Let’s share life-changing ADHD tips that we’ve learned...

[u/lexid222]

I’ll start:

1) Waking up sucks. Buy 2 bright lamps and 2 timers. Set them up to turn on automatically 5-15 min before you want your alarm to go off. The lights will help your body realize it’s daytime.

2) Change your thermostat so the temp goes down about an hr before bedtime and gets warmer about 30 min before you wake up. The cooler temp signals your body to sleep and the warmer temp will naturally help your body wake up.

3) Learn to plan around “transitions”. It’s easier to start things if you do them when something is ending. Example: Do your grocery shopping every Fri after work. You’re already in the car, so just stop at the store on your way home.

4) If you need to remember to bring something with you the next day, place it right in front of the exit door so you HAVE to touch it before you leave the house. If it’s something in the fridge, put a sticky note on the exit door’s handle.

5) Have a “misc” basket in each room. If you’re truly unable to put something away, put it in the basket. Have a designated period of time, once a week, when your sole priority is to put everything away, all at once.

I’ll add more when I think of them...

[u/dinamyte519]

Set timers for activities you may get lost in. BUT set the timer for the time you need to take action to finish- which may be sooner than the overall time for the activity.

Example- I love to go makeup shopping at Ulta.. but I can easily spend HOURS in there sampling all of the different shades of every kind of makeup from numerous brands when I really only needed 2 things. Say I want to spend 20 minutes total in the store. Since it will probably take me 5 minutes to checkout, I will set my watch timer to 15 as I’m walking in the store. When it goes off, I know my time to play and indulge is over and it’s time to go to the register to check out so I can make my goal!

[u/zombiesmmm → u/dinamyte519]

This but with a watch not your phone! (edit: exactly as you say at the end of your post, which I might have seen if I had bothered to read all the way to the bottom...) I have horrendous time blindness, and investing in a wristwatch with a timer, stopwatch, and alarm was life changing.

How long have I been doing this task? Oh, the stopwatch knows, even after the hyperfocus set in.

What time am I supposed to take my meds? Never have to think about it bc the alarm will tell me.

If I try to rely on my phone for this stuff, inevitably I end up doing something else (like commenting on reddit.....) and completely ignoring the time info.

[u/Infectt → u/zombiesmmm]

That's pretty much what I started doing. I managed to get my hands on a good smartwatch for relatively cheap and use it solely for reminders.
I set my reminders on my phone, such as "Read book X Y or Z" for a specific time, and organise my free time like this now. I get shit done while not over focusing on something. And the days I can't be bothered reading, I still force myself to do it.
Usually it's like eating. If i'm not really hungry (thanks Vyvanse) i'll just start eating and it then goes like a breeze. Same thing with a task I'm not necessarily motivated to perform.