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May 20 - June 2, 2024
Cycle through hobbies, jobs, and interests. When the novelty of one thing wears off, it’s fine to switch to something else. Stepping away from something gives it the opportunity to feel new again.
Be a bumblebee. Carry what you learned from one experience and use it to “pollinate” your next venture. Those with ADHD are often referred to as a “jack of all trades, master of none,” but have you heard the expanded version of that quote? It says, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one.” There’s value in building a diverse skill set.
Set a date to reevaluate. Agree to stick to something for a set amount of time, whatever feels reasonable for you to commit to.
And when that happens, I use the trick Dr. LaCount teaches all his clients: notice when you’re berating yourself and then ask yourself: “What would Coach B say?” My Coach B would remind me I’ve never written a book before. I’m figuring this out as I go.
USE AN “ASSISTANT” Executive function is like the CEO of the brain—and what CEO doesn’t need an assistant? Calendars, checklists, apps, and planners function as either virtual (digital) or in-person (analog) assistants.
Journal: A journal gives you a place to record your thoughts, feelings, and dreams, somewhere you can look back at interactions and track how things are going. If you’d like it to function as a planner as well, the Bullet Journal and the Hero’s Journal are both great for this.
To-do list: Sometimes our overwhelm comes from trying to hold too many “to-dos” in our head.
Project management software (e.g., Asana, Monday, Trello, and Notion): These programs can track to-do lists and entire projects. Be careful, though! Their capacity is unlimited. Ours is not.
“I like to use my hyper-fixations as tools to remember things. Right now, it is on stationery items, so writing down my events in different colors helps me focus on which category that event is for (e.g., purple for family, each family member getting their own color, a separate color for school, etc.).” Jen M., 40, North Carolina “Whenever I make a commitment, I immediately add it to my calendar. No ‘I’ll get to it later,’ I do it on the spot. I also have a Bullet Journal app on my phone that keeps my ongoing to-do list. It has been helpful using an app, because I’d misplace a paper list and
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A Note on Notes Sticky notes aren’t great assistants. Sticky notes do, however, make fantastic assistants to your assistant. Think of sticky notes like short-term memory. They’re great for holding on to important information for a little bit of time, but if you want that information to stick around (hehe) it helps to encode the information into long-term storage (e.g., your calendar).
2. LOWER THE DEMAND ON YOUR WORKING MEMORY If we have fewer working memory slots, we need to use them more effectively. This is especially important for new tasks, because they place greater demands on working memory; we haven’t chunked any of that data yet, so we can’t fit as much into one slot.
Empty your working memory slots. We’ve all been there: during important conversations or brain-heavy tasks, a thought that is begging for your attention pops into your head. The next time this happens, take a sec to write it down. Off-loading it allows you to use your entire working memory to hear and process what your conversation partner is saying, or to work on the task at hand (not just the part that isn’t trying to remember what you wanted to say or what you suddenly remembered you need to do next week).
Use a visual or auditory reference. Checklists are one type of visual reference that many of us with ADHD use.
Use an active body double. While a body double can be someone who simply sits with you while you work, an active body double, like a study partner who can quiz you, or a co-worker who can read information aloud while you enter it, offers additional assistance. Working with an active body double
Work on one task at a time (aka monotasking!). While multitasking can help with motivation and (weirdly) focus, we can dedicate more working memory slots to a task when we’re monotasking. This is important if one of those tasks needs our full brain. (See “A Note on Multitasking,” this page.)
Take one step at a time. Breaking the task down into individual steps and completing them one at a time can also help.
3. IMPROVE YOUR ENCODING Since our long-term memory issues happen at the encoding stage, it makes sense to focus on supporting the encoding process. Encoding requires multiple steps. Paying attention. Making sense of the new information. And giving our brains time to process.
Give yourself a hook to hang new info on. Those with “great” memory are those who can chunk data together more effectively.
Use active studying strategies. Our brains are more likely to wander when we use passive study techniques, such as reading. Doing something with the material engages the part of our brain that makes up the task positive network, which shuts the door on the default mode network (see this page—it’s responsible for our chronic mind-wandering). Write down the information, make and use flash cards, take notes from a textbook.
Make it sticky. We remember things best when they are meaningful to us or when they stand out as odd. Put what you learn into your own form of expression. Turn something you want to remember into a story, acronym, joke, or drawing. Act it out. Use silly voices! Teach it to someone else. When we explain what we’ve learned well enough for someone to understand it, we reinforce our own understanding of the material. You can also teach it to yourself—or pretend to teach it to a five-year-old. If you can explain something in a way that makes sense to a five-year-old, you’ve got it. Give it time.
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Sleep! Getting enough sleep makes it easier to stay focused, and—as a bonus—it helps us process and strengthen what we learned that day. Think of sleep as a study session you don’t have to be there for.
USE CUES—BUT WITH CAUTION Suggesting the use of cues to someone with ADHD is like handing a blowtorch to someone who really likes fire. You can end up with a crème brûlée; you can also end up burning the house down.
Put things where you can see them. Make sure anything you want to interact with is easily visible. Use labels and clear containers.
Keep “to-do” cues to times and places where you can follow through on them. If the reminder to use a language learning app goes off while you’re driving to the store, you’ll either train yourself to ignore that reminder, or you’ll respond to the reminder and risk
you ignore a to-do cue, do it mindfully. To-do cues always prompt action, even if that action is to ignore the cue. To safeguard your cues, be mindful.
Use cues to remind you of your intentions. While we want to be careful with to-do cues and where we introduce them, we can plaster intention-related cues all over the place. ADHD coach Caroline Maguire suggests we craft cues that remind us of the person we want to be and choose locations where we will find them throughout our day or week.
single evocative word: This can be great when you want to keep your intentions private. Silly or inspirational posters: We remember things better when they stand out or spark emotion. Vision boards (analog or virtual!): These can help strengthen our vision of the person we want to become or the eventual outcome we’re hoping to achieve. Questions that hack our brains: When we ask ourselves a question, such as “Why am I so interested in practicing the piano?” or “Why am I so good at saving money?” our brains are inclined to look for answers: “Oh, because ___.” This can increase intrinsic
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Forgetfulness has given me experiences and an entire career that I wouldn’t otherwise have. The differences in my memory have helped me learn useful compensatory skills. Because I have trouble remembering where I put things, I’m now a pro at using search functions on webpages and computer programs.
Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. —SABAA TAHIR, A TORCH AGAINST THE NIGHT
LABEL YOUR EMOTIONS Identifying your emotions is key to being able to manage them effectively.
Label the intensity. We can often tell how intense an emotion is before we can tell what the emotion is. There are different ways to do this.
Use external prompts. Feeling wheels—circular diagrams that help you identify your feelings—can help you put words to your emotional experiences. So can paying attention to what your body is doing. Daniel Jones of The Aspie World YouTube channel, who also has ADHD, points out that emotions are energy in motion. What does the energy in your body make you want to do? Laugh? Cry? Rock? Throw rocks?
Create your own labeling system. For some, describing their emotions isn’t as easy as, say, pointing at a color.
Look for the emotion behind the emotion. Emotions that we’re less comfortable with having and/or expressing often quickly get masked by other emotions. If you notice you constantly feel angry, there might be a different emotion behind it, such as hurt or even fear. It’s important to look for the first emotion that you experienced in a situation. If you respond angrily when you actually felt scared, you probably won’t get the results (and safety!) you need.[*4]
2. MAKE SPACE FOR YOUR EMOTIONS
WAIT before taking action. Immediately “fixing” (or even “reframing”) the situation that made you feel an emotion can reinforce the idea that our emotions aren’t allowed to exist.
Sit with your feelings. As my therapist taught me, even our biggest feelings can’t last forever; in most cases, the body can only sustain an intense emotion for about twenty minutes.
Take time to explore your emotions. This can mean drawing, painting, or talking them out—with a journal or a third party who may be able to help us process and figure out what, if anything, we want to do next.
do my damnedest to avoid making any irrevocable decisions while in the grip of a torrent of emotions. I do anything I can to give myself time—take a nap, listen to an audiobook, hide in the bathroom.”
3. USE YOUR EMOTIONS In our attempt to suppress or avoid our emotions, it’s easy to forget how useful they are. Feelings exist for a reason. They’re indicators that we might need more of something, less of something, to keep going with something, or to do something different.
Use them as (motivational) fuel. ADHDers
Use them as a compass. Sometimes our gut knows something is off before our brain does.
Enjoy them. Some people (maybe you!) enjoy experiencing emotions. There’s a reason we go to the movies, ride roller coasters, listen to sad songs, or fall in love. We want to feel. Feeling deeply reminds us we’re alive.
Foster connection. Expressing what you think can be divisive, but expressing what you feel is typically connecting. Pixar had it right. Expressing sadness brings people together. Communicating how you feel can help you bond with the people you love, mend rifts, and find common ground.
4. FIND YOUR (EMOTIONAL) BALANCE While there’s nothing wrong with having emotions, being emotionally “flooded” can be deeply uncomfortable and diminish our choice in how to respond, often resulting in actions we regret.
Practice meditation. Each stressor we experience increases our adrenaline level. If our adrenaline continues to spike and doesn’t get the chance to come back down, which is common with our hectic ADHD lives, at some point its level is high enough that even a small stressor can push us over our metaphorical edge.
Seek support before—and take breaks from—emotionally difficult situations. When possible, go into difficult situations with a plan, especially one you’ve worked through with a trusted friend or mental health professional.
Put your effort into things you can control. One
“I was prescribed a mood stabilizer to help. I don’t blow up as much as I used to, but it does still happen.”
BUT NOT THAT FEELING, RIGHT? As I began to explore my emotions, I quickly realized my feelings about my feelings ranged widely.
