5 Life Hacks for ADHD

ADHD can affect a lot of different aspects and areas of life, and make things feel more difficult than they could be. Below are 5 hacks to help make life with ADHD run a little bit smoother. 

ADHD Life Hack #1: Ditch the planner, try scheduling with alarms instead

Planners are nice, but easy to forget about. Oftentimes we’ll remember to write in the planner or check it, but not both. Instead, try building a schedule that includes the important stuff, like school assignments, tests, games, practices, etc, with alarms instead. The most helpful way is to usually set the alarm for the time that it’ll be easiest for you to do whatever it is you need to do to be prepared. For example, if a paper is due on Friday, and I know I’m not going to work on it until Thursday night, I’ll set my alarm for maybe 7pm on Thursday, and name it something dramatic and eye catching, like “YOUR PAPER IS DUE TOMORROW, GO WRITE IT”. For events, set the alarm for the time you need to start getting ready, and maybe also the time you need to leave. For example, for a soccer game at 5pm, and it takes me about 30 minutes to get ready and 15 minutes to get there, I may set an alarm at 4pm that says “GO GET READY FOR SOCCER” (It’s always best to give yourself a little more time than you need) and then another at 4:45 that says “TIME TO LEAVE FOR SOCCER”. 

ADHD Life Hack #2: Use music to track time passing

People with ADHD are notoriously bad at tracking time. You may not feel time passing like some other people can, and therefore may be more likely to take longer doing something than you mean to. For example, you may intend to take a 15 minute shower, but somehow spend 30 minutes and not know how this happened. For this same reason, timers aren’t very helpful—if you don’t know what 15 minutes feels like, you don’t really know what 5 minutes feels like either. Instead, try making a playlist that fits the amount of time you mean to be spending on an activity, and start playing it when you start the activity. Don’t put it on shuffle! Instead, let it play through in order—your brain will start to recognize that the last few songs mean you’re running out of time, and it’ll be easier to track “I have until the end of this song” than “I have five minutes left.”

ADHD Life Hack #3: Eliminate the autopilot options 

You sit down to do your homework. You pull out your phone to check the class website for homework, to ask a question or to google something, and the next thing you know, you’ve been playing a game or scrolling social media for an hour, and you didn’t even mean to. Sound familiar? 

Our auto-pilot behaviors don’t need our conscious minds to kick on, and so an action that started with the best of intentions can end in distraction and wasted time. To avoid this, make it harder for yourself to go through those automatic reactions. This can include something as thorough as using airplane mode or focus mode (if you have it) on your phone to limit activities and what apps you can open, or even removing the shortcuts from your home screen so you have to go looking for the app to use it. By adding these extra steps, we interrupt autopilot and give ourselves a chance to catch ourselves in the act before we commit and fall down the rabbit hole. 

ADHD Life Hack #4: Fidget for Focus

Despite the common perception, activities like fidgeting and doodling can be extremely helpful for focusing on things that are otherwise easy to be distracted from. Finding a fidget toy that works for you can be extremely helpful. They come in a huge variety, and there are also forms that can be made at home, like slime or cloud dough (equal parts cornstarch and hair conditioner). Having a spare page to doodle on while listening can also be helpful. These activities provide the mind just enough varied stimulus and burns off just enough extra energy that it becomes easier to focus, particularly in situations where what’s expected is to sit still and listen, study, or read. 

ADHD Life Hack #5: Boredom is the enemy 

It is easy to get caught up in doing things you’re not supposed to be doing or to get distracted by doing things you enjoy if that’s the only time you’re going to get to do them. Make time for the things that pull your focus—whether it be social media, a video game, a tv show—whatever it is that you are finding yourself drawn to. Give yourself a set amount of time you can do this activity after you have tackled the things you need to be done with for the day, so that you don’t have to also go through the process of pulling yourself away. By doing this, you can more completely enjoy what you are doing and ‘scratch the itch’ in an effective way. This will help the activity have less allure and be less distracting, and give you the mental recharge and energy you need to focus again the next day.