I tried, but it required a degree of preparation that I just wasn’t into. Plus I feel I have a good sense of prioritizing things I need to do.
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I’m sure there are really well thought-out ways of using pen and paper to organize one’s mind and overcome the limitations of short term memory dysfunction and executive dysfunction. Bullet journalling, as the originator designed it, is probably great.
…but most of the image searches for this are suspiciously way too “social media” friendly. My inner skeptic is awakened.
If a journalling “method” looks like candy, has 3D flowers, 20 different pretty wing-ding symbols to memorize and floating, drop shadow Microsoft windows with calligraphic zen quotations that took ages to draw…well then it’s a social media scam designed to make you feel a hit of dopamine when enjoying at the visual appeal and confusing that temporary good feeling for belief and hope in your salvation.
It’s tricking you by saying “hey you! Are you having trouble being an adult? That’s ok, you can solve all that by indulging in being a kid again!” That shit is OK if you live with your parents and only have 3 things to do each day tops.
A single piece of lined paper within 10 feet of me that simply allows me to write down everything that needs to be done, then put A, B, or C, and an amount of time it’s gonna take is worth a million of these kaleidoscopic methods. All this saltyness, is of course, envy of those who can actually enjoy the process of keeping their lives together 
although, now that I think about it more. If it is fun to look at, you’ll probably use it more. haha
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Some of those processes are sort of a bootstrapping issue, I fail after a few days of energy. Maybe I can overcome aspects of it by “trying harder” but if I was capable of that structure, would I need that structure?
OTOH just having another human around in other aspects of coaching helps me get over my hangups, I just don’t get exposed to other similar structured/ground up thinkers who choose life coaching roles or are as influential in my orbit as to share their path and inspire / mentor me.
It’s a good point, part of de-agonizing my life involves taking my fixations and choice paralysis and simply dropping shit I don’t need.
It can be liberating and always trying to figure out how to take that further, taking from my spouse in giving zero fucks about having socks match, not exactly a “gamechanger” but just one bit of cognitive overhead and time waste that means nothing in the outside world.
Routine is harrrrrddddd to coordinate.
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FWIW, more than ANYTHING…the single most effective “technique” that has allowed me to stay alive with ADHD:
Routine
That’s it. I wake up at the same time, do the same exercises, eat the same breakfast, take the same walk, buy the same coffee, etc etc. In surrendering to the drudgery of sameness, I have opened up a portion of each day to let the bird from the cage and be truly free.
As the old NIN song title says…happiness in slavery haha!
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Absolutely.
When I supported neurodiverse students at university, almost all our support literature and stationary was blank (apart from the useful stuff). Because it was designed to be used, not showed off on Instagram.
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Absolutely. In addition I feel it’s like another thing on my to-do list and god knows I’m not trynna add to that.
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why I’m still not married 
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Haha, yeah I agree, it’s a bit cringe and smells of posturing, I was hesitant to even mention the name of it.
I wish mine was pretty too but there’s no chance. I also work from home 90% of the time and don’t think I would carry it around with me outside the house.
I’m also sceptical of most organisational systems. For my personality/brain, I get a massive kick out of making the plans, but not so much the doing. A plan has a logic and structure that is satisfying on its own, whether it’s implementable or not.
So, honeymoon period and all, I stand by the effectiveness I’ve observed so far from using my version of it.
The big thing is having a system to not over commit myself. I have so many hobbies, interests and household projects to do that it was generally overwhelming and led to thoughts of “I need to give up interest X”. Now I feel a lot happier setting some focuses for the month with super generous and kind to myself timeframes.
I’m really looking forward to planning out March. There’s definitely some spillover of unfinished projects, but I’m relaxed about it because I’ve still been making steady progress on them. I’m not on a deadline for any of this stuff, so any forward movement is a win.
I am actually a bit scared of putting a music project to the test with this. Currently I’m working on some studio furniture and clean up so I have an excuse to put that off a bit longer.
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Attack did an article on ADHD and electronic music.
Some interesting statements. One was how people with ADHD can have a greater sense of sensitivity and therefore, in addition to becoming easily overwhelmed, can have a greater sense of perceived rejection. I wonder if that’s one of the reasons I’ve always had a tough time promoting myself, and sharing songs I’ve done. When I’d Dj around town, I often got my gigs because of the friends I made who liked my knowledge and skill set. However, it wasn’t never me going out, talking to club managers, handing out flyers, attempting to chat up complete strangers, as many of the people I played with did. I never had that will power, and I’d feel strange promoting myself, even when handing out flyers. Just thoughts I’m pondering with.
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Absolutely.
I have errrr deficiencies in the time domain (no need to remind me of my engagement on this site :p) and thus there’s the rejection sensitivity plus additional occasional concerns about the time of others, on top of being an industrial techno nerd who barely likes most of the tracks at the local goth club(s).
Hrm, I think it’s cool that Attack Mag went there, it was a bit dry and structured for those new to the idea of non-neurotypicality over how non-NTness is linked to the type of creation we engage with. A good intro to things, but stopped short of good linkage to the soul of us weirdos and our process challenges / successes!
It also leads to a bit of trying to explain too many things at once, skimming over
Yes. There are three sub-types of ADHD. You’ve got predominantly inattentive, which is what I have. Girls and women get this type more and, because it doesn’t exhibit in a physically obvious way, it often doesn’t get noticed and so they fail to be diagnosed.
Women and non-neurotypicality is absolutely a societal lens for how women are perceived (at least passively by capacity for reproduction) and how “autistic”/AuDHD is expressed as a male trait, similar to how queerness in women can be ignored entirely. I do know at least one woman “officially” diagnosed with Asperger’s over the more common self-diagnosis, but she came from a social class where excellent care is available and encouraged.
Anyway, maybe I should blog more about my issues (and triumphs) beyond Elektronauts, IDK what platform would be useful there? Perhaps not Substack or Medium. Definitely not Twitter 
Also to add on, creative coaching has been great for me. I spend a good amount of time trying to bounce ideas off of myself alone, and while the coach isn’t there to generally say whether the ideas are good or not, the presence of someone else gives a sort of empathetic audience over mere accountability (which sounds like a harsher concept, especially to someone with rejection sensitivity.)
The over-analytical aspect means that oftentimes we know what we need and how to get there, but narrowing down the problem space and working out time and flow issues is the tough bit.
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For all of its faults*, it’s hard to beat WordPress for blogging. I’ve recommended it to numerous clients in the past.
*Mostly technical, specific to the self-hosted version and me being a designer-who-codes rather than a PHP guru. The writing/editing/admin experience is very user friendly.
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Thanks! I’ve set it up for friends’ businesses in the past but not had to maintain it long-term, how much of a timesink is upgrading WP libraries to protect against whatever exploit du jour? I may be biased by running a PHPBB in the past and having regular hack attempts
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It’s been a while since I’ve touched WordPress - most of my recent projects have used static site generators like Gatsby.
In my experience, there are way fewer headaches keeping up to date when using 3rd party, managed WordPress hosting services. In which case updates are automatic but certain plugins might not be whitelisted.
I’ve used Flywheel and WP Engine for client projects and Tap for my personal site. I’m sure there are loads more options since I last looked.
There’s also the commercial version of WordPress where hosting and updates are all part of the package but I think the scope for plugins and custom themes are more limited.
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FWIW …
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By the way, you’ve also inspired me to start Bullet Journalling. It’s still something that I sometimes skip for a week, but I really value it when I do it. For me with adhd - which is an executive function issue, as far as I’ve understood lately - it really helps getting a better sense of time and urgency for things to do; or things of focus or goals in your life. It really helps root me because of this. Thanks for sharing it here.
I really dislike anything that smells like “the system” (as in modern society) trying to get me to organise (manage) myself to become more productive. But for some reason this BuJo system feels more helpful to me, more mindful if you will, instead of being productivity focused.
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I definitely have some form of hyper focused adhd. Struggle with something’s but cope by obsessing over various artistic projects
My wife has much more of a classic adhd vibe. She’s all over the place.
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