Reader Q&A: Tools, Medication, ADHD-friendly Jobs, and Self-Sabotage
Reader Q&A: Tools, Medication, ADHD-friendly Jobs, and Self-Sabotage
❓Answering questions about ADHD
Hey friends,
Every month or so I like to do a reader Q&A, where you submit your burning ADHD questions and I try to help answer.
Let’s dive in!
Questions Preview:
What are some tech tips/tools you use when at your computer to be “organized” without being organized? I do lots of these hacks with myself but am always fascinated to see what others do, too!
What is the one thing you wish your parents had done and/or did to support you as a teen? Or conversely, the one thing you wish they hadn’t done.
What are some tips for studying for college classes?
To medicate or not medicate? That is the question...
For the ones of us who choose not to medicate, and leaving aside coffee, tea, etc -- are there foods or supplements that help with focus?
Do you have any recommendations about how to search for an adhd friendly job or possibly find other more adhd friendly roles in your existing company?
How do you stop self sabotage? 🥺
What are some tech tips/tools you use when at your computer to be “organized” without being organized? I do lots of these hacks with myself but am always fascinated to see what others do, too!
This question was asked by
who actually recorded a video showing some of her favorite tips—these are really great!Tech Hacks for ADHD by Jade Olivia
Here are some tips/tools that I’m using lately:
Turn off notifications
One thing I recently did that I highly recommend is turning off all the notifications on your phone. Just everything, turn them off.
When I did this, I found I had over 100 apps with notifications on…
Only once you’ve turned everything off, then you can selectively add a few back that are important. For example, after everything was off, I went back and turned on a few like text messaging, my home security system, and a couple more. For other messaging apps, I usually don’t need to know immediately so I only set them to show a red notification dot, but no push notifications.
Apps
Also, I’m always looking for new apps/tools to help me organize—in fact, my biggest problem is sticking with something that works because I often get excited by the latest, shiniest new thing. 😅
This is sort of a replacement app for MacOS’s Spotlight command bar, similar to the Alfred app which I used to use for years. Raycast is like the newer, better version that’s totally free for individuals and has a ton of awesome features, here are a few of my favorite:
Clipboard manager - this is super handy to be able to browse your clipboard history and even search to find something you know you copied+pasted before, but don’t have the original source
Emoji shortcuts - just a more convenient way to find the emoji you’re looking for
Window management - resizing and placing apps on your screen so that you can have one app be 50% width on the left of your screen, and another app by 50% width and on the right of your screen
Quick calculator - I find myself often needing to do quick calculations, and with Raycast my calculator is always just a quick shortcut away. Super handy.
Unfortunately, some of my favorite tools that I’m using right now are currently in early-access only, so if interesting, you’ll need to jump on their waitlist:
Arc browser - this browser has helped free me from my problem of 500+ browser tabs. It’s a completely new approach that helps me manage temporary tabs and a bunch of other innovations that rethink everything about a browser. For tabs specifically, some people have used the OneTab extension for Google Chrome, which definitely helps, but something about the Arc approach has just really clicked for me. I’m planning to do a walkthrough of this browser in the future, so get on the waitlist now so you’re ready before my preview comes out! 😅
(I do have 5 invites so act quick if you want it: arc.net/gift/9e420a67)Tana - this is a note-taking tool that is sort of a combination of Obsidian and Roam Research. I’m trying to make it my main tool for daily notes and organizing data, including doing interstitial journaling to help me keep better track of my days. (If you aren’t familiar, Ness Labs has a great guide to Interstitial Journaling)
What is the one thing you wish your parent had done and/or did to support you as a teen? Or conversely, the one thing you wish they hadn’t done.
I think I was lucky and my parents did a pretty good job, considering that no one knew I had ADHD at the time. There were certainly fights and stresses, but my parents did a good job of threading the needle where I felt supported by them when I complained about teachers that seemed unreasonable, or rules that seemed to affect me more than others in a way that felt unfair.
Since I struggled with both time blindness and delayed sleep phase syndrome, I found it nearly impossible to make it to school on time. It started in elementary school and followed me throughout my entire time at school. This led to detentions, suspensions, and Saturday schools. It sucked, but my parents never seemed to blame me too much for these.
One thing I wish my dad hadn’t done was constantly raise the stakes in trying to motivate me. Again, I don’t blame him for this because we didn’t know about my ADHD at the time, but I would often get punishments that started as “clean your room or you’re grounded tonight” which escalated to “clean your room or you’re grounded for a week”, and so on until I found myself grounded for 2 months. This never actually motivated me though. I knew it was important and didn’t want those consequences, but I didn’t know how to actually motivate myself to do the thing he was asking me to do, so it just felt like my punishments would get worse and worse and there was nothing I felt like I could do to stop it.
Oh, and I wish they hadn’t tried to make me do homework. That was never going to work.
What are some tips for studying for college classes?
So… I’ve always been terrible with homework, as I mentioned in the last question. But I’ve adapted some tips on motivation that hopefully are helpful.
First off, with any strategy I recommend trying lots of new things and then quickly abandoning them if they aren't working for you. There's no strategy that's going to be a perfect match, so don't try to force a strategy to work. And definitely don't feel bad if it doesn't work for you.
Mix up your study methods with novelty. If flash cards feel fun and helpful, do that! I've found using spaced repetition with an app like Anki to be an effective way to learn a lot of information and it can often be fun too.
Find study buddies. Body doubling is usually really helpful for people with ADHD. I wrote a bit more about body doubling in a previous newsletter:
I have a video on toxic productivity that has a lot of advice for general motivation and getting things done. Most of the tips start about halfway through the video.
Lastly, many countries (including the US) have specific accomodations available for people with ADHD. These can include:
Extended time for tests and assignments
Access to lecture notes
Audio or visual aids
Frequent breaks
To medicate or not medicate? That is the question...