there’s a million different strategies on how to function well with adhd, and some of them even work. but every single time i encounter the same problem - even if something works and improves my quality of life it’s always short lived. i get distracted or something happens that throws me off the rhythm and then- i can’t restart.
so now i have a mental library of all those tactics that work and very little motivation to try again, it’s going to last a week maybe, and then back to being a mess i go.
is there any way to work against that? any point of view i failed to consider? any tactic that is designed to stick? or just something that doesn’t work on an assumption that you need to do it consistently for it to work? (and then feel like a failure once you inevitably stop doing it)
all the tips and tricks i googled fail at this step, no book on adhd that i’ve read highlights this problem, this can’t be just me right?
i’m just so tired
Even f it only sticks for a week, that’s one week that’s way better than if you had done nothing. I say keep cycling through your methods, pick one that speaks to you (or pull one out of a hat every so often - gamling is fun when it doesn’t impact your economy or relationships!) and then pick another when it wears off or even on a schedule like every month or so.
If this means you only manage any functional strategy one week per month, that’s still twelve weeks of the year where your quality of life has improved compared to not (re)using any strategy. That’s three whole months! Massive improvement!
The thing that seems to work most consistently for me is other people. I need to body double irl or by phone, but it can’t be someone I live with because then the effect wears off and I get too comfortable having them around. Anything that becomes predictable and “routine” becomes ineffective, but social interaction is usually stressful enough to get me going and getting shit done.
Hyperfocus (short and intense unreachable to the world type attention, not the special interest long-term hyperfocus) is one other way, but that’s not reliable at all. I need to get my set and setting completely right to be able to aim and maintain my hyperfocus on the right task, which is where I need… body doubling. And it’s not really long-term solution either since it’s easy to burn out from, with the whole “forgetting to drink or pee or blink for 10 hours”.