TL;DR

I’m struggling to stay consistent with a simple night time skincare routine because my evening routine, back pain, and ADHD all make the habit difficult to maintain. I’m trying to make the routine easier by doing it immediately after work, but I’m stuck on the second part: how do I make a repetitive skincare routine fun and interesting enough for my ADHD brain to keep doing it consistently, especially when physical discomfort makes the routine harder too?

Full post:

I have been struggling big time to be consistent with my skin routine at night,

I have minimal routine at night (face wash, retinol, moisturizer), with sunscreen in the day.

I work from home as a writer and content strategist, but I have been mightily struggling with skincare routine consistency at night... It's mostly like 1 week good, 2 weeks bad

to get consistent again, I made my cue and action: when I finish work, I will shut down and bag my laptop and after that, start my skincare instantly.

But the problem is, after I finish work, I get to dinner almost instantly and after Dinner I get so tired... I crash on to my sofa and just decompress with youtube...

I saw a good video which said like to make habits consistent: make it easy and make it fun

Let's say I make it easy: I do my skincare instantly after work and set an easy reminder for that,

But then how do I make it fun?

My main challenges:

1. tight back due to daily sitting, with back pain (so bending for even more than 3 seconds gets tough).

2. I also have ADHD so doing the same mechanical things over and over again is just painful, I need different ways to do it so it remains interesting

I’m trying to find someone at Medium who can help escalate a Partner Program issue (pending for almost 5 months) that regular support has not even touched.

My taxpayer verification has been stuck in a loop for around 5 months. I have submitted my W-8BEN and taxpayer information multiple times, but after submission I’m sent back to the Partner Program dashboard and asked to verify my taxpayer information again.

I’ve contacted Medium Support several times. My existing ticket is #1654936, but I’ve received only automated acknowledgements and no substantive response.

The amount is small (less than $15) but it is now at risk of being forfeited on September 6 because the verification issue remains unresolved.

I’ve also tried reaching Medium through Instagram, but haven't received a response there either.

I’m mainly posting here to see if anyone has a direct contact at Medium who can help get ticket #1654936 in front of someone who can actually resolve or escalate it.

If you work at Medium, have dealt with Partner Program support, or know someone there who handles these issues, I’d really appreciate a connection.

I can provide screenshots and the full support history if needed to the right person.

Hi, I use Walling and found it useful except that their lists don't toggle on the mobile. On the web version, lists automatically toggle and also there's automatic progress tracking.

I was wondering if there is something like that in Craft.

To be clear, I am not looking for "toggle lists". I am looking for "toggle todo lists" - it's check list that also toggles. I tried making this in craft by first adding a toggle list and then adding a todo list to it. But the second action just overrides the first, the toggle list chevron converts to a todo list checkbox. Both can't seem to be done at the same time.

Or am I missing something here?

I know cards are an option but this is a different request I am trying on Craft

(as if anyone's gonna pay me for my mentoring... Lol 😂)

Anyway, coming to overwhelm

You don't know this but every minute you are outside amidst random sounds and lights

Your brain is taking those sensory inputs and absorbing that into your energy. ADHDers, most of us, are hypersensitive to sensory inputs of all kinds.

I just came from outside into my home and my god, the relief from this simple change is SO PROFOUND!

The unexplained, hidden anxiety that keeps flying under the radar after coming home - just gone.

I came home and turned off all the lights, except my bathroom.

I'm sitting in near pitch black darkness to give my eyes a break

I was exposed to random road noises on the way home. Now at home I'm listening to my own favourite songs. Controlled sound exposure - refreshing my nervous system with some good music, giving it a break from random cacophony of the road.

(Current song: APT by Rosé and Bruno Mars 🎼)

Then refreshment for body - will take a proper bath in hot water to refresh myself

That's the key - to overcome from SENSORY overwhelm, take care if your SENSES!

Hope this helps! 🙂

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

So I worked about 3.5 days this week (so far) and I feel pretty good. Today also I am working half day and here's a summary of how my day 1 went and what helped me through this week:

1. First point is about my self awareness. My Monday started late and I didn't do nothing for pretty much the first half of the day ~3pm. But that's been pretty normal for me. I know from my previous experience that my brain tends to activate in the evening after sunset. It helped me not flip out when I felt like I was "wasting time" until that evening. This confidence helped me take steps to get myself into action once I realized that I can put ~4 hours of work in if I start around 6 pm.
2. This one is about the logic of self compassion. I used to worry about not being productive and wasting my working hours, not finishing work by 5-6 pm, not starting by 10-11 am, overeating, sleeping, doom scrolling and so. But that's the normal work schedule of the corporate. I realized I was comparing myself to a standard that doesn't exist in my life right now. I have stopped worrying about "fitting in" into it. When I am working in a FT job where I need to maintain timing, I respect it. Not just to show but working along with the team helps a lot. Without a team, why synchronize with any timetable if there's no time pressure?

Does it matter when I do my work as long as I complete it? WHO cares if I finish my work at 5-6 pm or start at that time. As long as I am able to do meaningful work that gives me satisfaction, it doesn't matter if I work 4 hours, 2 hours, or 8 hours in a day. Why micro manage myself!

I don't need to hurry myself. I don't need to put undue pressure myself by comparing myself to other seemingly perfect schedules.

3. this one is about task clarity. I know projects that I want to work on this week. But that won't help me get started when my brain's executive function is frozen. So I sit and think - what goals I need to execute within each project? What's my task sequence (no schedule, no time blocking, I can afford that coz right now I am working for myself from my home and this low pressure work atmosphere suits me)

To stop task avoidance, I focus on my goal and my outcomes. Since I have 1 client right now, their tracking board on ClickUp really makes this outcome visualization easier. My short term outcome is a good quality article, my long term goal is maintaining my reputation as a good writer, and, of course, money.

4. to take advantage of my ADHD hyperfocus, I use themed days so I don't have to task switch. I assigned 1 day for 1 major task and then a smaller task once I have done the day's work for the major task. And the smaller task is optional. If the major task takes longer and gets me too tired, smaller task is postponed.

This structure has come to me after A LOT of iterations, trials, failures, and learning from failures. It was hard to deal with my shame and guilt. It became a vicious cycle once, one feeding into the other. And if you don't move (literally and metaphorically), the inertia is really, REALLY hard to break out of.

This had helped me realize - sometimes I can do seemingly useless things and that's okay because what matters more than "being productive" is not letting my momentum go. That's why Mondays are the hardest for me, coz my body and mind are working hard to break the inertia of the weekend.

5. Finally for distraction management, my phone stays out of my view when I am working on my laptop (out of sight, out of mind). 95% of my notifications are off, except business whatsapp, essential swiggy and mygate notifications (if I order something), and a few other essential apps whose other non essential notification types are also blocked in my phone (You can do this on Android. On Apple, granular notification blocks are not possible I think).

Most incoming calls are spam calls and they're auto blocked. Nobody significant in my life calls me (who says social isolation is always bad... it's good when it lets you work.. LOL)

Sometimes, I listen to the same song on repeat to reduce my overwhelm and give my brain a direction to think. I also put ear plugs mandatory every evening because I live in a family society and I just can't handle the kids screaming who are most active in the evening. If plugs don't help, I get up and tell the kids to stop screaming.

All projects are online through Chrome and I use an extension called Fresh Start to capture all windows of my projects. Each project in FreshStart has a name that matches its name in the client system. All I have to do to start a project is go to my Chrome, open the FS extension, and click the project that I want to start and BOOM all my necessary windows are open in a single click.

IF you take away ONE THING FROM this post, take away this: You get frozen not because you are not dedicated or anything, but because you literally don't have a single stable starting point. Every time you want to start a project, you brain has to retrieve all the different apps you need to open, all the different pages within those websites too. And if you accidentally open the wrong website, you will get distracted and end up wasting your time AND tiring my brain further. From desire to action, your brain has to cross a f/g minefield of distractions. Cut this minefield out of the way. Save your brain.

Can you just IMAGINE how much decision fatigue and operational friction I eliminated by putting all my necessary links for a project in a tab/session manager?

Do this and about 50% of your task initiation blocks will be removed!

At the end of the day, I put my laptop back in my backpack and close the zip, coz if I keep seeing it lying on the table when I am moving about the house, I will keep being reminded of the things I didn't do today. (once again, out of sight, out of mind - weaponizing my ADHD against my brain... LOL)

About those meds. Yes I take meds. But I don't give meds all the credit. Because if I didn't sleep well, if I didn't focus on my strengths throughout the day, if I kept whining to myself about how badly my day is going, if I don't apply self awareness and my ADHD awareness, my meds will do nothing for me.

EDIT: I made key concepts bold because I want to improve the readability of this post. We ADHDers already struggle with reading long texts, so why not use my writing skills to make my stuff readable! 😉

Met my psychiatrist this past week and told him about emotional blunting and he asked more questions. His questions helped me articulate my exact problem further:

After a sustained starting period during the intake of Bupropion, I face emotional blunting. I feel completely empty but still activated (tired but wired) during my post work hours at night (between end of work and sleep). I wanna do something, I wanna be active but emotions and inspiration is completely gone. And this affects my work too: I can't create social posts to market my business (I am an ADHD mentor but my primary work is B2B writing). And while right now I am writing mostly formulaic articles, this emotional blunting will affect when I get pieces which require my creativity and thought leadership writing skills.

When I thought about it and read about it more, I clarified the exact symptom further: I feel my emotional range collapses and thus my inspiration and creativity also collapse too. I am a creative person, I write and teach for a living. Without my emotions and creativity, I'm an empty husk!

During that conversation with my psych and later at home, I reflected on what we could do and two potential solutions came to mind (can be used together):

1. Take bupropion breaks on certain days or weekend days and instead run that day on caffeine (coffee or tea), but it must be strong and effective for your ADHD.
2. Add *rigorous* physical activity into your week: incline walking/hiking, running, tennis, kickboxing, high-effort fast badminton, with or without fast melodic songs etc. This genuinely has helped me before. I realize this is why I love walking and so did my late-and-potentially-undiagnosed father loved it too! Rigorous walking has been so regulating!

I am wondering if anyone has tried these solutions and how they worked for you.

Hi, 36 M here

I have been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD.

Also, I live alone with some extended family living a few hours away in my hometown. I work from my home most of the time.

That out of the way, coming to my back pain:

I have back pain all over for about 2 years but it's not radiating to the legs so luckily no sciatic nerve involvement

Much of it is due to age related disc and ligament degeneration and years and years of bad posture (sitting job).

My lumbar spine, as per a 2024 MRI, had lost its lordosis curve (began straightening a bit). So pain, when it flares up is the strongest there.

I had done a ~2 month course of strengthening exercises from a great physio at the start of 2026 and it worked wonders. My pain was gone and my digestion improved.

But recently due to rainy weather, the access to one of my regular cafes was blocked due to heavy traffic causing traffic jams. I drive my scooter and I already take longer route to that cafe coz the roads here are really bad. But due to this traffic jam issue, I changed my route and this one kinda undid the work I did some 6 months ago.

My back now is back to being very weak in strength. I am back to my original longer route to avoid the traffic jams, I just go at a different time and my routine has changed.

Now my back tightens up regularly (I can't escape the sitting job) so I try my best to keep moving, walking, and use the foam roller. I have kept that foam roller next to me on my large bed. I don't stretch as much as I should.

I can recover from much of the tightness and in upper and middle back from foam rolling and unstructured stretching.

However, my lumbar spine pain is never fully gone and it's the highest in the morning when I open my eyes. Actually in the morning, my entire back is tight and lumbar is specifically painful.

Due to this, I quickly grab my phone kept next to me and it makes me glued to my bed. I end up wasting a lot of time, my entire first hour is gone in scrolling and watching YouTube.

I struggle a lot with procrastination due to my executive function difficulties (coming from my neurodivergence). So starting my day with guilt from the wasted first hour - it's just killing me.

I need some help getting up and active into my routine quickly. Most of the time, i am too groggy to even notice the pain, but if I pay attention, I will notice this.

Has anybody experienced this? How do I deal with this morning pain and get into my work quickly?

So far, I have tried morning high energy transition songs but only partially helpful. Also, I forget this often (ADHD 😝)

Absolute gold ... MUST WATCH... less than 8 minutes

So I was talking to a guy on my pre-coaching call. He asked this question and I should have responded at that time but I couldn't fully gather my thoughts in the moment

It is a great question so I'm responding now here for everyone's benefit.

For context: the guy is a freelance UX designer. Has a lot of projects, struggles to focus and finish the most important ones, has several pending projects, and remains frozen. Pretty much "garden variety ADHD". I say this not to disrespect people with similar struggles but that's the common appearance of ADHD I've seen. From this sub itself.

Also. This is me too. You should see how long my own projects list is!!

Okay so now to the answer:

There's a hard skills part of ADHD management here: prioritising, getting started, context mgmt, context renewal, gratitude, and validation.

All of this takes a backseat if you are not motivated to do anything.

When I look at my life 12 years ago vs now, I am a different person. It feels like I lived the wrong life. Sometimes I feel so nostalgic for my old ways of living.

So I see a choice: do I go back to living life like I was living 10 years ago?

Or do I go forward and build something new from here?

10 years ago: I was addicted to food, a mess at work, absent in relationships, and never cared to make friends (I am autistic so ignoring people and friends came very easy to me!)

I didn't stop to think, I just did things as they came to mind. I lived in the moment. I would eat breakfast and by lunch I would forget what I had for breakfast. Life was always about the next step.

It was glorious. I felt so free. No rules. Nothing and no one to stop me.

But that same approach to life led to my mental health collapse.

Challenges came and I ignored them. People came to help, I pushed them away. I forgot to love my loved ones.

Most importantly, I forgot to love myself.

If I go back to old ways, I also bring old issues back.

If I decide to go forward from here, I see uncertainty. I don't see a clear laid out path.

It's dark, it's sad, it's confusing.

I am still anxious, though not as before.

I am still alone, though I know who to talk to about what even though I don't talk to people that often.

I still have to pay to live in my own house, except this time it's society maintenance and not rent.

I am not in the same sad hopeless job I was 10 years ago.

But I also am aware how to use my brain now. And due to somewhat of a better mental health now, I know how to move forward. I know the mistakes I made before.

These days I am much more measured and careful. I'm not as reckless with my health. I am not self sabotaging my relationships. I am allowing myself to be wrong and to apologise.

These days when I look at myself, I feel like an adult. I am tied down to life but I know I am not doing it for the sake of doing it.

I know my goals - at least fairly clearly. I am clear about what I don't want to do. I know how to manage my ADHD (not perfect yet but perfectionism is so boring!). I also have a newfound appreciation for life.

Previously it was just an empty jungle.

These says it's still a jungle but the trail through the woods is much more clear.

Life has given me a second chance.

The question is do I move forward with an awareness of my mistakes and a newfound appreciation of life?

Or do I stay stuck, stay lost here, and keep whining until I die?

I choose the first option. What about you?

36 M here from India
93.4Kg / 165cm

Diagnosed with ADHD and Autism

Meds:
(night)
Escitalopram 25mg
Oxcarbzapine 150mg (mood maintenance, pain maintenance)
Clonidine 100 mcg

(brunch time)
Caffeine (McD coffee is the best in India around me, regular hot americano if weather is cold, regular iced americano during summers)

(afternoon)

Bupropion XL 150mg (about 1-2 hours after coffee)

Other (non psych) meds: Pentosan Polysulphate Sodium for my bladder pain syndrome (100mg X 3 times a day, for now, for the first month)

I am unable to understand why this happening. Why am I feeling sleepy when I mixed caffeine and bupropion regardless of the order I take them in? Everywhere I check this interaction - people can either continue having both or have to stop caffeine coz it causes anxiety and jitteriness.

For me, if I take Bupropion first then caffeine, I do have anxiety but not jitters. Sleepiness is high and I ultimately end up sleeping it off. Because of the reduction in productivity coz of that, I had stopped Bupropion for almost 2 weeks.

Today is the first day I switched the order. I had caffeine first, then about 1-2 hours later, I took my bupropion tablet with food. Didn't feel much anxiety, but definitely sleepiness which interrupts my focus work

Whereas without bupropion, caffeine worked as intended and never put me to sleep (some ADHD folks do report coffee makes them sleepy, not the case with me)

I want to understand why is this weird reaction happening and if there's a solution other than quitting caffeine because I need it to warm my body up in cold weather (that has just started in India as monsoons have just arrived). I suspect Clonidine and/or Oxcabzapine has some effect here.

Also, my psych wants to go up to 300 mg XL on Bupropion as per titration and I think I want to go up too as Bupropion effect on focus seems to be reducing.

Happy to answer more questions if possible

If Brexit didn't happen, if UK was still within the EU, could British people with ADHD head on across the channel and go to France/Germany/Spain to get a diagnosis?

Could EU be a source of taking care of supplementary support for diagnosis and/or medication?

I know NHS has massive queues that can take years for diagnoses and then there can be medication shortages.

But I don't know much else. I am just curious coz I follow UK politics on YT and there has been some talk of reversing Brexit on there.

I've been on Bupropion XL 150mg right from the start, some 7 months ago

Extremely bright, vivid dreams once every night were common in the first week

But they stopped in the recent months and my sleep wasn't as restful

I was also on Clonidine 100mcg until couple of weeks ago.

To improve sleep quality, I ramped up Clonidine to 200mcg. This was already prescribed by my psychiatrist at my last visit, but in the first 1.5 months after my last visit - I started Melatonin 5mg for a while (also what psychiatrist had initially prescribed).

But since I moved up to Clonidine 200mcg (kept my bupropion at 150mg XL), my dreams have been extra vivid. Several vivid dreams per night. Last night I woke up as I was laughing in my dreams. It was so funny. But turned and slept again.

So my theory is: these are rem sleep dreams. Meaning thanks to Bupropion, my sleep has been really deep and restful.