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January can be weird. One minute you’re sipping sparkling wine under fireworks, the next you’re staring at your inbox, wondering how you forgot your email password over the holiday break. The glitter fades fast, and suddenly it’s back to deadlines, group chats and figuring out if you’re supposed to feel different now.
The new year often arrives with the pressure to improve: Cue the “new year, new me” captions and ambitious planners that still smell like a Kinokuniya display table.
But let’s be honest: Not everyone is in the mood for reinventing themselves. Maybe you're in the mood for just a little glow-up, or maybe you're just trying to get through your to-do list without spiraling.
Either way, here’s a mix of tools and tricks to help you ease into the year, whether you're looking for fresh ideas, familiar favorites or just a little structure to soften the return to real life.
1. Don’t know where to start? Try a brain dump
Before you dive into your to-do list, consider starting with a brain dump. Think of it as emptying the mental junk drawer. Grab a pen and paper, and jot down everything on your mind, anything that you need to do, feel pressured to do or hope to do. Keep going until you run out.
Not a pen-and-paper person? Try a voice dump instead. Open your phone’s voice memo app and start talking. It can be just as effective, especially if your thoughts move faster than your handwriting.
Whether you’re writing or speaking, the point is to make space. Your first brain dump may not be complete the first time around, you’ll probably keep adding to it—but that’s part of the process. Once your thoughts are out of your head, you’ll start to see what actually needs your attention now and what can wait.
An added benefit for scatterbrains: You can’t forget if it’s recorded or written down. Just try not to lose that piece of paper (or forget which app you recorded it in).
2. Always on your phone? Let apps help you
If your screen time is already out of control, you might as well make it work for you.
Productivity apps like Todoist and TickTick are simple, ADHD-friendly tools that make list-making feel satisfying instead of stressful.
Todoist lets you use natural language (“email Rika every Thursday”) to set priorities and schedule recurring tasks. TickTick adds a built-in Pomodoro timer and habit tracker, which are great for people actually trying to change their patterns, not just log them.
If you want something more powerful, Notion, Coda and Scrintal offer all-in-one workspaces.
Notion is basically the gold standard of productivity tools: projects, notes, databases, calendars, all in one clean interface. Coda and Scrintal have smarter AI features, especially if you’re juggling research or creative work.
While they’re not completely free, they offer a solid first step toward organizing your chaos.
3. Prefer analog? Just write it down (with style)
For some, it still helps to write things down by hand. There’s something about putting pen to paper that makes a to-do list feel more real, and somehow more manageable. Sometimes your tasks only feel overwhelming because they’re swirling in your head. Writing them down often reveals it’s not as bad as it seems.
Handwriting also helps with memory and mental clarity. And no shade to digital calendars, but a whiteboard doesn’t emit blue light and won’t ping you during an existential spiral at 9 p.m.
Having a small whiteboard in my workspace helps me keep track of what I need to do and gives me space to be creative at the same time. Making a to-do list suddenly feels more fun. And honestly, is there anything more satisfying than using a big marker to cross things off?
It’s a potential game changer for both your brain and your workspace.
4. Think about food a lot? Go for Pomodoro or Eat the Frog
Now that your brain feels a little less cluttered, it’s time to actually check things off. Motivation is always the tricky part, so let’s start with some time-tested methods, the ones we keep returning to year after year like a productivity version of “Auld Lang Syne”.
First up, the Pomodoro Technique. Designed to boost focus and prevent burnout, this method breaks your workday into 25-minute sprints, separated by five-minute breaks. After a few rounds, you take a longer rest to bookend the session.
Fun fact: It’s called Pomodoro because its creator, Francesco Cirillo, used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to track his focus.
Then there’s Eat the Frog, which asks you to start your day by tackling your hardest, most important task; most likely the one you’ve been avoiding. That task is your “frog”.
The phrase derives from a quote by Mark Twain: “Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Once that critter’s out of the way, the rest are just tadpoles.
Everyone has their preference, but let’s be real: We always come back to what’s worked before.
5. Procrastinate like a pro? Make it a team sport
Sometimes, the only thing stronger than your will to procrastinate is the accountability of a friend. Call it body doubling, call it communal suffering, but doing things with someone, even virtually, can help you push through.
Set a timer, hop on a video call and silently work side by side. It doesn’t have to be the same task. You could be prepping a meal while your friend clears their inbox. Just the presence of someone else doing something can trick your brain into staying on track.
You can even gamify it if you want. Who finishes first? Who gets the most crossed off?
Just a heads-up: There’s a fine line between boosting productivity and becoming a distraction. Set a clear goal before you start, agree on a rough plan and try to stick to the same timeline. Think of it as accountability, not just company.
