Hyper-scheduling: The Ultimate Tool for the Disorganised Mind

A neurodivergent engineer’s guide to improving productivity

Hyper-schedule (midjourney)

Introduction

There’s a lot of productivity advice out there. I know it because I’ve read most of it over the course of my university years and then during my career as a software engineer and engineering manager. Well, not literally, but in one form or another I did. I was obsessed with the topic of productivity. Probably for the same reason many other people, especially people with ADHD, get obsessed with it: because we want to be productive, yet we can’t be. Or so I thought at the time. Productivity experts show how easy it is to “just do it”, with the many clever techniques and apps, inboxes and eating frogs (thank you, Mark Twain for the picture) and the list could go on and on. These are all great on paper, and they work wonders for many people. Why is it that none of these worked for me? I got on board with many techniques with a massive energy, but eventually, all of them failed. I was particularly passionate about “Getting things done” by David Allen. Furthermore, I loved the idea of elaborate setups, hours of fine-tuning the systems: email, notes, reminders. Once the novelty wore off, I never actually managed to use the framework effectively, and I quickly gave up on it.