Random urge to share some hacks that I've come up with that have worked for me and might be helpful to others, and encourage hearing some more!
The most generic ones: Reduce decision making, focus on "if this then that" systems, and provide clear visual indicators.
Tl;Dr:
- Flip pill bottle upside down when taking meds to remember you took them.
- Smoothies are a super easy food that can be really nutritious and might bypass stim meds appetite loss.
- Scales for cooking means only needing one tool for measurements and not needing to clean lots of spoons; use non-American recipes or write down conversions once the first time you make something.
- Before bed if you're racing thoughts, write things down in a notebook and put it somewhere you have to pick it up (e.g., on coffee maker).
- Take notes using a non-linear tool like Obsidian canvas to better represent your non-linear train of thought.
- Freeze all of your food and prep more than you need when chopping to freeze it.
- Learn to cook meats from frozen, e.g., in the instant pot, to avoid thawing or meat going bad.
- Keep colourful stickers or sticky notes around so you can place them on things to remind you to look at it and deal with it later when you have time and energy instead of forgetting it when you look away.
Can't remember if you've taken your meds? Visual indicator systems to the rescue! I flip my pill bottle upside down once I've taken it, and keep it visible near my bed or by my coffee table/desk. If it's past 3pm, if I see it, I flip it right side up every time so that I don't leave it upside down overnight and get confused in the morning.
Not eating breakfast? Smoothies. Keeping the Sims metres full is important. I always run into decision fatigue in the morning/afternoon and by then I'm too faded to decide to eat, or Vyvanse has me too not hungry to consume food, or I'll spend forever making food to ignore my work. Bonus: Get a scale for cooking so you dont need to find and clean dozens of spoons and convert your recipes to masses (North Americans).
So smoothies. I ignore work for a day to do a wild research binge, figure out the nutritional value of some different smoothie mixes, experiment, and now I've got a go-to breakfast every morning that doesn't hit my nausea and gets me nutrients. You can also measure out 3-4 at a time and freeze them in small containers, excluding wet ingredients.
BTW my go-to right now is appx. 150g milk, 50-70g sugar free yogurt, 60g frozen blueberries, 70g banana, 25g rolled oats, 25-50g spinach, 7g chia seeds, maybe 30g strawberry if I'm feeling it, maybe a dash of cinnamon if I want. Seems decent in terms of nutrients, and all stuff I've got frozen or on hand anyways.
Bonus: A microwaved sweet potato is better than it deserves to be for 5 minutes of microwaving and pretty nutritious and sating.
Planning tomorrow at bed time? Before bed, I've got tons of thoughts about what I need to do the next day. I write them in my notebook, then put my notebook on my coffee maker (a Clever brewer for easy cleanup, decaf beans) so that I have to pick up the notebook anyways. Not every day, but if anything pressing comes up.
Note taking is tough linearly? My thoughts aren't linear, neither are my notes. Ever since I started using Obsidian for note taking, I find myself using the Canvas option which basically makes your notes into a graph/flowchart. Then I can colour code, link notes to other notes, turn each bubble into an entire page of notes, tag the notes. It even has an option to show you a random note on startup which can be helpful if you take notes and never read them.
Food going bad? Prepping is too much transition to cook? Freeze everything. Prep more than you need. If I'm already cutting half an onion for a meal, cutting a full onion isn't hard - in fact stopping halfway might be harder. Cut one or two, toss it into a sheet, stick it in the freezer, and now you're saved chopping for a bit. Bananas on their way out? Cut them into pieces and freeze them, frozen bananas are a freaking snack. Cutting bell peppers? Freeze that shit. Fresh spinach? I skipped the parboil and just froze it in a freezer bag and it worked great for smoothies and adding into curries. Freeze it all.
Meats going bad? Instant Pot was a saviour. Cooking chicken and sausage from frozen in the instant pot works great for all kinds of things. Slap a premade curry paste onto a frozen chicken, throw in some frozen spinach and frozen peas, meal ready in about 30 minutes. I use naan for everything because it freezes and reheats well; mini-pizzas with frozen pepperoni that's portioned out, naan as a sausage bun, garlic naan with pasta, whatever, it's versatile and freezes well.
Can't do this right now and then you forget? Having the short-term memory of a fly sucks. Have sticky notes or stickers around the house. Then when you notice you need to clean the toilet or refill something or whatever it is and you can't do it right now, just stick something colorful on it so that you look at it at a better time. I don't even bother writing things down on the note, it just needs to draw my attention at a time I can deal with it.
Just a few, might add more if some come to mind, but hoping to hear some other's thoughts :)
There was a lovely computer science book for kids I can't remember the name of, and it was all about the evil jargon trying to prevent people from mastering the magical skills of programming and algorithms. I love these approaches. I grew up in an extremely non/anti-academic environment, and I learned to explain things in non-academic ways, and it's really helped me as an intro lecturer.
Jargon is the mind killer. Shorthands are for the people who have enough expertise to really feel the depths of that shorthand and use it to tickle the old familiar neurons they represent without needing to do the whole dance. It's easy to forget that to a newcomer, the symbol is just a symbol.