One simple but powerful thing that’s really helped me: to stop fighting the non-linear way I approach tasks. I am very late diagnosed (in my mid-50s) and my whole life I had naturally thought I should be doing things the way most people do them, which is linearly: doing one thing at a time, completing it, moving onto the next, and repeat. Once I learned that my pattern of starting multiple tasks at once was due to the way my brain fired, I stopped fighting it. Now I allow myself to do things “my way” whenever possible. This has lifted so much of the negative self-judgement, really helping with my overall self-esteem and even sense of accomplishment.
Btw, the medication in the morning before waking…I need to try that. Waking up is incredibly hard for me and always has been.
She was diagnosed with ADHD at 45 and only because she saw so much of herself in me.
She said that she had a similar realization, one that she wishes she had much earlier in life but is still thankful nonetheless.
Our brains work differently and trust me, I struggle with the non-linear thinking.
Living away at school with 4 Roomates all of whom are neurotypical, I often find myself comparing me to them. It’s a bad habit especially when I feel like it’s them 4 against me.
The medication trick is one I swear by…
Mornings are the worst for me. The stress of the day, adding to the comfort of my bed is a recipe for disaster. The medication makes it just a little easier.
The two most valuable changes I've made since being diagnosed come from learning how my ADHD brain functions. One is what I mentioned, about not expecting myself to function linearly, and the other is honoring that I get burned out and need to therefore manage my energy differently than most ND people. I now believe that when I'm irritiable, that's my body's signal that I'm overstimulated. (I didn't even define myself as getting "overstimulated" before, almost ever! I just knew I could only do groups for a short time, didn't like large crowds, and that I needed lots of alone time to recharge.) Now that I have this framing of "overstimulated", I manage my energy a lot like a marathon runner: I conserve it whenever possible over a day, treating it like the delicate commodity it is. After all, just one day is a challenge for us, right? All that overthinking? All that uncertainty about what to do next, and all that overwhelm? We can be really exhausted just by lunch time!
I manage/conserve my energy now--when circumstances permit--by taking a lot more little breaks WITHOUT GUILT, slowing down in general, and not expecting myself to accomplish as much in a day. Once I let go of always pushing myself to work as fast as possible--probably to overcompensate--I realized that I actually function a lot better overall. (As a side note, a key time I've learned to take a break is when I'm transitioning from one task to another. It often makes it easier to move onto the next thing when I honor the transition instead of just impulsively diving into the next thing, or just as likely, procrastinating by wasting time before I start it.)
That type of multitasking reminds me of cooking, when you have things in the oven, pans on the hob and everything needs cooking for different amounts of time at different temperatures but everything still needs to be ready at the same time for it to be served at the same time. So you're flitting between different parts of the kitchen with timers going off left and right.
The fact that you said that once you realised you did this because of how your brain worked you stopped fighting it, has just been a revelation for me.
Life is like that for me and I think that fighting it is futile, if we can embrace it like you have, we might end up with some tasks unfinished at the end of the day, but we can always go back to them tomorrow.
You made my year by letting me know that! I’m so glad it helped.
I think the key is to put up boundaries without being too rigid about how you approach things. This philosophy has worked for me in many areas of my life, not just in how I approach tasks. Because we live in an NT world, we often have no choice but to function linearly. But whenever I don’t have to, I try to honor my natural tendencies (instead of trying to fit them into a mold that is opposite of how I function best.)
Well it's early days, a low bar so far 😂 I'm glad though.
I'm back at work tomorrow and I'm going to just try the scatterbrained system, it might be that all I needed was to let go of the thought that I NEED to get the thing I'm working on finished before starting the next, allowing myself the freedom might be enough to just get on? We will see.
My first 3 years of university I had the mindset of “I’m not starting if I don’t have enough time to finish”. This caused a lot of problems because sometimes I had class from 8:30am to 10 at night. No open breaks lasting longer than an hour. These kinds of days I would get nothing done.
Once I realized that you can leave something unfinished and come back to it, it helped me a lot. Even that extra 20 or 30 minutes, here and there can add up to a lot of time. My marks definitely reflected this as well.
That rings true, but for me it's more physical tasks, taking a shower, vacuuming the floor, etc. To the point where I wrote a list of each household task and timed myself doing them so I knew if I only had 20 minutes, which tasks I could comfortably do and not leave unfinished.
I'll mention this while I remember, but does time feel different to you on a morning vs at night? 30 minutes on a morning goes by much quicker than on a night. That's something I'm going to look into!
The calendar is my biggest tip, if it doesn't go on the calendar I don't attend, because I don't remember. I used this before I knew I had ADHD because as soon as I was able to outsource the job of remembering where I had to be and when, I was free to not worry and concentrate on other things. Just make sure you have reminders on and set them, 1 day, 10 hours, 3 hours, 3 hours, 1 hour and 30 minutes before an appointment 😂
One simple but powerful thing that’s really helped me: to stop fighting the non-linear way I approach tasks. I am very late diagnosed (in my mid-50s) and my whole life I had naturally thought I should be doing things the way most people do them, which is linearly: doing one thing at a time, completing it, moving onto the next, and repeat. Once I learned that my pattern of starting multiple tasks at once was due to the way my brain fired, I stopped fighting it. Now I allow myself to do things “my way” whenever possible. This has lifted so much of the negative self-judgement, really helping with my overall self-esteem and even sense of accomplishment.
Btw, the medication in the morning before waking…I need to try that. Waking up is incredibly hard for me and always has been.
I read this to my mom.
She was diagnosed with ADHD at 45 and only because she saw so much of herself in me.
She said that she had a similar realization, one that she wishes she had much earlier in life but is still thankful nonetheless.
Our brains work differently and trust me, I struggle with the non-linear thinking.
Living away at school with 4 Roomates all of whom are neurotypical, I often find myself comparing me to them. It’s a bad habit especially when I feel like it’s them 4 against me.
The medication trick is one I swear by…
Mornings are the worst for me. The stress of the day, adding to the comfort of my bed is a recipe for disaster. The medication makes it just a little easier.
Mornings are dreadful for me too! Are you also a nightowl?
Waking up is so dificult.
The two most valuable changes I've made since being diagnosed come from learning how my ADHD brain functions. One is what I mentioned, about not expecting myself to function linearly, and the other is honoring that I get burned out and need to therefore manage my energy differently than most ND people. I now believe that when I'm irritiable, that's my body's signal that I'm overstimulated. (I didn't even define myself as getting "overstimulated" before, almost ever! I just knew I could only do groups for a short time, didn't like large crowds, and that I needed lots of alone time to recharge.) Now that I have this framing of "overstimulated", I manage my energy a lot like a marathon runner: I conserve it whenever possible over a day, treating it like the delicate commodity it is. After all, just one day is a challenge for us, right? All that overthinking? All that uncertainty about what to do next, and all that overwhelm? We can be really exhausted just by lunch time!
I manage/conserve my energy now--when circumstances permit--by taking a lot more little breaks WITHOUT GUILT, slowing down in general, and not expecting myself to accomplish as much in a day. Once I let go of always pushing myself to work as fast as possible--probably to overcompensate--I realized that I actually function a lot better overall. (As a side note, a key time I've learned to take a break is when I'm transitioning from one task to another. It often makes it easier to move onto the next thing when I honor the transition instead of just impulsively diving into the next thing, or just as likely, procrastinating by wasting time before I start it.)
That type of multitasking reminds me of cooking, when you have things in the oven, pans on the hob and everything needs cooking for different amounts of time at different temperatures but everything still needs to be ready at the same time for it to be served at the same time. So you're flitting between different parts of the kitchen with timers going off left and right.
The fact that you said that once you realised you did this because of how your brain worked you stopped fighting it, has just been a revelation for me.
Life is like that for me and I think that fighting it is futile, if we can embrace it like you have, we might end up with some tasks unfinished at the end of the day, but we can always go back to them tomorrow.
I'm glad I saw your comment Amy, thank you.
You made my year by letting me know that! I’m so glad it helped.
I think the key is to put up boundaries without being too rigid about how you approach things. This philosophy has worked for me in many areas of my life, not just in how I approach tasks. Because we live in an NT world, we often have no choice but to function linearly. But whenever I don’t have to, I try to honor my natural tendencies (instead of trying to fit them into a mold that is opposite of how I function best.)
Well it's early days, a low bar so far 😂 I'm glad though.
I'm back at work tomorrow and I'm going to just try the scatterbrained system, it might be that all I needed was to let go of the thought that I NEED to get the thing I'm working on finished before starting the next, allowing myself the freedom might be enough to just get on? We will see.
Thanks again.
My first 3 years of university I had the mindset of “I’m not starting if I don’t have enough time to finish”. This caused a lot of problems because sometimes I had class from 8:30am to 10 at night. No open breaks lasting longer than an hour. These kinds of days I would get nothing done.
Once I realized that you can leave something unfinished and come back to it, it helped me a lot. Even that extra 20 or 30 minutes, here and there can add up to a lot of time. My marks definitely reflected this as well.
That rings true, but for me it's more physical tasks, taking a shower, vacuuming the floor, etc. To the point where I wrote a list of each household task and timed myself doing them so I knew if I only had 20 minutes, which tasks I could comfortably do and not leave unfinished.
I'll mention this while I remember, but does time feel different to you on a morning vs at night? 30 minutes on a morning goes by much quicker than on a night. That's something I'm going to look into!
Are you a morning or night person? It might depend on that.
Perspective is everything!
It really is!
The calendar is my biggest tip, if it doesn't go on the calendar I don't attend, because I don't remember. I used this before I knew I had ADHD because as soon as I was able to outsource the job of remembering where I had to be and when, I was free to not worry and concentrate on other things. Just make sure you have reminders on and set them, 1 day, 10 hours, 3 hours, 3 hours, 1 hour and 30 minutes before an appointment 😂