The One-List Rule in ADHD

At one point I counted: three apps on my phone, a notebook on my desk, sticky notes on the fridge and e-mails I had sent to myself. Five separate places.

What I noticed that day was this: someone who keeps five lists is in fact keeping no list at all. Because they do not fully trust any of them, and so they go on carrying everything in their head. Until that day I had been doing exactly this. The lists were there, and the load never lessened.

In this article I will describe the one-list rule and what it changed for me.

Why lists multiply

Nobody decides "let me open one more list." The process goes like this:

An app is tried, and the first two weeks go very well. Then one day it is not opened, and the next day it is not opened either. A new notebook is bought, because the first page of a new notebook feels like a clean start. When that feeling fades, the notebook is closed too. But the old one is not thrown away, because there is still something in it.

In the end you are left with five half-working systems, none of them up to date. This is the natural result of the pattern called app hunting; I dealt with it in detail in the article on app hunting.

In me the cause of this cycle was not laziness. Quite the opposite, it was too much effort. Every new tool was bought with the hope "this time I will get better."

A list works only when you trust it. The moment there are two lists, trust splits and the load returns to the head.

What a single list changes

The question "am I forgetting something?" gets an address. In me this question repeated perhaps forty times a day, and each repetition had a small cost. With a single list, the answer to the question sits in a place you can look, not searched for inside your head.

It empties working memory. The study by Kofler and colleagues (2010) shows that working memory capacity is more limited in ADHD. Every item you try to hold in mind takes up room in that narrow space. Every item written down comes out of that space.

It closes the open loop. In the studies by Masicampo and Baumeister (2011), the discomfort an unfinished task produces in the mind can be reduced without finishing the task: what is enough is tying the task to a concrete plan. Writing "when, where, how" on the list does exactly this.

It brings the decision forward. The randomized study by Solanto and colleagues (2010) testing metacognitive therapy in adult ADHD reports that a structured program targeting time management and planning skills brought improvement in attention symptoms. A single list is not all of these programs, but it is the first piece of their skeleton.

How to set it up

1. Choose one tool and close the debate. A paper notebook, a phone app, a notes app. The debate over which is "the best" is the biggest waste of time in this area. Choose what your hand reaches for fastest. I started with paper and moved to digital; both worked, and the only thing that did not work was using both.

2. Empty all the old lists. Open each one, move what is in it to the new list. This job takes an hour and is done once. For me that hour was the most productive hour I spent after the diagnosis.

3. Really close the old ones. Delete the app, put away the notebook, throw away the notes. An old list system left half open breaks the system in the first week, because the mind keeps producing the question "is something left over there?"

4. Set the capture rule. Everything that comes to mind goes to that list, without exception. This is called the capture habit, and it is the lifeblood of the system. The item you tell yourself "I won't forget this anyway" becomes the item you forget.

5. Review once a week. A list that is not cleaned swells, a swollen list is not looked at, and a list that is not looked at loses trust. This maintenance is done by the weekly review.

Working daily with a single list

The single list will be long. This is not a mistake, it is the natural result of the rule. There are a few ways to cope with length:

Set today apart. Each morning I pick three items from the long list. In the glossary this is the three priorities. The long list is a warehouse, the daily three are the plan. When you mix the two, you get tired of looking at the warehouse and start none of it.

Write items as movements. One-word headings do not work. The item I wrote as "tax" sat for months; the day I wrote "go to the tax website and get the password," it was done. An item with no verb is an item no decision has been made about.

Do not hesitate to delete. An item that has sat for months is most likely an item that will not be done. Deleting is also a decision, and making that decision lightens the list. Once a month I delete a few lines by saying "I'm not going to do this," and each time I feel relieved.

Separate the calendar from the list. Things with a specific time go in the calendar, things without go on the list. Mixing the two makes both useless: the calendar fills with fake appointments, and the list with missed times.

Keep the list visible. Remembering to look is a separate job too. A list opened next to the morning coffee becomes a list looked at once a day. A list you cannot see is a list that does not exist.

Watch out for the urge to change tools. On the day you struggle to keep a list, the first idea that comes to mind is to try a new app. This is a form of postponing that gives the feeling of working. In the glossary it appears as productivity procrastination. The rule could be this: before changing the tool, open the current one every day for a week.

Paper or digital

Both have solid strengths, and it really does vary from person to person.

Paper. It stays visible, there are no notifications, and writing by hand strengthens memory. But it can get lost and it is not always with you.

Digital. It is accessible everywhere, searchable, and reminders can be set. But to look at the list you have to open the phone, and when you open the phone there is a high chance you will get lost somewhere else before you reach the list.

The middle way that settled for me was this: the long list stays digital, the day's three items are on paper on the desk. They can be looked at without opening the phone.

A common mistake: dividing the list into categories

After moving to a single list I felt an urge: to separate it into work, home, health, shopping. It looked orderly, and two weeks later I again had five lists, only all inside the same app.

Dividing into categories breaks the one-list rule from the inside. Because the places to look multiply again, and stopping to think "which category should I write this in?" slows down the capture habit. When it is unclear where an item will go, most of the time it goes nowhere.

What worked for me was a single mark instead of categories: I put a star at the beginning of an urgent item. That is all. The only thing I want to separate is "today" from "not today."

Where it gets stuck

A single list does not solve everything, and that needs saying. Not being able to start a task that is written on the list is a separate matter and has nothing to do with the list; I dealt with it in the article on not being able to start a task.

There is also a load the list does not carry: things that wander in your head but have not become items. Emptying them requires a separate practice; the article on brain dump is devoted to that.

A single list does not replace any of these. What it does is more modest and still large: it builds a life in which you do not have to remember.