The digital life raft I didn’t know I needed
Look, I’m not going to pretend I have it all figured out. Not even close. Two months ago, my apartment keys were in the freezer (again), I’d missed three dental appointments in a row, and my boss was giving me that look—you know the one—when I showed up to our morning meeting completely unprepared. For the third time.
I was drowning in sticky notes. My phone was a graveyard of abandoned reminder apps. My wall calendar hadn’t been flipped since March… and it was September.
My friend Jas kept talking about this thing called Notion. “It saved my life,” she’d say, which seemed dramatic until I finally gave in and tried it. Turns out? She wasn’t exaggerating.
Here’s the thing about ADHD brains like mine—we don’t need another perfectly organized system that we’ll abandon in three days. We need something that actually speaks our language. Something that can be as weird and wonderful and non-linear as we are.
Why My Brain and Regular Planners Don’t Get Along
I used to think I was just bad at being organized. That I wasn’t trying hard enough. But traditional planners are basically designed to torture people like us. All those identical little boxes, the blank lines waiting to judge you when you inevitably forget to fill them out for weeks…
My ADHD brain craves structure but rebels against anything too rigid or boring. It’s like my neurons are perpetually sixteen years old—desperately needing boundaries while simultaneously flipping off anyone who tries to impose them.
Notion turned out to be different. Not because it’s magically “better” than other tools, but because it let me build something that actually matches how my particular brain works.
How I Built My Dashboard (Without Having a Meltdown)
First—and this is important—I didn’t try to create the perfect dashboard right away. That’s the kind of thinking that has me abandoning projects before they start. Instead, I just played around for a while. Made a mess. Let myself explore.
But eventually, I settled on a few things that have actually stuck:
A Homepage That Speaks My Language
Right at the top of my dashboard is a section called “DO THIS FIRST OR YOU’LL FORGET.” Not professional, maybe, but it works. Under that are three simple buttons:
- “Morning routine”
- “What’s happening today”
- “Brain dump”
Nothing clever or complicated. Just the absolute basics that keep me functioning as a human person in society.
Color-Coding That Actually Makes Sense to Me
I tried using “proper” color-coding systems before—you know, red for urgent, blue for work tasks, etc. But my brain doesn’t naturally categorize that way. So instead, I use:
- Purple for anything that gives me anxiety (bills, difficult conversations, deadlines)
- Yellow for things that need energy but are actually fun
- Green for mindless tasks I can do while half-watching Netflix
- Blue for stuff involving other people
It’s not logical, but it matches my emotional relationship with tasks, which turns out to be way more useful for my ADHD brain.
The Daily Template That Saved My Job
My most valuable creation is embarrassingly simple: a daily template with these sections:
- “Only three things” (the most important tasks—more than that and I get overwhelmed)
- “Probably forgetting” (recurring weekly tasks that I always forget exist)
- “Time blocks” (because I have no natural sense of time passing)
- “Did something go wrong?” (a decision tree for when I’ve messed up)
That last one has legitimately saved my hide multiple times. It walks me through what to do when I’ve forgotten a deadline or missed a meeting—because inevitably, at some point, I will.
The Weird Little Extras That Make All the Difference
The most helpful parts of my dashboard aren’t the productivity guru-approved sections. They’re the strange little solutions for my specific ADHD quirks:
- A “Lost Objects” tracker where I record where I last saw my keys, wallet, and phone
- A “Conversation Archives” where I jot down what I discussed with people (because I’ll swear we never had a conversation that definitely happened)
- A “Dopamine Button” that shows me a random photo of my cat when clicked (for when I need motivation)
- Time timers EVERYWHERE because my time blindness is no joke
None of this is sophisticated. It’s just what works for my particular flavor of brain chaos.
When It All Falls Apart (Because Sometimes It Will)
Here’s the real talk: Sometimes I still forget to check my dashboard. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and ignore it for days. Sometimes I spend three hours reorganizing it instead of doing the actual tasks inside it.
Because ADHD doesn’t disappear just because you found a good tool.
But—and this is key—I’ve set up “emergency protocols” for those times:
- A weekly dashboard reset reminder
- A simplified “low executive function” view for bad brain days
- Permission to abandon ship temporarily without feeling like a failure
The system works because it acknowledges that sometimes it won’t work. And that’s okay.
The Tool That Leveled-Up My Dashboard Game
This section is sponsored by Thomas Frank’s Ultimate Brain
So here’s where I have to come clean—after struggling to build my dashboard from scratch, I stumbled across Thomas Frank’s Ultimate Brain. It’s basically Notion templates specifically designed for brains like mine, and it was… well, kind of a game-changer.
I was skeptical at first (I’ve bought SO many planners and apps that promised to fix me), but this one’s different. It’s like Frank somehow got inside my chaotic ADHD thought processes and built a system around them. The templates already had most of the weird little extras I’d been trying to create myself—but better.
The weekly review feature gently nudges me back on track when I inevitably drift away from my system. And the task cards with visual progress indicators give my dopamine-hungry brain the little hits of satisfaction it needs to keep going.
I still customize everything (because of course I do), but starting with templates designed specifically for ADHD has saved me countless hours of trial and error. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by starting from scratch, it might be worth checking out.
Small Steps That Feel Like Giant Leaps
I’m still me. I still sometimes find my glasses in the refrigerator. I still occasionally hyperfocus on organizing my digital bookshelf for six hours while ignoring the presentation due tomorrow.
But I haven’t missed a meeting in weeks. My bills are getting paid on time. And yesterday, I actually remembered to bring both my lunch AND my laptop to work—a minor miracle.
For an ADHD brain like mine, that’s not just progress—it’s a revolution. Not because Notion is magic, but because for the first time, I’ve built something that works with my brain instead of against it.
If your sticky notes are reproducing like rabbits and your phone reminder app is just a graveyard of good intentions, maybe it’s time to try something different. Not perfect. Just different.
Your dashboard won’t look like mine. It shouldn’t. Your brain is its own special flavor of chaos, and your system should reflect that. But somewhere in the flexibility of tools like Notion might be exactly what your particular brain has been waiting for.
Mine certainly was.
Awakened Insights 