[ta_202010061019]

Tried every medication which is legal in my country. Side effects where always too strong to use drugs on a regular base.

What works: - Enough sleep + naps - Sport - Walking - White noise to cancel out distractions - Logging almost everything which happens during a work day in a work journal - Having checklists/templates - Setup work days - Setup free days - Recurring todos for day of week - Coherent breathing works better for me than meditation

[bot41]

I am interested in how you manage your work journal. Do you use a physical pen and paper or do you use a digital tool? Online or offline? Do you archive or throw away old notes or do you revisit them?

Info about your checklists could be handy too.

[d-1]

This is somewhat unrelated, but the things that help me most are:

1. The Johnny File System: https://johnnydecimal.com/ 2. The PARA System: https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/

I mix the PARA system with JFS by numbering it in the JFS manner. For example, I have a note called "Minimalism", so I store it in "02-AREAS" like this:

"2.01 Minimalism"

Now let's say I want to totally change my minimalism list, then I am going to archive that in "04-ARCHIVE" like so:

"4.01 2.01 Minimalism"

Then I reuse the 2.01 for my minimalism list again.

Another side note: Bullet Journaling is something that I am looking into, but I am not yet familiar with it. My take on it is: you are an operating system scheduling tasks out of a task list.

This is what a key in a bullet journal might look like paired with Standard Notes:

• task x completed > moved forward < scheduled task (future) ~~cancelled~~ ○ event - note ! important

Regarding JFS:

https://www.reddit.com/r/datacurator/comments/cucufy/my_pers...

This is what I used as a reference to organize my folder system with JFS.

[ta_202010061019]

I second that you should get properly diagnosed by a doctor and try the available medication. If the medication works for you sustainably it will make your life that much better and easier.

[d-1]

To be clear, therapy and medication is the best available option, but not everybody has access to it. In that case, what would be the next best option? (That is what I am actually asking.)

Also, there are some restrictions on medication in certain countries (e.g. Japan):

https://addadhdblog.com/adhd-in-japan/?doing_wp_cron=1601997...

[ta_202010061019]

First of all, IMHO it is really important to get diagnosed by a good doctor and to rule out other reasons which could cause ADHD symptoms.

ADHD is a broad spectrum and every life is different.

The next best option I could recommend is to learn about symptoms from ADHD, examine how they are affecting your quality of life and have 'physical' crutches in place where you need them. This is highly personal, takes time for experiments to see what works for you right now, and when your situation/environment changes, you must adapt and perhaps change or create new crutches.

Still, there is a lot of stuff you simply cannot fix w/o medication: Impulsivity and focus are my biggest Achilles heels.

If there is no way for you to get medication you have to learn what problematic situations will be for you and try to avoid them from the start, because there is no way you can trust in prolonged self control if you have ADHD.