Flowchart: Scheduling an Appointment (For an ADHD Brain)
When “just put it in your calendar” is a twelve-step process
Hi there,
To most people, scheduling an appointment is a 30-second task. Note the time, open the calendar, done.
Except, before I can even start I need to know: which calendar? Is this during work hours? Do I need to actually be somewhere, or is it virtual? If I need to be somewhere — how far is it? Do I even know where it is? Will it start on time? How much transition time will I need out of whatever I was doing before? And if the answer to any of those is “I’m not sure,” the whole thing stalls.
If I block too little time, I arrive frazzled or late. If I block too much, I’ve lost the afternoon to a thirty-minute dentist appointment and I resent the calendar for telling me what to do.
For our May theme of Spring Cleaning in Calendar Spaces, I mapped out the process I go through — from which calendar to open, to whether I can walk there, to how much transition time to hold. It covers the full loop: scheduling, travel, prep, and the event itself.
This flowchart doesn’t make the appointment less annoying to schedule. It just makes visible what my brain is actually doing — which turns out to be a lot.
What does your process look like? Do you have a method, or does it mostly depend on how much cognitive bandwidth you have that day?
Tomorrow we’re going to get into exactly this — your scheduling ethos, what works for your brain versus what you think should work.
That’s the theme for our May Community Conversation: Spring Cleaning Calendar Spaces. Friday, May 16th at 12:00 PM PT.
Subscribe to get the link.
If you’re already a subscriber, you’ll get a reminder email with the link tomorrow morning.
Always,
Amber