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It might work
It sounds to me like you might have too many reminders all over the place. It might work better to just have one big list of next actions you need to do and then you will just need to make sure that you have that. Well, that and a calendar for all the things you need to do on a specific day.
David Allen's point is that if you are keeping lots of stuff in your mind then you are going to have difficulty keeping track of it all and that causes stress and difficulty focussing on any one thing. That's why he recommends doing all of the two-minute things first, so you won't have so many little things to keep track of. I read the book when my herceptin brain was really bad and I would recommend starting off by looking at what he calls the "workflow diagram," which is all about deciding how to get things done. That one diagram covers alot of text.
I find that checklists can be good. I also try to have things prepared the night before and visualise what I will do that day to make sure I have everything. Before cancer, I was superorganized, but it has been a real struggle to get my act back in order. I'm still not there.
If it's a messy house, the best thing is to take one room at a time, starting with the one that is stressing you out the most.
I have a four year old and a fairly demanding job. After having to pay for four months of my year of herceptin, I am much more wary of becoming financially dependent on the UK national health service for expensive drugs, so I am balancing the two but it would be difficult for anybody. I also went back to work after my radiotherapy way too early, largely because I had this gut feeling that to have a reasonable shot of surviving this disease I was going to need some treatment that would be available somewhere, but not on the health service, and knew I would need money for it.
I have tried to interest my oncologist in herceptin brain, but he seems to have gone cold on looking into it. Now that I have finished herceptin, my thinking seems to be improving. Actually, just getting control of my insomnia was helpful. I did feel a bit wired when I was on herceptin: tired, but unable to sleep. Do you suffer from insomnia? Occasionally I still take a one-off trazadone and that helps. I seem to get a bout of insomnia every three weeks when my herceptin would have been due and I finished nearly two months ago.
Best of luck,
Christine
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