Dinos On ADHD and Technology part 2 — ADHD Tip O the Day 862

Life with ADHD

What?

Dinos is a high tech person.  I’m not.  He’s contributing some good tips.

“A Smart Home Makes A Smarter You

Have you ever found yourself doing something like cooking or washing dishes and wish you could tell somebody something like, “remind me to buy more paper towels,” “remind me in twenty minutes to turn off the oven,” or “remind me to pay the rent tomorrow” and actually get reminded of it later?

In my apartment, I’ve always got somebody to remind me to do stuff. I have a Google Home. Actually, I have two—one in my bedroom and one in my living room within earshot of the kitchen. When I’m in the middle of tasks where breaking my already-fragile concentration would be annoying, I just say, “Hey Google, remind me to…..”

It works for almost anything, really. I use it all the time to add stuff to my to-do list and multiple shopping lists as I think of them on the spot (without having to find a notepad to write it down or type it in my phone), it’ll start timers for when I’m in the kitchen (I’m a terrible cook already as it is, so I need all the help I can get), set reminders for later in the day/week/month, play music or podcasts to make tasks like laundry and dishes more tolerable, I could go on. Adding things on my to-do list on-the-fly is a big one—I only think of things I need to do or should’ve done while I’m working on something else that should’ve been done already.

Another cool thing about it is I get to ask it questions like, “What’s traffic like on my way to work?” It’ll let me know how screwed I am while I’m getting ready in the morning or to let me know if I’ve got a small chance to knock something out quickly off my to-do list before I need to head out to an appointment.

 

It’s great. It’s another way of externalizing those little, difficult-to-keep-track-of executive functioning tasks that don’t feel like a big deal in the moment but can add up throughout the day.

You know, like suddenly remembering that this Sunday is be Father’s Day but you’re right in the middle of something right now and can’t go off-script again or you’ll never finish this task and you just have to hope that you’ll remember again later at a better time when you can actually do something it and not forget to pick up a card like last year. Or the year before.

It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Google’s got my back.

Alternatives to Google Home are Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.

For me, just being able to say, “Hey Google,” “Hey Siri,” or “Hey Alexa,” out-loud and then say what’s on my mind without losing track of what I’m doing makes a huge difference in how many tasks get accomplished when I’m at home.”

Thanks, Dinos

I’ve started using my Alexa for to do reminders. And I’m pretty sure she can do more helpful things that I’m not using.  I use her for music, which is an amazing function. And as a timer. And she gives me weather forecasts and reports, and occasionally a sports score. But she’s underutilized.  I am tech challenged – dystechnologia.

doug

I can hyper focus. i can even do tech stuff. Sometimes.

@addstrategies  #adhd  #add  @dougmkpdp