Random urge to share some hacks that I’ve come up with that have worked for me and might be helpful to others, and encourage hearing some more!
The most generic ones: Reduce decision making, focus on “if this then that” systems, and provide clear visual indicators.
Tl;Dr:
- Flip pill bottle upside down when taking meds to remember you took them.
- Smoothies are a super easy food that can be really nutritious and might bypass stim meds appetite loss.
- Scales for cooking means only needing one tool for measurements and not needing to clean lots of spoons; use non-American recipes or write down conversions once the first time you make something.
- Before bed if you’re racing thoughts, write things down in a notebook and put it somewhere you have to pick it up (e.g., on coffee maker).
- Take notes using a non-linear tool like Obsidian canvas to better represent your non-linear train of thought.
- Freeze all of your food and prep more than you need when chopping to freeze it.
- Learn to cook meats from frozen, e.g., in the instant pot, to avoid thawing or meat going bad.
- Keep colourful stickers or sticky notes around so you can place them on things to remind you to look at it and deal with it later when you have time and energy instead of forgetting it when you look away.
Can’t remember if you’ve taken your meds? Visual indicator systems to the rescue! I flip my pill bottle upside down once I’ve taken it, and keep it visible near my bed or by my coffee table/desk. If it’s past 3pm, if I see it, I flip it right side up every time so that I don’t leave it upside down overnight and get confused in the morning.
Not eating breakfast? Smoothies. Keeping the Sims metres full is important. I always run into decision fatigue in the morning/afternoon and by then I’m too faded to decide to eat, or Vyvanse has me too not hungry to consume food, or I’ll spend forever making food to ignore my work. Bonus: Get a scale for cooking so you dont need to find and clean dozens of spoons and convert your recipes to masses (North Americans).
So smoothies. I ignore work for a day to do a wild research binge, figure out the nutritional value of some different smoothie mixes, experiment, and now I’ve got a go-to breakfast every morning that doesn’t hit my nausea and gets me nutrients. You can also measure out 3-4 at a time and freeze them in small containers, excluding wet ingredients.
BTW my go-to right now is appx. 150g milk, 50-70g sugar free yogurt, 60g frozen blueberries, 70g banana, 25g rolled oats, 25-50g spinach, 7g chia seeds, maybe 30g strawberry if I’m feeling it, maybe a dash of cinnamon if I want. Seems decent in terms of nutrients, and all stuff I’ve got frozen or on hand anyways.
Bonus: A microwaved sweet potato is better than it deserves to be for 5 minutes of microwaving and pretty nutritious and sating.
Planning tomorrow at bed time? Before bed, I’ve got tons of thoughts about what I need to do the next day. I write them in my notebook, then put my notebook on my coffee maker (a Clever brewer for easy cleanup, decaf beans) so that I have to pick up the notebook anyways. Not every day, but if anything pressing comes up.
Note taking is tough linearly? My thoughts aren’t linear, neither are my notes. Ever since I started using Obsidian for note taking, I find myself using the Canvas option which basically makes your notes into a graph/flowchart. Then I can colour code, link notes to other notes, turn each bubble into an entire page of notes, tag the notes. It even has an option to show you a random note on startup which can be helpful if you take notes and never read them.
Food going bad? Prepping is too much transition to cook? Freeze everything. Prep more than you need. If I’m already cutting half an onion for a meal, cutting a full onion isn’t hard - in fact stopping halfway might be harder. Cut one or two, toss it into a sheet, stick it in the freezer, and now you’re saved chopping for a bit. Bananas on their way out? Cut them into pieces and freeze them, frozen bananas are a freaking snack. Cutting bell peppers? Freeze that shit. Fresh spinach? I skipped the parboil and just froze it in a freezer bag and it worked great for smoothies and adding into curries. Freeze it all.
Meats going bad? Instant Pot was a saviour. Cooking chicken and sausage from frozen in the instant pot works great for all kinds of things. Slap a premade curry paste onto a frozen chicken, throw in some frozen spinach and frozen peas, meal ready in about 30 minutes. I use naan for everything because it freezes and reheats well; mini-pizzas with frozen pepperoni that’s portioned out, naan as a sausage bun, garlic naan with pasta, whatever, it’s versatile and freezes well.
Can’t do this right now and then you forget? Having the short-term memory of a fly sucks. Have sticky notes or stickers around the house. Then when you notice you need to clean the toilet or refill something or whatever it is and you can’t do it right now, just stick something colorful on it so that you look at it at a better time. I don’t even bother writing things down on the note, it just needs to draw my attention at a time I can deal with it.
Just a few, might add more if some come to mind, but hoping to hear some other’s thoughts :)
As someone with ASD as well I’ve learned that if I take my meds and I still cant do what I need to do that day, its ok to just give up and try again the next day. Some days are genuinely futile
Yeah! Not beating yourself up over this is really important, same with not overthinking it. Some days are hard, some are less hard, some, I’ve heard, are easy.
Some days the best progress/discipline is noticing it’s a day where you need your own compassion to admit you need to let yourself off the hook for a bit.
“Sacred Rituals”. This is what I call things that have to be done exactly the same way every time or it screws everything else up. For example, as soon as I get up, the very first thing I do is take my meds. Nothing, and I mean nothing, happens before taking my meds. Gotta pee? Can’t. Gotta take my meds. House is on fire? That sucks. Gotta take my meds. If I don’t, I will definitely forget to take them and fuck up my entire day.
I have something similar. I practice doing certain routine micro-habits until they become ingrained in muscle memory and always do them.
For example, I still set my keys down without thinking most times they are in my hand, but thanks to spending several hours practicing the motion years ago, I now always unthinkingly set them where they belong: clipped to my beltloop and tucked into my pocket. Anytime I identify a need to add one of these to my life I spend an hour practicing experiencing the trigger and then doing the motion. To learn the keys-in-pocket habit, I held my keys, clipped and tucked. Pull them out, note the feel of them in my hand, and repeat, over and over. It feels silly to practice doing something so easy, but once it becomes muscle memory, it doesn’t rely on my faulty thinking memory. I’ll do several sessions of practice every few days until I can feel that it’s fully ‘set’ as an unthinking motion. They’re a pain to establish, but they are well worth it and have saved me a ton of grief over the years.
One of these automatic habits saved me this morning. I always pat my keys when closing a locking door behind me (even if it isn’t locked), and this morning I had missed swapping my keys to my new pair of pants. I would have been locked out of my house and late for work if patting my empty pockets hadn’t alerted me just before a pulled the locked door close behind me. I have some other ones that I haven’t mentioned, because I can’t think of what they are. I’d notice the problems they prevent coming back if I stopped doing them, so I can only assume they must still be working.
I keep the keys in the hand that closes the door they lock. No keys, no close.
for me it’s making sure I have everything when I walk out of the house. I have duplicates of everything that I need when I leave other than my wallet, one kept in a station by the front door and another by the back.
Wow, I like this term. Great concept that I’ve used forever, just not with such a killer label.
Even neuro-typicals can benefit from this idea.
Even neuro-typicals can benefit from this idea.
Oh, totally. I’ve been patting where the swipe card is around my neck as I pass through secure doors, for years. I left it behind once, and the sheer hell of getting the escort to get back in to get it cemented the check-behaviour in me. It’s weird now to be in the same areas - as a customer and not a provider since I switched jobs - and NOT have a swipe card to pat.
Keys go in the Key Place. If I don’t see it there, I go find it. ;-)
The ritual I’m starting to love is the Clearing of the Desk at the end of the day. It’s not because I like putting things away - even as a neurotypical I’m just sloppy and will just leave something pre-staged where I need it next - but I’ve decided I like the part where I fucking give up on the day 5 minutes early and fuck about tidying up before stopping for the day. I feel so empowered. I feel like such a slacker. I feel if people have an issue with the “I can get it done if I can get 5 more minutes of focus” as I used to tell myself (the fool!), that choosing to fucking bail and toddle about before quitting could be a helping thing because of that empowerment.
If you do this, or if you start, lemme know if that micro feeling of control makes a difference; but give it like a month of trying before assessing your feelings about it.
Oh,that cleanup at the end of day is brilliant!
Alarms or reminders for everything. Especially helpful for not getting stuck in ‘waiting’ mode. Afternoon appt? Set alarm 10mins before gotta leave so I can forget about and not hold it in my mind
I do this for the same reasons - and also, snooze emails until two weeks before an event, then a week before the event, then a few days before the day of the event in order to keep reminding myself it’s going to happen.
On food, write the expiration date with a big magic marker as a reminder to use them.
Put the things you want to use first (food or otherwise) closest to the point of access so they get considered first. Don’t arrange things in a way that anything is obscured if possible.
Just have less of everything to avoid being overwhelmed with choices. Don’t have a well stocked pantry unless it is arranged in a way that encourages first in first out. Same with hobby supplies and clothes.
Less of everything is real. I’ll regularly and unintentionally mentally itemize what I have and what my options are regularly and funding ways to limit that is always helpful. I have a nearly empty fridge, pantry, a mealplan which is more like a two-week menu of options, only a few pieces of each clothing, and on. Fewer opportunities to fall into bad patterns. There was a time where my solution to not doing laundry for two weeks was to buy more cheap “backup” clothes.
Then the purge happened.
Few, good things, that were bought with the intention of easy maintenance, minimizing choice, while allowing a bounded spontaneity.
On food, write the expiration date with a big magic marker as a reminder to use them.
If it’s something from the freezer(and the expiry is now useless) write the date you thawed/ opened it.
That chore you always put off the entire day because it’s this daunting thing that just takes forever? It probably doesn’t. Next time you do it, see how long it really takes.
Look at the clock. Or use a stopwatch. Write down the time for everything you do regularly. Add it to your todo list entry if you use one. Once you know that the ordeal really only takes 15 minutes, it seems less daunting.
OK. I started the stopwatch, then put it off for 5 hours, and completed the task in 5 minutes. So it took me 5 hours and 5 minutes. I just don’t have time during the day for a 5+hr task.
I have a task to do in 8 hours. If I start the 5 hour and 5 minute task now it’ll probably run over because I know I procrastinate. So I’m going to sit here anxiously until it’s time for my task, play guitar to pass the time, forget about both tasks, and not actually start anything for two more days.
Then in two days I’ll accomplish like 100 of those tasks that I’ve put off and the people expecting to see me that day just get upset.
Then in two days I’ll accomplish like 100 of those tasks
The sudden bursts of productivity are such a double edged sword. I feel so great afterwards, but then watch the disappointment from my wife as I just completely avoid tasks for like a week straight after.
Ive never seen your wife disappointed.
Yeah, the struggles of this work pattern are real. I’ve been trying to temper it, but also to accept it as much as I feasibly can, because going against the mental grain can be much more exhausting. Some of us are sprinters, not marathon runners.
literally put off cleaning out my car for 5 years and it took 20 minutes
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Never just wait in the kitchen. When something is boiling/cooking/idle use that time to clean.
I’m going to preface this one by saying I have a messy kitchen most of the time. We just take plates there and leave them on the counter. feeding ourselves is hard enough without having to cleanup right after. Then there is some cooking task that requires a but of idle time, I use that time to clean while I wait. This has two advantages: it makes waiting easier (before I did this I regularly undercooked food), and it makes me not leave the kitchen while the stove is on. That is a big no no for me.
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Modify instant meals
When feeding myself is hard, I like to modify instant/freezer meals. I always have shelf stable meals ready and a few plans to easily add to them. I find that most of them are a bit lacking in the protein department, so I have some easy ways to add some meat to them (canned sausages, tunna, cheese, peas).
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Having a smartwatch with a voice assistant is a godsend
I bought a used galaxy watch 4 and I love it. I set timers and reminders on it all the time, the only time it’s not on my wrist is when it’s charging. I set timers for the oven, for the washing machine, and in general for something I need to get back to after some time. I set more descriptive reminders to a bunch of things. It finds my phone when I loose it, and it also helped me track my heart rate once I started medication
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Reminder app saved me professionally, get one with the ability to set recurring tasks and alarms, use it for everything. Everything. Stick it on your home screen and look at it multiple times a day.
I have an average of 21 google calendar reminders that go off every day for typically mundane tasks. I keep the Google calendar widget on my home screen so I can see the list of upcoming tasks in case I can accomplish any ahead of time
A doctor just told me my adhd symptoms are real but its also probably trauma related and prescribed me blood pressure medication and antidepressants (even though i already take antidepressants and go to therapy for trauma)
this isnt a tip sorry I just feel hopeless lol
Steady on. You’re on a programme, and programmes can be assessed, reviewed and tuned until they work.
The hardest part is the time sink as you wait after each tuning to get a feel for the results. I know from other stuff it can seem_like_forever before the regular tunings see results, and every day up to that one is just a struggle around faith and hope.
Depression can worsen or mimic ADHD symptoms and it’s common to tackle that first. The ADHD diagnosis is irrelevant, what matters is that your life gets better. :)
It’s a good start to a long path :) I’m not a doctor of medicine, and not medical advice, but I know it was really helpful for me when I started recognizing I was on a path to helping myself, not the ADHD, not the trauma, not whatever else it may be diagnosed as, but me, my experiences, my patterns, my brain.
The labels can be helpful for seeing, noticing, understanding, approaching, and getting medical support where needed, but ultimately it’s great that the symptoms were validated, and congrats on taking the steps! It’s hard work to identify the need, hard work to reach out and get support, and it means you’re very likely on a good path.
when it comes to food spoilage and stuff i’ve just learned to only go shopping for the things i need that day. i’ll go shopping more often but it’s a little bit easier since i live right across the street from a grocery store.
This is what we do too. I’m really grateful my partner works from home. He texts me around lunch time about ingredients, then goes to the store in the afternoon. I come home from work and do any prep like marinating, and later on we cook the meal together. ☺️ We both eat better, more regularly, and healthier this way.
I love the sticky note idea! I’m going to try it as soon as I remember to buy sticky notes in four months.
I tried the smoothies route once, about 2 years ago. I bought a Ninja blender, so I could make a personal smoothie to-go and not have to clean up a separate blender every time I made it.
Turns out I suck at making smoothies. I thought it’d be simple. Just throw some frozen fruits in a blender, along with some ice and a liquid like milk or something to help it mix. But that was horribly bland. I tested a bunch of other recipes online that also mixed in kale, honey, flavored protein powders, and/or other ingredients and they also came out weird.
I eventually found one recipe I liked that a friend recommended. But by that point, I was kind of burnt out by the whole thing. I only found one good recipe overall, and hunting online to test more recipes was getting to be a chore. This was supposed to be quick and easy! And now it’s consuming too much of my time, just trying to figure it out.
So… my blender has been collecting dust in my kitchen for the past couple years now.
I went through something similar and had my blender sitting for a while. Then I had kids and decided to get on the smoothie train again.
What I found regarding blandness was never add ice, never add water. Use whole milk or heavy cream or half and half. Unflavored yogurt is good and tastes like fruit when blended with frozen fruit. Bananas turn into a smooth thick liquid when blended. Frozen Bananas are often recommended but don’t help texture as much.
To summarize, frozen fruit is already bland and cold, don’t add water or ice. Skim milk is water for this use case so avoid it.
lol just buy those Naked smoothies in the gallon jug. try the smaller bottles first of course, so you don’t have a gallon jug rotting in your fridge, but once you find one you like you can replicate the recipe if you don’t feel like paying for it at the store
Yeah, I fortunately had a magic bullet (not great for it, but works) from years ago I received as a gift. The other comment nailed it; any time I’ve added water, it’s been bland. While milk, some yogurts, and a healthy mix of fruits is really flavourful, and it might throw the texture, but the oats and spinach add a night nutrient punch.
More like meta-advice. Try everything. Even the stupid ones you know won’t work. Then you can start identifying elements that you can adhere to and ones that don’t work.
If you have loved ones that you’re comfortable opening up to, explain your thought process. Ask about theirs. For instance I hate the notion of “clean” things not being able to get dirty. I look at cleaning as an ongoing process so I don’t do a heavy clean and then avoid the area/item. Occasionally do a bigger clean, but for the most part, just keep up with little things. Explaining that to my wife helped her understand what my mindset was.
Lastly, try using a remembral. Ever have a thought you wanted to recall in a few minutes but didn’t want to write it down? I have a rubber band on my wrist. If I need to “set a reminder” I’ll loop it over a finger, then repeat the thought or reminder a few times. If I lose track, I’ll definitely feel the rubber band in the awkward position. And since I’ve anchored the reminder with the rubber band, it’s easy to remember.
The remembral is really smart! I might need to find a way that works for me for that one.
Being really open is also great; radical authenticity and openness (with those it’s appropriate and comfortable) has helped me learn and help others, and gotten acceptance from people I’d struggled with. “Let’s assume I’ve been living underground for a while, how exactly do you go about X, if you’re comfortable answering?” Also great for those with absent/developmentally lacking childhood experiences.
I put anything I need to take with me right in front of the door, so it’s impossible to miss on my way out.
If you live with someone else (who may need to open the door) put it (or a reminder) in (or on) your shoes.
I have a whiteboard in my kitchen. Amongst other things, on it I keep a list of perishable foods that we have on hand. When I am trying to figure out what I am going to cook, I can look at the list and not have to think about every ingredient I own, And only focus on things that will go off soon. I usually don’t include the common items we tend to go through often.
Sometimes I also include leftovers that need to be finished, and unusual ingredients I bought impulsively because I thought I wanted to try making something new but than lost focus/motivation to actually make something with them.
It’s not a great system, but it helps me waste less.
I’ve been keeping yogurt drinks around for the same reason that you recommend smoothies. your favorite dried fruit is a good idea too, you get lots of nice dietary fiber that way
interestingly, different hacks have worked and then become unnecessary over time. I used to separate my daily medication into separate pill bottles for each day of the week, with the pill bottle labeled the day of the weekend a.m. or p.m., so I could just go see if the bottle is empty to make sure I’d taken my shit, but that’s become unnecessary over the years, a reminder on my phone is good enough. for pills that have to be taken on time though, like my sleep medication, I still have to combine an alarm plus a calendar reminder
getting into the habit of cooking my own food from frozen has definitely been good. I got into the habit of ordering out and that gets real expensive real quick
Yeah, a lot of my systems have been built up by noticing bad patterns and finding easier alternatives. A frozen curry that takes 10 minutes of effort tops, with pre-made masala paste - it may not be the most satisfying, but it’s costing me about $4, I’ll be eating in less time than ordering in, and I won’t get stuck looking at menus for an hour.
