<p>What should my system be doing for me? How can I better expose my thinking and produce meaningful
results? I've thought before about making paths through the <a href="/notes/digital-garden">Digital Garden</a> but what would that
look like?</p>
<p>This notes-system is currently my <a href="https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/">home-cooked meal</a> and not meant for public consumption,
yet.</p>
<p>How does it relate to <a href="/notes/projects/wisps">Wisps</a>?</p>
<ul>
<li><del>Mark <code>draft</code> notes as such.</del> Table the draft concept for now. Everything here is a draft.</li>
<li>Look into formatting <code>code</code> blocks differently. Syntax highlighting?</li>
<li>Organize "chains" of notes like <a href="https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/07/17/blogchains/">Tom Critchlow does</a>. Do I want the note-system
running locally to write out these paths for me or show them to me somehow?</li>
<li>Surface things that have been updated recently to the front.</li>
</ul>


Notes System

<p>I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8 years old, during a difficult third grade year. My parents
decided not to medicate me.</p>
<p>Among other things, 2020 has been the year that I've been coming to grips with being an adult with
untreated ADHD. I'm on medication now and it's helping.</p>
<p>I have the inattentive type, described as "...a subtype of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
that often manifests as limited attention span, distractibility, forgetfulness, or procrastination."
Yup, that's me.</p>
<p>Things I'd thought my whole life were parts of my personality are largely attributable to ADHD. That
doesn't mean they aren't who I am, or that I don't have to accept them -- but it does mean that
there are hosts of people out there who suffer similarly and have found various ways of dealing that
I might be able to try.</p>
<p>I'll keep writing things about <a href="/tags/adhd">#adhd</a> across my site.</p>
<h2>Things that have helped a lot</h2>
<ul>
<li>Sleep.</li>
<li>Exercise.</li>
<li>Stop trying to be good at things you're bad at.
<ul>
<li>Executive disorder mean it's hard to start.</li>
<li>Hyperfocus means it's hard to stop.</li>
<li>Short-term memory issues mean you <strong>are</strong> going to forget that thing.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Being up-front about my condition with others.
<ul>
<li>I'm not quite at the point where I'm telling people things like "I have a disorder that limits
my working memory, please slow down so I can write what you're saying down".</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Not doing anything else when someone is talking to me and making sure to watch them when they talk.</li>
<li>Self-care, as in...
<ul>
<li>...being kind to myself when I mess up. Self-compassion!</li>
<li>...sticking with systems that work for me (calendars with reminders, todo list apps that never
leave you alone until you check that box) and not feeling bad when I tinker with them when they
don't quite work.</li>
<li>...being upfront with my SO when I'm feeling especially distracted or ADHD-y.</li>
<li>...not feeling bad about starting lots of projects, it's <em>literally</em> how my brain works. Think
of those unfinished projects more as "learning experiences" or "experiments" and not "failures".</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Tools</h2>
<p>Currently:</p>
<ul>
<li>Paper.
<ul>
<li>I write things down all the time. Thinking outside my head helps in so many ways.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="/notes/notes-system">Notes System</a>
<ul>
<li>Dedicating some time every day to reviewing what's going on in your exocortex is great scaffolding.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://ticktick.com">TickTick</a>
<ul>
<li>Has phone reminders that don't go away until you check the box.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://workflowy.com/">Workflowy</a>
<ul>
<li>Write down everything.</li>
<li>Supports all kinds of interesting organizational schemes for productivity play.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://keep.google.com">Google Keep</a>
<ul>
<li>Not feeling very Google-y these days, but it's uncomplicated and fast, good for capturing those
quick thoughts you don't want to forget.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Books</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="/notes/bibliography/the-couples-guide-to-thriving-with-adhd">The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD</a>
<ul>
<li>Its advice around what to say to your partner can sound artificial and robotic. It also works
pretty well.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="/notes/bibliography/driven-to-distraction">Driven to Distraction</a>
<ul>
<li>Good, scientific grounding in the syndrome itself.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Youtube</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-nPM1_kSZf91ZGkcgy_95Q">How to ADHD</a>
<ul>
<li>One of the best resources I found for approaching ADHD with sensitivity and rigor... while being
nice, funny, and vulnerable.
The videos tend to be short. 😁</li>
<li>Particular videos stand out:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx13a2-unjE">How to Know if You Have ADHD</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlvckEtPb3E">How to Stop Beating Yourself Up Over Mistakes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKUdadCsuRE">How ADHD Treatment Is Not ADHD Friendly</a></li>
<li>...as well as a series of personal videos about her relationships and life. Great stuff.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Community</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/">/r/ADHD</a>
<ul>
<li>More vent-y and angry, a place to read about people like you.</li>
<li>Discusses medication, celebrates victories.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD_partners/">/r/ADHD_partners</a>
<ul>
<li>A great place for angry ADHD partners to vent.</li>
<li>Not so great to stay subbed for too long.</li>
<li>Filled with lots of angry people who are still upset at their partners.</li>
<li>Not very sympathetic to ADHD-ers overall...</li>
<li>...but helpful to read through to see the other side.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Childhood</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.additudemag.com/twice-exceptional-adhd-signs/">Twice-exceptional</a>.
<ul>
<li>Children who are intellectually gifted but also have a learning or neurological disorder.</li>
<li>Often leads to kids with see-sawing academic performance and anxiety, stress, etc.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>


ADHD

<h2>Text</h2>
<ul>
<li>Trying to put more of my current thinking into my notes and organize them, even a little bit.</li>
<li><a href="/notes/projects/wisps">Wisps</a>!!</li>
</ul>
<h2>Code</h2>
<h3>Webby stuff</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="/notes/notes-system">Notes System</a>
<ul>
<li>Working on a <a href="https://nextjs.org/">NextJS</a>-driven static site that allows for exploring my notes.</li>
<li><a href="https://notes.drhayes.io">The notes site itself</a>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="/notes/projects/wisps">Wisps</a>
<ul>
<li>Microbloggy, tumbleloggy thing that is mostly linkspam, written in NextJS and hosted on Vercel.
Super-addictive combo, them.</li>
<li><a href="https://wisps.drhayes.io">The wisps site itself</a>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="/notes/projects/linky">Linky</a>
<ul>
<li>Link shortener using <a href="/notes/cloudflare-workers">Cloudflare Workers</a>.</li>
<li>Short and sweet, put together in about an hour.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="/notes/projects/derp">Derp</a>
<ul>
<li>The PA chatbot.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Video games</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://drhayes.io/games/gemini-rising">Gemini Rising</a>
<ul>
<li>On <del>brief</del> hiatus while I work on games that won't take me four more years to complete.</li>
<li>Need to write about that hiatus.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/drhayes/beehive.lua">Beehive.lua</a>
<ul>
<li>Released at <a href="https://github.com/drhayes/beehive.lua">https://github.com/drhayes/beehive.lua</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><del>Surrender</del>
<ul>
<li>A short game that is entirely a boss fight from an earlier game.</li>
<li>On hold.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/drhayes/squeak.lua/">Squeak.lua</a>
<ul>
<li>A lua framework for making games.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/drhayes/generic-platformer/">Generic Platformer</a>
<ul>
<li>Example LÖVE codebase using proto-Squeak and proto-Squick.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Squick.lua
<ul>
<li>Don't like that name.</li>
<li>Keyboard-accessible UI framework.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
