6 Weird Brain Tricks
I was in the middle of drafting a post about obscure or unintuitive ADHD hacks when I was couldn’t refill my ADHD medication for a couple of weeks. Life doesn’t stop though, so I had to get the same amount of shit done while everything became twice as difficult. I had to pull out all the stops on this list, then enlist some extra bonus help.
When it comes to hacks, tips, tricks, and systems, nothing is universally helpful except an open and experimental mindset. I believe in searching widely for ideas that help others through articles like this, podcasts, and friends’ experiences. Take what sounds interesting and give it a solid try. If it helps, keep it and iterate. If not, discard it as not for you.
In that spirit, I want to share what I have personally found useful as an offering, in case they prove useful for someone else, neurodivergent or not.
The Everything Doc
I have started heaps of Google docs, often with similar names that make vague allusions to a large-scale project or effort they are a part of. But whenever I want to return to something, I am unable to find where I’d started work initially. My motivation is sapped, and I tell myself that I’ll find the original later. “Later,” unfortunately, had a good chance of never happening.
This frustrating pattern changed when I started using a giant, constantly growing Google doc for early-stage ideas. I put a date header at the top of the document, and begin writing stream-of-consciousness about what’s on my mind.
Sometimes this helps me organize my thinking, and the thoughts I develop in my scratchpad eventually form the basis for something that I break out to share with others. I can text search one big doc for an idea I had weeks ago instead of opening dozens of vaguely-named files.
This also reduces the inertia of starting a new document. “Is it worth starting a doc for this idea? What should the title be?” These questions can make it difficult to jot down ideas, and the everything doc reduces the startup costs to essentially nil, allowing me to get started and figure out the plan later.
When something major in my life changes—a team/project change, changing companies, etc.—I will start a new “everything doc” to keep it from growing unwieldy.
The Little Bag
Not wanting to be unduly burdened by stuff, I used to attempt to choose a single right-sized bag for my daily situations. This meant I always carried something fairly large, as I refuse to leave the house without a book (it’s my emotional support novel, okay?).
Then I impulse-purchased a mini bag from a high-end label, but it bummed me out for a year because it’s too small for book-toting. I really wanted to use it though, so fuck it, let me throw keys, phone, earbuds, and a card-holder into the little bag as a cross-body while I carry four journals, two laptops, and my current reads into a giant backpack.
I’m never going back to a single bag, because now I leave important things behind about 1/10th of the rate I used to. You’d think having two bags to track would make life harder, but batching in this way turns a bunch of little important things into one important thing. All of the small, easily lost essentials are in a single place, much easier to find than when in a big jumble. And I always know where to look for the essentials! It’s been a game changer, and something I only learned within the last half year. We’re always figuring new things out!
Timers
This is evergreen. If I’m having trouble motivating myself to do “forever tasks” like cleaning or editing a novel, I set a fifteen minute timer and do the thing. Then I can stop. Depending on my brain state and current motivation, I can push it up or down. Smaller timers for really rough days, longer timers when I’m firing and looking for a challenge.
This is not obscure or unintuitive at all, but I cannot overstate how much this helps me on a daily basis so could not leave it out.
Sensory Awareness
Though more stereotypically associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder, many ADHDers deal with sensory processing difficulties, too. The most distressing to me is noise. I love the electric Caltrains since their improved service is so much more usable, but the new door alarms are so jarring that a twelve-minute train ride left me stressed and dysregulated for hours.
I’m usually not even aware of the environment’s impact until I’m already overwhelmed. I’m working on improving that: increased awareness is key. No, I’m not all of a sudden annoyed beyond words by my husband and the things that come out of his mouth—we are in an airport and the sensory environment is frazzle-making. If any readers have their tips on how to soothe a jagged sensorium once you’re already overwhelmed, please send them my way, as I’m looking to boost my toolset. :)
Things that help if I remember them in advance:
Always carry earplugs. I have a pair that comes with a small robust carrying case for slipping onto a keychain, which is great because I’d otherwise never remember that type of thing.
Control what you can. Getting a few feet of distance between the loudly beeping doors makes a difference despite feeling rather pointless.
Focus on other sensory details to ground you, describe what you see or feel in minute detail in your head.
Leave Things Unfinished
I’ve been teased by my husband for my habit of stopping television shows in the middle of an episode. I never stop reading at chapter breaks in books, either. He’s right, I thought, that is weird. So I tried to stop at natural breakpoints like a normal person, just to try it out.
The result was that it was harder for me to get started again. “Finishing” the chapter closed something in my mind that made it harder to reload the context. Leaving a chapter or episode unfinished was something I’d subconsciously learned increases my engagement in a story.
This trick works very well for work and academic activities, too. Leaving a half-completed document on my work laptop makes it much easier to jump back in the next time I open the screen. Leaving a novel scene unfinished similarly makes getting started much easier during my next session.
Extra Bonus Break Glass
In the middle of my medication drought, I went on a six-mile hike one morning, and I was my absolute best emotionally regulated self for the rest of the day. It’s not accessible for every day, but nature and a big ol’ chunk of movement can be a great emergency stopgap if you find yourself with, say, a job interview and no meds.
I’m always on the lookout for new things to try, so if something resonates with you that I skipped right over, please message me to share it.