#ADHD tools

[copperbadge]

Hello, hello, could you please say more about how you use Microsoft OneNote in your professional life? I need all the help I can get to stay organized & on top of things, so I would love to know.

Sure! I use it less than previous because there's less randomized stuff I need to do now, so I don't need such robust management, but I can talk about how my use began/evolved. I started using OneNote because it was less finicky than Word but still had an autosave function and basic formatting, so it was useful for initial drafts of documents, taking notes on meetings, and keeping track of information I needed at my fingertips frequently.

OneNote's largest "unit" is the Notebook. You can have multiple Notebooks but I've never bothered; still I can see how if your screen was public a lot, you'd want to put some things in a separate Notebook. The Notebook then breaks down into Sections which look like tabs, which I would assign to broad things like "Meeting Notes", "Assignments", "Templates", "Personal" and "Excel Hacks". Sections break down further into "Pages"; each page is a document stuck into place, which you can title so that you can have a list of "pages" on the sidebar and find the one you want easily. Text in Pages can be formatted to some degree, and if you copypaste from websites, it'll tag on the URL of the site you pasted from, although you can also turn that off if you want. You can drag and drop Pages from one Section to another pretty easily.

So, for example, I'd have a "Meeting Notes" Section, and when I clicked the tab for that section I'd have a list of Pages, each of which was notes from a meeting I'd attended. Every time I went into a meeting I just made a new page, gave it a meeting title and date, and took notes on the meeting into the page window. The "Meeting Notes" Section thus became a fully searchable record of meetings I'd attended and what was said. When meeting notes were no longer relevant I'd drag them to an archival Section to retire in peace.

Here's an example of my Excel section:

You can see "My Notebook" up in the left top corner, my current Sections as tabs at the top, and the pages list on the left (I think more modern OneNote skins put the pages on the right, I moved mine back). Each line on the left is a separate "page" that tells me how to do something in Excel, something I need to do a lot but can't commit to memory (or couldn't but now have, it's a trifle out of date). So we're in My Notebook, section Excel, page Formatting Stripes, and on the right you can see how to format an Excel sheet so that it has alternating colored rows (there are other ways to do this but this way the stripes always stay alternating no matter what moves where). In theory I could dump all this stuff into one Page and call it "Excel" and put it somewhere else, but I liked having an easily-visible list so I don't have to scroll a single document to find what I want.

There aren't nearly as many tab/sections as there used to be; "Assignments" covers "all work that is not excel formulas" and includes stuff like instructions for how to pull a query in our database, a list of what everyone does at our company, a yearly guide to our events program, a few other things. I don't have a "Personal" section any more but I do have 2-3 pages in the Assignments section that are personal notes.

There's no inbuilt tagging function but because the entire notebook is searchable, if you're really into tagging you can simply add keywords to the top or bottom of a page.

I have OneNote pinned to my taskbar in Windows, and it's basically always open but it autosaves, so adding stuff is super simple; if I find a bug in our database or a quirk I want to remember I just click over to OneNote and add it to the database file, or similar.

I don't use it on my phone or tablet, because if I'm at work I have access to my laptop generally, but OneNote does sync across devices as long as you're logged in, so if you have OneNote and a Microsoft login you should be able to access it in multiple places.

[baublekute]

Is this Bluetooth typewriter keyboard superfluous? Absolutely. Does it make writing a little more special? You betcha. Did I use a gift card on it? Yep. Does it bring me a little bit of joy? 100%.

Used with my iPad mini, and wavemaker.co.uk app with the typewriter mode.

[ellierenae]

Okay, 4thewords might be the best writing tool I've found since Obsidian.

Before you run to sign up, know that it's pretty buggy, the game has no sound as far as I can tell, the website goes down from time to time, and it costs $4 a month, which is probably not worth it for MOST people.

With that out of the way, oh my god, I've written 7.5k today and it's only 6pm.

You kill monsters by increasing your word count, there are quests and story lines, you earn pieces of outfits and furniture to decorate your avatar and your house.

It's so rewarding and my favorite part is that it has CO-OP! So you can start public writing sprints and invite up to seven friends or random strangers to join you. I've done one so far and someone jumped in within about ten seconds of me posting the room. We crushed a thousand words each in about 20 minutes, and I don't know if I've ever felt so alive.

I'm pretty sure there are referral codes (that maybe give you in game items? not sure) but I'm not using it because I cannot emphasize enough that this is not an ad, I think this would be a bad experience for most people unless you're okay with backing up your work by copy-pasting into another software every few minutes in case the site goes down (which it did for a minute on my first day, VERY SCARY!)

I just want all my friends with ADHD like mine to know that you can indeed extract even more dopamine from this hobby, if this sounds like your kind of thing, and it's definitely my kind of thing.

Okay, I think that's it!

Love you! Back to writing!

[healingwgabs]

Currently reading complex bpd (coexisting conditions/symptoms and bpd symptoms) by dr fox and thought I’d share some tips from his book from the adhd/bpd chapter

[oscarwildeflower]

I don't know what post I probably stole this idea from but my best exam review practice for ADHD students is

1)Copy all of your class notes into a single document (or copy all the notes that are relevant for what exam youre taking). its important that this is a duplicate of your notes so you can mark it up freely.

2) Read through it with a highlighter, pen, and a large point black marker (I use sharpie flip chart markers)

3) Use the highlighter and pen to annotate whats important however that makes sense to you.

4) Use the black marker to cross out anything you already know/dont need to review. This is great for me because I feel like I'm making progress ("look at how many things I crossed out! I'm doing great") and also I don't get distracted re-reading things I don't need to be/it's easier to find what you do need to read.

Anyway hope this helps someone, wish me luck on midterms

[justincase-77]

Excellent ideas when working with, not against, ADHD.

this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it

buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell

leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist

put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.

when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!

plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.

if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge

if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.

its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.

[featherxquill]

The thing about me is, I’m so rejection sensitive, at least where friendship is concerned, that I have learned to completely ignore the part of my brain that tells me that someone is mad at me or hates me and wants rid of me, essentially granting myself cockroach levels of resilience to passive-aggressive social rejection and ghosting. So yes, I will be That Person. I have absolutely no shame and I will send you 32 things that made me think of you even if you haven’t replied, I will persist in asking you to hang out. Like I choose to believe that everyone is just busy or forgetful or has their own shit going on, it’s the only way I can be a functional human being. So if you want to get rid of me that’s completely fine, but I will take none hints and I’m going to need you to Set Some Clear Boundaries, Ma’am.

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

“alt text for more info” “turn on cations for more info” no actually this is not where more info goes. These have a very distinct purpose. There are plenty of other places for more info. If you’re going to make your post inaccessible, the least you could do is not use accessibility tools at your own leisure for whatever purpose you see fit.

[autismdogg]

some of my stim toys 🌈☀️

[mckitterick]

the most amazing executive-function tool:

just input the task you want to do, hit the doohickey, and voila! your process list is ready, myne liege

having one of those executive function days where everything is too many steps

[pikhachu]

girls when their issues get dismissed as anxiety for the millionth time

[healingwgabs]

save me speechify

[ralkana]

Oooh this is interesting! A private server, or even a shared one, with shared resources. Hmmm...

legitimate fucking lifehack: discord server literally just for yourself to keep track of stuff over devices. links. reminders and checklists. all neatly divided into categories. search function and dates. why didnt i do this earlier oh my god.

[felixs-infodump]

can y’all show me your favorite sensory/fidget toys?? they can be anything

it would be great too if y’all could say what you like about them too/what they help you with sensory wise, I want to buy some sensory/fidget toys I’ll actually use/like

[utilitycaster]

Perhaps this is too cynical but whenever someone gets obsessive over whether the fiction and games they enjoy precisely match their politics I begin to doubt that they live out those same values in the real world to the best of their reasonable ability.

[positivelyadhd]

please don't blame yourself not knowing you were neurodivergent sooner.

please don't blame yourself if you did know you were neurodivergent but your support needs weren't met for whatever reason.

everyone deserves to have access to disability aids and support if they need it.

you are not an inconvenience for wanting to be understood or supported. you are not broken.

it is not your fault that the systems you needed weren't there when you needed them.

no matter what anyone says, you deserve to live in a world where you can be happy and do the things that you want to do and exist how you want to.

I am so sorry that it's so difficult to get that sometimes, but it is not your fault. and you still deserve support now even if you *got by" without.