drawing by the author using Adobe Fresco #byHumansForHumans #noAIRaise your hand if you’ve ever found yourself rummaging through drawers, wandering through room after room in your house, checking backpacks and briefcases and pockets repeatedly, all while muttering “I know I saw that somewhere…”“That”, of course, is a thing that you did not need when you saw it last. It registered as a blip on your conscious mind — the feeling of “Oh, I see that. Good to know I still have it” without the burden of actually remembering where it is located.Then, a few days/weeks/months later, you suddenly realize it would be useful for some task or project — or, worse, it’s essential for it. For example:* your partner just surprised you with a getaway to the Caribbean — where’s my passport?* your cat ate one of your earbuds right before your Zoom meeting, but you know you have a spare pair — somewhere.* you accidentally left your glasses at work, but you have an old pair in the junk drawer? No. Closet shelf? No. Dresser? No. The other shoulder bag! No. *sigh*As you’re stumbling around the house with blurred vision apologizing to your boss for the echo while your partner is reminding you that the flights need to be booked, know that there is a straightforward method to finding the thing you need.The 3-step guide to finding that thing.Step 1: Give up.It’s lost. Just admit it. Even if you live in a 600-square-foot house and have rearranged the furniture twice looking for it, it is gone — vanished through a wormhole to another part of the multiverse. Take solace in the realization that somewhere there is an alternate version of yourself who is holding that thing, muttering “Where did this come from? I don’t remember having this,” just like you did last week.It’s not personal. It’s just how the laws of nature and physics work.Step 2: Order a replacement.It used to be a lot harder when we lived as hunters and were forced to chip our replacement obsidian arrowheads after searching for hours in the bush by the spot where we missed the capybara. At least there were some nice berries there as a consolation prize as our mates and children watched us with hungry eyes as we made a few more shafts. And I’d like to think there was some consolation in knowing that millennia later some anthropologist would get a byline in NatGeo after finding the one you lost.Now, replacing those things you lost is as easy as a click away — even if you don’t have next-day delivery, there’s usually a one-week trial you can use.Or get past the free-shipping threshold by ordering two of whatever it is you lost — that way you’re sure to have a spare in another place you will forget within an hour of carefully placing it there. You must make sure to order it online — don’t go out and buy it in person.Step 3: Lose something else.This is the tricky part because you can’t fake it. Pretending to look for something else in order to warp the space-time continuum into revealing the thing you actually need almost never works.The universe knows.But if you actually put yourself in a situation where there is another thing (let’s call it Thing 2) that you* need,* remember seeing recently, but* cannot locate in the first, second, or third places you think to look…then you can start looking for this new lost object, again checking through all the same places, bags, cushions, pets, vehicles, plants, light fixtures, and top-shelf kitchen cupboards.You won’t find it — that’s not going to happen.But along the way, you will find the first thing that you needed but couldn’t find. It will be in a spot you are pretty sure you looked before as if it spontaneously appeared from some alternate dimension — and indeed, some suggest that is exactly what happened. It will also be in a spot that you remember putting it, your past self placing it carefully because, at the time, it made sense. It’s not your past self’s fault; that ally put it there specifically so that it would be safe, ready for when you needed it.They were wrong.But now you can go back online and cancel that replacement you ordered (well, you would be able to if you had a better functioning working memory. That’s ok — when it arrives, you get the opportunity to forget to return it). Reflect on how fortunate you are to live in this miraculous age! You can’t un-chip obsidian.What about finding Thing 2?The beauty of this process, like all natural cycles like the seasons and parthenogenesis is that it can be repeated ad infinitum with Thing 3, Thing 4, and so on.Yesterday I found Thing 45,673 — an old set of Apple AirPods. It was next to the little chest of drawers in my closet. I didn’t need it any more — I use BeatsPro now — but it’s nice to know I have it. I also didn’t find the mic stand extender that I was actually looking for when I found the AirPods. That’s ok; I’ll need a USB cord soon, or that notebook where I scribbled that reminder, and the extender will show up.I think the lesson I’m supposed to learn is that it’s not so much about the finding, it’s about the looking. Or non-attachment. Or minimalism? I’m not really sure.I just know that this process has happened enough times to become something that I can rely on.Two alternate methods that also work for finding things:Since you read this far, I will share with you two other techniques that pretty reliably work to find things that you are sure you had, remember seeing somewhere, but are nowhere to be found.1. When you put something somewhere, tell somebody. This comes from my friend and talented artist Kevin Beck. It’s not about the person he tells remembering it — they have absolutely no responsibility to even hear him say it. Somehow the act of saying out loud “I’m putting my iPad on the desk” makes it almost impossible to forget. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that while the brain forgets the act of putting the object somewhere, it remembers the act of telling someone about it. Pretty sure if I tried it I’d remember telling the person — but I wouldn’t remember what I said. Further testing is needed.2. Ask my partner. Admittedly, I’m not sure this method scales, but the other remarkably successful way I’ve located items is by asking my partner if she’s seen it. Often, even if she doesn’t know what it is, was not around when I put it away, or even was aware that it existed, the act of her suggesting a place where it might be remarkably increases the odds that it will end up being there — Even if it’s a place I’ve already looked.She denies being magical, and I believe her. Based on Clarke’s Law, she simply has some sufficiently advanced multiversal teleportation technology that happens to be remarkably helpful in my life.I don’t ask. I’m simply grateful. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

You can read the article version of this podcast elsewhere on this substack, but meanwhile I have three questions for you:* Do you like to hear the written articles read on the podcast, or is that redundant? Would you rather it were commentary on the articles, or completely different subjects?* Would you be interested in a live broadcast of some kind, hosted on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Discord? I’m thinking of an "online open space” type of event.* I have been contacted by a medical clinic that treats ADHD, offering their professional experience and input for my writing and podcast. Do you have any questions or topics with that kind of focus you’d like me to explore with them?The best part about writing this is that if you actually want to answer, you can email me at [email protected] and I will respond! And if I get no email back, then I know the interest isn’t there yet!Meanwhile — I would appreciate it if you shared this podcast with others! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

for those who didn’t want to read the post, I put it up in a podcast! Enjoy the mellifluous tones as I talk about the way my brain has found some grace after my diagnosis. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

There’s a text version of this article right here . As this is posted, it’s exciting because we are only a week away from the ADHD Open Space in Madison, WI that started this whole thing! There’s still plenty of time to register and join the other professional adults with ADHD who will be gathering to learn from each other at Serendipity Labs. Click below to register! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

Image created by Dall-E using prompt: “an illustration of a professional with ADHD learning to adjust their time, energy and attention to be more productive.”Click on the transcript tab for the entire podcast - and here is an excerpt that came straight from my notes: Think about your morning commute.Think about how many signs you rely on — street signs, construction notifications, speed limits.And how many signals — seeing when to stop, when to go, when people are going to change lanes. In fact, think about how irritating it is when someone cuts in front of you without signaling. How that puts you on edge, spikes your cortisol, makes your heart beat faster with fear masked as anger (because it’s not that you’re mad abut the signal, you’re mad because of what could have happened if you weren’t a good enough driver to have noticed them moving over).Now that you’ve imagined that, imagine that you have a certain kind of mental disability that made you blind to all the signs and signals.You could see everything still. You could drive, you had the skills, but you had to make your best guess about where to turn. You had to be hyper-vigilant while driving, because you never knew when someone was going to slow down, turn, or when traffic might get faster or slower. You had to deal with other drivers honking angrily or shaking their head at you as you try to drive as well as they do — but the thing is, they can see the signs, they can read the signals, it’s second nature to them.Why don’t you just try to drive better?Welcome to the world of a time-blind professional with ADHD. Except instead of making the commute to work, we’re traveling through time — all in the same direction as our coworkers, both neurotypical and neurodivergent.But very much not at the same rate. We’ll talk about that later.To carry the metaphor a bit further, if you were blind to the signals that had been created for people that could see them but still had to get places, you would likely find other ways to help you travel. If you can’t rely on your senses, you’d use other sensors that you could rely on — perhaps the odometer telling you distance, combined with a map of the area. Maybe you’d spend extra time driving around, trying to connect landmarks to your common destinations.And if there was a new destination, or a new route you had to take, you’d simply buckle down and accept that getting to where you need to be was going to be a bit more complex for you than for most of your colleagues.That’s the difference — a professional finds scheduling tools useful. For a professional with ADHD, they are necessary.Most people have a general idea of what they are going to do during their day. Most people can tell when a certain amount of time has passed, and they need to move on to something else.That’s not how it works for the professional with ADHD. Put them in a room where there’s nothing to do, and after a bit ask them how long they think they’ve been there.Forever.On the other hand, put them in a room with something they care about, they are interested in, they enjoy doing, and leave them there for three or four hours. Then come in and tell them it’s time to leave.What, already?I know, I know. “That happens to everybody.” Yes, of course it does — it just happens to people with ADHD more. A lot more. In fact, for some, it feels like all the time.There is no such concept of “a while”, “a bit”, or that nefarious prankster, “just a few”.There is now. And there is not now.Anything else? We have to rely on externalized systems.Externalized Systems Help EverybodyExternalized scheduling tools are not new. You may remember some kerfluffle about a particular Mayan version of google calendar a few years back? Or maybe that bunch of rocks in England that line up with uncanny precision during certain times of the year.Of course, we can’t all carry around big seasonal stone alarm clocks, or even tiny sundials on our wrists a la Fred Flintstones. If you’re reading this, you probably use the default 12-month, 365-day, 24-hour timekeeping system that we inherited from the Romans who stole it from the Greeks who inherited it from the Egyptians and Babylonians…look, it’s complicated, and outside the scope of this article.But there’s a neat little theme to the history of how we arrived at the units we use to measure time, and it’s a pretty simple one:It was convenient.What follows is some “facts” about the history of time, as much as lightly-researched reputable-publications can relate them. Any errors are likely my own, but I didn’t have time for a deep dive.But get this:* We have 60 seconds in the day and 60 seconds in the hour because that’s how the Sumerians did it. No one knows why they chose that number — best guess is that it’s usefully divisible by 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 — but that’s how they did it, and the Babylonians learned it that way, and so did the Egyptians, and therefore the Greeks did it that way, and the Romans…all the way to that “:59” on your technologically advanced supercomputer on your wrist.* We have 12 hours in the day possibly because there are 12 lunar cycles in the year, but also possibly because you have twelve knuckles on your fingers — which you can count with your thumb like a little counting rod. Yes, seriously, that’s one of the reasons historians think the Egyptians used base 12. As digits go, it is pretty handy…* Because they liked base 12, when they invented the first sundials, they attempted to divide the day and the night into 12 sections as well — 10 regular “hours” and then an hour on each end for twilight and dawn. Unfortunately, sundials are entirely solar powered, and that made it hard to divide the night equally — so that’s when they got really complicated:* Stay with me here: Egyptian astronomers divided the sky into equal parts using 36 stars, 18 of which would appear on any given night (with each of the two twilight periods highlighted by three particularly bright stars that they could still see). That left 12 stars to divide the “dark” hours equally (yay, back to the comforting duodecimal system!).* If that seems too complex, they felt that way too. During the “New Kingdom” (well, new to them, it was in 1550 B.C.) they “simplified” it to 24 stars — still with 12 to mark the passage of the night.* Before you get too comfortable with the idea of these twenty four hours days, you should know that since they were measured with sundials, they only were equal hours on the equinoxes. The rest of the year, the length of the “hour” varied based on the season. Roman hours, for example, were more like this:Illustration By Darekk2 via Wikipedia — Own work, used under CC BY-SA 4.0* It wasn’t that they couldn’t divide the hours equally — there was a device called the clepsydra or water clock that kept incredibly accurate time, and that’s been found in places dated as early as 1400 B.C. It just wasn’t very useful. People’s lives were ruled by the seasons, and why pretend like a winter night was the same as a summer one, when it was obviouslydifferent?* Even when a Greek smart guy named Hipparchus finally standardized equal hours, they were more an oddity or a scientific tool than any part of everyday life. It was another 1500 years before the common people started even using hours in clocks — and another two hundred before any regular folks bothered with minutes.* We know exactly when we all finally started using the same “standard” time — December 1st, 1847. And not because that has any particular kind of galactic or seasonal or even religious significance (except perhaps to trainspotters). No, that was just the point at which the British railways adopted a standard time to measure when their trains would arrive.* The U.S. would take almost another forty years to adopt the same system, and it eventually spread throughout the world as countries had more global contact.So what it comes down to is that this system of time that we use, that is held up as being “the most valuable asset” and “not to be wasted” and “every minute counts” — is a big pile of convenience, coincidence, tradition, and we’ve all agreed on it for less than 200 years.That’s 6,311,433,600 Seconds, if you’re counting. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

“…for the first half of November, I was able to post every day.And after that, I posted two podcasts on the 15th.And then I was doing every day until the 18th.And then things started to fall apart.And I'll tell you why in a moment.But first, I'll tell you why it was so easy.”Thank you for reading ADHD Open Space. Every episode here is free, so feel free to share it with anyone you think might enjoy it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

Let me tell you about the winter when the Idea Monster came and sat in his brain and almost kept the last five NaPodPoMo podcasts from happening. And also…about the fun game about ADHD that I’m creating.“Squirrel card, like…Someone sent a thumbs up emoji and you're distracted, lose, you're distracted, so you lose a certain number of emotional regulation tokens.Or you moved houses three months ago and can't find that one box with all the cleaning supplies.Immediately give up on all house related goal cards.So if you were planning on organizing your closet, or doing the dishes, nope, not gonna happen.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

RSD is probably the least favorite “superpower” of ADHD.“…I felt numb.I felt like there was nothing worth doing or anything.It all seemed very, very pointless.Um, and I was lucky that I had access to healthcare and I believe in, you know, the power of therapy.And I got to talk to a VA therapist and go through a program.And one of the parts of the program was he said, look, what did you do when you were a kid that you enjoyed?When you were, you know, what's the last time you remember doing something that was just for you, that you enjoyed for yourself, for itself, not because you were going to make money at it or get things like that?And I said, well, I liked Dungeons and Dragons.”I mention an article from Psychology Today in this episode. You can find it here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

I became aware of, and bought, the Apple Watch about eleven years ago. I became aware of my ADHD, and was diagnosed, about a year ago.But I’ve had it for about fifty-four.When the device came out in 2012, it seemed the perfect tool for my busy life: all the alarms I would ever need, the ability to receive and respond to texts, haptic taps for directions, and an infinite variety of watch face combinations from the minimalist to the ridiculous.Like any technology, the promise came with a price. My partner and my friends grew to dislike the little buzz of notifications that came at any particular time. The urge to fiddle with the settings or change the face or install a new app became a convenient procrastinative device when I didn’t want to do something. It was hard to find the balance between “useful” and “distracting”.Now, looking at it thru the lens of my ADHD diagnosis, that makes total sense. The watch was an improved scaffolding to compensate for my time blindness and hyper-focus. Again and again it was the thing that reminded me: you have to stop what you’re doing and do something else now.At the same time, it is a dopamine dispenser. Ooh! A text! Hey! An update! Wait, you say there’s a neat game I can put on there? What, a Star Trek background that makes it look like an LCARS display?Those infinite settings, pretty light-up display, and multiple notifications have been a tempting and easy squirrel that I’ve followed too many times.What if I could minimize the distraction but leverage the power?There had to be a way that my Apple Watch could help compensate some aspects of ADHD and also augment the “super-powers”: hyper-focus and spontaneous idea association.I had to do it carefully, though. I live in the most distracting culture on the planet with a brain that is more distractible than most.Here’s what I did:1. Twist the watch to the inside of my wrist.I started simple: out of sight, out of mind. You may already do this, because you’re cool like John Wick, but if not, I urge you to give it a try.Here’s a visual to illustrate:The Apple Watch has a tough enough face that it’s not going to be scratched in everyday life. It also makes it less convenient to access the screen and dial — which is a good thing. The obstacle is the way to not mess with it unless I actually need to.Just putting my watch on the inside of my wrist has helped me escape the constant urge to see how much time has passed, fiddle with the apps, or suddenly decide I need to change the watch face.More than that, putting the clock face out of sight minimizes the feeling of being bound by time — something I wrote about more extensively here:* Related: Your Clock is Stealing Your Life on graymiller.medium.comInstead of a little nagging Miss Minutes on my wrist, I choose when I want to know what time the rest of the world has decided it is.The rest of the time is mine, to experience for myself.2. Tweak three watch settings.First of all, let’s get one thing clear: I’ve not found any way to get the Apple Watch to do what I actually want it to do.That is: I would like the display to only show a timer app, without the time, every time I look at my wrist. Since I can’t do that, here’s the workarounds I’ve found that help me escape the minutes and slip into flow.* Turn off always on. Everybody was excited when Apple found a way to have the watch display show, dimly, all the time. You didn’t have to raise your wrist or push a button to wake your watch!However, a watch that is always on is always watching me. The urge to check what time it is constantly takes me outside of whatever task I’m doing. Go to Watch App → Displays & Brightness → Always On and turn it Off* Set Return to Clock to One HourAnother thing that helps me stay in focus is to make sure that when I’ve set music or a timer or some other focus my watch won’t switch back to the default face as quickly. in a perfect world, I’d be able to tell it to only be a haptic timer on my wrist, and nothing else. As far as I can tell — after about an hour of research online — there’s not much of anything that will do that (Pavlok comes close, but has horrible user reviews). Unfortunately, even with Watch App → General → Return to Clock set to One Hour, all the apps have a “feature” that turns out to be an ADHD bug: they still want to show you the time. Want to play music? The time is up in the corner. Got a timer running? There’s a big beautiful circle showing how many minutes you have left…and the external time.3. Pro Tip: Set Theater Mode If you’re reading an article about “improving focus” I’m betting you’ve read others, and you already know the ubiquitous tip of turn off as many notifications as possible. That kind of binary thinking always bothered me; I’d rather find ways to reduce the level of distraction instead. Theater mode is designed to let your watch still have alerts — timer, important messages, etc — but not have the watch-face light up. I’ve found this is an extra bit of insulation from digital distraction that can be really helpful. If I need to know the time, or need some other app, I can always push buttons or use Siri.You access this from your default watch screen — swipe up press the long button on the side and you’ll see a bunch of icons to trigger “flashlight” or “airplane mode” or the like.Thank you for reading ADHD Open Space. Know someone with an Apple Watch & ADHD? This post is public so feel free to share it.3. Wherever possible I use timers instead of time.Clocks are designed to force us all into experiencing time the same way.This is useful when it comes to things like appointments and train schedules.I realized, though, that when I use a clock to set the boundary for an activity, I am putting that activity in a context along with everything else that is happening in the world.Let’s say I want to work out for a half hour, starting at 2pm. My brain will automatically start thinking about what comes at 2:30, about getting the dog to the groomer by 3, about yabba-dooing from work at 5, about whether I’ll get to sleep before 10, about whether I’ll stay asleep beyond 5am…On the other hand (ha!) if I set a timer for 30 minutes, instead, then all the focus is on what I am doing. I have X minutes or hours left; that keeps my focused on what I’m going to accomplish in that time.While there are lots of timer apps out there (the one that comes stock with the Apple Watch is pretty awesome, since you can voice-activate it) I’ve only found two at the time of this writing that will both operate as timers as well as sync with your calendar so you don’t have to re-do it for every activity: TIIMO and How Long Left (I am not affiliated with either app).If I was trying to come up with some kind of pithy slogan, I might say something like Become a timer, not a timee.But that’s kind of ridiculous, so we’ll pretend I didn’t.It’s not perfect, but it’s better.Please, someone invent a simple haptic timer app that will do everything that TIIMO or How Long Left does, but won’t show me the time.Or a device that does that andcosts less than $40.Until then, making these small changes has made more of my time feel subjective, rather than objective. I can’t escape Miss Minutes because (waves hands at capitalist hellscape surrounding us) but these tiny hacks give me access to some tiny corners of flow and peace. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com

This is the final part of this particular series in the ADHD Open Space podcast. And like most explorations, more topics and questions came up than actual solutions. I mention a few people in this podcast that I would love to link to:* Jesse J. Anderson ADHD educator and coach* Caren Magill (YouTube link) ADHD educator and coach especially helpful for late-diagnosed folks like me.* Marie Poulin (affiliate link, but one I can unreservedly recommend).* Charlie Gilkey Productive Flourishing (especially great for people who work in teams or entrepreneurs).* Arianna Bradford (ADHD Coach and the person who I learned the Command Center hack from)(also great YouTuber)However, one solution that I mention that can help is a newcomer to the support networks: ChatGPT. In fact, I got a rough draft of this entire series from Chat GPT earlier this week when I realized I was behine on my NaPodPoMo podcasts. Here’s the outline it gave me:Here are four podcast episode outlines centered around the theme of externalizing executive function for adults with ADHD:Episode 1: "Understanding Executive Function in ADHD"* Introduction:* Brief overview of executive function and its challenges for adults with ADHD.* Segment 1: Defining Executive Function in Everyday Terms* Break down the components of executive function (planning, organization, time management) and how they manifest in daily life.* Segment 2: Real-Life Scenarios* Share anecdotes or case studies illustrating how executive function difficulties affect adults with ADHD.* Segment 3: Expert Insights* Interview with a psychologist or expert in ADHD discussing the neurological aspects of executive function challenges.Episode 2: "Tools and Strategies for Externalizing Executive Function"* Introduction:* Recap of executive function challenges and the importance of externalizing.* Segment 1: The Power of External Tools* Explore various tools and technologies that can help externalize executive function (planners, apps, reminders).* Segment 2: Tangible Strategies for Success* Discuss actionable strategies for breaking tasks into manageable steps and creating external structures.* Segment 3: Listener Q&A* Address questions from listeners about specific challenges they face and offer practical solutions.Episode 3: "Hacking Your Environment: Externalizing for Success"* Introduction:* Emphasize the role of the environment in supporting executive function.* Segment 1: Optimizing Your Physical Space* Tips on creating an ADHD-friendly workspace and organizing living areas to reduce cognitive load.* Segment 2: Time Management Techniques* Discuss time-blocking, setting routines, and using external cues to manage time effectively.* Segment 3: Personal Success Stories* Feature stories from individuals who have successfully externalized executive function in their lives.Episode 4: "Building External Support Networks"* Introduction:* Discuss the importance of social support for managing ADHD.* Segment 1: Communicating with Family and Friends* Strategies for explaining ADHD challenges to loved ones and seeking their support.* Segment 2: Professional Support* Explore the role of coaches, therapists, or support groups in helping individuals externalize executive function.* Segment 3: Cultivating Self-Compassion* Discuss the importance of self-compassion and self-care in managing executive function challenges.Each episode can include personal stories, practical tips, and expert insights to create a well-rounded discussion on externalizing executive function for adults with ADHD.If you’ve listened to all the episodes, you can see that I didn’t follow it exactly. I would not do that; I do know of at least one other ADHD writer who seems to simply re-post essays written by AI, and I’d rather that was not the case.But it did make it much easer to get closer to my goal of posting 30 podcasts in 30 days (even if seven of them are on the last two days). And I think there’s a lot more executive functioning load that can be shouldered by ChatGPT if you simply learn better how to use it. Which is why I’m taking an AI prompt creation course…Transcript is available in the tab above — remember to share, like, comment, or otherwise let me know you like what you hear! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit adhdos.substack.com