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Link: https://youtu.be/5XWeUvOpOYY

We live in a world designed for those who are Neurotypical, but when designing a world for those of us who have ADHD, we need to think about what it means to be "ADHD Friendly". So then, what does it mean to be "ADHD Friendly", and what makes it so?

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What is ADHD friendly for you? How do you explain ADHD friendly to others? Comment below! 

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What Makes Something "ADHD Friendly"?

We live in a world designed for those who are Neurotypical, but when designing a world for those of us who have ADHD, we need to think about what it means to be "ADHD Friendly". So then, what does it mean to be "ADHD Friendly", and what makes it so? Support us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/howtoadhd Check out our website: http://howtoadhd.com Follow us on all the things: Twitter: http://twitter.com/howtoadhd TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howtoadhd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howtoadhd/ Facebook: http://facebook.com/howtoadhd Our Merch Shop: http://shop.howtoadhd.com Music for "What Makes Something "ADHD Friendly"?": "The Show Must Be Go”, “Carefree”, “Life of Riley”, “Bittersweet” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Comments

Anonymous

talking about accommodations sometimes makes me wonder whether i actually even have/am ADHD, because so many things don't seem to help me, or don't help enough, or only help sometimes. it's frustrating.

Anonymous

I'm just starting this journey and so far figuring out how to make something ADHD friendly means setting aside all the rules of what I think something is "supposed" to be or how it works. Example: I was so excited to finally have money and space for a home office and got a nice desk and chair. I hate the chair. I can't sit cross-legged, I can't fidget in it. It never occurred to me before my diagnosis that just my furniture would keep me from getting work done.

How to ADHD

That's not uncommon honestly! I actually have *two* boards on Asana to track my recurring activities. One board is organised by location so "Projects", "Meetings", "Patreon", "Discord"... The second board is organised by timing so "Weekly", "Monthly", "Quarterly". Because MOST TIMES I work better with the first one... but there are SOME days where that overwhelms me and I'd prefer to just see it organised by Time. But it definitely is frustrating!!! At the end of the day... I find that having *options* help me. That way if I'm not functioning well in one way maybe I can function well in another. Like yesterday for example! I couldn't really come up with words for things but I could organise some data... And honestly there are some things that I do that help a little ... but don't help near as much as I wish they did. So you're not alone in solutions not always working or not working enough or only working sometimes. <3 - Harley

How to ADHD

YASSSSSS. Oh my goodness... if I don't have a desk and/or chair that I click with, work is not happening. Or well, it's not happening *fast*. I relate so much to this!!! - Harley

Kat Cardy

colour coding is huge for me... I use it in my to do lists, file management, scheduling etc.. if I can see at a glance what colour something is and that gives me important information it can be the difference between me being able to do something useful with that thing or struggling to a) find what I'm looking for b) remember why it was I was looking for it :X

How to ADHD

Yassssss! Colour coding <3 I relate so so so much! - Harley Community Manager

Anonymous

I can't commit to the 9 to 5. I just can't. Not happening. I can't do the same thing for many hours at a time.

Anonymous

The assembly instructions for IKEA furniture are way more ADHD friendly than decades ago (the last time I bought IKEA). Back then, I wouldn’t read the directions (boring. complicated.) and had all these extra parts left over. 😆 Recently I bought a garden bench at IKEA and was delighted to find the instructions were visual. Right up my alley! Matching the part in my hand to the picture in the instructions. It was the best feeling. No stress. No extra parts! I’m sure IKEA uses visual instructions because their furniture is all over the world. Pictures keep the instructions short, sweet & accessible to any language except braille. Forgot to mention: everything you need is in the box. You don’t need to get distracted looking for tools.

Anonymous

I’m the opposite. lol. I need words and pictures. And extra parts because I’m gonna lose something and then stress out because finding a replacement for it is impossible and I’ll hold onto that piece of furniture I wasn’t able to put together because of the missing pieces for a decade. I actually have an IKEA shelf thing in my garage right now that’s missing pieces that I was able to configure using zipties and it’s still there, hanging out in the garage, functional but not as great as it could be if I had those two screws.

Anonymous

I very much owe my therapist for highlighting this stuff for me! They also have ADHD and explained that they don't even have a couch anymore. They have 2 twin beds in an L-shape with lots of pillows and everyone in the household can move around and find what they need. Throwing out the rules and having lots of options (like you mentioned in another comment) is becoming my new normal!

Anonymous

I struggle to find things that work for me. I try things and find that they fail more than they work. I’ve found a couple fidgets that actually work for me. There’s one that looks like a piece of bicycle chain with two keychain rings and some rubber o-rings. It’s crazy how much that thing has saved my life! I’ve realized that almost anything that’s an app will either distract me to no end or will become boring in no time. Except for the self care app Finch. It’s actually helped me a lot. I loved the free version and ended up paying for the year bc I knew I’d be more likely to stick with it if i has more bells and whistles and I was right. It’s amazingly helpful. I have tried so many different ways to organize my house and my desk and my clothes. lol. I do like to Marie Kondo fold things. It’s like a mindfulness exercise and makes it easier to find clothes. I have more bins and baskets in my house than anyone has a right to. lol I have OCD as a co-occurring diagnosis, so things get interesting at times. I also have tactile and olfactory sensory issues. I am always searching for ADHD friendly things but it seems like there’s not much out there. I tend toward more stimulation versus less, when it comes to being able to focus. But I also have hella bad time blindness!

Michelle Cooke

Hello Harley. Quick question. Are your two Asana boards linked? Meaning the tasks are linked? Or do yiu have to create two separate boards...update two separate boards? Is Asana linked to a calendar tool? Thanks. Michelle

Anonymous

i can do the same thing for many hours, but not by planning to, and generally not multiple days in a row. certainly not for weeks on end.

Anonymous

my diary (small annual paper planner book) is really essential, not least because it's small enough to force me to only write the actually-scheduled things for a given day, and small enough to carry pretty much everywhere in my wallet, and paper so it's not distracting and doesn't break or run out of battery or leak my personal schedule to the internet. dunno how much of that is ADHD-specific, but it's something for which i finally found a version i don't hate, so i'm sticking to it (for now).

Anonymous

I’m using a sales CRM called Cloze. My favorite things: *it filters my email so I only see what’s important *it pulls documents from emails sent and files it with the client record (so I’m not digging around for said doc!) 😁 *it reminds me to reach out to people for birthdays and other occasions I had a human help me set it up, which I preferred to DIY. It doesn’t make me “do the thing” but it saves me time and nudges me in the right direction. Does anyone else have software that keeps you organized?

Anonymous

I actually heard that IKEA has spare parts available in bins in all their stores because requests are so common. Even if they no longer make the piece you have, they probably still use those screws. ( : Oh, and I absolutely love having pictorial instructions, but also like to have some words as a backup.

vlado101

I am stuck between telling my employer that I have ADHD. At times I am good with the way things are but then not sure what they can do to help me. Mainly it’s the fear that if I do say that I have inattentive ADD that it would hurt my career prospects as it would imply that I can’t focus on things.