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
this gold shouldn't stay in the comments
hey loves, Iâve been reading through the comments and loads of people are asking how to not fall into this pattern because thatâs all they know. so, hereâs some advice from Auntie Pan whoâs been in the trenches (stress-caused disabilities and chronic illnesses).
context: grew up in an abusive, controlling home, escaped to uni, had a prolonged mental breakdown, became a teacher and worked in a dysfunctional school with amazing kids and nightmare management for years. I did not realise I have adhd and autism for a long time. (You might even be able to scroll back through this blog to find the time around which I did realise lol.)
ANYWAY, things that have helped me because my body can no longer handle any kind of stress without flaring up:
If youâre doing anything that requires you to do a lot of prep before you begin the actual thing (e.g. cooking, deep cleaning a room, moving house), mise en place. Thatâs a fancy french way of saying get everything ready before you begin. So if Iâm cooking idk spaghetti carbonara, that means fry and chop the bacon, separate the egg yolks from the whites, put water in the kettle, put dry spaghetti into a pan. Once everythingâs ready, it reduces the mental load and means I can focus on the actual cooking and any clean up that I can do along the way. H/t to @ms-demeanor for this, you changed my life!
the Might As Well rule. This one works really well for me but you gotta be careful otherwise youâll get sucked into the Vortex. Basically, letâs imagine youâre in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. You notice that the extra roll of toilet paper has been used. instead of thinking, âIâll get to that laterâ, and then forgetting about it until you sit down on the bog (no judgement, weâve all been there), you think âMight As Well put an extra roll while Iâm here!â This tends to help with the little tasks that build up over time. This Does Not Work for big tasks.
Leading on from no.2, Do It Immediately/ASAP really helps me too. My current boss will email me on a Friday and say, âdonât reply to this now! Leave it til monday!â But she and i both know that if i leave it til monday, I will forget and get stressed and this will make me Very Ill. So, instead, the moment i receive the email, Iâll either schedule in replying to it as soon as Iâm done with my current thing, OR Iâll reply to it immediately.
Anything that canât be actioned immediately, i mark as Unread. Anything Unread in my inbox is a future action, and i check those Unread emails/texts/whatevers Every. Day. To make sure whether today is the day i have the info to action it. (This also means i have to stay on top of my inbox. I read all my emails and then mark them accordingly. Iâm also brutal with unsubscribing)
The House Always Wins. Both in a literal sense, because i am in a constant battle with keeping my house clean, and i know now that Iâll never get it as clean as i want it. Itâs impossible, i no longer have the energy or stamina to vacuum and scrub everything. But also just in a life sense. Iâm never going to achieve things to perfection, and perfect is the opposite of done. And getting things done is that much more important when you have limited energy and strength. Accept that you often have to half-arse life in order to Full-Arse the few things that really matter to you.
Have multiples of everything, everywhere. I wear support gloves, so i need to have handcream at every sink and everywhere i sit down in the house. I try to keep it unobtrusive, but it means i donât have to trek upstairs just to moisturise my hands. Gum, phone chargers, pens and pencils, water bottles, hand sanitizer, whatever you need.
Work with people, even if itâs online. Body doubling actually works. Also Iâve found that if Iâm working on assignments, taking myself to a library or study area that isnât my bedroom helps so much.
Show off! Tell people on here or elsewhere in your life about the fact that youâve just written 100 words! Or that youâve cleaned the fridge and thatâs a really big deal for you. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
Basically, youâre aiming to reduce the mental load as much as possible. Wear the same types of clothes all the time to minimise the amount of laundry. Eat the same three lunches so decision fatigue doesnât take over.
All of this takes time to implement and it is cumulative, but i hope it helps. Reading the comments on this post, i finally understand why adhd is comorbid with so many other conditions. letâs take care of each other <3
I'm so glad to hear that helped you!
For anybody looking for resources from someone dealing with actual ADHD, I have an incomplete but ever growing list of ADHD tips, tools, and suggestions on my website.
A lot of the pages on that site are adapted from my tumblr posts, for instance I'm adapting this post about car repair projects with ADHD into a guide on project management and completion with ADHD.
(Red links are stuff that I've got planned but haven't published for reasons that are probably clear to anyone looking for ADHD advice online)
Okay so this is what I mean when I tell people, "Only take advice on dealing with ADHD from other people with ADHD." (Or other neurodivergencies with overlapping symptoms, like autism and brain injuries.)
This is all good, actionable advice. I won't be able to do all it every day, but even the person giving the advice acknowledges that.
Meanwhile, advice from people who don't have ADHD nearly always can be summed up "But have you tried just not having ADHD?" It's all "set timers, make lists, break things down, keep a planner" advice we've heard a thousand times, that doesn't work (or at least doesn't work when explained that way) and will just make you feel worse about yourself.
Also, sometimes doing something right away is a panic/anxiety response and will not be your best work. If it's not urgent and you can schedule it, do so. I fill out my calendar with tasks in little chunks all day long so that I don't forget about the task but I also can dedicated the appropriate level of attention to it at the right time.
Wanted to add the biggest ADHD life hack I discovered for this: Doing Things In Context
I am abysmal at making phone calls and doing life admin stuff at home(paperwork, emails, ect.) and after years of struggling I thought about it and remembered that I was actually always really good at getting my homework done...as long as I did it at school. I would stay an extra hour and hang out in the library and all my homework was super easy and barely took any time to finish.
If I went home, however, it was like my brain forgot school even existed, and no matter how hard I tried I could not get myself to do my homework at home, and sadly I am not the kind of ADHD where the deadline kicking in makes things happen, I just have to admit I couldn't finish and ask for more time.
So I thought...okay, the issue here doesn't appear to be interest or attention so much as context. I can do school things at school, and home things at home, but I cannot do school things at home and vice versa, not that the latter was really a factor ever.
So, context. I decided one day when I had a ton of life admin stuff to do, that instead of sitting at my desk smashing my head into the wall trying to figure out why I can't even call one doctor's office, why don't I just go rent a study room at the library. It's free. They're sound proof more or less, and you know what? I got it all done in like and hour and then as a treat played PokĂŠmon Go and read a manga for a while before going home. I'd been trying to do all that stuff for weeks to no avail, but putting the tasks in a different context, in a building where you go to do things like homework and paperwork, suddenly made the executive function like...function. I don't know the real logic behind it, and it isn't possible to do this all the time, especially since I'm broke and disabled and live in a dinky apartment and have can't go outside alone safely disorder, but having spaces that have a context attached and moving to them for tasks that fit that context can help a lot.
It works for other things too, I can do my physical therapy just fine at the gym...but not at home. Home doesn't have the workout context attached. Still trying to figure this one out, but it can help to just try to shift the space around you to fix the context better. It's like creating the structure you used to have to guide you yourself, I guess. ADHD brains seem to like it when a place is for a specific task.


























