Lists

Over the years of John's ADD, I have found some compensating strategies that work. We have pegs to hang coats on immediately inside the door, and they do get hung up. Google Calendar is wonderful--we share our calendars so his calendar shows up on mine and vice versa. I download my Google calendar to a small palm pilot so I can carry it with me.

But lists have always been a problem. I concluded years ago that it was hopeless to get John to use a list, that it was too stressful for him to look at a long list of things to do. The month before our trip I depended on a list of things I needed to do, which was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, and he never looked at it.

The psychologist who did the neuropsych testing said John should keep lists, and he seemed to think that was a good idea. I wish Google calendar had a way to integrate a to-do list so it would show up to one side of the calendar. I guess I will try Google documents for a shared to-do list, though getting John to check a third thing in addition to his mail and the calendar seems iffy and I wish it didn't take several clicks to get to the list. I actually like the paper list in the middle of the table, but it does get messy. I tried a "Getting Things Done"-style organized list myself for a while, but I think that would be too complicated for John. I set up the Google documents list divided into:

• John short term
• John long term
• For the kids
• Household

We will see if it works. Maybe I should clear off our messy refrigerator doors and print it out regularly and put it on the refrigerator.