Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

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RoamingFrancis
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Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by RoamingFrancis »

If so, how did you do it?

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I don't have strictly ADHD per say (although honestly I might have it and I'm undiagnosed), but I do struggle with executive dysfunction sometimes, and this is what I've found:

1. It's helpful to track your mood daily to see if you can discover trends.
2. Use good days to do work in advance to make bad days easier.
3. Diet/exercise/sleep are HUGELY important in improving executive functioning.
4. Getting out of clutter/unorganized debt is a lot of work but makes day to day functioning easier in the long run.
5. Optimize systems for what you need. (ie, store pens and paper in a location together, organize kitchen stuff along function, etc)

I've found that managing these things is a lot of smaller habits that will take awhile to build but add together.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by Western Red Cedar »

My DW has pretty severe ADHD and has developed some systems and practices that work for her.

1. She is meticulous about writing things down in her planner. She prefers a physical planner, and is willing to spend a decent amount of money ($20) for something that helps here on a daily and weekly basis. Some people prefer digital systems, which is fine, but it is best to stick to either analog or digital and not go back and forth if you have ADHD. She likes to physically write things down. This is probably the biggest recommendation for day-to-day functioning and managing professional commitments. Her coworkers are often impressed how organized she is, but she tells them she doesn't really have any other choice.

2. She keeps things in certain places so she doesn't waste a lot of energy tracking things down. For example, she has a hook on her purse that connects to her keys so she never loses her keys.

3. She practices minimalism so she doesn't have a lot of stuff to keep track of in general.

4. She has a basic priority matrix that she uses when she's feeling unorganized or stressed. This is an important reminder to finish the highest priority item first when she starts to feel overwhelmed.

+1 to the recommendations on sleep, diet, and stress management as well. She went to a counselor to focus specifically on her ADHD, and watched a lot of YouTubers who struggled with these issues.

Scott 2
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by Scott 2 »

I too struggle with executive functioning. Running life out of a digital planner has made a huge difference.

I like digital, because of the ability to integrate with a calendar and set recurring tasks. I'm not going to forget birthdays, cleaning the toilets, switching the furnace filter, or whatever. Because as soon as I check it off, the next dated task spawns.

I can also get bigger random ideas out of my head, to a place where they can be prioritized accordingly. As well as keep track of the half started ones.

Ticktick (paid) + google calendar is the stack I settled on.

candide
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by candide »

I) Framework

I find that the discourse around, if not just straight up the book Getting Things Done by Allen (GTD henceforth) is a great place to start with and go back to as you find what works for you. It provides an over-arching framework that you can then figure out what you want to dail-in and what you are going to disagree with and why.

Merlin Mann on GTD:
https://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/ge ... hings-done

Cal Newport, stating his problem with it:

https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2012/12 ... versalism/

The only major thing I needed added to GTD was the understanding that not all types of time are equal. There are different qualities of time based on our mental state. This point is made well be Aaron Swartz who follows with some good corollaries:

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity


II) Some stuff that works for me

This going to get a little rambly. . . hmm, shouldn’t you expect as much from someone with ADHD?

Two mes, work-life (school teacher) me and vacation (mini-ERE) me.

The school teacher me is a GTD ninja. The email inbox stays clear through the power of good folders. In my line of work the protocol of “if you it can be done under 2 minutes, do it now” is so powerful that it is hardwired as habit. This something that a lot of people in a lot of lines of work grouse about when it comes to GTD, but my circumstances are such that it is really magic.

Almost all of my workflow reminders can go through the combination of email and the grade book, but I have a two text files that I edit with nano (school issued computers are Apples) to serve as an additional capture system. The left-most tab is the next actions, the next tab is the projects these actions belong to. Since I have gotten good at saying no and preventing mission creep, entire weeks go by without me needing this system, so I imagine the natural progression would have been more and more personal projects on company time would have made it into the system. But with a new-born in the house next year, it in possible I won’t have the mental bandwidth to burn this way.

As mentioned by someone else, minimalism is another helpful strategy. Not only is it helpful in itself to keep my desk clear, but I can also how clean the desk is as a visual indicator of where I am at in terms of energy and focus.

Home me is a bit different. DW has in the past made minimalism impossible in that any time I would clear out an area, that would become where she just plopped her stuff (items where no decision has been made and no plans exist to make a decision about them).

With our baby coming, there is some chance she is coming around, but I think I’ll write about this in my next journal rather than get too deep into this digression here. Instead, I want to point out that I am far from sinless as I in the past got overwhelmed by tasks that need to be regularly done – dishes, yard work, litter boxes, etc. So while my wife contributed more to the clutter of our house, my neglect made it filthy in disgusting ways, a deeper reason for social embarrassment.

My task at home was to figure out how to reliably do the Sisyphean. To do that, I have my point system/habit fund.

viewtopic.php?p=258159#p258159

This point system has alleviated the need to try things like the Pomodoro method

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

or the 10(2)*5 method

https://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/pr ... -hack-1025

I mention both, though, because they are worth a try, especially as a way to get unburied.

At home I also have a to do list in nano, all on one file, organized by category, projects all listed, steps below and indented, like how most people write code. I use the other tabs in the Linux terminal are used for two many other things for me to want to use my real estate this way.

Last disjointed bit of what works for me is to say that the only way I can single-task on a computer at home is to have music or noise (at school, there is the added information of the students being there and then time pressure whenever I have a break). I wish I had known this about myself and got systematic about applying it years ago. I have used a lot of white noise, pink noise, and brown noise in the past as I didn’t have to make any decisions or listen to ads. Since I came to Linux, I have found cool web radio places that will provide me with variety but almost never cut in to talk.

Here’s one I like:
http://ubuntu.hbr1.com:19800/trance.ogg

And
http://ubuntu.hbr1.com:19800/tronic.ogg
and
http://stream-dc1.radioparadise.com/rp_192m.ogg

horsewoman
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by horsewoman »

My daughter has an ADD brain. She's a teenager, so all efforts to teach her to organise herself were mostly on my part so far.
To be honest, the only thing that ever made a difference is medication. I feel kind of bad feeding speed to my kid, but her quality of life, performance in school and social skills are so dramatically improved that it's worth it.
My hope is for her to learn better routines while on medication that still work somehow when she's not on her meds. We'll see if that pans out!

candide
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by candide »

horsewoman wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:07 pm
My daughter has an ADD brain. She's a teenager, so all efforts to teach her to organise herself were mostly on my part so far.
To be honest, the only thing that ever made a difference is medication. I feel kind of bad feeding speed to my kid, but her quality of life, performance in school and social skills are so dramatically improved that it's worth it.
As a teacher, having seeing thousands of people's children, I can say that some kids really just need the medication. When that is true, it's like a child needing glasses -- and that also means that the correction might be needed for life.

WFJ
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by WFJ »

Exercise, document time spent on daily activities, declutter. Understand when you are most/least effective and plan your day accordingly. WFH has been magical compared to office work. Have all kinds of documented "learning disabilities" never took anything, stuck to my strengths.

DutchGirl
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by DutchGirl »

horsewoman wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:07 pm
My hope is for her to learn better routines while on medication that still work somehow when she's not on her meds. We'll see if that pans out!
It could be that she needs the meds for life. But her brain is currently still growing and developing (especially the frontal lobe area that does planning etc), so that might help. Plus what also might help is that she later will have more chances to create an evironment where she thrives. Right now, things like school and her house are "obligated" places for her to be and where she doesn't have a lot of autonomy about changing them; maybe later she has the opportunity to adjust her environment and life more to her needs. I hope so for her.

I've met some adults who for example use Ritalin a couple of times per month when it can really help them with their studies or work, and who don't use it on days/in weeks when they don't need it.

horsewoman
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by horsewoman »

@candide and @dutchgirl - I was not expressing myself clearly. We have been informed that she might need the meds for ever, and are allright with it. I rather meant that she has routines for those days she forgets to take the meds or for break weeks.

Also - later she's an adult and can make these decisions for her own. While she agreed to the medication, it sometimes takes lots of nagging/control from me for her to actually take it regularly - unsurprisingly.
There are side effects like reduced appetite, which bothers her a lot (due to being extremely thin), so we sometimes have to choose between eating and concentration, if that makes sense.

candide
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by candide »

@horsewoman

I have every faith you are doing the right thing. I only wrote what I did because you seemed to express some feelings of guilt.

horsewoman
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Re: Has anyone had success learning organizational skills with ADHD?

Post by horsewoman »

@candide - not necessarily guilt, but I do feel sad sometimes that we live in a world where you have to give drugs to a kid so she can thrive. On the other hand I'm tremendously thankful that there is such a drug. It's a mixed bag.
For myself as an autistic person I did what @dutchgirl mentioned (build an environment that works for me) but it was a rocky road until I got there. I'm very glad that there are drugs for ADD to help with that.

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