I tried Bullet Journal for about 3 weeks, but dropped it because the journal itself was so much work to maintain. Also, my ideas/tasks tend to come to me randomly, so it was hard for me to force myself to keep to one "topic" per page for the index.

I appreciate the suggestion though! It's definitely a system that works for a lot of people; it just didn't help with me.

The #1 for me has been to be gracious with myself. Things don't have to be perfect, they have to be done. And as long as I'm making progress towards "done," I'm good.

This applies to cleaning in particular. Ex: if my end goal is "wipe the bathroom counter" but there's stuff on it preventing me from doing that, in the past the presence of that stuff would make the task feel too big and I'd put it off indefinitely. Now, my new goal might be "move that one bottle off the counter," which can easily be done after I wash my hands or when I'm walking by on the way to/from my closet.

Usually moving the one bottle overcomes my mental paralysis because, hey! Moving one bottle wasn't hard at all! I bet we can move two! And three! And four!

And just like that the counter gets cleared. And now my new goal is "wipe the empty counter," which I facilitate by keeping Clorox wipes on the counter so that I can snatch one and wipe everything in a few seconds.

Which brings me to the 2 minute rule, another thing that's helped me. If a task has no blockers (like bottles on a counter I want to clean) and it takes less than two minutes, I do it as soon as I think of it. Ex: making my bed in the morning. As soon as I notice that it's messy, I get up and make it, which only takes a minute or two.

Third has been structuring my environment in a way that facilitates success. For example, I hit a real slump in cooking, and I realized it was because I had a ton of ingredients/tools and it made me feel like I could never easily find things I needed. So I did a thorough pantry clean out, labeled all my ingredients/cabinets/drawers so I'd never have to stop and think about where something might be, and organized everything in a way that makes it quick and easy for me to grab while I'm cooking. I also committed to making simpler meals because I realized that I don't like hours-long cooking marathons. Those two things simplified my life so much that I actually look forward to cooking again.

So, in summation: be patient with yourself, follow the 2 minute rule, and set up your environment for your success.

Learning about the concept of executive function/presentations of ADHD that aren't hyperactive completely changed my relationship with myself in a good way. While my official diagnosis is 50/50--meaning I'm either "normal" but a mess or on the lowest end of the ADHD spectrum--I've found that following tips and structures targeted towards folks who DO have ADHD has helped me a ton in understanding why I behave in certain counterproductive ways and taking steps to set myself up for success.

All of which to say that even if someone reading this doesn't have an official diagnosis yet, you may find great value in following tips targeted at those who do.

So like most folks with some flavor of ADHD I rocked GTD for a month before the newness wore off, I started failing to update it, and soon backslid to my default productivity state: unmitigated chaos.

Before that happened, though, I genuinely liked GTD. It's the most flexible out of all the productivity/task management systems I've tried in that it can be readily adapted to support work or personal life and it doesn't require an investment in any particular tools to get started. It'll be the system I return to when I start feeling overwhelmed again and declare that I've got to get my life sorted out.