1. convince yourself that certain things grant you unusually powerful concentration abilities. for example i believe i am more productive if i drink the white monster energy flavor, or if the movie halloween 3 is playing very quietly in the background. but you can't do these things very often because that spoils the trick. you have to limit it to times of need
2. try and get the doctor to prescribe you slightly more meds than you need if you take them. i don't say this for any sinister reasons it's just that i never remember to get them refilled on time and if you have extra you get a little wiggle room.
3. set the clock a random double-digit number of minutes ahead. like 26 or something. for a decent while it will keep startling you into thinking you're super late, which kicks off a frantically getting ready impulse that may enable you to leave on time even after you've realized the clock is wrong. it doesn't work for very long in my experience though.
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ADHDer here who has tried so many different methods (and medications) over the years. what works for me doesnāt always work for my friends who also have ADHD, which means itās kind of a treasure hunt to figure out what works best for you. i especially struggled a lot with executive dysfunction in college and had trouble forgetting basic homework and turning in writing assignments days or weeks (and, once, two months) late.
there are a lot of simple tips that non-ADHD people will try to give you that can potentially help, but itās not a cure-all for executive dysfunction. the big ones are planners (i have like 3-5 planners/calendars and todo lists which can help me keep on track at my current job, but that hasnāt always worked for me) and āhave better time managementā (and of course they never expand on that supposed advice). iāve been diagnosed with ADHD since i was 7 years old, so iāve heard and tried it allā¦
hereās what works for me now as someone who works 40 hours/week and when i was in school:
ā¢ BREAK DOWN TASKS INTO SMALLER BITS. this is my #1 go-to for any work or assignments involving writing. outlining, Extremely Rough drafts that i can tinker for a few minutes at a time when iām feeling motivated, messy bullet points and half-baked opening paragraph sentences. even if iām scribbling stuff that wonāt end up in the final product, but youāre getting your brain in the habit of thinking about and planning your writing earlier in the assignment process.
ā¢ LETTING GO OF IDEAL PRODUCTIVITY AND PERFECTION. this is more of a personal tip, but i think some of my procrastination and executive dysfunction when it came to assignments came from anxiety around how i was expected to perform productivity in a neurotypical fashion and my own crippling anxiety around perfectionism. this may not apply to you, but i think itās always helpful to remember that you do not have to adhere to societyās ideas about what productivity āshouldā look like. this is also why the tip of trying to manufacture urgency or deadlines doesnāt work for me.
ā¢ PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR BRAIN. learn what cues you to feel motivated. adjust your environment to incorporate those cues even more and reduce distractions or executive dysfunction. (for me, that includes having a clean workspace and some headphone or earbuds in even if nothing is playing. if i am playing something, itās usually non-lyrical music at a low volume or a video essay iāve already listened to 200+ times.)
ā¢ TAKE A WALK. this is something that i started doing recently and iāve found that it helps me feel more alert and my brain less muddled/unable to focus.
ā¢ finally: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. i definitely made my executive dysfunction worse in college by not eating well orāmore specificallyānot sleeping enough. speaking from experience, the psychological connection between your brain and body is critical in how effective these tips for dealing with executive dysfunction can be.
this may not be as simple as youāre hoping for, but i do hope that this helps. ā¤ļø
Mar 23, 2025
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oh lord this is going to be so dorky. there's a lot of productivity tools and techniques out there and believe me when i say that i have read a bazillion articles and tried at least 50 apps and methods, but these are the ones that have truly helped me:
TOOLS
1. Apple Reminders & Calendar ā ngl i used ot underestimate these two apps, but they work really great because they have an acceptable natural language input, comprehensive and simple user interface, seamlessly syncs across multiple devices(if you're an apple user), and they work with siri. the only problem is that these two lack integration features. so to solve that...
2. Fantastical Calendar ā i use another calendar app is to see all my tasks on apple reminders and events on my calendar app in a single calendar and to-do list, and yes, this app does that! it's great because it also has natural language input, enables me to view all my tasks and events in different ways like a calendar or list, and it has many functional widgets.
3. Obsidian ā oof, i am found guilty. i built a second brain with obsidian which is basically like a system of knowledge and data mainly in the form of markdown files (a text document that has formatting) with internal links. i write down as much as i could ā recipes, minutes of meeting, takeaways from articles, ideas for projects, trivia, literally anything! i also have a daily journal to reflect on the stuff i do, write down random thoughts and ideas blah blah you get the point. the purpose of all this is to have a centralized and organized system of information with links to each other and make it easy to retrieve information you may need for later.
TECHNIQUES
1. Prioritizing my tasks ā when there's too much that needs to be done and i feel overwhelmed, i set priorities with the built-in feature of apple reminders. if im having difficulty setting priorities and want to get a clearer vision, i organize them by using the kanban plugin for obsidian.
2. Timers for when i feel lazy ā basically the pomodoro technique but more flexible. i can set the timer for 20 mins or 2 hours or don't use a timer at all depending on how lazy i feel that day or how forced i feel on the task. the more i hate the task, the shorter the timer is, cause get thisāi dont want to disrupt my flow state when im doing something i really want to do. why would i work on someth for 20 min and take a break when i love doing it so much i could go on for hours. also an important note...do REALLY boring things during breaks to make the task more interesting or enjoyable ā avoid triggering dopamine as much as possible.
3. Establishing scheudled habits ā this helps me build consistency with the things i want to do more of. for example, i have a daily wake-up and wind down routine which consists of really simple things like washing my face and brushing my teeth, stretching for 2 minutes, drinking water, journaling. i also set a goal for myself to read a book and learn french every day. think of anything you want to do more of and set a schedule for yourself when you should be doing it and stay consistent with that schedule so your body and mind would get used to it.
4. Setting up a distraction-free environment ā this is pretty self-explanatory. throw your phone away, paint the walls white, and get sound insulation for your room.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
SELF-CONTROL ā without it, nothing is really going to work smh
May 27, 2024
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I relate to every word you put down. What helps me is realizing that I cannot be extrinsically motivated. A bad grade or loss of points means nothing to me and has never motivated me. Motivation has to come from within - and sometimes that means I have to gaslight myself into being motivated. If I have an essay I don't want to work on I will stare into space and repeat to myself:
"I am compelled to work on my essay for 5 minutes"
Within a few minutes of looking like an insane person I will cave and get to work. But it gets even better, because the hardest part is always getting the ball rolling. Once I get 5 minutes in adding another 5 minutes on top of that is much easier, and once I've worked for 10 minutes, whats another 10 minutes? before I know it I'll have been working for an hour and it will feel amazing. This isn't a surefire way to get productive, but if you have adhd it's great to make a list of strategies for yourself to use in the future.
Mar 23, 2025
Top Recs from @37
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this is my favorite book. it's challenging to parse (people describe it as stream of consciousness, which is only kind of true, but between the characters' accents and faulkner being a wordy fella sometimes it's really hard to tell what's going on) but there are passages from it that i think about multiple times a day. the way some of the characters experience alienation from their bodies and/or reality is so tangible. it is kind of a black comedy about a family carrying their mother's dead body to her chosen resting place, hijinks ensue.
Apr 8, 2025