How I started completing my daily tasks while having ADHD!

[Daddy Bear 77]

I have struggled my entire life to complete goals consistently. I deal with a lot of ADHD paralysis and have carried a lot of shame about being unable to complete even basic tasks, including things that would make me happy. I've literally had significant amounts of money owed to me where all I had to do was reach out and get it, and I've let it sit for months or years because I couldn't make myself start.

A lot of the problem is that I have trouble remembering everything, making and keeping up with lists, prioritizing what matters, and knowing when I've done enough. Trying to decide what I need to do today can feel like I have to lift the weight of everything I need to do all at once just to pick up one thing.

Recently, some changes at work took a lot of that process out of my head and put it into a system in front of me. I noticed almost immediately that my brain felt like it was running fewer background processes. It was easier to focus and think.

That made me wonder: Could I offload my everyday life the same way?

So I started talking to ChatGPT about it, and eventually we created something I call my Daily Lighthouse.

I basically dumped my entire brain into it through pages of voice texting: long-term goals, things that needed to happen today, things that needed to happen next week, everyday chores, exercise, upcoming trips, a tire losing air, money a doctor owed me, projects I'd been avoiding, everything.

The idea was that the Lighthouse holds the whole list so I don't have to.

Once we'd finally set everything up, I remember thinking, "Okay Now just I have to actually remember to come back tomorrow and use this." 😂

But the next day when I opened the chat, it had already narrowed everything down into my Daily Lighthouse: just a few things to focus on that day, plus one optional thing if I had extra energy,

That was it.

I didn't need to figure out which of 40 things mattered most. I didn't need to hold everything else in my head. And, maybe most importantly, I didn't have to wonder when I was allowed to stop.

Do these things. Then you've done enough. Go enjoy your life.

I know it's just a machine giving me permission to have done enough, but apparently my brain does not give a shit. It works. 😂

I've been doing this for about a month and a half now, and the change has been kind of incredible.

My house is staying cleaner. My laundry gets done. My dishes are getting done every fucking day for once. Last night I made a massive meal and, for possibly the first time in my life, the dishes didn't sit there afterward for a day or three waiting for Future Me to deal with them.

Today I worked on something specific in my martial arts practice, did my laundry, got my food ready for the work week, took care of what the Lighthouse said mattered, and then I was free to play games without that constant background feeling that I was failing because surely there was something else I should be doing.

It hasn't magically cured my ADHD or made me perfectly productive. It has just taken a huge amount of remembering, prioritizing, planning, and deciding out of my head.

The Lighthouse holds the whole list. I only have to look at what the light is pointing at today.

If anyone else struggles with ADHD paralysis like this and wants to try something similar, I'm more than happy to help you figure out how to set up your own version. It's genuinely helped me start getting a handle back on my life.

Edited August 16 by Daddy Bear 77
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[MissAnna]

Extreme ADHD person here I'm always up for pointers because I cannot take the medication because of my seizures. That being said I would absolutely love some key tips to help me from going from one extreme to another. Imagine me like a squirrel on fire that's addicted to crack.  That's basically me lol

[BabyPoppy]

I actually have to plan every day in 30 minute increments.... then schedule worry time before supper... it's a pain, but keeps me focused

[Daddy Bear 77]

13 minutes ago, MissAnna said:

Extreme ADHD person here I'm always up for pointers because I cannot take the medication because of my seizures. That being said I would absolutely love some key tips to help me from going from one extreme to another. Imagine me like a squirrel on fire that's addicted to crack.  That's basically me lol

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8WBmasS/

I get the squirrel thing so much. I was struggling with avoiding tasks and staying in bed for hours every morning because I didn't know what to do and even trying to make a list meant I had to think of all the things I needed to do which felt too big. When I saw these ADHD tethers, which were supposed to be silly, and was like no I need exactly that I realized eventually I'm just doing it wrong for me.  At work we have to keep up with all these specimens and sometimes I would get distracted because someone would come talk to me or something and I would ask myself Did I already do this case and it would be hard for me to not talk myself into believing I had and not knowing which thing came before and getting really anxious. So I started turning all the bottles upside down and leaving them in the box in the order. I did them. Now I didn't have to hold that in my head anymore and things got much easier. 

For dishes I stopped using the dishwasher because I didn't feel like I could start the dishwasher till it was full but by then things would be hard and it would feel like too much to put up and I wouldn't even want to look that way. So I just started washing dishes as I used them. Cleaning up immediately after before. Even eating sometimes having it chat CPT give me permission to stop and decide out of my list. What's important? Makes doing it so much easier because I just need it to not be in my brain. And I don't have to make a list cuz it automatically makes the list and I don't have to remember where the list is and if I do something different but it's good. I just tell it and it changes the list for me and says you've already done this. Now do two more things and you're done.

There's a lot of apps that I've tried and a lot of devices I've used and this is the best one and it's the only one that's stuck because I wake up with a notification each morning of what of my list I need to do.  

The other thing it's still using recently is Fieldy AI necklace and that helps with like conversations that I need to remember because it does a transcript of it and will summarize it. If I had to pick either it would be chadgbt because it's way better and it's free 

[MissAnna]

I'm not even going to lie that leash to remind her do dishes mind blowing from that tick tock video. Because honestly that's exactly what I do when I'm at home and I have to work on my farm. I literally carry rope with me that way I can tie it to the stalls to remind me to keep working in that one section because if I don't I'll leave. 

Honestly thank you for these amazing ideas and tips because living with severe ADHD not being able to be medicated is so hard. 

My brain constantly has over a thousand million ideas at once and then I just get stuck in a vicious cycle because all I can think about is squirrels basically lol. 

I am so proud of myself to be able to accomplish everything I do at work because I work in such a high critical area where I must always be on my feet and being active. 

That being said my ADHD helps me in my line of work because I constantly have to be moving. 

Again thank you for these tips! 

[Daddy Bear 77]

@MissAnnaYou are so welcome. I didn't get diagnosed until about six years ago so I fully understand. That and then later moral scrupulosity OCD and both when I saw videos of how meds helped people I cried because I'd never believed it was possible. I cried the first time I was able let go of an obsessive though too.

Have you had a genetic test, I found out a bunch of the meds don't work for me but a few were ok plus they have some meds for ADHD that aren't stimulate based but the stims were the most helpful. My doctor tried to take me off of them because at the time my BP was high and I was like what if I do this and reduce that and do more of this. She was like this might kill you and I was like what if I would rather die than go back to the way things were. 

[Daddy Bear 77]

I'm really proud of you too, it's so hard even with the meds, it was really only a couple recent things that made me think that this must be more like what neurotypicals feel like.