What are the best tools for managing comedy material?

Some ADHD-friendly advice

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Andrew

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I have the real kind of ADHD, so it’s really hard for me to pick up new healthy habits. At the first sign of getting to organised my brain will eject. Even if you’re not officially diagnosed, I find many creative people are on the ADHD spectrum. Or maybe ADHD isn’t even a real thing and it just means I’m just too real for this world, like a rugged lil’ cowboy.

Back in the old days I was happy to use a good ol’ fashion notebook for scraps of ideas, and writing set-lists. But inevitably I would forget said notebook, leading to joke ideas being on the back of receipts and bus tickets. Since I started teaching, using notepads has become a big no-no because I have so many notepads on the go for different classes, I literally can’t organise my jokes into one notepad.

Enter Google Docs

What’s a damn thing I have on me at all times, why yes it’s my trusty soul-sucking phone. I have an infinitely long document on there called Notepad. And that’s perfect for all my scraps of joke ideas. Buuut of course it’s also full of all kinds of random recommendations, photos of cafes, calculations, show promo texts etc. so it’s also not to be trusted as good ideas easily get lost forever.

And I know, I know. All you neuro-cool people are like, just have a bunch of google docs. I’m sorry, ADHD brain not work like that.

Enter Notion

I’ve only been using Notion a few months so I can’t vouch for it passing the ADHD “I’m bored of this now” test, but it’s pretty good.

Lol I am in no way affiliated with this product, I wish!

Amongst other things it’s a database app. So I now have a database of “Jokes” that I can tag with different topics.

And of course each joke has its own page.

And you can make sub-databases for sets or bigger routines. Although I usually use whatever notepad I have to hand for deciding on a set.

So it’s pretty pretty good for organising your material even if like me you have adhd and/or you ate to much mdma in the 00s. It also has a desktop app which I have never used.

If I had an iPhone I would try “bits”

This app looks good for iPhone but they don’t have an Android version so screw them.

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