Successfully managing ADHD means throwing the empty shampoo bottle towards the bathroom door so you’ll see it when you walk out and then write “Shampoo” on the chalkboard hung up next to your front door where you’ll see it before you go shopping so you can put it on the shopping list on your phone.
Seriously my adhd management system is basically “putting shit where I’ll trip over it” and then waiting to get sick of still deliberately stepping over/around the inconveniently placed item.
Until watching a different member of the household step over it ONE TIME, at which point it becomes the #1 priority.
it’s this, or recognizing that you don’t actually need shampoo and can just buy a life supply of soap bars all at once and use that for washing every part of your body.
i’ve come to recognize that a big part of why i find minimalism so nice is because it brings the amount of things i need to remember down to something vaguely manageable.
If you’re curly, that means having straws in place of hair
Bold of you to assume I’ll remember to check my shopping list.
You guys make lists? Is it like the notes im supposed to keep?
I’ve been honing my ability to add things I need to a list on my phone’s home page. I’ve been doing it for 7+ years now. If someone asks 3 years later, how much butter to use for belgian waffles that I made once, I’ll know it is the blue colored note, 5th line from top.
If I go to the store, I’ll still forget I have the list.
The fact that you remember that specific detail from 3 years ago, but have to add shampoo to the list is meta ADHD
Sometimes when I have a great idea but am in bed and about to fall asleep, and don’t want to take out my phone and wake myself up, I’ll grab something off of my nightstand and yeet it into the middle of the floor with the idea in my head, so the next morning I’ll wake up and see the thing and remember my idea… works surprisingly well!
Idk about ADHD but I buy a bunch of shampoo and conditioner, and when I notice I’m at the second-to-last bottle I put it on the shopping list on Google keep
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tasks
App has a widget that takes up 40% of my home screen as a check list (checks disabled so I don’t fat finger them)
I don’t have ADHD, but I do have significant difficulties remembering things and this is the solution that has worked for me for the last 8ish years.
I’ve got a Google mini in the bathroom so I can listen to a podcast while I shower. The side benefit to this is I can yell out to get it to add shampoo to the grocery list
Secret tech is to just buy like 4 bottles at a time, then you only have to deal with the problem 25% of the time
But you still have to remember to bring it into the shower before you get in.
My OSHA unapproved slip and slide flooring says otherwise.
Exactly, I buy a big pack of soap bars so when it’s getting low I tell myself to open a new one when I get out of the shower, only to tell myself the next day until my soap bar runs out and I have to use my wife’s body wash
When my soaking wet self has to do the shuffle from the shower to the soap under the sink and notice it is low I put one of the rmeaining bars in the sink so I can’t miss it later as a reminder to pick up some more when I’m not soaking wet.
Putting stuff in my way is the best way to make sure future rlme does something about it.
Like my 500 alarms that I can no longer hear, I’m great at stepping over things.
I keep by backups on a shelf within reach of the shower. I toss the empty in the middle of the floor. Someone will toss it eventually.
I had that epiphany the other day, what if I just put the soaps on the little cart next to the shower So i could reach out and grab a new one, I think I dreamt about it it was so good
Dreaming about efficient soap placement? I love it.
Shopping at big box warehouse club stores has this solution built in, with the unfortunate downside of having to go in to those stores.
Also a good way to end up with 16 bottles because you can’t remember if you’re on the last bottle or just bought it. Especially when doing the wholesale store where I only buy it when it’s on sale once or twice a year.
Also doesn’t solve the issue of bringing a new bottle into the shower.
This is definitely the way. I have so many extras of everything.
I do this and keep a reusable/editable checklist on my phone (Google’s Keep Notes since I use android) and continually add to it over time.
If I remember needing something and I have my phone, I can add it. This lets me run through the list to see if I can add anything else or need to uncheck things I might be running low on. Every so often at home, when I remember, I also go through the house to add any consumables I use; leaving unchecked if low, checking off if good for now.
When I’m in the store and the compulsory feeling of forgetting something hits, I go through the checked to uncheck whatever I can remember I need or am running low on, then add what the store has to my cart/basket. I then will only check things off right before I go to/while in checkout or when putting them away at home.
For me it’s just a text file named ‘buy.txt’.
Do you list food on there, too, or mostly inedible consumables like toilet paper? Do you add bulk non-perishable food? Do you have weekly food on there, like produce? This is an awesome idea. My only hesitation is that I’ve always used a paper grocery list.
I do the exact same thing!
Costco is my Savior
My trick to this is to leave the bottle on the tub/shower floor when I’m truly done with it. It increases the chances that I’ll get rid of the bottle once I’m out of the shower. It does not necessarily guarantee that I’ll remember to grab a new bar of soap or shower gel, but it interrupts my usual post-showdr flow of things enough to up the odds that I will
I open the shower door and immediately throw the empty bottle into the basin that way it will bother me at some point and take care of it
I used to do that too! For some reason it didn’t work as well for me, though. I’d remember to take the empty bottle with me, but I’d forget to replace it before leaving the washroom
I just bulk buy stuff when it’s discounted that way I mot only always have some in the cabinet but also only buy it discounted
This was one several things I’ve seen throb this community that made me, eventually, do a test. Turns out I’ve got adhd, just went undiagnosed my whole life, was called hyper active, was told not eat certain foods with e numbers in the 80’s, not drink coke (caffeine), I’ve a follow up doctors appointment, but being nearly 50 and only figuring this out now, is been a real mind fuck, positive feeling though
Yeah, I’m in my 40s and just now being tested. Based on the one test I did, it seems I probably have it. If I do it will explain a lot of my struggles, but thinking about all that lost time being untreated is gonna tear me up a bit. I always heard ADHD was one of those made up illnesses and all boys are hyper, and I believed that for a long time.
Make sure to take care of your mental health during and after the diagnosis. No matter how insignificant the diagnosis may seem it is very likely to have at least some impact sometimes lasting a few months
Sounds very familiar, I’m doing my best to just take it as what can I do from here and not dwell on the past, lying if I said I don’t spend any time contemplating the what ifs.
That’s a good outlook to have. Best of luck to you.
I’m 41. Was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 31. It took like 10 minutes to get diagnosed and I bet anyone could get the designation as an adult.
e number foods in the 80s?
Also caffeine was the opposite for our family. Soda addictions is just the teasing version of actually using amphetamines to get your shit together lol.
Yeah it was a thing, additives and the like, was told it was making my hyperactive, well several of them were to be avoided, e110,e117, buggered if I recall what they were. There was a book that listed them all. Yeah, I found when I used to blast the goodie l coffee all day I was much more able to focus at work, it hindsight it kind of makes sense
It really is a shame how much energy was spent back in the day using home remedies to ‘cure’ hyperactivity while just full on ignoring doctors constantly all while doubling down saying you were just fine and normal the entire time too.
The weird part is being nearly 40 now and seeing so many of my adult family members have issues with ADHD themselves lol. Like fuck mom, you go through a case of Mt Dew in a few days and used to pop acetaminophen like Pez. Tell me again how an Adderall or Ritalin in the morning would’ve been worse.
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Generally everyone has these issues, but with ADHD it’s more advanced to a life altering degree. If everyone had it, everyone would need meds to keep jobs and not be depressed etc. ADHD also usually causes issues with dopamine generation, so getting tasks done aren’t fulfilling, hurting our willpower to get anymore done. There’s much more, but it’s kind of a lighter version of people who assume depressed people just need to go outside and do different things etc. Sure, non depressed people get sad or feel down, but they can usually do something about it or get over it much faster. So if you see stuff like this and you know for sure you don’t have ADHD, you’re probably underestimating the scale.
“We all pee too, but if we’re doing it 60 times a day, there’s a problem”
Based on almost every post on this sub, I believe I must have ADHD.
Only if it makes you incompetent and feel stupid
All these posts make me think I actually may have had a wrong diagnosis as a kid…
Not sure that I have ADHD, but when I remember to, I put the empty bottle on the floor outside of the shower. I still forget or can’t deal with it when I get out sometimes, but it won’t sit on the floor indefinitely like it will if left in the shower.
exactly. Squeeze the fucker out and yeet it right out. Some time the same day you’ll walk into your bathroom, find a shampoo bottle on the floor, ask yourself “da heck?” and will remember that you gotta go buy some.
And then Wifey will throw the bottle and yell at me because I don’t throw my junk, and then she will yell at me again because I use her shampoo.
Or you start a game of shampoo bottle “toss” because you nailed her in the head when she was brushing her teeth.
Nah, I never start a fight I can’t win.
It’s scary how you can find other people on the other side of the world doing the same thing as you, always reminds me I’m not that special lol. I do exactly this!
The FOSS-only crowd might flame me for this, but I’d argue this type of scenario is a legit use-case for voice assistants, because “remind me to buy ________” is a fairly easy habit to get into and it’s a single step, fast enough to beat the attention bounce.
Edit: I meant no offense. Reworded to “FOSS-only.”
It absolutely would be a good thing for a voice assistant.
But most kickback against voice assistants isn’t the lack of use case, it’s all the other bullshit you have to accept alongside it.
If I could install a voice assistant that didn’t require a constant internet connection and could work alongside other services, I’d use it.
I think there’s one on F-droid? Starts with a D. I’m sorry I just woke up and can’t find it.
Edit: its Dicio, oof tho it doesn’t look offline but it does tick the rest of the boxes.
HomeAssistant has seen a bit of a revolution around the concept of voice assistants.
Heard some buzz and have been meaning to read up. The speech service has been the primary puzzle piece binding me to proprietary systems, but if it’s time it’s time.
You can build your own on a Raspberry Pi or similar PC
https://github.com/OpenVoiceOS
Can indeed work offline, but only the basic stuff
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I’ve tried voice assistants, won’t be viable until there’s at least half a million autistic linux users who iron out all the kinks for a self hosted service.
I bet some FOSS voice recognition projects have matured since last I checked, but the closest I had sketched out in the past required external calls to the local speech kit api on macOS or iOS. We’ll get there. It’s too useful to let big tech have a monopoly on it.
We did that for years, until the products we bought switched APIs making us have to change shopping list apps a couple times, then shut off the feature altogether.
Any tech that requires an outside server eventually gets shut off and you spend my more time managing it than you saved in the long run.
Just toss the shampoo bottle on the floor to remind yourself.
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Yes, that is a legitimate use case for that technology.
I do not consider myself anti-tech by any stretch of the imagination (I can put my hands on no less than five computers from where I’m sitting) and I want things like voice assistants and smart houses and whatnot for the benefits they can provide, but we’ve got to pry the invasive corporate bullshit out first.
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Like I stopped using fitness trackers on smart phones because I realized all of them want my data more than they want to be a value add to my smart phone purchase. I don’t want the power company to manage my thermostat because the power company isn’t on my side.
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Have I ADHD? I thought I was just stupid ^^.
Why not both? :P
I’m at least stupid, maybe both.
Despite the way it’s portrayed in the media, ADHD is underdiagnosed in some groups (women and anyone not white is less likely to be diagnosed in the US, for example). So, maybe. It’s worth talking to a psychiatrist about it if it’s regularly impacting your life.
It can be difficult to figure out on your own whether or not your symptoms are ADHD, because everyone has moments that could count as ADHD symptoms. But for people without ADHD they only happen occasionally or rarely. To steal an analogy, everyone pees, but if you’re pissing 40 times a day it’s time to see a doctor.
That said, if you’re in the US now is a super shitty time to get diagnosed because there’s a terrible ADHD med shortage. My husband’s been without meds for about 2 months now.
Thanks for your serious answer. My bad joke wasn’t deserving such a caring message.
To be honest, I actually don’t think I have ADHD, I’m just the kind of guy who’s always in his head, not actually paying attention. As a teenager I saw a psychologist because I had memory troubles, but he didn’t saw anything strange (and I’m a white man; I’m not American, but racism and misogyny are realities here too).
I hope your husband will receive his meds again soon!
I toss the empty bottle into the sink while still in the shower. That way I find it again later.
**sorry, that’s just being human. **
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99 percent of ADHD memes are just describing normal human condition.
And when a normal human condition becomes a significant problem, we call it a disorder.
Hey yeah it’s funny you ALSO forget shampoo sometimes. Yep, that is normal. Sounds like it’s not a problem for you then. Cool.
“we all pee too, but if you’re doing it 90 times a day there seems to be a problem”
I buy multiple so you have multiple to squeeze the death out of.
I throw it on the bathroom floor over the curtain. Then i add it to my list on my phone after i dry off when i pick it up to throw it away.
Every time you see it you kick it closer to the shopping list on the refrigerator. Just like the cardboard tube of the toilet paper you replaced with the last roll
quietly adds shampoo to the grocery list…
What is object permanence?
Baby
don’t hurtcan’t see meBaby
don’t hurtcan’t see meNo more
I try to throw the bottle to the bathroom entrance, and once I’m done in the way of the front door to make it a physical inconvenience to forget it (then hopefully goes on the shopping list)
This is my universal system. It doesn’t even need to directly correlate with the reminder, since most of the time I just need to be reminded that I need to remember something.
For example, I’ll leave a chair in the middle of the kitchen so I remember to do something when I get home. The second I see it I remember whatever it is I need to do. I’ll leave it there until it annoys me into doing what it was I needed to do. Very effective for my ADD/OCD combo.
