The Right Brained Dyslexic ADD Planning Tool
If you have ever walked around with labels like very creative but extremely disorganized, dyslexic, distracted, hyper, or ADD, this little tool may help you out. You first have to realize that most people with such labels organize on the basis of space, not on time. This is a big key. All of the courses of time organization or other organizing schemes won’t work for you so don’t feel bad if you have organizers that don’t have any marks in them. Most of them are for people who organize on the basis of time.
People that lead with their right brain tend to process by seeing the whole picture and then making connections between things in the picture. Left brain processors organize themselves according to lists and sequences. They make a list and check it off one at at time. They are greatly loved by teachers because they follow directions well. Most people can do some of both, but those with a more severe right brain style really can’t do lists. They have never read a technical manual but know more about computers than anyone because they can just keep experimenting and making connections. The only time they look at the manual is when they absolutely can’t figure something out.
So when you are right brained or ADD, you need a different type of planning tool. You need something where you can see everything all at once and then just start doing things that seem most important. One way to do it is to just write things on a piece of paper as if it were a picture, not a list. You can remember a picture, but you can’t remember a list. There is a dynamic that happens in the brain when you can see the whole picture and stay focused on it that leads to a lot of action which is not necessarily sequential but still accomplishes a great deal of work. It doesn’t seem to be present in right brain processors when they are given a list and a calender where you have to turn pages.
Personally, I think that the less organized the paper looks from a left brained perception, the more likely you are to accomplish more. I would suggest writing at different angles with lots of lines and shapes. I personally find things like mind maps a little too organized and contrived. I like to keep all of my papers on top of my desk strewn all over the place because as soon as I am done with a project and file the papers away or stack them neatly, it is like a death notice to the project, something like a cemetery.
The best device for a telephone list for me is my cell phone because a large percentage of my ideas come to me when I am speaking to others away from my office. By having a lot of numbers in my cell phone I can start working on a project immediately.
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a 
Dreams For Peace 
There’s this popular email being sent around (I’ve received it about 5 times) where you look at the silhouette of a woman spinning and based on the way she spins, determines if you’re right brained or left brained. So my outcome was that apparently I’m right brained right now, which I suppose could be since I’m fully involved in parenting all day which is primarily right brained. But I was always left brained before and still think I am. I love lists and checking things off.
I’m going to forward you that email, if I haven’t already deleted it.