Hackning Your Executive Dysfunction ✨

Do you have any executive dysfunction hacks?? More specifically ones that relate to schoolwork and keeping myself motivated? Love your blog by the way 💖💖

Omg thank you so so much it makes me so happy to hear that you like my blog you are literally the sweetest🥺💕💖💘

I’m really sorry this took so long to answer I have been having the hardest time with executive dysfunction lately (ironically) and I procrastinated answering.

Hackning your executive dysfunction ✨

+Study edition📚📝

#1 Learn your triggers and how to spot executive dysfunction🧠

A lot of times I can tell that certain circumstances makes my executive dysfunction worse. And recognising these ”triggers” can help you become more aware of your behaviors. Knowing what contributes to your executive dysfunction will help you work towards creating strategies to overcome it.

A few examples of my triggers:

Not getting dressed in the morning

Skipping meals🍳

Working from home 🏡

Not washing my face in the morning🧼

Not using my calendar 🗓

Skipping workouts 🏋️‍♀️

Not brushing my teeth

Now a lot of these are tied to my physical health and hygiene and sometimes these are things that my exectutive dysfunction keep me from doing. But I try to look at them as medicine. I have to eat and brush my teeth and workout because it makes my brain and body happy. It’s hard but with practice you’ll get there.

By avoiding your triggers you’re at least setting yourself up for succsess. As silly as it sounds. Getting dressed in the morning can make the difference between lying on the couch all say and having anxiety because I haven’t gotten anything done and actually being productive and beating my executive dysfunction.

#2 Plan everything and write it down🗓✏️

I have a lot of issues with working memory. It’s just not there a lot of days. I forget everything. When I’m trying not to forget things, I’m spending a lot more energy than non ADHD people just trying to remember. Now this is a lot of energy that you can save by simply writing it down. Use a planner or a to do list or fifty of them if you have to.

I use a very simple system for this. I take a piece of paper and write ”to do” then I make 2 seperate colums. Above the first I write ”overall” or something like it. There I write down literally everything I can think of. ”Study” ”shower” ”laundry” ”make to do list” ” ”put away dirty socks” ”think about what to make for dinner” whatever, big or small.

Once that list is finished, I write above the second column ”today” and I pick from the first list what things I need/want to have finished on the same day. Try not to go overboard with this one. Think baby steps. It’s easy to become excited and think that you’re going to do everything because you often will get a burst of energy from planning stuff but stick to maybe 4-5 things a day at first.

Now the hardest part is to keep doing it. Usually you do really good for 2 weeks and then forget about it. Especially when the benefits are starting to show, you tend to forget your system because things are doing so good and then you stop and end up right where you started.

The way I (sort of) solved this was to make weekly ”evaluations”. What I do is I sit down and evaluate how much I planned this week and how much of what I planned I actually acomplished. By doing this I held myself accountable.

#3 ”The one thing” strategy

Now if all else fails despite your best efforts and you have no energy or motivation to do any of the things you want/have to, this is a good strategy to get yourself into a more productive mindset or at least check one thing of your to-do list.

It’s pretty much self-explanatory. You pick one thing and one thing only, even if you have a mountain of things that has to get done. Ignore them. All of them. They don’t exist anymore, they’re poofed out out existance for now.

Instead put your energy into doing one productive thing. After you finished the one thing you’re done. 100% done. No more doing stuff for you. You get to throw yourself back in bed if you like, or get a snack, whatever.

What usually happens however is that you’ll feel more energized and motivated by having completed a task and you’ll feel like continuing. If that’s the case, GREAT, if not you at least got 1 thing done instead of nothing.

#4 Find a studying technique that actually works for you🔑

I’m going to be brutally honest with you. This right here☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻is what made the difference between passing and not passing my exams this year.

I struggled for a really long time with my studies, No matter if I spent 5 hours reading a text book it just. Didn’t. Stick. And I used to get so upset because I was trying sooooo hard and everyone else could do it so why not me? It really lowered my motivation because no matter how hard I tried I always failed.

I watched hundreds of ”how to study” and ”study tips” videos on youtube and read tumblr posts but I still never really understood why I was having such a hard time until I tried using flashcards and it changed my whole view on studying.

It turned out I wasn’t stupid or lazy. I could understand everything on the page but as soon as I had read it, it was gone. I couldn’t remember any of it so it didn’t matter that I actually understood the subject quite well because I could never remember the contents.

What changed the game for me entirely was switching entirely over to flash cards and memory based studying. I went from failing entirely to actually getting really good results.

(A lot of people with ADHD struggle with memory so I would suggest always incorporating a lot of ”memory based” studying even if your best study technique is based on a different strategy)

The moral of the story is that sometimes we struggle without knowing why and it’s only by trying new things that we find out that maybe we weren’t lacking the ability as much as we thought, we just needed the right key to unlock it.

I hope you find some of these tips at least a little bit helpful and i wish you luck with your studies📚✨

Feel free to comment/reblog with your own tips and hacks for executive dysfunction/study motivation☺️✨

PS: This is a sideblog so I reply to comments as @time-for-tea-and-flattery