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 :)
As someone with ASD as well I’ve learned that if I take my meds and I still cant do what I need to do that day, its ok to just give up and try again the next day. Some days are genuinely futile
Yeah! Not beating yourself up over this is really important, same with not overthinking it. Some days are hard, some are less hard, some, I’ve heard, are easy.
Some days the best progress/discipline is noticing it’s a day where you need your own compassion to admit you need to let yourself off the hook for a bit.
“Sacred Rituals”. This is what I call things that have to be done exactly the same way every time or it screws everything else up. For example, as soon as I get up, the very first thing I do is take my meds. Nothing, and I mean nothing, happens before taking my meds. Gotta pee? Can’t. Gotta take my meds. House is on fire? That sucks. Gotta take my meds. If I don’t, I will definitely forget to take them and fuck up my entire day.
I have something similar. I practice doing certain routine micro-habits until they become ingrained in muscle memory and always do them.
For example, I still set my keys down without thinking most times they are in my hand, but thanks to spending several hours practicing the motion years ago, I now always unthinkingly set them where they belong: clipped to my beltloop and tucked into my pocket. Anytime I identify a need to add one of these to my life I spend an hour practicing experiencing the trigger and then doing the motion. To learn the keys-in-pocket habit, I held my keys, clipped and tucked. Pull them out, note the feel of them in my hand, and repeat, over and over. It feels silly to practice doing something so easy, but once it becomes muscle memory, it doesn’t rely on my faulty thinking memory. I’ll do several sessions of practice every few days until I can feel that it’s fully ‘set’ as an unthinking motion. They’re a pain to establish, but they are well worth it and have saved me a ton of grief over the years.
One of these automatic habits saved me this morning. I always pat my keys when closing a locking door behind me (even if it isn’t locked), and this morning I had missed swapping my keys to my new pair of pants. I would have been locked out of my house and late for work if patting my empty pockets hadn’t alerted me just before a pulled the locked door close behind me. I have some other ones that I haven’t mentioned, because I can’t think of what they are. I’d notice the problems they prevent coming back if I stopped doing them, so I can only assume they must still be working.
Wow, I like this term. Great concept that I’ve used forever, just not with such a killer label.
Even neuro-typicals can benefit from this idea.
Even neuro-typicals can benefit from this idea.
Oh, totally. I’ve been patting where the swipe card is around my neck as I pass through secure doors, for years. I left it behind once, and the sheer hell of getting the escort to get back in to get it cemented the check-behaviour in me. It’s weird now to be in the same areas - as a customer and not a provider since I switched jobs - and NOT have a swipe card to pat.
Keys go in the Key Place. If I don’t see it there, I go find it. ;-)
The ritual I’m starting to love is the Clearing of the Desk at the end of the day. It’s not because I like putting things away - even as a neurotypical I’m just sloppy and will just leave something pre-staged where I need it next - but I’ve decided I like the part where I fucking give up on the day 5 minutes early and fuck about tidying up before stopping for the day. I feel so empowered. I feel like such a slacker. I feel if people have an issue with the “I can get it done if I can get 5 more minutes of focus” as I used to tell myself (the fool!), that choosing to fucking bail and toddle about before quitting could be a helping thing because of that empowerment.
If you do this, or if you start, lemme know if that micro feeling of control makes a difference; but give it like a month of trying before assessing your feelings about it.
Alarms or reminders for everything. Especially helpful for not getting stuck in ‘waiting’ mode. Afternoon appt? Set alarm 10mins before gotta leave so I can forget about and not hold it in my mind
On food, write the expiration date with a big magic marker as a reminder to use them.
Put the things you want to use first (food or otherwise) closest to the point of access so they get considered first. Don’t arrange things in a way that anything is obscured if possible.
Just have less of everything to avoid being overwhelmed with choices. Don’t have a well stocked pantry unless it is arranged in a way that encourages first in first out. Same with hobby supplies and clothes.
Less of everything is real. I’ll regularly and unintentionally mentally itemize what I have and what my options are regularly and funding ways to limit that is always helpful. I have a nearly empty fridge, pantry, a mealplan which is more like a two-week menu of options, only a few pieces of each clothing, and on. Fewer opportunities to fall into bad patterns. There was a time where my solution to not doing laundry for two weeks was to buy more cheap “backup” clothes.
Then the purge happened.
Few, good things, that were bought with the intention of easy maintenance, minimizing choice, while allowing a bounded spontaneity.
That chore you always put off the entire day because it’s this daunting thing that just takes forever? It probably doesn’t. Next time you do it, see how long it really takes.
Look at the clock. Or use a stopwatch. Write down the time for everything you do regularly. Add it to your todo list entry if you use one. Once you know that the ordeal really only takes 15 minutes, it seems less daunting.
OK. I started the stopwatch, then put it off for 5 hours, and completed the task in 5 minutes. So it took me 5 hours and 5 minutes. I just don’t have time during the day for a 5+hr task.
I have a task to do in 8 hours. If I start the 5 hour and 5 minute task now it’ll probably run over because I know I procrastinate. So I’m going to sit here anxiously until it’s time for my task, play guitar to pass the time, forget about both tasks, and not actually start anything for two more days.
Then in two days I’ll accomplish like 100 of those tasks that I’ve put off and the people expecting to see me that day just get upset.
Then in two days I’ll accomplish like 100 of those tasks
The sudden bursts of productivity are such a double edged sword. I feel so great afterwards, but then watch the disappointment from my wife as I just completely avoid tasks for like a week straight after.
