As I mentioned in my earlier post, a lot of ADHD adults struggle with conventional office jobs.  While I have hopes that continued research and understanding will improve these issues, the changes will not happen overnight.

Don’t be discouraged by these challenges.  In my very first post, I discussed some of the positive qualities of ADHDers and I believe these traits can help any ADHDer survive (even excel) in an office environment.  Determination, creativity, intelligence, resilience and courage really can help you conquer just about any situation.  Besides, ADHD or not, it’s your responsibility to do the best with what you’ve got.

There are plenty of solutions out there to help you cope, kind of like accommodations you can implement yourself.  Remember, you’re not the only one out there who thinks like you do. Others have gone before you and you can use their trial and error to light your own way.  I’ve done a ton of research and personal experiments on dealing with ADHD in the workplace (well, and life in general) and I’ve found some shareworthy solutions along the way.  It would be selfish of me not to share these with you guys.

Hence, the Friday Find, a feature I will post regularly (or at least somewhat regularly) where I’ll share some of these solutions (products, ideas, tips, etc.) with you.  With the workplace theme fresh on our minds, I’ll kick off the first Friday Find with some cool planner notebooks that I’ve been using for years.  Without further adieu:

Meeting Notebook

This handy, little guy is great for meetings (or general project planning).  There are sections for the date, the topic, meeting objectives, attendees, notes and action items.  Each action item includes a little line to the left, where I’m guessing you’re supposed to indicate the person it’s been assigned to, and a checkbox to the right, so you can check ’em off as you complete them.

Action Planner Business Notebook

This one’s a little more free-form, which I kind of like.  It has the header section, which includes a page section (I’ll be honest, not entirely sure what this field is for, except maybe for some kind of numerical tracking for a notebook that’s handling multiple projects at one time) and date section and several customizable fields, the notes section, for whatever pops into your head during planning (or in a meeting) and then a numbered section, which can be used for all sorts of things from action items to brainstorming topics…and everything in between.

There are a lot of other notebooks out there that are similar to these two,  but these two have been my favorites.  You definitely have to find what works for you, though.  That said, I had no idea these existed and I haven’t looked back since I discovered them.  Sure, there are times, when I’m brainstorming or taking notes, that a standard notebook works, but for project management and organization, I will love these forever.  The possibilities are endless, my friends!  Since reviewing their product information for this post, even I’m flooded with new ideas for how to use them.

These kinds of tools simply give you a starting point for organization when approaching a project.  For a lot of us, that’s really all we need.  We have a lot of great ideas; we just need a little help keeping them in order sometimes.

(As a side note, I promise to do my best to post the Friday Finds a little earlier in the day in the future.  Otherwise, I might as well just call them Saturday Solutions instead.)