Help- How to overcome executive dysfunction?

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this... i relate to.

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Yep. It's a brilliant line & very apt.

I made heaps of lists & had special booklets to help remember things but somehow they just disappear off the face of the earth!

Even the suggestions that wouldn't work for me are useful because they're helping me work through how I actually function. I have a dry-erase board on my fridge, but it's filled with shopping lists that never get updated. So I just erased it and am going to set a particular task for each day of the week--things that need to be done fairly regularly, but that I don't really think about or notice. Like dusting, mopping the kitchen floor, etc. One room and set of tasks per day. Maybe it will work.

I have a planner. I just write down anything I think of as quick as I can, then the main thing I must remember is to take my planner with me if I have a shopping list in it. That said, I have many, many things I don't write down fast enough, so I have to wait until circumstance churns them up to the surface once more. I managed to keep track of my planner pretty well, only leaving it behind in stores twice in about five years. But the second time it never turned up, so I had to replace it. I also carry a purse, but it always has to be one long enough to wear cross-shoulder. People probably think I'm afraid of having it stolen, but it's to keep from losing it.

I also have a big dry erase board on the wall in case the planner is missing, and a husband with a pretty good memory. I had a bit of a shout at my 11-year-old when she erased something I wrote up there, twice! It was the same stuff both times (so I guess I did remember it after all), and she said she didn't see why I needed to remember that. I hope the flames of rage shooting from my eyes made an impression on her for future situations. Impudent whelp.

Write everything down.

Be ruthless.

Practice your handwriting day after day so it eventually becomes legible.


It's a lot of hard work, but (I think) it's just about worth it.

Punch a hole in the booklet with a hole-punch and tie a loop of string through the hole.

Attach the string to a larger article such as a bag or belt.

Or better yet, use a chain or something else that won't break or become untied.

i have the problems with ED, too. but not with remembering the things i want to.

for example:

i have thoughts in my mind and want to write them - structured - down. my ED begins to work. i am not able to it. in the moment i feel stress or pressure (indifferent from myself or another person).

my only chance to write something down is in the free way (creative writing/automatically writing)

but sometimes it is necessary to write in a structure way (like now).

one time, my doctor said to me, "OK, when you are unable to write, you can record everything you have in your mind ..."

i would like, but i can't

i speak the whole day to myself. everything i do i comment. only the "free" words record or write down does not work. this f*****g blockade begins in this moment i WILL something from myself (or somebody want it from me)

maybe someone has an idea what might help me.

Booklets and lists that people have mentioned are good suggestions. I have a suggestion that helps me with cooking.

Get a pinger. A loud one. Okay so it may make you jump out of your skin and fret when it goes off but I find that mine means I get to have dinner instead of finding out that I'm not going to get dinner because there is a burning smell coming from the kitchen.

At work my outlook calendar is invaluable. I put everything in it. I am considering getting an iphone that will hold the same kind of information and set alarms for me so that everything from getting up at the right time to going to get shopping if I've run out of food and what to buy will be on it and there will only be one device I have to remember.

I have to use routines to make sure that I do everything I need to do and have everything I need to have with me but I can only get that to work for things that don't change like having my keys with me every time I leave the house.

Write a short list of your most important tasks for that day on your hand. It works great for me. Just keep looooots of sharpies around. Put them on your grocery list, (or hand) GO NOW!

I recommend a PDA or Smartphone running the Palm Operating System. I have tried DataBank watches, electronic organizers, and PDA's running other OS's, but for keeping track of things which need to be done, alarms, and calendar events, (otherwise known as Personal Information Management) they are the best I have found for this use. I have read many postings of others who say the same. My favorite is the Palm Tungsten C. No longer made, but still available via EBay. Newer models are still being made, BTW.

The way to avoid losing them is to always have it in your hands, or in your pocket/ purse.

I find I think a lot more clearly when not exposed to so many electronic devices....

cry whine, exmxplode into a ball that can be seen from space. no, but really, i know exactly what you're talking about. hahaha. i don't mean to laugh, but i am told that a lot. and it's like... um, yeah, well, that's just like your opinion, man. i guess i would find someone i know to give me a hand with that sort of thing. right now, my boyfriend is my number 1 for that sort of thing.

I do that, make lists, and if i leave the house without it, nothing will get done and I will end up doing things that are completely irrelevant.

Having been diagnosed late, I never had any idea obviously that this was an AS thing to do, I also make piles of things that are supposedly in priority of some sort, but then I forget the priority and restack them constantly or forget them completely. Important stuff like a budget, (I'm good with numbers but bad with money) or like mail to go out I tuck under my laptop.

A note to remember my lunch gets tucked on the top of my bookbag where I can't fail to see it but still have forgotten my lunch twice in the past few months.

I also have a studio apt with a ton of clocks, each of which help me to get up, but not often exactly when I should as whenever I wake up and shut off the alarm I'm immediately in a bad mood about getting woken up.

I don't know if it would help to have more electronic devices as they must be programmed to help me, and that is often something that is kind of difficult to do. I don't know what I want to do and often don't want to do what I have to do. So being reminded gets annoying.

I think having a list you can see, on a big board, can help, and placing things exactly in your own way so you have to notice them also helps. It does me, but I have also tripped over things too.

I use a PDA.

Let's see: I have - insulin and blood sugar to attend to: mostly I get that right. I keep glucometers, glucose and insulin in the office, at home and in the car. Then there are medical appointments: I put them in my phone, in Outlook at work, and keep the appointment cards to remind me. Then there's shopping and errands: either in the phone or on scraps of paper or both. Then there's work-at-home: lists, reminders, leaving things around to remind me. Then there's work stuff: I keep daily run sheets, on a weekly basis, but sometimes it's Wednesday before I get started. Sometimes Tuesday is the last time I see this weeks... Outlook keeps track of workplace meetings fairly well. Other research: on paper in one of the piles that adorn my desk. They look chaotic, but in fact they're reviewed weekly and finding any particular document (once I'm reminded of its existence) is a five-second task.

And then there's today's work, which builds up across twenty or thirty windows on the screen I'm facing most of the day. When half of those are browsers with ten or fifteen tabs on them, that amounts to a fair density of information. I regularly find unsent emails at the end of the day as the stack closes down.

My levels of disorganisation are a little extreme sometimes, but boredom is the enemy.

I have a PDA. I don't know where it is.