In September 2024, I decided to try making a work journal for myself. This is because I have ADHD, and I'm often doing work that never seems to goddamn end. Part of the brain chemistry of ADHD is difficulty regulating dopamine, which can make long term projects, or constant workflow feel pointless, tedious and unmotivating.
There was also the on-going issue of me being unable to express when I start having difficulties with work (because there are days where it's always difficult), and more personal things I need to keep track of, I just... don't.
I had found in the past that giving myself a tally mark for a task completed helped keep me going. However, I was doing that digitally and that was cumbersome. It's much easier to have a journal open and just make a mark (or two) in-between tasks.
And I had taken this a step further, but categorizing tasks into admin (database changes), email (whenever I send an email), calls (answering and calling out), booking (when an appointment is booked) and faxes (when I send out a fax).
The important part of categorizing it this way, was that certain tasks fell under more than one category, and so they would get more than one tally mark. This actually informed me better of how time intensive some of my work was.
It also gave me information to take back to managers, especially when I should be booking more appointments and sending out less faxes on behalf of inquiring co-workers.
Also, an analog system meant at the end of my week when I started filling out the to-do list for the next week, I was slowly removing myself from my computer. This made it easier to leave rather than stay on longer.
The journal only finished at the end of December 2025 because there's not a lot of collections I need for a work journal like this. In addition, this was an Archer and Olive A5 notebook, which tends to have a 192 pages. It is most likely my next notebook will last me from January 2026 to September 2027.
It's a good thing my place of work, primarily works with children and where I live, September is the beginning of the school year, so starting there is less weird.
