Being diagnosed with ADHD this far into my life has been interesting. Some of it is like, oh, that's why I've always struggled with this. And some of it is like, how did I cope for this long without anyone knowing, even myself?
I started doing more research into ADHD and found some YouTube videos, including ADHD hacks for your house. Of course, I watched them because anything that could make things go more smoothly at home would help.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I'm already doing many of these hacks. Maybe this is why I made it this far without being diagnosed?
An example is creating a station. I have a coffee station and I've done this since I started drinking coffee. My coffee maker is near a water source--either my sink or my refrigerator or both. In the cabinet over the coffee maker, I have everything I need to make coffee like paper filters and the coffee itself. I also have everything to make my cup of coffee, for instance sugar-free coffee syrup. Everything I need for every facet of coffee making either brewing or drinking, is in this area.
I've created stations in my bathroom using little caddies and baskets. My crafts go in craft totes, each craft in its own one. My knitting projects go into a bag with all the yarn for the project. If it's something I'm actually knitting, it's a tote bag. If it's a project I want to knit, but haven't started, it goes in a giant plastic bag with a zip top. Everything goes in there. The yarn I'm going to use and the pattern. That way, when I'm ready to start the project, I can just grab the plastic bag.
How do I get into trouble? When I don't put the pattern in the bag. I was knitting a project that I quit when I was over the halfway mark. I want to pick it up again but can't find the pattern. It's not in the project bag. Where did I put it? Who knows? Can I print another copy of the pattern? Sure, but the copy I was using had each row I'd knitted marked off. If I print another, I'm going to have to walk through it line by line, row by row until I figure out where I left off.
Another idea in the videos I watched was a Go-Bag for traveling. Every toiletry you need for your trip is in that bag and you never take anything out of it. I've been doing this since probably the 1990s. I kept my toiletry bag in my suitcase, and when I was planning to travel, all I needed to pack was clothes. Everything else was ready to go.
There were other ideas that I know won't work for me, like keeping track of things digitally. I've tried that and I would just delete the notification and forget all about the thing I was supposed to do. This is why I moved to a paper planner. Daily, not weekly.
Weekly planners have never worked for me because I see items listed across the week and it feels like if I got them done whenever during the week, it was okay. And because doing them on a particular day didn't matter, I never did them at all. A daily planner keeps me accountable. Yes, it's more of a to-do list than anything else, but I need it in the planner or it's too easy to blow it off.
If it's written on Tuesday, October 2nd, though, I'll actually do it on Tuesday, October 2nd because it bothers me not to check off everything on my list for the day.
The problem I'm trying to solve now, and where I've been falling down, is trying to remember to do things that don't have specific due dates. I've already mentioned the separate to-do list is too easy for me to ignore, and that digital doesn't work for me at all. So?
I think I figured out a way to keep up with a home declutter project. I created a cross between a creative journal and a bullet journal where I listed every single thing to go through. Example would be tall dress, drawer one. Tall dresser, drawer 2. And so on. I haven't actually tackled anything yet, but I'm hopeful because there is a space to check off finished items! The pieces are also very small, literally one dresser drawer at a time instead of Organize and Declutter Bedroom. That's overwhelming and will literally never happen.
But what about the random tasks? That's where I'm stymied. Another notebook? I'm still mulling.
Anyway, I just thought it was really interesting that even though I didn't know I had ADHD, I came up with strategies to function that are actually recommended. I just need a few more strategies.
