• you place an overdue library book on the floor in front of the front door. the library book merges seamlessly with the environment. six weeks later, you trip over it on your way out the house to go to the library.

it looks blurry because we're just that exhausted

when self-hating people who've learned a little about genetics and evolution pipe up with "why are we even still in the gene pool" sadposts ... this is why. overall, this style of thinking is a net positive to the proliferation of Homo sapiens, and every now and then even a net positive to the people who embody it.

so many people with executive dysfunction have come to this realization thru memes ❤️

I would add: beyond executive dysfunction, people who also have low intrinsic motivation (ability to "just do it") and/or difficulty initiating, are also not bad people!

while it is our responsibility to always work on and improve our weak points, these aspects of temperament exist as they are, no matter how much moralizing busybodies insist otherwise.

I realized that I do the 'tell everyone' stage because I'm trying to recruit a body double so I'll stick with the project 😅

Ha!

The reason bullet journaling can work so well for ADHD/ExecDys types who take to it, is because bullet journaling is a structure of interlocking habits with an element of ritual to it, while "remember to look at the important list crumpled in my back pocket" is not.

I'm easily mesmerized by televisions and have been my entire life!

Not the guy you're responding to but I made a comment upthread that I found success by developing interlocking habits, or in some cases it's fair to say rituals rather than habits ... little sub-habits that guide you to the main one you want to develop, or briefly reward you when you've completed it. Items or processes in your environment which cue you and remind you that the habits you want to do even exist.

For example, 2 sub-components of what finally got me to remember to meditate (or skip, but intentionally 😒) were writing a brief journal entry of my observations after each sit with a piece of chocolate, and having a couple little succulents with a light on a timer by my altar, so that every time I'm in the room during the day the altar area, with a couple plants I need to keep an eye on for their health, is lit up to draw me in if I'm ready.

Doing things this way is very intentional and thus exhausting, and it requires a lot of trial and error to figure out the little sub-habits that all work together and that actually work for you (since some inevitably won't), and hell as somebody explaining it I've only had a couple big successes with it because I often don't have the energy/brainpower to figure all this out ... but man when I can pull it off, it works sooo well.

I'm a huge believer in "prosthetic environments" which I believe is a concept Dr. Russell Barkley came up with, he annoys me a little but as an ADHD research he's like 85% dead on target about this stuff, and thinks deeply about it.

Good luck!

The really fucked up situation is when you're stuck in this mode to the point of severe burnout because of your environment which you cannot escape in any reasonable amount of time.

I've been trying to develop this habit for 7 years because I know how good it is for me :(

In my case, I decided to cut Big Tech out of my life which led to dropping Google Calendar in favor of an open source solution, which works exactly the same except for GCal's one teensy little proprietary extension: reminders.

Living without that snoozable reminder stack for the past 4 years has been like walking around with a hole in my side.

This is because most therapists (in my loooooong experience) have absolutely zero understanding of executive dysfunction :|

try 25 virtual desktops running 2 browsers, one of which with multiple profiles for various broad topics ... my "main" session alone has 75-80 windows at present 😃

edit: installed an extension to find out: in main session, 378 tabs across 84 windows. seems like a low number of tabs per window perhaps, but I organize topics into a window, then related topic-windows into a dedicated browser profile session if they're long-lived, and windows/sessions are grouped into virtual desktop by top-level topic more or less ... so my fediverse/threadiverse session has 35 tabs in 7 windows in only 1 virtual desktop.

edit 2: I theme each browser profile differently to (mostly) tell them apart by eye

The only person I have to babble at has level 2 autism and can only process a finite (and very small) number of words per day before she combusts 😭

alone and in silence being the key part of this, after having input shoved thru my brain by other 🦍s for the last seven years whether I had any desire for it or not

Bullet journaling is fscking amazing for this, unfortunately after many years of hard experience, I've come to understand that I'm so receptive to environmental stimuli that I just haven't been able to maintain such a system in a chaotic environment ... I need a certain level of baseline peace / recharge in order to be able to stay on top of systems like these. But they do work so well when I can manage it

I'm the same way. It's ironic given that I posted this meme, but when I can use them lists really help.

In my case, if I travel somewhere for 3 days, when I get back, many of the routines I had at my original location will have evaporated no matter how long I had them, so I made a list, and have been trying to build a routine-recovering routine. It's slow going for other reasons but I've been very slowly working on it for 5 years now and it has helped at times when I've needed it (and remembered it exists).

Here's my additional tip to OP's tip: if you are someone who holds habits like a sieve holds water, you have to be even more intentional about forming habits, and form multiple interlocking habits that cue you. I'm at a very stressful time in life right now so it's hard for me to remember details but like, I wanted to develop a daily meditation habit. But what I had to do in order for it to actually stick, was develop a ritual out of interlocking habits: getting my tea, lighting some incense, doing the actual meditation, once finished immediately having a rewarding sip of tea, dusting off my cushion, writing a brief journal entry afterwards (this is the one that tipped it over the edge for me for some reason) with a piece of dark chocolate. I also put little succulents by my altar with a lamp on a timer that comes on in the morning, so just the lit-up presence of plants which I need to tend every few days draws me toward the altar if I've forgotten or postponed my sit.

You have to be like this with everything that doesn't come naturally. Yes, it's extremely intentional, which is exhausting. Yes it's a lot of hit or miss, trial and error, because of all the little sub-habits I just described above, there will be a number you try which end up not working for you. So you have to be persistent at messing around with your habit-sculpture long enough to find a permutation which works for you, and being persistent at things like this can be very difficult for people like us. In that case, I recommend sheer desperation, it helps with the persistence.

They feel the same about me when I decline the opportunity to get shitfaced drunk and banter over 17 games of "Mexican train dominoes" for the 59574th time.