The lighter side of ADHD
For what it is worth, it is useful to come to the conclusion that the brain is an awful place to store something you want to remember. It may not be a list, but I certainly remember better outside my head than inside. Developing tooling that works for you is important to coming to grips with your brain.
I remember great inside my head, i just forget to remember.
my brain is an infinite ikea filled with filing cabinets, staffed by a single slightly confused librarian who has to navigate by leaving scratches on the walls
once the librarian finds the relevant filing cabinet there's all the information you could possibly want, but good luck finding that one specific cabinet.
I never forget to remember. It's remembering the thing I need to remember within a relevant time period, and not hours to decades past that time, that is the problem.
Everyone is different and I'd go so far to say that there's probably a HEFTY chunk of individuals that this wouldn't work for, me included.
I don't forget to do things. My brain just refuses to acknowledge that they're urgent to do.🤷♂️
My favorite strategy is literally putting crap I need to remember in my way. Remember my daughter's jacket for school? You belong in front of the door now. Need to remember making a meal? Gonna leave out a bunch of ingredients on the counter. Everybody is different, I just find that kind of stuff works for me too.
I’m still trying to find what works. I have about 5 different methods, some electronic, some not, and I never use one regularly because I forget.
I really want to find one that I stick to :(
I use a self hosted version of Trello for work and a combination of hand written notes. Unless I make a Trello note for it that thing may as well not exist. Immediately leaves my mind after. I try to capture the lighting in a bottle by taking enough notes to mean something later. I undercut myself with short cryptic notes sometimes, but usually it is enough to spark my brain back to what I was thinking.
Self hosted version is focal board, for the tech enthusiast.
Thanks for the suggestion!
I think I tried trello? But didn’t keep it up for one reason or another.
My problem is that I cannot sync my work and home life/calendars/lists.
So I could have a meeting at work or a doctor’s appointment - unless I remember to put the doctor’s appointment on my work calendar, the appointment won’t alert me at work, and also I don’t get alerts for work events while at home unless I’m using my personal iPad (or get out the laptop, which is usually in the car in the garage) which is an approved device, and I have to be in my special walled-off section of work apps.
I don’t always remember to specifically check my work calendar at the end of the day or my iPad before bed, and this has led to missing more than a few earlier than usual meetings that were scheduled at the last minute.
A combo of iPhone reminders, just telling Siri or HomePod mini is sometimes helpful, if the reminder pops up right when I’m able to take note and do the thing. I wish you could set multiple alert times for a single reminder, especially using voice.
I also use the Due app and have a widget on my home AND Lock Screen to show my list, but now it just kinda blends in and I don’t pay attention to it. sigh
At work I use a combo of post-it notes and sometimes notes from meetings, but I forget to go back and read them. I’m a mess :(
I don't know if I have adhd but I see a lot of posts that seem to have similar mannerisms to me. I find I have to have multiple ways of making lists because I will start ignoring them. I also have to focus on the most important things to do. Like constant mantras in my head to get these things done. One of them must be going through all the stuff I need to get done and prioritize the most important. I try to do this every weekend. must be done. must be done. I have to like leverage obsesive thought.
If this sort of behavior is interrupting your life at all, you might want to see a doctor. This type of behavior sounds like it could be ADHD.
But I am obviously not a medical professional. This is just my opinion as someone with ADHD that had previously been an interruption in my life.
yeah I just don't see how it will help. Its what I have to do to cope and from what I see medication may make one feel better but does not help maintaining a job and such. Its like being a functional vs non functional alcoholic. If you can't manage then it seems to help but I am managing anyway.
Perfectly valid. The major point being "if it's interrupting your life" and from what you said, it seems like it's not.
Different things work for different people. I know before I got diagnosed, I was in denial that there was an issue, yet several parts of my life were suffering because of my disorder and had been suffering for a long time.
Therefore, personally, I needed to get diagnosed as a sort of "first step to recovery" to reference your "alcohol addiction" analogy.
yeah I have just seen enough people on medication where it seems worse. This is common in all medical intervention really. Something will fix something to a certain degree while adding other issues to a certain degree. When the other issues (side effects) are minimal and the fix is substantial, then its a no brainer. Like my glasses. They are sorta annoying but without them I can't see so the ratio is way in favor of using them. Pain medication is sorta a middle ground. It can be addictive so have to be careful and it can make you nauseous or such (reactions depending on the individual). If you don't take it though it can be real bad. I used to avoid it till I learned my lesson with a surgery because it takes hours for it to take effect. Now I take the full prescribed but try to start titrating it down after the first day. The other end of the spectrum is like a spinal fusion. If you can still get about and function then you don't want it but if your issue is literally putting you in a wheel chair then you pull the trigger.
I have family with ADHD, and one of them really struggled with the concept of medication. They did not want to go on it. After multiple conversations with their doctor, and other friends and family, they decided to give it a try based on one thing: ADHD meds are very short acting, and if you hate it all you need to do is quit taking it.
So they tried it out and were blown away with what a difference it made in their life. They were in school at the time, and it made a huge difference on their ability to focus. They've talked about how they had no idea life could be this way. They do still take days off, which is their comfort zone with ADHD medication now.
You have to do what's right for you, but try not to talk yourself out of something you've never even tried.
I have heard similar stories. I will give it some thought. I have had some family break down so I am a little concerned I could stretch myself to far. ironically though when you have so much to keep going its hard to take a risk on changing what you do.
TO-DO list:
The ironic thing is that when I write it down, then I remember it without needing the list (I can see the note in my head), but if I don't write it down, I forget it. It's not exactly a list, but my home and office spaces are littered with post-it notes.
It's no surprise that I'm a visual person.
This is a real strategy for overwhelmed neurotypicals too, something about taking an explicit step to memoize the info convinces the brain to add a bookmark.
Is it just me or is this missing one TO DO?
Counted from the top? I've done several times now and it looks and sounds good to me.🤷♂️
I guess it works if you include the TODO in "TO DO List", which i also didn't include at first.
I've spent WAY too much time today listening to this theme song and counting the To dos and I still cannot hear more than 7. If you're counting 8 then maybe our ears are just on different wavelengths.🤣
Exactly. To do lists only work when you are able to fixate on them, otherwise they're as good as scrap
You mean "search for and compare various apps and websites for managing to do lists, to find the perfect one of my needs"? Right away!
One best practice among many for ND people. The meds help the most lol.
My day at work starts with my browser folder that pulls up daily checks then I start my to-do list right after. If not, I'm floundering, getting of task on other things, or browsing lol.
Checkout bullet journaling. Its a system for keeping yourists from becoming a doom pile of lists. But you mostly make the system yourself works for me since its pretty flexible. My work life would be fucked without it.
Heh. Band class. Good times.
To-Do lists have been instrumental in me handling my ADHD. Is it easy to make a list? Yes. Is it easy to get carried away and make 1000 lists, lists of lists? Also yes. Is it easy to get started? Hell no. But once you do, completing shit becomes addicting. Mindfulness is key. Make sure you're not beating yourself up if you miss items on the list, but try to do as much as you can. You'll be exhausted, and you'll feel like you haven't wasted the day.
At the end of the day, everyone's different and has different things that work for them.🤷♂️
Some people will give the most common advice and then get pissy when someone says that isn't helpful for them.
I find the act of making the list is helpful for prioritising tasks, but I wind up referring to it very little if at all.
Usually I make it while waiting for food or on public transport
Idk, to me to-do lists are things I use to externalize the 10 different thoughts bouncing around in my head, which quiets it down for a bit and allows me to think about the most important one(usually the first one on the list that inspired the list). Makes me feel good the other things are documented and lets me forget about it for a moment.
Everyone is different and has a different strategy that works for them.🤷♂️
Personally, I'd make the Todo list, put it down somewhere unconventional, and then forget where it's at or even forget it existed in the first place.
Yeah, once I accepted I don't actually need to return to the to-do list and accepted they're more "externalize the noise" lists, they became helpful. before that not so much.