ehDHD

It took me four years to juke Executive Dysfunction and make this blog

[kenapiece-main]

Can you believe I'm having to make this meme even after successfully finishing up taxes and applying to job

[elviraaxen]

don’t bully me for how i spelled delicious

[garaks-padded-bra]

ok so i do have adhd but i feel as though this somehow transcends it. I just made a cup of tea 10 minutes ago. Im in a very small room. It has disappeared. I didnt leave the room. It just escaped. It is gone. It never was. Wheres my tea. It couldnt have gone anywhere and yet it has. Did i drink it and eat the cup and forget? Where is my tea. I miss her. This is fucked

[garaks-padded-bra]

I am ashamed.

[laestoica]

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

[reasonsforhope]

By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.

Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.

This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):

How to Sharpen Executive Functions: Activities to Hone Brain Skills

Executive functioning skills range from working memory to cognitive flexibility to inhibitory control, and beyond. They power our daily func

Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):

Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults with Autism

Practical Strategies for Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults With Autism - Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as

Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.

But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:

Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.

Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation

Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.

Meditation

Martial arts

Sports in general

Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)

Woodworking

Cooking

If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers

Things can be easier. You might always have a disability around this (I certainly always will), but it can be easier. You do not have to be this stuck forever.

[howtomusicmajor]

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

[allydsgn]

WOAH THIS SOUNDS HELPFUL. I’M GOING TO TRY THIS IMMEDIATELY. Also, I made a chart for myself, but if anyone else wants it for reference (or if this is wrong and I misread you can tell me) here it is:

[twiceroyaldove]

This is wonderful and I ended up tweaking it to make another version that works for me as a task organizer for work projects. So it’s less geared toward “oh no I have ten things that all need to get done RIGHT NOW” and more toward “okay I have 25 things in my inbox and I just don’t know where to start” (aka ADHD brain)

The numbers aren’t in a super logical/elegant order because I tried it out for a couple days and moved the numbers around until they matched my actual priorities. (It’s not 100% perfect of course, but that’s fine because it’s just supposed to give me a recommendation so I can skip past the task paralysis! If I want to go out of order I can do that.)

Then I built myself a whole excel workbook with formulas to do all of the thinking and sorting for me, and then of course I went down a whole big rabbit hole of extra features and automatic sorting and it was at this point that I thought I should share it with more people so the ridiculous amount of time I spent on it would be a little more justified

So here’s a link to a google drive folder if anyone wants to try this out! The basics work okay in google sheets but some features only really work in excel.

There are 2 excel files in the folder, one based on the original 12-level priority chart and one for the 16-level chart that I’m using. Each one has three sheets: “Task List” is the screenshot above with all the bells and whistles, “Simple Task List” hides some of the unnecessary columns so that it’s less overwhelming, and “Priority” is where you can define your different priority levels. You can edit any of the numbers in that sheet to whatever works for you, all of the formulas should still work!

If you have any questions about how to edit this to work best for you, or you accidentally broke a formula or something, feel free to DM me :) I hope this is helpful for some people!! It’s been really helpful for me.

(I’ll probably also make a new post that’ll show up in adhd tags etc)

[magz]

ID.

Image 1. 3 by 5 grid template version for the Task categorization, described by OP. Rows: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Columns: 5 minutes, 30 minutes, Hours, Days.

Image 2. A different 4 by 4 grid template with more task categorization. Rows: Overdue, Today/Tomorrow, 5 work days, Later. Columns: Within 15 minutes, 45 minutes, 90 minutes, Longer.

Image 3. Screenshot of a decorated Google Sheet, for task categorization and priority - inspired by the post.

End ID.

[technofeudalism]

[foone]

The thing neurotypicals tend not to understand about the ADHD brain is that it really only has two gears

I turn to the chalkboard and carefully write out

WORKIN' HARD

HARDLY WORKIN'

[voruwuna]

Much like a cars transmission getting stuck between gears the adhd brain can also access a secret mode called HORKLY WARDIN' that feels bad

[is-this-fascism]

x

[ad-wills]

[sophiethedemon]

[omegasmileyface]

realizing that sticking to the "do it bad" "do it scared" mentality implies theres also a "do it bored"

[omegasmileyface]

well. did it bored 👍

[omegasmileyface]

DO IT SCARED. DO IT BAD. DO IT BORED. DO IT HALFWAY. DO IT WRONG. DO IT EMBARRASSED. DO IT UGLY. DO IT LATE. DO IT DIFFERENT. but by god do it <3!!

[peachdoxie]

There's a bunch of adhd advice out there that's like "people with adhd tend to work better under deadlines due to the anxiety so here are ways to artificially induce a stress response in order to get you to get work done" and it's like well what if I don't want to be stressed out all the time in order to function

[eh-dhd]

By the end of this I may have my work done and 2 new anxiety disorders

[peppermintquartz]

Husband coined a word and I am stealing it.

"Stop futilizing my effort," he said to the cats after they threw up on the sofa covers he had just washed

Me: what's futilizing

Him: them (the cats) making my work futile

Me: ah. So, like, the relationship between our existence and the laundry

[vvolken]

"i would kill for you" "i would die for you" okay but would you forgive me if i forgot something important for the 51204th time in a row even though i tried my best to remember

[brehaaorgana]

From the book Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD:

Putting a coat on the back of a chair by the door is fine, but if you prefer, use coat hooks and a large catch-all basket for dropping keys, hats, gloves.

Small bookcase end-table next to the couch to store craft projects, books, and other things being worked on for easy access.

Add a storage unit near the dining room table to transition between eating and working there.

Daily toiletry items should be stored in a basket that you can move easily

Extra toiletries and medicine cabinet items go in open shelf/basket storage so they can be seen and used easily. If items no longer fit, purge the excess. Don't obscure the view!

If you disrobe in the bathroom, place a tall hamper in there.

Keep a set of cleaning supplies in each bathroom

Edit: I also have this post on budgeting with ADHD + feel free to check my tags, coz I am trying to remember to tag as needed for this stuff. :)

[effemimaniac]

2*0+2=2 -> 2022 YEAR OF TIME

2^0+2=3 -> 2023 YEAR OF POWER

2+0+2=4 -> 2024 YEAR OF ADD

[effemimaniac]

happy year of POWER everyone

[effemimaniac]

happy year of ADD everyone