Hot take: hyper scheduling is just working all day.
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IMO hyper-scheduling or time blocking is great only if YOU control your calendar. I don’t; my company does Mon-Fri.
I do use it a few times a week block out chunks of time to work on my big projects, BUT that can change in a heartbeat. If my Manager or VP reaches out via IM and pulls me into an emergency meeting or I’ve been asked to join a severity incident call, then everything goes out the window.
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I concur. The less control one has of one’s schedule the less hyper-scheduling makes sense. This is why I like Cal Newport’s approach in Deep Work. It recognizes this tension.
Because I’m effectively the CEO, I have significant control of my calendar but not complete control. Accordingly, I do not hyper-schedule but I do block time for deep work. Because of my position and a highly effective EA at gatekeeping, this works 95% of the time for me. My typical week is laid out like this:
All other times are for meetings, including evening events, of which I have a lot.
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Yeah, I rushed to try out Sorted because of the dynamic scheduling feature. Honestly, I can’t remember why I decided it wasn’t for me (this was when it first came out – it might have more features now)…but I am glad someone is working on this and trying to figure it out. I will definitely keep an eye on it.
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One of the challenges I have (not necessarily specific to Sorted3 is knowing how long things take.
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You and the rest of the human race.
People are notoriously poor at understanding how long things will take, especially as those tasks become more complex.
It’s why things like Agile don’t use timescales for completing tasks, rather fibbonaci point values.
Well, that sounds so much easier! 
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I don’t have ADD/ADHD, but I have a form of PTSD and the medication I take has basically ruined my focus (probably the PTSD did too), so I feel sympathy for anyone in this situation! I also was a super organised person in the Before Times, so it really irritates me that I am incapable of completing to-do lists now.
I’m using Todoist as a general dumping ground for tasks, and I sort by project, of which I have a lot (I think it works better when you break things down rather than having one mega list). Turn off karma - if you’re not using Todoist consistently it will just stress you out. I also disable the badges, because I don’t need to know that I have 80 tasks due today.
Todoist hasn’t fixed my problems, but I think the problem is me not them. I basically use Todoist as my inspiration, and then pick a few tasks to complete, which I write down in a boring daily planner. Then I just tick them off as I go. Some days I don’t do it at all.
I’m never going to complete 80 tasks a day like apparently I need to and on Todoist it’s not easy to filter out recurring tasks for the days you cannot be bothered, so I find it easier to just move the actual tasks I will do to paper and ignore the rest, safe in the knowledge that it’s at least recorded in Todoist and will be done “some time”.
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I am always very saddened when I hear fellow ADHD folk resist medication. Very fair enough if it’s due to medical reasons people can’t take meds, but otherwise I think it’s putting an unfair handicap on yourself for no reason.
I am physically incapable of doing anything without my meds. On my meds, this week I have coded an entire web app from scratch. One of the days I chose not to take my meds because I had a big meal planned (and it messes with my appetite) and no word of a lie, it took me two hours after waking up to open my laptop, and all I did was bounce around from social media site to social media site all day. That’s what my life was like all day every day without meds, and my god I was trying everything not to be like that.
Saying “I don’t need meds, I’m going to just try to focus more” is like saying “I don’t need a wheelchair, I’m going to just try to walk more”.
Never forget that the MAIN ISSUE that ADHD causes is focusing issues. If you have ADHD, you have trouble focusing that is beyond what a neurotypical brain would experience. To help that, we have medication that we get prescribed. Other “solutions” to help focusing may help a bit, but you’re just working ten times harder for less of a result than what medication can bring.
It may take time to find the meds that work for you (general you, not just the OP), but for anyone reading this that is scared of ADHD meds, I implore you to just try. They have changed my life, and they could just change yours too.
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@Shandog, I so appreciate your perspective and actually agree with you 100%. Not being on meds right now is not my first choice. Thankfully, my situation is temporary and when it’s over, going on the journey of finding the right medications will be a high priority. I really enjoy hearing stories like yours because it makes me really look forward to when this will be a possibility for me.
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While I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD (but one suspects) this makes me curious … thank you for sharing! 
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My meds take effect very slowly, so I get up early and work on “the creative part” of my job before they take effect.
Of course, my “creative part” isn’t creative at all - it’s really just mind mapping, thinking outside the box and writing down ideas.
Then, after a couple hours - when the rest of the team have started work, gotten their coffee and read their emails, my meds are finally working, and I can filter out any ideas that might actually have been good enough to tell people about, and start actually doing work.
It works for me, but you can imagine how productive I was before my diagnosis - 40 hours a week of getting wild ideas one after another so fast I didn’t have time to explain one before I was already working on the next one… 
Nothing of value was produced!
In fact, since getting meds, I’ve moved from “coder” to “part of the extended management team”, and I make far more money… People know my name now!
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Thank you for sharing your success, I know it is not an easy journey and I appreciate you speaking up about how well you are doing now. Your creativity is different now and focused but you learned a lot while you where a “coder”. Great job for figuring it out.
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Some people mistakenly see taking medication as giving one an unfair advantage, but nothing could be farther from the truth. For neurodivergent people, medication helps ones brain work in a more neurotypical fashion.
I have a friend with diabetes who doesn’t want to ask for accommodations at his job, for fear others will perceive the accommodations as some sort of privilege. In his case, the accommodations would help him function better and preserve his health, perhaps at the level of a non-diabetic person. But a lot of people are short sighted and jealous (not my friend).
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Thanks!
It’s very new and exciting for me 