Working With Your ADHD

10/14/19 • 13 min

3 Listeners

It's easy to get caught up in what neurotypicals do for productivity that we can forget that we're not neurotypical, we have ADHD. And when you've got ADHD sometimes you need to do things differently because our brains are wired differently. Even though neurotypicals sometimes struggle with a lot of the same issues that we are struggling with it doesn't mean we should always be trying the same strategies and tactics to get over those hurdles.

What we need to do is find ways to work with our ADHD brains. Working with your ADHD brain is all about finding the strategies that work with your brain and avoiding the ones that are going to cause problems.

This Episode's Top Tips

Working harder isn't always our best option - more often than not we just need to take a different approach
It's okay for us to just do less - especially when are staying focus on what matters most to us
The best strategies I've found for working with your ADHD are education and community

For all the tools and other goodies mentioned in this episode, check out the full show notes at: HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/WorkingWith

This Episode's Top Tips

Working harder isn't always our best option - more often than not we just need to take a different approach
It's okay for us to just do less - especially when are staying focus on what matters most to us
The best strategies I've found for working with your ADHD are education and community

For all the tools and other goodies mentioned in this episode, check out the full show notes at: HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/WorkingWith

Previous Episode

How to Remember Anything

ADHD can make it hard to remember all the things that you need to remember on a daily basis. Things get forgotten and we end up missing important appointments because they simply slipped our mind. While everyone can have trouble with memory, it can be especially hard on those of us with ADHD because of how memory works with executive function.

When we are thinking about memory it is important to distinguish between long-term memory and short-term memory. Long-term memory holds memories from weeks, months or years ago - while short term memory is all about the now with those memories lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of days. Short-term memory is also sometimes also referred to as working memory

To keep the information we store in our working memory we must put in effort to keep it there. If we don't put in effort to retain those memories they will be forgotten. We can hold about 5-9 memories in our short-term memory. It is important to note that when we are holding things in our working memory we are using our executive function. Since ADHD can also be considered a disorder of the executive function this means that it is harder for people with ADHD to use their working memory.

To be clear we can simply define executive as what controls our ability to get thing done. It helps with things like time management, paying attention, remembering details and planning. You can think of executive function kind of like a well that you draw out of every time you do these things. Our reserve of executive function has ups and down with things like sleeping and eating helping to restore that reserve. We rely on executive function for a lot of thing so we don't want to drain it unnecessarily.

The easiest thing we can do to reduce the strain on our executive function is to stop trying to store these memories in our heads and instead write them down. When we are writing down these reminders to ourselves we need to focus on creating reminders that are specific so we actually know what we were supposed to be reminded about. The second key is to create cues for these reminders so that we get reminded about these things when the information is actually relevant to us.

In the instances where a written reminder isn't warranted such as going into another room just to get an object we can also struggle with remembering things. In a study from psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky of Notre Dame found that doorways "serve as an 'event boundary' in the mind." In his study Radvansky found that subjects were more forgetful after walking through a doorway compared to when they walked the same distance across a room.

To help with these instances of forgetfulness we can implement solutions like vocalization and visualization to help us remember what we needed.

This Episode's Top Tips

Storing things in our working memory relies on us using our executive function and we don't want to unnecessarily drain our executive function to just try and remember everything
When we are creating reminders for ourselves we need to make sure that they have a good cue for us and that they are specific enough that we will actually know what we were supposed to be reminded of
Doorways serve as event boundaries in our mind so we need to be mindful of trying to remember things when we are going to be going through a doorway.

For all the tools and other goodies mentioned in this episode, check out the full show notes at: HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/RememberAnything

Next Episode

Goals, Strategies and Tactics

Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/GST Today we're going to be exploring the differences between goals, strategies and tactics.

Simply put:

Goals are a desired result we want to achieve.
Strategies are the processes we use to achieve goals.
Tactics are actions we take to implement strategies.

Let's take a look at an example.

A while back I decided to set the goal planning my week every week. My strategy at the time was to do my planning on Monday's right when I started work. This was a bad strategy, but it was compounded by the fact that I didn't have any specific tactics to make sure that I was doing my planning right when I got in. Coming in on Mondays I'd find myself just jumping into whatever needed to be done first and telling myself that I'd get to my planning right afterwards. That rarely actually happened. And while it might have been a good idea to actually try some different tactics here I didn't realize that was the issue, so I instead opted to change my strategy.

I decided that I wanted to try and start planning my week over the weekend. This was a great idea in theory but ended up being a mess because I again didn't implement any solid tactics to make sure that I was getting my planning done. With all my family commitments on weekends I found that I had trouble finding time to do my planning. I liked the results when I did manage to plan on the weekend but I wasn't able to do it consistently.

I ended up changing my strategy again and was able to get it to stick, because this time I also decided to add some tactics. Now I plan my next week on the Friday afternoons and instead of just trying to find time on Fridays, I created a reoccurring event on my calendar specifically for planning on Friday afternoons. By blocking off that time ahead of time I couldn't schedule any other projects then without moving that time block (which sometimes I do have to do).

The biggest reason this has worked for me is because let's be honest, you never just find time to do things - if it isn't in your calendar it probably isn't a priority. When I'm at my office I'm able to respect my time blocks a lot more easily. When I'm at home with the kids they are my priority and so I can't rely on having as consistent time blocks - and this comes back to the idea of working with your ADHD and what works for you. Sure I'm "sacrificing" my Friday afternoons to make my planning happen, but planning is important for managing my ADHD and so it is totally worth it.

SMART Goals

Now that we've got a better understanding of the differences between strategies and tactics let's talk a little bit about goal setting. There are a lot of ways to set your goals but today we're just going to be talking about SMART goals.

SMART stands for:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Timely

When I'm sitting down during the goal setting process I'll often start with a nebulous goal such as: I want to get in better shape. To gain clarity on what I actually want out of this goal we'll run it through the SMART goal methodology.

We'll start by getting specific. What does getting in shape mean? For me getting in shape might mean getting to the gym more and eating healthier. The key when making things specific is to also focus on making them into ways that can also be measurable. Looking at that first part we can say I want to go to the gym at least 2 times a week. This makes it both specific (we know exactly what needs to happen) and measurable (we know the frequency, twice a week).

Eating healthier is a lot harder to quantify, so we're going to have to change the wording so that we can make this measurable - let's go with I want to eat 3 healthy meals a week. If we want to get real nitty-gritty we might also want to define wh