I wouldn’t phrase it that way. Relying on willpower is a recipe for failure. Humans generally don’t have enough willpower, it goes for most things, even when you don’t have strong physiological forces involved. The key to getting a diet to work is in figuring out how to not require willpower, which means thinking about it differently, forming new habits. Stress and social environment also need attention or they will steamroll your goals.

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thewebguyd a day ago | parent [-]

> figuring out how to not require willpower

This goes for coping with a lot of executive function problems and disorders.

Part of how I have to manage my rather severe ADHD is specifically crafting an environment that's as ADHD friendly as possible, much to my wife's dismay.

That means nothing can ever be hidden away or out of sight, otherwise I will immediately forget it exists. It means every bill must be on autopay, or it will not get paid. It also means living as minimally as possible, for me. Even something as "simple" to a neurotypical like washing dishes or doing laundry is a seemingly impossible mountain for me to climb. I solve that by owning as little as possible, and I also remove choices by, for example, just owning multiples of the same exact outfit.

The moment any sort of friction or context switching is involved in a task, I am going to fail, so I have to architect my life in a way that reduces friction as much as possible.

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iammjm a day ago | parent [-]

I also have ADHD and i also find living as minimally as possible very helpful. Could you elaborate on more of those tactics that work for you? I am also curious how you apply this to your work life

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thewebguyd a day ago | parent [-]

Basically things that eliminate friction. I wear only slip on shoes because having to tie & untie is friction. I replaced our kitchen cupboards with those glass window ones so I can see whats inside every cabinet without opening it. I have multiple laundry bins, so I actually don't put clothes away in a dresser when done. I just leave them in the bin, pull out what I'm going to wear, and then have separate bin(s) for dirty. Eliminates a huge friction point (folding & hanging) when it comes to doing laundry.

For work, that's mostly just luck. I'm a solo sysadmin for a non-tech company, and I work from home so I have a great deal of freedom. Outside of interruptions for help desk level tickets/emails (which suck and do throw off my flow), no one really oversees what I do and I set my own deadlines for the most part so I can work when and however it suits me to take advantage of days where I have good flow state.

	▲	iammjm a day ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks. I'll also add a couple of my tactics for other ADHDrs out there: I only have black same socks, underwear and T-shirts so I never have to bothered by them. I replaced my coffee machine with a simple French press, so the cleaning and maintenance is quick and easy. I add every fixed-date event to my calendar so that I get a notification when something is due and don't have to remember it. I write everything down and make lists so I keep track of stuff. I try to reduce all the fluff from my life to simplify it, and I am extremely weary of getting new things, because each thing comes with responsibilities such as maintenance, cleaning, storing and of course using it. I basically want daily stuff to leave me the fuck alone and I feel like this frees up a lot of mental resources for me