# How to Build a Parking Lot for Your ADHD Brain
Canonical: https://social-archive.org/adegette/IqEymNmLRJ
Original URL: https://merjalindroos.substack.com/p/how-to-build-a-parking-lot-for-your
Author: Merja Lindroos
Platform: substack
## Content
Last Tuesday, I wrote about the 47 open tabs that cost me €1,000. The response surprised me — the concept readers asked about most wasn’t the Notification Funeral or the Singletasking Circle. It was the Parking Lot. “How do I build one?” “What does yours actually look like?” “Can I see the template?” So today, I’m showing you exactly how — and why this tiny database might be the most ADHD-friendly productivity tool you’ll ever use. Why Your Brilliant Ideas Are Destroying Your Focus• • This is the ADHD paradox: your best ideas arrive at your worst moments. Last week, one spark cost 45 minutes and nearly derailed a €3,000 proposal. The Parking Lot stops this from happening. Here’s what happened last week. I was mid-sentence in a €3,000 service proposal when my brain whispered: “What if you built a Finnish ADHD solopreneur community on Skool?” It was a genuinely good idea. Exciting. Full of dopamine potential. The old me would have: • Opened a new tab • Researched Skool pricing • Sketched a community structure • Lost 45 minutes • Never finished the proposal This is the ADHD paradox: your best ideas arrive at your worst moments. The creative spark lands right when you need sequential focus. And following every spark is exactly how I ended 2025 with under €1,000 profit despite working constantly. Devora Zack calls this the core challenge of singletasking. Michael Singer would call it attachment to the shiny object — mistaking the excitement of a new thought for the importance of the current work. The solution isn’t to suppress ideas. That’s impossible for ADHD brains — and honestly, those ideas are often gold. The solution is to redirect them without losing them. That’s the Parking Lot. Subscribe now What Is a Parking Lot? (And Why It Works for ADHD)• • Don't fight the idea. Park it. The Parking Lot works because it removes the fear of forgetting — so your brain can actually let go and return to the task. That's the dopamine redirect. A Parking Lot is a dedicated place where distracting ideas go to wait safely — so your brain can release them without anxiety. The psychology is simple: • ADHD brains fear forgetting. That’s why we follow every idea immediately — we don’t trust it’ll be there later. • A Parking Lot removes that fear. The idea is captured. It’s safe. Your brain can let go. • Letting go frees executive function to return to the task at hand. It’s the same principle behind David Allen’s “capture” habit in Getting Things Done, but simplified for brains that find GTD overwhelming. Think of it as a dopamine redirect: instead of following the spark, you park it. The reward shifts from “exploring something new” to “protecting something valuable.” The Anatomy of My Notion Parking Lot• • Your ADHD brain isn't broken — it's an idea factory with no parking. This system gives every distraction a safe place to land, so you can protect the work that matters. Park it. Review it Friday. Thanks for reading Basecamp Books! This post is public so feel free to share it. Share My Parking Lot is a Notion database with five fields — and three views that turn it into a complete focus-protection system: The Five FieldsField Purpose Example 💡 Idea The distracting thought, in one sentence “Build a Skool community for Finnish ADHD solopreneurs” 📍 Context What I was working on when it hit “Drafting the €3K service proposal” ⚡ Energy How excited I was (1 · Fleeting → 5 · Obsessive) 4 · Strong 📋 Status 🅿️ Parked → 🔍 Reviewed → ✅ Actioned or 📦 Archived 🅿️ Parked 📅 Parked On Date captured Mar 20 That’s it. Five fields. No tags, no categories, no elaborate system. The simpler it is, the more likely an ADHD brain will actually use it. The Three ViewsThis is where the database becomes more than a list. Each view gives you a different lens on the same data — no duplicate entries, no extra work: • 🅿️ All Ideas — the default table view. Every idea sorted by date, newest first. This is your capture surface. During the workday, this is the only view you need. • 📊 By Status — a board view with four columns: Parked, Reviewed, Actioned, Archived. Drag ideas between columns as they progress. One glance tells you how your week is going. The visual satisfaction of moving a card to “Archived” is its own ADHD reward. • 📋 Friday Review — a filtered view that shows only Parked and Reviewed items, sorted by energy (highest first). This is your Friday companion. No clutter, no archived ideas, just the decisions waiting to be made. You never have to remember what to review — the Friday Review view does the filtering for you. Why “Energy” instead of “Priority”? Because for ADHD brains, energy is a more honest signal than rational priority. A 5 · Obsessive idea that you keep thinking about might be genuinely important — or it might be pure dopamine. The Friday review is where you sort the difference. The 3-Second Capture RuleThe Parking Lot only works if capturing is faster than following the distraction. My rule: 3 seconds or less. How I do it: • At my desk: Notion is always open. I have the Parking Lot pinned as a favorite. One click → new row → type the idea → back to work. • On my phone: Notion mobile widget on home screen. Tap → quick entry → done. • Away from devices: I keep a single index card and a pen next to my coffee. Analog parking. Transfer to Notion during my weekly reset. The key insight: you’re not evaluating the idea. You’re parking it. No analysis, no research, no “let me just check one thing.” Write it down and go back. If it takes more than 3 seconds, you’ve already started following the distraction. The Friday Parking Lot ReviewCapturing ideas is only half the system. The other half is reviewing them intentionally — on your terms, not your dopamine’s terms. Every Friday, as part of my weekly reset ritual, I spend 10 minutes reviewing the week’s parked ideas. The review has three questions: 1. “Am I still excited about this?” If the idea was pure dopamine, the excitement will have faded by Friday. That’s valuable information. Archive it — no guilt. 2. “Does this serve my current project?” If yes, move it to my task list or project plan. If it’s a new project entirely, it goes on the “someday” list — not the active list. 3. “What would the cost of following this have been?” This is the kicker. When I see “Context: Drafting €3K proposal” and I know I would have lost 45 minutes to Skool research, the Parking Lot pays for itself. Most weeks, I archive 60–70% of parked ideas. They felt urgent on Tuesday. By Friday, they’re noise. And the 30% that survive? Those are the ideas worth my time. What a Week in My Parking Lot Looks LikeHere’s an actual week (slightly anonymized): Idea Context Energy Friday Verdict Build Skool community €3K proposal 4 Archived — dopamine, not strategy Write about notification systems Client email 3 Actioned — became Tuesday’s post New template for ADHD reading Book review draft 5 Moved to project list — still excited Research Finnish ADHD podcast market LinkedIn browsing 2 Archived — energy was low, just scrolling Redesign pricing page Proposal writing 3 Parked again — revisit next week Notice: 3 out of 5 archived. One became valuable content. One needs more time. This is the system working. The Parking Lot + Singletasking StackThe Parking Lot doesn’t work in isolation. It’s part of a singletasking ecosystem: • The Singletasking Circle protects your focus time • The Parking Lot catches the ideas that try to break in • Cluster Tasking batches similar work to reduce switching • The Friday Review processes everything intentionally Together, they form a closed loop: focus → capture → batch → review → repeat. No idea is lost. No focus session is broken. And your brain learns to trust the system — which means it relaxes faster when you park something. That trust is everything for ADHD brains. Once your brain believes the Parking Lot is safe, it stops screaming “BUT WHAT IF WE FORGET?” every time a new thought appears. Common Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)❌ Making it too complex. If your Parking Lot has 12 fields, tags, and categories, you won’t use it. Five fields. Maximum. ❌ Reviewing daily. Daily review turns the Parking Lot into another to-do list. Weekly is the right rhythm — enough distance to see what’s noise, close enough to act on what matters. ❌ Acting immediately on “high energy” ideas. A 5/5 energy idea on Monday might be a 2/5 by Friday. Let the energy settle. If it’s still high after a week, it’s real. ❌ Feeling guilty about archiving. Archiving 70% of your ideas isn’t failure — it’s the system protecting your focus. Every archived idea is 45 minutes you didn’t lose. Your Turn: Build It in 5 MinutesYou don’t need my template to start. Open Notion (or a notebook, or a Notes app) and create these five columns: • 💡 Idea • 📍 Context • ⚡ Energy (1 · Fleeting → 5 · Obsessive) • 📋 Status (🅿️ Parked / 🔍 Reviewed / ✅ Actioned / 📦 Archived) • 📅 Parked On Then add three views: a table for capture, a board grouped by Status for visual progress, and a filtered view showing only Parked items for your Friday review. That’s your Parking Lot. Use it for one week. Review on Friday. See what happens. If you want a ready-made Notion template with all three views, the Friday Review checklist, and a Wins Tracker already built in: → Get the ADHD Parking Lot — Notion Template Duplicate it into your workspace and start parking ideas today. It includes the database with All Ideas, By Status board, and Friday Review views — plus a Wins Tracker so you can see how many hours you’ve saved over time. If This Resonated, You Might Also Enjoy:• The 47 Open Tabs That Cost Me €1,000 — The Singletasking book review that started this conversation • The Simplest ADHD Hack I Use Every Single Day — Body doubling: the companion to the Parking Lot • The Weekly Reset: A 10-Minute Friday Ritual — Where the Parking Lot review lives Your ADHD brain isn’t broken. It’s a idea factory with no parking. Build the lot. Trust the review. Protect the work. Basecamp thinking: pause, reflect, continue — without burning out. 🏔️ ---
Last Tuesday, I wrote about the 47 open tabs that cost me €1,000. The response surprised me — the concept readers asked about most wasn’t the Notification Funeral or the Singletasking Circle.
It was the Parking Lot.
“How do I build one?” “What does yours actually look like?” “Can I see the template?”
So today, I’m showing you exactly how — and why this tiny database might be the most ADHD-friendly productivity tool you’ll ever use.
Why Your Brilliant Ideas Are Destroying Your Focus
This is the ADHD paradox: your best ideas arrive at your worst moments. Last week, one spark cost 45 minutes and nearly derailed a €3,000 proposal. The Parking Lot stops this from happening.
Here’s what happened last week.
I was mid-sentence in a €3,000 service proposal when my brain whispered: “What if you built a Finnish ADHD solopreneur community on Skool?”
It was a genuinely good idea. Exciting. Full of dopamine potential.
The old me would have:
Opened a new tab
Researched Skool pricing
Sketched a community structure
Lost 45 minutes
Never finished the proposal
This is the ADHD paradox: your best ideas arrive at your worst moments. The creative spark lands right when you need sequential focus. And following every spark is exactly how I ended 2025 with under €1,000 profit despite working constantly.
Devora Zack calls this the core challenge of singletasking. Michael Singer would call it attachment to the shiny object — mistaking the excitement of a new thought for the importance of the current work.
The solution isn’t to suppress ideas. That’s impossible for ADHD brains — and honestly, those ideas are often gold. The solution is to redirect them without losing them.
What Is a Parking Lot? (And Why It Works for ADHD)
Don't fight the idea. Park it. The Parking Lot works because it removes the fear of forgetting — so your brain can actually let go and return to the task. That's the dopamine redirect.
A Parking Lot is a dedicated place where distracting ideas go to wait safely — so your brain can release them without anxiety.
The psychology is simple:
ADHD brains fear forgetting. That’s why we follow every idea immediately — we don’t trust it’ll be there later.
A Parking Lot removes that fear. The idea is captured. It’s safe. Your brain can let go.
Letting go frees executive function to return to the task at hand.
It’s the same principle behind David Allen’s “capture” habit in Getting Things Done, but simplified for brains that find GTD overwhelming.
Think of it as a dopamine redirect: instead of following the spark, you park it. The reward shifts from “exploring something new” to “protecting something valuable.”
The Anatomy of My Notion Parking Lot
Your ADHD brain isn't broken — it's an idea factory with no parking. This system gives every distraction a safe place to land, so you can protect the work that matters. Park it. Review it Friday.
Thanks for reading Basecamp Books! This post is public so feel free to share it.
My Parking Lot is a Notion database with five fields — and three views that turn it into a complete focus-protection system:
The Five Fields
Field Purpose Example 💡 Idea The distracting thought, in one sentence “Build a Skool community for Finnish ADHD solopreneurs” 📍 Context What I was working on when it hit “Drafting the €3K service proposal” ⚡ Energy How excited I was (1 · Fleeting → 5 · Obsessive) 4 · Strong 📋 Status 🅿️ Parked → 🔍 Reviewed → ✅ Actioned or 📦 Archived 🅿️ Parked 📅 Parked On Date captured Mar 20
That’s it. Five fields. No tags, no categories, no elaborate system. The simpler it is, the more likely an ADHD brain will actually use it.
The Three Views
This is where the database becomes more than a list. Each view gives you a different lens on the same data — no duplicate entries, no extra work:
🅿️ All Ideas — the default table view. Every idea sorted by date, newest first. This is your capture surface. During the workday, this is the only view you need.
📊 By Status — a board view with four columns: Parked, Reviewed, Actioned, Archived. Drag ideas between columns as they progress. One glance tells you how your week is going. The visual satisfaction of moving a card to “Archived” is its own ADHD reward.
📋 Friday Review — a filtered view that shows only Parked and Reviewed items, sorted by energy (highest first). This is your Friday companion. No clutter, no archived ideas, just the decisions waiting to be made.
You never have to remember what to review — the Friday Review view does the filtering for you.
Why “Energy” instead of “Priority”? Because for ADHD brains, energy is a more honest signal than rational priority. A 5 · Obsessive idea that you keep thinking about might be genuinely important — or it might be pure dopamine. The Friday review is where you sort the difference.
The 3-Second Capture Rule
The Parking Lot only works if capturing is faster than following the distraction.
My rule: 3 seconds or less.
How I do it:
At my desk: Notion is always open. I have the Parking Lot pinned as a favorite. One click → new row → type the idea → back to work.
On my phone: Notion mobile widget on home screen. Tap → quick entry → done.
Away from devices: I keep a single index card and a pen next to my coffee. Analog parking. Transfer to Notion during my weekly reset.
The key insight: you’re not evaluating the idea. You’re parking it. No analysis, no research, no “let me just check one thing.” Write it down and go back.
If it takes more than 3 seconds, you’ve already started following the distraction.
The Friday Parking Lot Review
Capturing ideas is only half the system. The other half is reviewing them intentionally — on your terms, not your dopamine’s terms.
Every Friday, as part of my weekly reset ritual, I spend 10 minutes reviewing the week’s parked ideas.
The review has three questions:
1. “Am I still excited about this?”
If the idea was pure dopamine, the excitement will have faded by Friday. That’s valuable information. Archive it — no guilt.
2. “Does this serve my current project?”
If yes, move it to my task list or project plan. If it’s a new project entirely, it goes on the “someday” list — not the active list.
This is the kicker. When I see “Context: Drafting €3K proposal” and I know I would have lost 45 minutes to Skool research, the Parking Lot pays for itself.
Most weeks, I archive 60–70% of parked ideas. They felt urgent on Tuesday. By Friday, they’re noise. And the 30% that survive? Those are the ideas worth my time.
What a Week in My Parking Lot Looks Like
Here’s an actual week (slightly anonymized):
Idea Context Energy Friday Verdict Build Skool community €3K proposal 4 Archived — dopamine, not strategy Write about notification systems Client email 3 Actioned — became Tuesday’s post New template for ADHD reading Book review draft 5 Moved to project list — still excited Research Finnish ADHD podcast market LinkedIn browsing 2 Archived — energy was low, just scrolling Redesign pricing page Proposal writing 3 Parked again — revisit next week
Notice: 3 out of 5 archived. One became valuable content. One needs more time. This is the system working.
The Parking Lot + Singletasking Stack
The Parking Lot doesn’t work in isolation. It’s part of a singletasking ecosystem:
The Friday Review processes everything intentionally
Together, they form a closed loop: focus → capture → batch → review → repeat.
No idea is lost. No focus session is broken. And your brain learns to trust the system — which means it relaxes faster when you park something.
That trust is everything for ADHD brains. Once your brain believes the Parking Lot is safe, it stops screaming “BUT WHAT IF WE FORGET?” every time a new thought appears.
Common Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
❌ Making it too complex. If your Parking Lot has 12 fields, tags, and categories, you won’t use it. Five fields. Maximum.
❌ Reviewing daily. Daily review turns the Parking Lot into another to-do list. Weekly is the right rhythm — enough distance to see what’s noise, close enough to act on what matters.
❌ Acting immediately on “high energy” ideas. A 5/5 energy idea on Monday might be a 2/5 by Friday. Let the energy settle. If it’s still high after a week, it’s real.
❌ Feeling guilty about archiving. Archiving 70% of your ideas isn’t failure — it’s the system protecting your focus. Every archived idea is 45 minutes you didn’t lose.
Your Turn: Build It in 5 Minutes
You don’t need my template to start. Open Notion (or a notebook, or a Notes app) and create these five columns:
Then add three views: a table for capture, a board grouped by Status for visual progress, and a filtered view showing only Parked items for your Friday review.
That’s your Parking Lot. Use it for one week. Review on Friday. See what happens.
If you want a ready-made Notion template with all three views, the Friday Review checklist, and a Wins Tracker already built in:
Duplicate it into your workspace and start parking ideas today. It includes the database with All Ideas, By Status board, and Friday Review views — plus a Wins Tracker so you can see how many hours you’ve saved over time.
