Advice for Executive Dysfunction & Overwhelm [long]

[certified_system]

So, first post. Someone on Masto wanted advice for someone with executive difficulties who is overwhelmed with doing stuff and I accidentally made it really, really long. Some things here are very, very general, a few things more specific to their situation, and there's a lot of me sharing what worked for me, which is often different to what general adivce is.

Apologies for the slightly munty formatting, I did this in another doc and no longer have the capacity to fix it.

This is broken down a little into

• Study / sensory
• Study / brain
• Chores / delegation
• Task starting & switching
• Short-term stuff
• Hobbies
• Scheduling

 

• The number one thing is figuring out how YOU work – what you’re having difficulty with, why, and what actually helps YOU, as opposed to what helps most other people

• NTs don’t know shit about ND folk, tbh

• Listen to your brain

• Unfortunately this takes time and effort and time to get half-way decent at

 

Study / sensory

• Find some way to do part-time study, if it’s possible. Idk how daily expenses get funded, but you may be able to get some disability-related student support that allows you to study part-time.

• Sensory stuff can be really subtle and a massive drain.

  • I didn’t know light drained my brain until last year, because it’s not actively / acutely unpleasant

  • It limits how much noise I can deal with and fucks with my focus really badly

  • I now study in a dim, warmly-lit room, or wear sunglasses

  • (and remember most people need at least some sunlight for their mental health)

  • Sometimes my brain will not focus and want to go to a more brightly-lit room instead

• Similar with sound

  • Cutting out on noises is great (earplugs, earmuffs, NC headphones)

  • Unless your brain needs more stimulation, in which case, figure out what it wants. It will tell you.

  • I find if I need sound it’s always music, always something familiar.

  • Sometimes I need it super quiet, other times quite loud

  • Again, listen to what your brain wants right now, and pay attention to how you’re focussing

• Probably similar with texture / clothing

  • You might work best with really super comfy clothes

  • Some people do better if they wear nicer Work Clothes to do work

 

Study / brain

• Figure out what time of day you work best

  • I seem to need the first 3 hours of the morning as Thinking Time

  • So basically all my work gets done in the arvo

  • (Meds makes this more distinct, I’m still getting used to working with it)

• Ensure physical needs are met:

  • Hunger, thirst, and need to pee are distracting. Sleep is super important.

    • Ppl who get abt 6hrs sleep a night have similar functioning as those who haven’t slept for 24-48 hours straight, but they feel less shitty and hugely underestimate how much it’s affecting them

  • Getting enough exercise helps brains work better; it doesn’t have to be hard. Getting a good walk in 3-4 times a week will help heaps, if you’re not already getting it.

  • (unless, of course, there are other disabilities involved. Do what works, do less if you need.)

  • Micronutrients are important to brain function too. Disclaimers of not a med professional, talk to doc, consider medication interactions, etc:

    • Vitamin D (build this up SLOWLY eg 1/wk, 2/wk, 3/wk, daily)

    • B12 (you’ll want methylated; high dosage can have a mild stimulant effect. Helpful for untreated ADHD, maybe a problem otherwise. May also cause insomnia if taken daily, so worth skipping days.

    • Some people find omega 3 (fish oil) helps, esp if they don’t eat much seafood. Higher doses may cause headaches.

  • (Also something something consider meds and accommodations. They don’t need to be a last-resort. If they make things easier, take it. Life is already hard, why make it harder?)

  • If you stop focussing, something needs to change. Might need a break, might need environment change, might need food, etc.

 

Chores / delegation

• Family help – figure out what tasks you do not actually need to do yourself and have someone else do them, or even some of them

  • Probably you can just add food you want to a running shopping list – someone else can do groceries (esp if shared family food)

  • Someone else can do laundry

  • Someone else can do most of the cleaning

  • Probably someone else can change your sheets and (if tidy enough) vacuum your floor as well

  • Someone else can probably make meals, and let you know when they’re ready

  • (Probably worth joining family at meals to take a break and ensure you don’t forget to eat)

  • Someone else can wash dishes that can’t go into a dishwasher

• Ensure there are plenty of times you will not be interrupted – being ‘on’ in case someone comes in or knocks on your door just takes away some energy/focus

• It might be worth ensuring family / flatmates do Not knock on your door between, say, 10am and 5pm, or whatever. Or only knock for mealtimes.

• You might focus best if you are studying with someone – not necessarily interacting, just having you and someone else at the same table each doing your own work

  • I know of some people who have a little group they do this with via vid-call

  • They also have a shared google docs spreadsheet with each person’s name and a few tasks they want to get done that day, to add to accountability

 

Task starting & switching

• Some people like to do things like pomodoro timing; that sort of top-down planning doesn’t suit, since I take a while to get into a task and switching to take a break will take effort if I’m not ready for it.

• Alarms before classes – I personally do 30min before leaving anywhere, if it’s a late arvo thing I’ll often also have one an hour before that, too. Might work better to have 20 or 10 minutes before only, or extra.

• Actually lining my brain up for a task is the hardest – it requires decision making, too, and I get super distracted making decisions. So:

  • Ensure you know what you’re actually doing, overall

  • For very large and complex tasks, do a basic breakdown.

  • For the specific bit you want to work on first, break it down a little further.

  • Often breaking a smaller task down into tiny little steps is helpful, but can sometimes be overwheming when you see how many steps are involved – you may only need to break down the start of a task into tiny pieces to get you going, and the rest may come a little more easily.

  • The first step of starting a next task is often to finish up the current one

  • Actually, the first step is having decided to do the next task. Have you actually, definitely decided what you’ll be doing next, or did you get mentally distracted making that decision?

  • If you know your next task and the first steps of it and you’re still Stuck, consider counting down from 10 (or 15, or 20, or more). When you hit 0, you move.

    • (usually if this doesn’t work for me, it’s because I hadn’t properly Decided what I was going to do next, but your mileage may vary.)

 

Short-term stuff

• While I don’t consider this a long-term solution, it might help to half-ass things. Quarter-ass. Cut corners. Lower your standards. Figure out what the bare minimum is, and be glad when you get that. Spongebath every other day rather than shower daily, if it’s easier. Not leaving the house? Do you need to get dressed, do you particularly feel like doing so?

• Don’t aim for assignments to be 100% complete, because that’s how you waste time being picky. Aim for 90%. Once it’s at the point of “I think I have most of it done, just want to make sure it’s all good,” all you need to do is double-check it fits passing criteria. If you’re particularly concerned, set a timer to do a spelling & grammar check (or, if you’re allowed, ask someone else to run through it). Once the timer goes off, you’re finished. Done.

• Lots of other disabled, depresesd, & chronically ill folk have a lot of tips on how to minimise a task’s effort. Sometimes these will be more mental effort for you because it requires changing a habit, or switching tasks often.

  • On that note: It’s generally a good idea to keep task types to a minimum – eg. If you have 4 classes, only work on one or two of them in a day.

  • (I often end up spending, eg. 2/3 of my study time on one class, and 1/3 on another in the late arvo or evening. You don’t need to do equal amounts of things daily. I didn’t plan this, but I felt bad when it happened bc usually I wanted, eg. 3Hrs, break, 3hrs; instead I did like 4hrs, break, 2hrs)

  • (Don’t feel bad if your plan breaks. Just adjust it. It’s a guide, not a requirement.)

  • I had it very ingrained in me to break tasks up and do a little every day, eg for cleaning: kitchen on monday, bathroom on tuesday, floors on wednesday, laundry on thursday

  • This might work for you but for me, it’s bullshit. I would much rather spend time and energy getting INTO cleaning mode only once a week than four times a week, on top of the actual cleaning!

  • So yeah, while spreading out tasks can be good for some people, if you’re not great at intentional task-switching, then don’t do it. Marathoning things is fine. Some level of hyperfocus can be helpful.

Hobbies! This is a recent Thing for me and I’m still working on solving it but:

• Most brains give you a dopamine hit as a reward when you complete even a small task

• It’s quite common for ADHD and depressed brains to just not do this

  • Which means our mental dopamine rewards for any given task frequently doesn’t happen at all, or is very, very small.

  • This leads (at least to me) being not very achievement-oriented at all.

• Common advice for time management, scheduling, etc, is to set goals, to treat yourself when you achieve them. Write to-do lists and get the satisfaction of crossing things off.

  • ...... you see the problem.

  • I spent all my life trying to do this, to the point that I almost never do any hobbies despite being interested in everything, because:

    • “set aside time for hobbies”

    • plan to do hobbies eg. In the evening

    • Hobby becomes another thing on your schedule

    • Hobby becomes thing to cross off to-do list

    • No joy or reward for getting hobby done

    • (This applies to things I want to make, things to practice like dance, to things like watching shows I like, and to my classes that I enjoy)

 

Consider:

• Do you actually want to DO the thing, or do you want the thing DONE?

  • Note that things you want to do can easily, easily turn into things to want done. Idk exactly how to change it back, besides like, try to feel the wanting-to-do over your reasoning for why you want it done

• If you’re not doing tasks because the task is boring and you get no joy in completing it, it may help to try to find ways to make the task itself more fun

  • Having fun music can help, as can doing the task or hobby with someone.

  • Attitude adjustments can help, and changing what you’re thinking (I don’t want to do this = I would like to get this done. But don’t lie to yourself, don’t say “I want to do thing” when you don’t want to do the thing.)

  • I can sometimes do a thing, idk how to explain, Like spend a few moments trying to quiet my thoughts a smidge on the task and try to feel my feeling on it. If they’re bad don’t-wanna or should-do feelings, I can kinda do a “hey it’s okay” concept-thought and sorta adjust the feeling a little bit to make it less bad?

  • t’s a very delicate sort of a process though, and it’s very easy for your thinking thoughts to take over and fuck it up. Thinking thoughts are not delicate enough.

  • I realise this section sounds like piddly NT advice but like, it’s not wrong? It’s just far harder than those NTs seem to act, you have to go about it gently. Takes a LOT of practice.

 

Scheduling

• I tihnk the above is why often, top-down scheduling (like time-clocking) doesn’t suit me personally, but there is tonnes of advice around on different ways you can do that stuff and you might find something.

• Most scheduling also seems to focus primarily on Time rather than Theme.

• Recently (and kind of by accident, in assessment lead-up time) what I’ve been doing is making a word doc with:

Monday

Personal

Task

Task

4.30pm friend

Class 1

11am class at [room]

- preread [topic]

Class 2

msg group members about project

3pm class at [room]

 

• But it goes on for a week or two, with a horizontal bar to split up the weeks. I only put in any actual scheduling stuff 2-3 days in advance, max (outside of noting down classes, appointments, and due dates)

• For that busy lead-up to assessments time, I also had a separate doc where I messily noted down what needed doing, by when, and broke them down a little. That was used as a guide each time I updated this.

• I also do have a planner – it’s only seriously helpful when I have a lot of stuff on with specific times, if I don’t (eg. When I laboured full-time, had a weekly class, and did nothing else) then it’s useless

  • I still find it useful for putting in things with set times like class

  • I’ve also been noting the stuff I put in the word doc in my planner, just so that I can access it without starting up my laptop if I want

 

My planner (4days/spread, or 1wk/spread, never 1day/page) also has, in the front, a prinout of the full year by month, just so I could highlight holidays and due/exam dates.

Sometimes I’ll have a prinout of a month that has some space to write in, and tape that in, folded up, right before the start of that month, with (colour-coded) due dates, classes, and personal stuff. Gives me easy access to the overview of that month, but it is definitely more work and i only do it sometimes.

 

 

Other things I have done that worked for a while (nd especially good if you have trouble with decisions) was, each evening, write a list of all the things I wanted to do the next day, in order. No times unless something Needed that (and I’d guesstimate where it fit). It would include things like breakfast, shower, get dressed, have lunch, etc. I’d usually group similar things to reduce task-switching (eg, ‘morning stuff’, ‘computer stuff’, except I wouldn’t give them headings, there’s just be 3-5 lines of tasks, and then a space before the next set)

When I realised this stopped working, I could often ‘reset’ it by changing the paper, or the pen colours, or using highlighters.

 

For more longer-term task management, I also use an android app called Regularly – one puts in tasks that need doing regularly (anywhere between once every day, to once every three years. Really useful for stuff that needs doing say every 3-4 days, or once a month, or once every few months.) You can also tag them in different categories, and have the widget on your phone screen. It has a few different options to colour-code and order tasks that are coming up due.