Working with Things for iPhone and ADHD

Things by Cultured Code is a powerful task management app for iPhone and iPod Touch. See the Things Wiki for syncing with iCal, Outlook, and the Mac OS X desktop version.

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Tips for using Things with ADHD

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#1 Tasks

• Action words in the title of your task help keep your project lists step-by-step and simple

eg: "Email Jenny" or "Write Shopping List", "File Bills on Hallway Table"

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#2 Tagging
Tags can be a help or a hindrance for ADHD Things users. Resist the temptation to tag to-do's according to the action required to complete them. Remember, Tasks = Actions, therefore it is the Context or Flow of the action that is more important to tag than the action itself.

Use Things Tags to Outline:

• "Context" and "Work Flow"

ie: a Place, Person, State, Object; OR a Priority, Complication, Sequence.

• Hierarchy
  

Contexts or situations that exist within larger focus areas, ie: Context > Place > Errand > Drug Store

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#2 Projects
Tasks that require more than a single step to complete are considered "Projects". The iPhone version currently does not support Areas of Responsibility.

• Use parentheses with acronyms to outline an Area of Responsibility in the Project Title

eg: "[HI] Clean the Car"; HI being the larger Area of Responsibility "Home Improvement" that contains the project





















Things currently does not offer the ability to create sub-projects, this is a major drawback for ADHD use of the software. This means users are not able to zero in on smaller areas of a larger project.

To Create Ghost Sub-Projects

• Create active projects where the last task is to move on to the next project which is inactive
• Use hierarchical sequential tagging (outlined above) to allow sorting by priority and sequence