10 Top tips for ADHD management

Pressing Pause episode 154 10 Top tips for ADHD management

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Welcome to Pressing Pause, I’m your host, Gabrielle Treanor, a coach, author and writer. Join me as I share the experience of life as a quiet, introverted, sensitive woman diagnosed late with ADHD, and I’ll explore how we can work with our brains to feel more peace, ease and joy.

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If you can see for yourself how you’ve been living with ADHD all your life, how it showed up for you as a child, the ways it coloured your teenage years, how it shaped your early adult life and the impact it has as you navigate midlife, you don’t need to have an official diagnosis, a piece of paper that rubber stamps you to get support and connect with other women who share your experiences.

Too many women who now know that they’ve been dealing with undiagnosed ADHD for decades think that they’re not allowed to put up their hand, to comment and say me too because it’s not official. Which means too many women are not getting the help and community that could make a huge difference to them. And that’s not right and it’s not fair.

This is why I record these podcast episodes, it’s why I write my newsletters, it’s why I coach, and it’s why I host the Quiet ADHD Club – for women who have or who think they have ADHD. I am here to help introverted, sensitive, empathetic women who have or think they have ADHD to understand, accept and love themselves, to work with their brain and natural traits, so they can experience more calm, joy and freedom every day.

I wanted to remind you of the online space I’ve created where women who are more introverted, sensitive and who have or think they might have ADHD can find understanding, guidance and support in the company of other women who get it. It’s called the Quiet ADHD Club.

So, if you’d like to find out more about the support you could be getting right now, as well as listening to this episode, go to gabrielletreanor.com.

Okay then, on with the episode.

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Welcome to episode 154. When it really began to sink in that, unknowingly, I’d been living with ADHD for 48 years I started to look at how I’d been managing my life, and my ADHD, without knowing it.

I started a list called ‘Reverse engineering my life to figure out what I’ve been doing to manage my ADHD all these years without knowing it’. Does what it says on the tin, right?

I thought about well-known challenges of ADHD like forgetting or losing things, impulsive reactions, and procrastinating and looked at what I had been doing to mitigate them. Any time I noticed or thought of something I jotted it down. I thought I’d share a few of them with you, along with a couple I’ve put into practice since my ADHD discovery.

So, in no particular order, here are ten of the actions and strategies that help me to manage everyday ADHD challenges:

Number one, I pair chores that I find incredibly tedious, like washing the dishes or cleaning the bathroom, with a favourite podcast so that I can focus my attention on enjoying what I’m listening to rather than how much I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing. To get me over the hump of procrastination I only allow myself to listen to these podcasts when I’m doing the dreaded chores so if I don’t do them I don’t get to listen! And I really want to listen.

Number two is another chore I’d put off doing, vacuuming, not just because it was boring but because lugging around our heavy vacuum cleaner, unplugging and plugging it in, negotiating the cord, made it feel like even harder work. We already had a handheld vacuum cleaner so I bought a cheap extension which meant I could use it on floors.

Using a cordless, lightweight tool instead of a cumbersome one has made vacuuming SO much easier and therefore more doable. Plus, as I can only clean as long as the battery lasts I challenge myself to get as much of the house done as possible before the battery conks out. The way I see it, if gamifying works for app developers to hook us into our phones, why not make use of it to do the things we want or need?

Number 3, important dates like birthdays are in my digital calendar, which both my husband and I can see so it’s not solely my responsibility to remember them. They’re set to repeat so they automatically appear in the calendar each year and I have alerts set up to remind me they’re coming up.

I also have a tick list in the Notes app on my phone so I can tick off when I’ve sent a card/present as I often forget if I’ve done it or not.

Okay, number four is that even though I’ve had a lifelong love affair with stationery (so much so I ran my own stationery business for seven years) I’ve finally accepted that the best place for me to jot down ideas is my phone Notes app. Only using notebooks to write down ideas means too many get lost because if I don’t have the notebook to hand they vanish out of my brain.

It feels sadly practical and unromantic but forgetting something I wanted to remember because I didn’t write it down is too, too frustrating. Plus I can dictate into Notes and it transcribes as I speak, super handy when my thoughts are coming faster than I can type.

Rest assured I still use notebooks for journalling, with my beloved fountain pen and teal coloured ink.

On that theme, for number five, a notepad sits on my desk and if a thought comes to me when I’m working on something else – I don’t want to get distracted by it but I also don’t want to lose it – I jot it down on my distraction pad. I’ve captured the thought so I don’t have to try to remember it and it hasn’t derailed whatever I was focusing on.

Okay, number six, where possible my belongings have a specific home. For example, my bag lives on the coat hook by the front door and inside my bag lives my purse, keys and sunglasses (I know, I’m optimistic in winter in the UK but also: light sensitivity). When I leave the house I take the bag because it has everything and when I return home the first thing I do is put the bag on its hook. If I ever need to take those items out of my bag I return them straight away because if I don’t then I’ll have no idea where they are!

Number seven, if there’s something I need to remember to do or use I put it out on a surface where I can see it, where possible that is. For example, if my calendar tells me my HRT patch needs changing tomorrow, I get it out of the drawer and put it by the bathroom sink where I can see it. Or if I need to take something out with me I put it by my bag by the front door.

Number eight is that if I feel myself about to react instantly or impulsively to something or someone, particularly if my rejection sensitivity has been activated, I physically move myself away from that place. For example, if it’s an email that’s upset or angered me I step away from the laptop and wait until I feel calmer before I reply.

Same with any impulse purchases – I save the item in the shopping basket, hide the webpage and then put down my phone or move away from the laptop for a few minutes to disrupt the urge to buy, and tell myself I can complete the purchase tomorrow if I still think it’s a good idea.

Number nine, when I find myself getting irritated or downright cross with myself for forgetting or being indecisive or making a mistake or doing one of many ADHD-related things, and the mean inner voice is revving up, I stop. I address my brain as Addy (I talk more about this in episode 149) to create space between the annoyance and myself and swap the berating self-talk for some kind, understanding and encouraging words. Feels a whole lot better than kicking myself when I’m down.

And number ten which I think is the most important and helpful action, is to remind myself that what I’m feeling or thinking or doing that I find challenging doesn’t make me rubbish or wrong or failing or not enough or too much. It’s due to my brain being wired differently to how some other people’s brains are wired. And it’s because society decided how a brain should operate, and to function differently to that isn’t considered ‘typical’ that I’m finding things difficult.

Self-compassion makes a big, big difference. More than any other strategy or tool or workaround. That’s why I hosted a workshop specifically on how you can become more self-compassionate and if you join the Quiet ADHD Club and you can watch the recording and download the workbook there.

Now, I’m curious, do you employ strategies like these? What do you find helps, even a little bit, with everyday ADHD challenges? I’d love to hear about them so do email me at [email protected] or find me at quietadhd.com.

Thanks for listening, until next time.