9 underrated life hacks for ADHD brains

Comments · 1.1K

• ST

  @struthless · 2 years ago (edited) · pinned

  Go to <a href="https://dayoneapp.com/struthless">https://dayoneapp.com/struthless</a> and use the code struthless to get a limited-time offer of a two-month free trial with Day One Journal Premium :)<br><br>p.s.: hope ya liked the video! curious as to people&apos;s favourite adhd workaround ideas, and lmk if i should make a deep dive on any of them :)<br><br>cam xoxo<br><br>EDIT:<br>(Correction/update)<br>the point about using chatgpt for admin as it felt like the lesser of 2 evils: i no longer use gen ai and now disagree with for ethical, privacy, and anti-corporate reasons (see my &quot;brainrot apocalypse&quot; vid for more on why). That said i don&apos;t judge anyone who does. &quot;Admin&quot; is also something I disagree with for the same reasons.

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• PR

  @prehnRA · 2 years ago

  My favorite meta-hack is this: with ADHD, no system or technique will help you forever. Our brains want novelty. I&apos;m no longer stressed when GTD stops working for a bit, or I fall off of journaling, or pomodoros stop giving me focus. I just grab another trick from the bag and do that for a while instead.

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• LE

  @leonscribblotzi · 2 years ago

  I picked up the phrase &quot;&apos;should&apos; is a &apos;could&apos; with guilt&quot;.<br><br>Saying things like &quot;I could draw something&quot; is a lot more likely to get me going (and feeling good about it!) than &quot;I should draw something&quot; ^-^

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• KR

  @kroomi4838 · 2 years ago

  The Reverse Pomodoro for when you&apos;re struggling with a task. Attack it like a ninja for 5 minutes, then spend 25 mins in &quot;recovery.&quot; Makes it so much less threatening, you can actually make progress.

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• AR

  @archer_5567 · 2 years ago

  My niche ADHD life hacks:<br><br>1: get a clothing steamer so you can easily get wrinkles out of clothes when you inevitably forget to fold them but then have something important to go to. <br><br>2. Use deli containers for food and meal prep, they all have the same size lid despite being different sizes, they&apos;re stackable and they&apos;re cheap enough that if you forget to clean one out you can just throw it away. <br><br>3. Only worry about organizing the things you need for day to day life. If you try to organize everything you&apos;re going to fail. Organize the things you need for day to day and everything else can go into a junk drawer and you can worry about it later. <br><br>4. organize things visually. hang things on your walls with hooks, pegboard etc. I can&apos;t remember to put things back in drawers but storing stuff on my wall I can instantly see when something is not where it is supposed to be.<br><br>5. shop at yard sales. Yard sales are so cheap you can impulse buy stupid shit without breaking the bank or feeling ashamed, plus you never know what you&apos;re going to find so every shopping trip is like a treasure hunt.

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• HY

  @hyperfocusworkshop · 2 years ago

  One of my life mottos when I&apos;m stuck in a perfectionist-procrastination loop is &quot;anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.&quot; Or, same rule different wording, &quot;It&apos;s better to half-ass often than to whole-ass occasionally.&quot; So while &quot;anything worth doing is worth doing well&quot; has its place in my life, when I&apos;m stuck, I remind myself that it&apos;s also worth doing poorly. Floss <b>one</b> tooth. Clean <b>a tiny part</b> of the mirror. Sometimes I keep going. Sometimes I don&apos;t. But my mirrors (and teeth) are a lot cleaner than when I thought I had to make the mirror spit-shine perfect, and floss my teeth so well I made dental hygienists jealous.

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• AM

  @amyvamy2025 · 2 years ago (edited)

  My Adhd hack - loving touch. Adhd brains have a tendency to misinterpret words and emotions. So we constantly feel that people are mad at us. A kind or loving touch gets through the brain noise. 🧠

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• EM

  @emilytamar · 2 years ago

  I put off doing things unless I think I can do the whole massive thing in one go and do it well, but I had a shift in perspective recently when my mother came to visit. She&apos;s an avid gardener, and I had moved into a new place about 4 months prior to her visit. I had grand ideas about the garden I wanted to create, but in that time I hadn&apos;t done anything because the state of the garden was nightmareish and I thought I would have to devote an entire weekend to clearing out the weeds, making the soil nice and workeable, actually planting things, etc... When my mother arrived, she wanted to get cracking on part of it, and my natural response was &apos;we don&apos;t have the time to do the whole thing though&apos;. She basically said &apos;so what?&apos; And I realised I didn&apos;t have an answer. Planting half a garden would be better than never planting a garden. So we did what we could whilst she was visiting, and the following weekend I finished the job because I had momentum. The whole experience really made me rethink the many, many things I put off under the guise of needing to find the perfect moment where I would have enough time and energy to do the entire thing perfectly in one go. And now when I fall into the familiar trap of &apos;everything or nothing&apos;, I remind myself that &apos;something is better than nothing&apos;. <br><br>Half a garden is better than no garden.

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• MI

  @miikkakaartosalmi6802 · 2 years ago

  Oh do I have plenty.<br><br>1) No drinks in the freezer. You&apos;ll forget and they&apos;ll freeze.<br>2) Set alarms every couple of hours if you&apos;re doing something that you&apos;ll know most likely really sucks you in. You&apos;ve gotta move and eat!<br>3) I&apos;ve got like 3kg of homemade muesli that I only need to add milk to. I&apos;m a terrible eater when I&apos;m zoned in and having something healthy always there helps.<br>4) If you can stand up at work, get a balance board. Helps with fidgeting and you get some balance gains! <br>5) I can&apos;t read and do nothing else. Mind wanders too much. BUT I can read if I stretch while I read. Free extra benefit!<br>6) I use read aloud features to get through boring work documents. With varying attention, but that&apos;s better than being stuck on page 2 for a day!

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• KI

  @KimSokolArt · 2 years ago

  Countdown timers! &nbsp;I’m a freelance artist and do basically all my work on my iPad, so I’ve got a little widget set to tell me how many days left til each deadline. &nbsp;Because of the way ADHD messes with a sense of time I find it a lot easier to see a constant reminder that I have X number of days left, rather than just seeing a deadline on my calendar at some point in the future, especially if it’s several weeks away when you first get it.<br><br>Also, buy things in bright colours. &nbsp;I WILL put my headphones down somewhere stupid, but it’s a lot easier to notice em when they’re turquoise rather than black or white.

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• WE

  @weaver-lofi · 2 years ago

  if you catch yourself in the void, i’ve found just washing my hands, brushing my teeth or something of the sort usually sorta yoinks me out of it + it’s just a good thing to do anyways lol

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• SA

  @sarahlabbe9779 · 2 years ago

  A narrow rolling cart is game changer.<br><br>I can have a water bottle, a snack, chargers and whatever hobby related stuff (crochet as of now) and just move it around with me from dining room to bed to couch to random middle of hallway. The cart is THE horizontal surface I will place things on which keeps the rest of the house clean-ish and I don&apos;t forget stuff in every room.<br><br>Also I do put on an aperon when cleaning, (all my supplies are in a basket I can carry) putting on &quot;my little housemaid costume&quot; keeps me on task as it&apos;s a constant reminder of what I was doing. - Plus no worries about my clothes getting icky.

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