I am a developer with too many side projects and a brain that treats every new idea as an emergency.
Standard productivity advice never worked for me. GTD, time-blocking, Pomodoro — each one lasted a week. Then life showed up and the system quietly collapsed.
The problem wasn't discipline. The problem was that every system I tried assumed I had a stable, linear brain. I don't. And fighting that assumption burns more energy than the work itself.
So I built something else.
The core insight
ADHD brains need multiple stimulation channels. Fighting that need makes things worse. The 3-Track System satisfies it inside a structure.
Three tracks run in parallel. Every task belongs to one:
Focus Track — deep work. One project at a time. 60–90 minute sessions at peak energy. No switching. This is where real output happens.
Momentum Track — quick completions. Small tasks, fast wins. Keeps dopamine moving on days when Focus is impossible. Replies, reviews, anything under 20 minutes.
Novelty Track — bounded exploration. 20 minutes per day. One new thing. The rule: explore freely, but don't start building until it survives 48 hours in a holding list. This is the Project Gate — it kills 80% of impulsive commitments before they waste a week.
The rotation pattern
You don't pick a track and stay there all day. You rotate based on energy:
- Morning peak energy → Focus
- Post-lunch slump → Momentum
- End of day curiosity spike → Novelty (with the 48h gate)
Bad days where none of this works → Emergency Protocol: shrink to 3 tasks, find the startable one, do 2 minutes of it.
What this solves
- Side project explosion: the Project Gate catches impulses before they become half-built repos
- Paralysis on bad days: the emergency protocol gives a procedure instead of a decision
- Guilt about "wasted" novelty time: the Novelty Track legitimizes it inside bounded time
The honest part
This works for me. It's built around specific patterns — crisis comfort, scattered interests, executive function gaps. If those patterns aren't yours, some of this won't apply.
I wrote it up as a short book (5k words, readable in an afternoon).
The emergency protocol section is free: https://tomasmacik.gumroad.com/l/adhd-planning-preview
The full system with all the mechanics is €9: https://tomasmacik.gumroad.com/l/adhd-planning-book
Source on GitLab if you want to read the markdown: https://gitlab.com/tomas.macik/adhd-planning-book
Questions about the system welcome in the comments.
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