CROSS ITEMS/TASKS OFF YOUR BADASS TO DO LIST!
Crossing completed tasks off your BATDL in something like real time is practically and psychologically important. From the most literal and practical standpoint, crossing items off your BATDL means that YOU ARE BACK IN YOUR BATDL. The is the crux of the behavioral change you are trying to make. You do one to three tasks on your BATDL. Then you go to the BATDL and assess what to do next and why. Cycling through this behaviour throughout the day is the way to leverage your new BATDL to achieve peak efficiency. If you aren’t in and out of your BATDL all day, it will become less, and less relevant and eventually have little bearing on what you are actually doing. In that scenario, it can’t really help you.
There are two really important ways that crossing items of your BATDL will greatly aid you psychologically. The first is very straightforward. It will show you that you are, in fact, accomplishing tasks. This is why I hate list apps that mysteriously move your crossed off tasks to a “To Done” list somewhere in fairyland. I can’t think of anything more demoralizing that a list that only shows the task that I haven’t completed day, after day, after day. I like progress. I like victories. If my list icon shows 20 task yet to do, I love being able to see that I’ve actually crossed off 22 items today. Sound like a good day, to me!
The other best think crossing off tasks on your BATDL can do for you psychologically is to not just show you that you have gotten “something done,” but give you a real record of your progress. As ADHD people, (and probably humans in general,) we tend to not have a minute for minute memory of our day, especially if our tasks are varied day to day or within the day. I generally try to publish these posts late afternoon/ early evening on Fridays so folks may have time to look at them over the weekend. So, let’s say you are looking at this at 7pm on Friday night. What were you doing at 10:15 this morning? How about 3:45 this afternoon? Unless you have a very structured day, or know that you were in a meeting, or taking your kid to swim practice, you aren’t super likely to be able to come up with an (the correct) answer. Without any evidence of our day’s productivity, we can be vulnerable to worries and negative feelings assume that we were not productive. But being able to ACTUALLY SEE a record of our progress/effectiveness can be a game changer. I find this to be true for all my clients, especially those of us who are highly visual.
Standard disclaimer: When posting my thoughts here, I feel that content is far more important than perfection. I try to practice what I preach that ‘done’ is better than ‘not done…perfectly.’ So, unlike with my book, I don’t edit much, if at all. I hope you can look past any small imperfections and find the content useful.