Using Neuroticism to Defeat ADHD

If being organized makes you feel good, spend more on organizing your productivity system.

Having a complex productivity system is, in a sense, using high neuroticism to defeat low conscientiousness.

Play to your strengths. If you like order and systems and planning but struggle with doing, then spending more energy on the trappings of productivity (ensuring your todo list is properly formatted, organized, etc.) can be worth it — if it bleeds over into making it easier to do the real, meaningful things.

Example: adding emojis to todo list tasks (🧼 for chores, ✉️ for comms). Adds a little friction when creating tasks, but the benefit is enjoying using the todo list more.

See also: Borretti - The Master of Drudgery for the antipattern version of this.