps and start a fresh brain dump page, carrying forward only what’s still genuinely relevant. Anything that’s fallen off in importance simply doesn’t make the cut, and that’s fine too. You’re not aiming for a perfectly completed list, you’re building one central, easy-to-search place instead of fifteen scattered, half-lost pieces of paper.

Your practical, actionable step

Grab a spare notebook today, whatever day it happens to be, gather every loose scrap of paper you’ve been scribbling on, and sort them into a few broad categories in one place. Don’t wait for the start of a new week or month to begin.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.