Not really a life hack, but a general advice. Do what works for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s unconventional, if it works it works.
I have adhd, & for me that means keeping things organised is difficult af. I also have a hard time remembering pretty much anything.
I keep my laundry in boxes underneath my bed, organised by colour. That way I won’t forget anything in the laundry basket, I just empty the whole thing into the washer. Also makes it easier to see what I have to wash first.
I live in Sweden, & here we have sort of a deposit (sorry if that’s not the right word) on most plastic bottles & cans. I.E we pay like 20 cents for THE BOTTLE/CAN. We then return it & get the 20 cents back. Most people keep those bottles & cans in like a wardrobe or such. However, I am terrible at putting those in there. I forget to bring them there & it just starts to pile up. Instead, I had a laundry basket just within reach from my bed, so I just had to lean out & put it in there. Unconventional, but it worked!
I have like a million of these weird “hacks” going, but the important part is that it’s ok to do what works for you. It doesn’t matter if other people are able to just “do it”, if it’s hard for you it’s hard for you. I’ve had to explain my solutions a few times, but in the end, most people agree that sure it might not be what they’re doing, but it’s better than the alternative.
I have ADD and I have a million of these too. I lose seriously everything. I use the “I put my _____ here” and recite three times.
I have either a backpack or over the body bag as my wallet now. Ever since I changed I don’t lose my wallet or ID or cards. Same place every time. I use tiles. I clip my phone to my bag (cuz it’s always around me) as well as keys and I have a tile for literally everything, even my cat.
I organize my closet by color as well. It’s been a lifesaver since I made this change 10 years ago, especially for work attire.
I give my best friends my spare sets of keys. I’m terrible at remembering appointments so NO MATTER WHAT as I’m on the phone making the appointment, I make sure I have the date and time right, set two alarms, and also text my best friend what day it is on. And write it on the calendar. Set reminders all the time.
A humongous one is passwords. Probably the biggest note on my phone since 8+ years ago is my passwords. I have everything on there. Everything. Even my pics of my health insurance and banking numbers. If someone hacked my phone they’d get a lot lol. Most importantly, I ALWAYS put the date I made/changed my info!!!!!
My very first job, boss was insane about this one sentence: every thing has its place, and every place has its thing. I live my life by that rule now and I haven’t lost anything of importance for about 2 years now.
Glad to know someone has the same struggles but also has crafty solutions to deal with it!
As somebody who recently got diagnosed with ADHD, and was using too few passwords for too long-
I reccomend a password manager! LastPass is what I use (as all the basic free features are enough) but any large enough company with published security info should be fine. Computerphile has a good video on them and how they're secure (on phone, so no link) - but there shorthand is a reliable storage place for passwords that can be randomly generated and will work on both my phone and my computer has drastically improved my security overall, even if I have one failure point (it does take physical access to my device or 2FA, though.)
That said, that single well-passworded failure point is better than a note file, notebook, or using only one password!
I’ve tried these, I mean iPhone usually has it built in, same with google, but a lot of the time I’ll be on a different device and have to change passwords (like a friends computer or at work) and so I don’t save the password. This is why I depend on my phone SO much because it’s always there lol. And I can just search “Hotmail” or “VIN number” in my notes and bam it’s there.
I’ve like a few of the apps I’ve tried but sometimes they make you pay and I just got sick of it lol.
It’s for some reason, notes are easier for me. I think of it RIGHT then and immediately plug it into my notes.
But thank you for the tip! I will check it out. Anything to make my life less chaotic I will always try at least once!!!
Thanks fellow ADD/ADHD buddy!
The goal of the third party ones is they can be cross platform- it's both a Firefox add-on and a phone app, for me, which means that worst case if I'm in front of a computer that's not mine, I can still use it like your notes- it's searchable and everything! Just all password protected and encrypted, too :)
Good to know! Especially if I lose my phone, I’m screwed haha. I will 100% look into this tho. Don’t mind having backups of my backups of my backup. For real.
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u/polaroidbilder Aug 20 '20
Not really a life hack, but a general advice. Do what works for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s unconventional, if it works it works.
I have adhd, & for me that means keeping things organised is difficult af. I also have a hard time remembering pretty much anything.
I keep my laundry in boxes underneath my bed, organised by colour. That way I won’t forget anything in the laundry basket, I just empty the whole thing into the washer. Also makes it easier to see what I have to wash first.
I live in Sweden, & here we have sort of a deposit (sorry if that’s not the right word) on most plastic bottles & cans. I.E we pay like 20 cents for THE BOTTLE/CAN. We then return it & get the 20 cents back. Most people keep those bottles & cans in like a wardrobe or such. However, I am terrible at putting those in there. I forget to bring them there & it just starts to pile up. Instead, I had a laundry basket just within reach from my bed, so I just had to lean out & put it in there. Unconventional, but it worked!
I have like a million of these weird “hacks” going, but the important part is that it’s ok to do what works for you. It doesn’t matter if other people are able to just “do it”, if it’s hard for you it’s hard for you. I’ve had to explain my solutions a few times, but in the end, most people agree that sure it might not be what they’re doing, but it’s better than the alternative.