One of the things that occupational therapists are very skilled at is adapting the environment in order to help an individual succeed. Thus, I'm always on the lookout for tools that could help autistic individuals perform their best in the workplace. One thing that many autistic people (and neurotypical people!) find difficult is time management and prioritization of tasks. There are many ways to help people with this skill, including both high-tech and low-tech solutions, but this post will focus on an app I recently discovered called DropTask and low-cost ways to adapt it in the office. [As a note, I do not receive any compensation from DropTask. I simply was impressed with its design and thought that neurodiversity community could benefit from the knowledge of this tool!] ... You can also skip to the bottom to see my take on 'The OT Approach to Making a Productive Environment for Free.
DropTask is a task management tool that can be used by teams to plan and prioritize tasks on differing projects. I decided to do a free trial of the app on my laptop to see it for myself.
After trying it, there are a few things I love about DropTask:
1. It's simple to use.
I learned to use the app fairly well in 5-10 minutes using its walk-through guide.
2. It makes prioritization straightforward.
I created a project for myself and identified some tasks I need to complete as treasurer of the Autism Interest Group at Jefferson. Each time you put a task in, you can indicate its importance and its urgency on a 3 point scale. Additionally, it allows you to designate whether the task is to be done 'now,' 'next,' or 'later.' You can even set deadlines and alarm reminders. Better yet: DropTask allows managers to make these distinctions and then assign the task to individuals on their teams. How much easier it is for employees when they know exactly what to prioritize, when the deadlines are, and how important/urgent each task is. I truly see this tool as a game changer for individuals who may have executive functioning issues related to prioritization, time management, or initiation.
3. It's extremely visual.
As you may know, for many autistic individuals, processing visual information is a lot easier than processing a ton of text. Although this is still a little text-heavy, I like that you can clearly see the schedule and see the priorities in an organized matter instead of reading a long list.
4. If you're just going to use this on your own or as a manager to employee model, you can use it for free!
According to DropTask's website, you can create up to 2 projects and teams of up to 2 members for free. The paid version ($10 monthly) allows unlimited projects, among other perks. Note that the price increases markedly as you add users ($40/month for 5 users, $100/month for 20 users). Because I know that cost can be a barrier, I've identified my cheaper solution below.
The OT Approach to Making a Productive Environment for Free
If I were managing autistic individuals on my team, I would definitely use DropTask if I had the available funding. More likely than not, though, I wouldn't have the available funding. So, I would implement the DropTask Methodology using free and available technology.
This is actually pretty simple. You can easily use Google Sheets to organize a planner like the DropTask planner, and the resulting sheet is editable by both managers and the employees. The tabs on the bottom can be used to duplicate for multiple projects. This is a quick example I made:
The issue with this, though, is that each Google sheet would have to be more complex if used for more than one employee. My solution would be to color code each task for the individual or team and providing a key for that, as shown below.
If you're interested in using this method, here's a link to my template. Feel free to use it with your team!
An Alternative Low-Tech Solution
Using the same idea, you could easily utilize this method using post-its. Simply include "do now," "do next," or "do soon" in the action items in your email and specify if each item is urgent or important. The employee can then write the tasks on post-it notes and organize them under categories in their working space.
The opportunities for using this method really are plentiful and quite simple. The best part is, this method could make a world of difference for an employee who has difficulty with prioritization or time management.
Let me know what you think about this method in the comments below!
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