26 - "write everything down" and the ADHD "advice" that sticks
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Lately on Threads (yes, I know) there has been this talk of people dropping this sort of advice for ADHD: write. Write everything down. Ideas, lists, to-dos, dates and such. Because if you don't write them down you forget about them.
One thing about me that I've noticed - to my own detriment - is that every time advice like this drops, there's a high chance I'm not going to stick to it. The "I have so many unused planners lying around" is a very common ADHDer problem that I unfortunately have and I make my own planners with my own hands, mind you. Though I won't bore anyone with the full account of how I struggle with keeping track of everything in my life.
The idea of writing down everything isn't new to me. I've been writing down a lot of things from lists to tracking my birth control cycle for my PCOS (are we still using PCOS or are we going to start using PMOS?). Of all these "things ADHD people can do to alleviate their ADHD", writing things down seem like the one thing I'm somewhat OK at.
There's a nice feeling of being able to write down things from your own thoughts in the moment to the things you want to do, without worrying about keeping a system of categorization, without thinking about the rules, etc. Just dump them all down onto paper, or in this case, words on a screen. I don't plan this post ahead. This is just me writing through my thought process before I settle down to do my commission work. And I understand why this little practice is good for if you have ADHD, but I can't explain the science behind it. It just feels good to feel the mind loosen up a little when I write this down, spilling my thoughts down and unraveling the tangled yarn in my head. I will get to my Ritalin soon.
I think the "ADHD hacks" that I've been able to stick to the most have been the ones that actually don't have much barrier to entry other than "just do this thing, don't think too much about it", and that also comes down to the way the tips and tricks are phrased. "Keep a journal" implies there's a lot to do that comes with it. "Write everything down" doesn't have a system or rules attached to it. Keeping a Notion to track my projects is good, but I do also have to manually do them myself... which honestly is a struggle on high stress periods. But the one thing that made my ADHD ass love Vgen is the fact that it already takes all the tracking guesswork out for me for every commission I receive, to the point that I really do wish I could implement its system on my non-Vgen projects. To me the less barrier to entry there is to start a habit, the more likely it is for me to eventually have it become second nature to me, as if breathing. "Just do it, don't think too much about it" has been life changing advice for someone who thinks way too much about future consequences and what-ifs.
Obviously my ADHD isn't the same as anyone else's ADHD. This has just been my journey into living with my ADHD, and thinking about how I'm going to cope when/if I have a proper stable job at some point. I don't know how to conclude this post, but I suppose I can end with this: if you're like me and struggle to stick to a habit to help with your ADHD because you feel like you're not doing it correctly or something, maybe it would be helpful to simply strip down the habit to its barest bones.