Taming ADHD Chaos: The Ultimate Organization Tool (Episode 1)
Discover How Logseq Transformed My Life
Logseq
Log-
seq-
log - a journal or log
seq - sequence, structured, sequential.
Logseq is a fantastic journaling and information management program. It's very versatile and has great way of linking information and data together. If you’ve ever used Notion or similar tools, it’s kind of like that but better, in my opinion. I’ve been using Logseq for a number of months now. I started using Logseq around September 2023, so as of writing of this article that makes it approximately 8 months.
In this series I'm going to cover as much ground as I can about Logseq—as well as practicing calling it log-seek as opposed to log-sec like my brain has been wanting me to call it for the past 8 months. I will also be going over why Logseq is a great tool for people with ADHD, as well as how to use it effectively—especially if you have ADHD.
What is Logseq, Exactly?
As mentioned before, Logseq is an organisational tool similar in some ways to Notion. Its key features are:
offline first (read: privacy first)
customisable
full information management system
open-source
highly versatile
available on any device (that people are likely to own—no you're not going to get it to work on that Tamagotchi you still have sitting in your drawer from the late 90s)
Android
iOS
Linux
Mac
Windows
edit information, notes, etc. in "blocks"
There are some downsides to using Logseq, which I will cover later.
How is Logseq Beneficial For People With ADHD?
Us folk with ADHD tend to be more "visual" than neurotypical people. We can also lose focus much easier. Some (all?) of us also lose motivation to do the same mundane tasks over and over, especially if we know there's a better or more effective way of doing it.
Thankfully Logseq aids us in all these scenarios.
For those of us who are more visually oriented Logseq has a graph view, also known as a knowledge graph. It's a way of displaying the pages and references that show how they are linked.
Here's an example of what it looks like:
This is an example graph I created for this post. By default daily journals are not visualised in the graph view—for the purpose of this demo I enabled it so you can get a sense of how it works.
Logseq—Not a Conman, But There Are Some Cons
Ain’t No Mountain Steep Enough
Logseq has a higher learning curve than some commercial or paid tools.
On the bright side, once mastered, Logseq can be customised with the only limit being your imagination!
Tips to make the mouse of Logseq:
Familiarise yourself with Markdown
Take it one step at a time—don’t try and do too much too soon, as us with ADHD tend to do
Logseq Doesn’t Collaborate
Logseq does not support real-time collaboration—it’s just for you. However, this offline-first approach is more private and you have full control over your information. There are options available for syncing and backup, which we’ll cover in a later article
Out of Sync, Out of Mind
As mentioned, Logseq takes an offline-first approach—when syncing, the method you choose will also determine how tricky it is and how much chance there is of issues arising.
The good thing is there are relatively stable options available.
My Precious (Resources)
Depending on what you store in Logseq, how you use it and what type of device you’re using, you may come across some performance issues. Hopefully these issues can be ironed out as development continues. The resource intensity of Logseq can be attributed to its powerful feature set and robust functionality, it has the potential to handle complex data behind the scenes.
Mobile Limitations
Logseq is available for desktops as well as mobile devices. On desktop there are many plugins available through a “marketplace”. These plugins enhance the functionality of Logseq in various ways. Unfortunately, the mobile apps of Logseq only support the vanilla experience. At this time the plugins are not supported on mobile. This may change with future development. The benefit to this is that it provides you with the essential features needed to capture and access important information on the go. Additionally, it eliminates the potential of getting bogged down fiddling and trying new plugins and getting yourself distracted.
Limited Support
Because Logseq is an open-source project some of the documentation can be a bit lacking. It is largely driven by the community. If we’re thinking positively, we should recognise there is an active community who contribute to the continuous development and improvement of Logseq. On top of that, this also means that YOU can have a say, a voice in its development.
Specific ADHD Challenges
It's Difficult to Keep Organised
Sometimes keeping on top of tasks, appointments and deadlines can become overwhelming.
We have a tendency to misplace or completely forget about important information.
How Do We Even Time Management
People with ADHD have two arch- nemeses when it comes to time management. Procrastination and prioritisation. Procrastination is putting off tasks—this can be for a variety of reasons. Prioritisation is knowing which tasks you should do first and which tasks can wait.
On top of issues with procrastination and prioritisation there is another persistent problem of inconsistent focus. It can be very challenging for people with ADHD to maintain the same level of focus across all different types of tasks. This one explanation for people with ADHD being unable to—or have a lot of trouble completing certain tasks.
Information Overload Management
If there is an excessive amount of information presented to someone with ADHD at once, we may find it difficult to focus on any one part. There's an overload of information. We may get distracted by many parts of the overall information.
Additionally, this giant clump of information will be very difficult for someone with ADHD to effectively filter. Because of this we'll be unable to properly categorise the information. We'll potentially see a load of loosely related information, unable to do much with it unless we spend time and a lot of thought into it.
Routine? Who Are You, Houdini?
Creating a routine is easy, right? For some people, maybe. However, people with ADHD can struggle significantly. Sticking to that routine once it's established? Forget about it!
And what about tracking habits? Same deal. You may have been paying attention to my Substack Notes for the past month or so. You may have remembered at the start of May I began a 30 day social media detox challenge:
Did you notice in the beginning I was posting an update daily? What happened? Good question! I did technically have a valid excuse—but still it was an excuse. Once the momentum was interrupted the motivation to keep it up faded very quickly. Posting random Notes about what's on my mind or something happening seems to fill my serotonin bucket much quicker than repeating the same monotonous task every day.
How Can Logseq Help with these ADHD challenges?
Keeping Organised
Logseq is an information management system. Its entire purpose is to help you stay organised. But how?? We will get to all that in coming episodes. For now, know that it is a combination of tags I keywords, pages, journals as well as linked documents, images and queries later. - Time Management Logseq has multiple features and techniques to assist with keeping track of time- based tasks and events. Some are built-in and some are more manual-I'm sure whatever your use-case we can find a solution.
Managing Information Overload
When you open Logseq you'll see today's journal page by default. When adding information we should do it in a way that will organise it as we go. The point is that the information you see when opening the app won't be overwhelming and it help keep you focused on what you should be doing today and the near future—you won't be bombarded with too much information.
Routining
As mentioned, when you open the Logseq app you are presented with the current day's journal entry. Each day's journal entry is created automatically the first time you open the Logseq app on the given day. We'll show you how you can make the most of this—no more manually creating Markdown files every day. Because that is totally what you were doing previously, right—right??
So then...
Overall Logseq is well-suited to people with ADHD due to its many features. It can help you with organisation, it's a visual tool (you can see a “map” of how all your content links together) and Logseq is also flexible.
This article was a brief introduction to Logseq and how it can help people with ADHD keep on top of their lives and the information in it.
On the next installment / episode- whatever you want to call it, we'll run through Logseq installation and initial setup.
The next episode may even be making use of video—you won't want to miss that!
That's it for now—as always, good luck, stay safe and be well!