Neurodivergent Life Hacks

I'm a university professor and I often found myself getting stressed/anxious/overwhelmed by email at certain times (especially end-of-semester/final grades). The more emails that started to pile in, the more I would start to avoid them, which then started to snowball when people would send extra emails like "I sent you an email last week and haven't got a response yet...", which turned into a nasty feedback loop.

My solution was to create 10 new email folders, called "1 day", "2 days", "3 days", "4 days", "5 days", "6 days", "7 days", "done", "never" and "TIL", which I use during stressful times of the year. Within minutes of an email coming into my inbox, I move it into one of those folders. "never" is for things that don't require any attention or action by me (mostly emails from the department about upcoming events that don't interest me). "TIL" is for things that don't require an action or have a deadline, but I know I'll be referring to a lot. Those are things like contact information, room assignments, plans for things, policy updates.

The "x days" folders are for self-imposed deadlines. If I want to ensure I respond to an email within 2 days, I put it in the "2 days" folder, for example.

And the "done" folder is for when I have completed dealing with an email. This even includes emails where the matter isn't resolved, but I've replied to it, so it's in the other person's court, so to speak. When they reply, it'll pop out of "done" back into the main inbox for further categorizing, so it's no problem.

So during stressful, email-heavy times of year, I wake up to a small number of emails in my inbox. To avoid getting stressed, I don't even read them fully. I read just enough of them that I can decide if I'll respond to them (later) or not, categorize everything, and my inbox is then perfectly clean.

Then I turn my attention to the "1 day" box, which probably only has about 3 or 4 emails in it. Not so overwhelming to only look at those, and once I get started, I find I can get through them pretty quickly.

The thing I've noticed is that once I get over the initial dread of looking at my emails (which used to be caused by looking at a giant dozens-long list of them), going through them is pretty quick and smooth. The feeling of cleaning out my "1 day" inbox is a bit intoxicating/addictive, so then I'll want to peek into my "2 days" box to get a little ahead of schedule and so on. (And if I don't want to peek ahead that day, hey, no big deal)

Once I'm done with my emails, I readjust them (e.g., move all the "2 days" into "1 day", then all the "3 days" into "2 days", and so on) and completely forget about them guilt-free for the rest of day.

Since implementing this system a year ago, I have never had an email languish for more than a couple weeks, and I don't get anxiety attacks from checking email any more.

Take the quiz: https://clutterbug.me/what-clutterbug-are-you-test

I found this kind of fun as a springboard for organisational ideas. The quiz results are followed up by a video for tips.

Personally, I am a bee:

Love visual abundance and organizational abundance. You prefer to see your everyday used items instead of hiding them away. You are also a bit of a perfectionist and tend to pile items until you can put them away properly.

What little things have you implemented to reduce the cognitive overload of life and/or stay organised?

Some random ones of mine:

1. "Formulas" to fall back on - outfit formula for when I don't want to think about what to wear, making dinner formula (repetition of what ingredients I buy, very similar meals just with key components changed around)

2. On the clothes - I prioritise black clothes so that I can throw together outfits easily. I have lots of variants of black top + black bottom.

3. Write things down somewhere. Immediately. I use thougt capturing apps/ software like Google keep, obsidian but also have used bullet journals or just notebooks with page numbers. I'm currently building a note on obsidian with important info for things I always need to refer to at random times like national insurance number.

4. Always label files on computer in a logical way. Avoid the urge to name things sjdudnskao as this will only come back to haunt you!

5. Use lots of key words in emails to myself that I know I will want to search for later.

6. Assign a specific dumping area for my important stuff that I need to grab in mornings while getting ready for work.

7. Organise physical items based on being able to easily access them / see them. Many people, me included, need things to be visible otherwise the organisation just doesn't work. I use Marie kondo tips to do this and also lots of tips from neurodivergent groups on fb. I actually try and stack my fridge like Marie kondo stacks clothes. Basically store what I can upright like books rather than one on top of the other. I only "hide" things when I have multiple items and then put the current one to use at the front.

Aaand many more. This is just what came to mind now.

This video (there's a series of them but the first one is sufficient at first) was what helped me get started with obsidian.

I find it extremely useful for writing everything down and being able to easily access my thoughts and important information.

I also use the calendar plug in and daily notes. Every day I open a daily note and use it for my to do lists and to note down anything important that happened that day.

I have tried many, many ways to stay organised and to capture my thoughts. One of my main issues is getting myself to actually look at what I've written down. I have a tendency to let things disappear into the background and click off reminders without even realising. I also love s physical notebook but it takes a lot to get into the habit of checking it daily.

One of the things I am trying is making my phone itself a dashboard for organisation using widgets. On my front page here I have a todoist widget and a small view of calendar. On the next homepage I have just one big Google keep note widget which I'm using as a brain dump for when I get random stressy thoughts in my head/ things I need to remember and deal with later. I also have a full monthly view of calendar as another widget on another home screen.

I really like it, especially the calendar but it is not foolproof. I am finding that im already ignoring the todoist list and still going back to Google keep which is one of my favourite apps for thought capturing.

obviously not an add, just a user and i find this website super useful !!

it’s called goblin.tools, and has a bunch of features to help my neurodivergent self and hopefully it can help some of you too!!

my favorite part of it is the Magic ToDo tool! I just input what task i need done and it breaks it down in as many tiny tasks i want depending on the spiciness of my neurodivergence that day! (i found that on a computer you have to turn off adblock so the website works as normal, afaik i doesn’t have ads)

it does have a mobile app that is a one time purchase also :3 !

I have a trick at my work as a developer to gain hyperfocus on difficult tasks, with 3 simple steps.

Step 1. Prime your brain Search for content on the internet like youtube videos, Tutorials, articles etc. anything that is somewhat related to the task and interesting to watch and even enjoyable. Your mind needs to latch onto it. Keep doing this and procrastinate until...

Step 2. Take the insipirational exit At some point your minds interested will peak and your mind wonders how to solve this yourself. Its going to itchband you will not be able to sit still. Take the inspirational exit and jump straight into your project.

Step 3. Its focus time! You mind is now filled with ideas and you jump into work. You start with the easiest thing and your mind will keep pushing you to finish all those great ideas it got from watching/reading all that content. Go from easy to hard to stay in the flow state, but this will mostly solve itself.

If everything works out, time will fly and you will have completed the task using your hyper focus. If not repeat Step 1.

This method works best with programming or digital art, but can also be applied to anything else.

Hope that helps some of you.

Cheers

ADHD here. Remembering things is a lost cause for me.

Instead, I lay physical "traps" for myself. Things in physical space that hinder my autopilot, snap me out of the trance, and give me a chance to reorient my focus into something more productive.

It's not foolproof. Far from it. But it does help a lot.

Edit:

Just thought of another one I do: I have a phone casing that lets me keep cards in them. One of my credit cards go there, of course.

But the more important thing in there is my apartment access card. If I ever forget to bring my phone, I will only get as far as the security door outside before I realise I have to turn back.

It makes it look like you're looking at them in their eyes, but you're actually not!

Just be aware that you should avert your eyes whenever they do, people normally break eye contact after a while during a regular conversation.

I don't know if this is too broad for this community, but these are useful tips to getting shit done with ADHD.

Book: How to Keep House While Drowning by K C Davis

Style: Informal, personal, short chapters, advice

Content: Advice on routines and methods for keeping your house tidy and functional when you are struggling either due to neurodivergence, disability or mental illness. Some practical tips but a lot of advice on how to reframe self-talk and how you think about your house work tasks.

Why I recommend: It's a very quick read and not packed full of how-tos and practical advice but what it does do is extremely effective in my opinion. The emphasis on reframing your thoughts has been very effective for me. The takeaways from the book were things I could easily implement without feeling like I now had a long overwhelming to do list.

Some key things off the top of my head:

• Tidiness or untidiness is morally neutral. Don't assign morality to how good you are at keeping a tidy house.

• Think of tidying a room as resetting it. When a room is no longer serving its purpose then it just needs a little reset.

• Accept that some days you can't do very much at all. That's okay. You can plan for it, however. Davis, as I recall recommends having closing tasks (end of day, before going to bed). She has two versions: the ideal and the survivables. I'm not sure how she actually words this but that's what I'm calling it. Basically, what is the bare minimum you can get away with doing before going to bed?

• Frame things as being kind to myself. How can I be kind to myself today? Washing the dishes would be kind to future me as I won't have to wakw up to dirty dishes, for example.

• Use unconventional methods if they help. Make your house make sense to you and make it work for your purposes. Your house should serve you not the other way round. If you want a dustpan and brush/ hoover/ laundry basket/ general dumping basket/ whatever in every room then go for it.