Your best tips and tricks to stay focused and productive?
I start myself with 12-24oz of iced coffee every morning. Sometimes another one at 4-6pm.
There's also a pre-workout I use to take at the gym called Total War (300mg caffeine) that was amazing at getting me to be in the moment, but it had a huge crash side effect.
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I used to take a lot of caffeine supplements, but they are not good for your heart or kidneys. Your body will appreciate healthier ways to manage.
For me, I have to have good diet, sleep, and exercise. I read this great book titled The Chrisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane and I was surprised by Cabane's practical advice for staying present and in the moment. To Cabane, being present is a cornerstone of charismatic personality and she clearly spent a lot of time understanding the mechanisms that drive human behavior. I try some of the exercises when I am having difficulty being productive. She suggests things like meditation, stretching, mantras, etc. It might seem silly and woo woo at first but stretching and sitting still has physical effects on the body, and I think getting the right hormonal state helps a lot. Its easier to focus when you are calm. The hormones that drive feelings like irritation or anxiety will build up in your blood, so intervening to balance out your hormones can help.
Thank you π Yea I agree, being present definitely helps with being charismatic lol. Thatβs interesting, I will try stretching and see if that helps. Going for a quick walk with my dog also does the trick for me sometimes.
I think the single best thing that helps me with focus and productivity is medication. Vyvanse and Clonidine.
BUT medication alone isn't enough, because a medication can't "cure" AuDHD, and a medication can't change established thought patterns. It *can* make it easier to access the tools and the thoughts themselves, so you can work on changing them.
Medication targets the chemical issues, but it can't do anything about the behaviors, thoughts, beliefs, and patterns we have developed, even the ones developed *from* coping with AuDHD.
An easy example is trauma. I have trauma from various effects of being undiagnosed and unmedicated until very recently. My medication can help make the situations that initially caused the trauma less likely to happen now, but it can't do anything about the trauma I already have. (Though I definitely think my esketamine treatment does, and regular therapy.)
So for long-term change and improvement, DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) has helped the most, because it *does* target thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
But as far as "ADHD hacks" go, I have yet to find many that are useful for any longer than my initial excitement and determination to make a new system work. A few things have helped a lot with memory issues, like using my Google calendar a lot, putting appointments in there before I leave the office/get off the phone to schedule it, and putting several reminders on all calendar events. I have tools to help with sensory overload, and I highly recommend Loop earplugs.
But for focus? I haven't found anything that consistently works. Having a dedicated space to do online classes and study helps a little bit, buuuut it's still a computer in front of me, which can distract in many ways.
Having someone (who understands) around me when I'm trying to do a dreaded task can help a little.
I want to try time blocking but haven't felt I have the time to plan like that lately.
I discovered the character limit xD