A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.
Rules:
Encouraged:
Relevant Lemmy communities:
lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.
I use a bullet journal, the original Rider Carrol method: No advance planning, just dump your brain into ink and paper, organize what's there, index what's important so you can find it later, eliminate unfulfilled tasks that aren't as important, move important tasks to today's list.
It's not perfect but it's very resilient and works well with my brain. And if I don't use it your a day or a month or a year it still works fine when I come back, it doesn't require consistency.
Thanks. This does seem like a helpful method, and, pardon the pun, fairly bulletproof.
If I brain dump into the journal, then I'll feel less anxious. However, a big part of my anxiety is that I have many other apps and to-do lists floating around at the same time as using the bullet journal.
I've given up on being caught up. If I am in a super clear minded state, I will do the most important thing. If I'm motivated but not clear-headed, I do anything that feels important. If I'm in a normal state of mind, I just do the core tasks for keeping the show running: I do my job, I make food, I browse Lemmy. And I pray that I haven't procrastinated anything too important.
That gives me so much anxiety, being in that current state and feeling like I forgot something.
Yeah ive accepted ill never be caught up.
All you can focus on is The Now. The Now is all powerful and its all there is. So do what you need to or can do now.
Flaming lips said "all we have is now" so you agree! I'll try.
Over the years, I adopted a few tools to help me manage what feels like "open drawers" in my head :
When a task I need to do spontaneously pop in my head and it's not urgent, I write it on my whiteboard on my wall. If I'm not home, I quickly put it in my notes app. Then, and it's the crucial trick, I forget about it. That way, I can focus on the task(s) at hand and just organize my future tasks later, instead of juggling with them all at once.
This helped me compartimentalize a lot and I found myself being able to feel free during the day here and there and on most nights, instead of being a sack of anxiety 24/7.
When I consolidate my tasks, I use a card system like Trello. (I don't recommend Trello specifically, it seems to have enshittified.) I keep it mostly pen-and-paper, but I'm sure there are some FOSS tools you can find that do just that.
A card system was a revelation for me, being able to do a quick assessment of when a task is due and put it in the right column was a game changer. I'm the type to do everything at the last minute, so putting up little deadlines everywhere helped me do more.
This could not be helpful for you, but I take ADHD medication. The first one I tried for a few months, but it made me even more anxious. I then stopped taking anything, but decided after a year to try another molecule. This time, I found my dosage and it definitely worked.
Before that, even with my calendar, tools, alarms and support system, there were weeks to months where I felt lost in thought, apathetic and disorganized. Now I can post a lengthy answer to a topic close to my heart without feeling like I'm not doing enough with my day.
Side tips :
Good luck on the journey, I wish you the best!
Planka is like Trello was 5 years ago, fyi. Foss and self-hostable.
Thanks for the shout-out recommendation! I use the nextcloud boards function for Trello, sort of.
It looks good, thanks!
How do you remember to do all this?
For medication, an alarm on my phone. For writing the tasks, it became an habit when I realized it would flush anxiety from my system to write what I just thought about doing and stop thinking about it. For remembering I need to do tasks, I put my whiteboard on a very obvious and accessible place and keep a pocket notebook and a pen in my pocket.
But mostly, it became an habit like reading emails or opening Lemmy, to just look at them and assess the time requirement to do them. When I am a few hours before a deadline, the pressure to do the task becomes clear and I hyperfocus on it until it's done. Maybe not the most efficient way to work, but it worked for me!
Thank you! This is very helpful!
I forget about the tasks in the app too, but then I get this dread where I don't want to look at them.