More How To Manage ADHD

“I never remember to take out the trash until my trash can is full, at which point the trash bag is really heavy and the stuff at the bottom has been rotting a while, and it’s awful!”

Small brain: “Try to train yourself to take out the trash on certain days at certain times.”

Large brain: “Buy a tiny trash can. Now you HAVE to empty it.”

That’s genius!

I just put it in front of my door when it’s full so I am physically unable to leave unless I pick it up.

The best advice I’ve ever received about managing my depression/anxiety/adhd is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Accommodations are not about changing yourself to work in your environment — it’s about changing your environment to better work for you.

So yeah, get a tiny trash can and put it by your door. Store your towels in your bathroom so you can immediately change them when they smell funny. Hang a basket by your door for your gloves and earbuds. Leave a box of cliff bars by your door so you never leave without breakfast. Change your environment and change your life!

“Change your environment and change your life”

I learned a long time ago that if I have to remember to pack a fork *every day* for lunch, I end up at work with no fork about 30% of the time.

But if I take an entire 50 count box of forks and put the entire thing in my lunch box? I *always have a fork.*

And I have extra forks for coworkers who forgot to pack a fork, and then I seem SUPER responsible. Lol.

Back in 2011 I attended an event called BMoreFail which was a business seminar on business failure, taught by guest speakers who had all failed at something, and I had a revelation.

If your system would work fine if people Just Would, but it does not work because people Don’t, and you feel very strongly that it works but people are not using it right and if only they Just Would everything would be fine… your system is a failure. Because if people were capable of Just Doing, they would be doing. The fact that people Don’t is an indication that they, in fact, cannot Just Would.

I was thinking of this in terms of workflow systems in business, but it’s just as meaningful in the systems you create for yourself that would work if you Just Would. Because if you Could, then you already Would. The fact that you Don’t even though it would work if you Just Would means that you in fact Can’t and you need to redesign the system.

That doesn’t always make it easier to figure out a system that will work, but it does tell you something about how to deal with the repeated failure of the system. Change it. The system is always what’s broken, not the people in it. Systems exist to serve people; if they cannot serve people because people can’t use them, they are wrong and must be changed.

if your Correct System sucks to use the Right Way, it isn’t correct and that isn’t the right way. redesign it.