ADHD PRO TIP: if your space continually ends up cluttered, then your stuff is probably too difficult to put away or includes too many steps.

Let me explain.

Our brains can only handle so many steps in a task before the "eh, I'll do it later" instinct kicks in. When this happens, we set the object down on the nearest flat surface and let it pile up. Once it's down, it becomes scenery and we stop worrying about it (...until the clutter becomes stressful).

I have art supplies under my bed that can only be accessed by taking everything else out from under there first. Once I've done that and used my item, I never want to put it back because it's an entire ordeal. "I'll do it later." Yeah no the fuck I won't.

The solution was one of these bad boys:

Wheels so it can be moved around, clear so I can see what's in it, and separate drawers so I can store multiple types of objects separately. It's much easier to toss something back in the drawer than rearrange the underside of my bed for the fifth time.

Another example is laundry. It's practically a universal experience that ADHD people will move the laundry basket around our room instead of actually putting the clothes away. I do it frequently. While I can't eliminate that entirely, I can mitigate it for one simple reason: I hang up my shirts. Why have I been folding my shirts to put them in the basket, only to unfold them to hang them up? It's way more effective to just bring a bunch of hangers to the laundry room with me and go straight from dryer to hanger to closet.

The less steps a cleaning task has, the more likely we are to get it done.

ADHD and quitting: there’s also a good sense!

It took decades. Not years. Decades.

Us ADHDers DNF (= do not finish) so many things, that even leaving a book that doesn’t click with us ends up feeling like a failure: here’s another thing I started and will never finish.

After decades of forcing myself through books I did not connect with so as not to “quit”, I realized I’ve been wrong all this time.

A better, more correct way to look at this is - here’s me re-evaluating and realizing that this specific effort is simply not worth it!

Today I quit reading Terry Pratchett’s “The Colour of Magic” a third way in. Not because it wasn’t good, not because I’m a bad reader, and certainly not because I’m a failure.

The book is funny and cool, but at the moment I need characters to deeply connect with. This is not that kind of book.

Glad I realized this was the reason for my very slow advancement with it!

As a farewell to Pratchett, here’s a quote that seems like a description of the path of an ADHD thought: 😁

Starting T. Kingfisher’s “A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking” now!

my tips for students that struggle with consistency

adhd tips i stole from jawz.jpeg on instagram

these have actually helped me so much

Hey Tumblr here’s my first Actual Post hope ya like it:

Do you have ADHD and/or autism? Do you have a problem with noticing people messaged you, thinking, “I like that person, I should reply! But I don’t have the energy right now. I’ll remember to get back to them later,” and then never speaking to them again?

Well boy, do I have a thing-some-people-people-might-call-a-hack-and-might-help-you-but-it-also-might-not-solve-a-single-fucking-thing for YOU! That wasn’t a hyperlink, but I applaud your instincts.

Ready? I know, you skipped down here as soon as you saw the red text anyway. Don’t open it.

Don’t!

Dooooon’t!

That red notification thing? That little berry your lil hunter-gatherer brain wants you to pluck RIGHT NOW or you’ll never eat again and you’ll die?

Don’t you dare pick it, you little shit. THAT berry. That specific one. You saw the name. That’s all you needed. Think about it. I mean consciously sit there and think about that berry for a second.

That’s now a special berry. You do not touch that berry until you want another goddamn berry and you’re ready to go foragin’.

“But they might think I’m rude if I don’t at least give them a read receipt!”

No the fuck they won’t. They’re gonna think you’re rude when you send em a signal that you never wanna talk to them again.

No read receipt, no perceived rejection on their end. They’ll just think you were at work, or were driving, or in the middle of the hottest sex they can imagine. (Those three options specifically.)

But you know better. You know you have that special berry that you’ve made a very incredibly specific plan to pick later.

Accidentally open that notification up because you were scrolling through the Discord and monkey brain got too powerful to resist for a minute?

You now have permission to be weird. Don’t worry, everybody knows you’re weird anyway. Act the part. Do one of these little jams:

Honey you just miraculously put that berry back on the bush. You’re an affront to nature and you will soon dethrone G-d for daring think berries can not go back on bushes.

*sigh*

I know, you probably already have thousands of berries built up from weeks, months, even years of avoiding all contact.

Do the following now, honey. Right now. You operate best on now.

Go through and tap and clear everything. Do it fast. Don’t think too much. Just gobble up all the berries you can. Try to keep an eye out for berries you wanna eat later and drop one of the Little Jams worded in whatever way feels most appropriate for the time it’s been since that last message arrived. Again, don’t overthink it. Keep it short if you have to. It’s better than what you’ve been doing.

Conclusion paragraph. That was all I had to say. Now read it again, you didn’t actually register half of what I said. If you didn’t do the purge thing when I said so, reblog this so that when somebody interacts you’ll get another berry that tells you to go clear your berries.

"In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top--the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation--and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger brothers of Creation." We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn--we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out."

-Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

oh to lay down deep in the woodlands,

to be embraced by the mist,

to be remembered only by those ancient roots

as the moss grows over you

and uncovers your soul

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

Max Stirner, The Unique and Its Property

the basis for a materialist discussion of privilege isn’t “what extra perks does this group get”, it’s “what forms of violence, oppression, and exploitation can this group expect to be exempt from in situations where this power structure dominates?”

so if you look at gender this way it’s obvious that the fact of, like, being brought into men-only spaces and circumstances does not constitute privilege for not-out trans women, who within those and other contexts generally do not experience the same exemptions from misogynist exploitation and violence that boys/men do. and this explanation is materialist without needing recourse to any specific etiology or narrative of transness, or even a precise definition of trans woman identity or woman identity. it also isn’t disproven by cases of trans women who, when not out, do not experience this misogynist violence, any more than cis women who do not experience specific misogynist violences disprove the idea that they do not have male privilege.

homeless people are part of your community!!!!! get with it!!!!!!!!!!!!! they’re not outside interlopers they’re not invaders they’re not vermin. homeless people = people deprived of homes, they are Victims and you should be angry on their behalf because people are being deprived of shelter in Your Community

no one deserves homelessness and no one brought it on themself, not even alcoholics and drug addicts and unmedicated/uncooperative/“unreasonable” mentally ill people

if a person does not have access to appropriate shelter and is forced to either try to find a homeless shelter that isn’t full to capacity AND won’t abuse them/put them in danger, or live and sleep in public areas (which is literally criminalized like….. everywhere)

they have been purposely deprived. basic human needs are being used against them, the necessities for human life are being withheld from them and they don’t deserve that. if u have been or are currently homeless, you didn’t and don’t deserve that

— Bron Taylor - Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future

Ngakma Nor'dzin

Robert Fludd - Utriusque Cosmi Maioris Scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, 1617.

Simply Living, 1st Issue, pg 30, illustration by Ann Williams (1975)

Srijon Chowdhury (Bangladeshi-American, b. 1987)