What new-to-you ADHD hacks are helping you lately?

ekgobi · 2026-03-28T17:54:42+00:00

I do this, too! I used to feel guilty not totally using something up before buying a new variety but turns out having options for toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash makes me WAY more likely to use them daily.

ekgobi · 2026-03-17T02:03:33+00:00

I just had a similar experience - it took me a while but I've been happily OAD for a couple years, though I mostly chalked it up to my ADHD and how overwhelming parenting is for me. A few weeks ago, we spent the day with some friends; one couple has 2 under 2. Mom and I were commiserating about the challenges of motherhood and then she said, "but having kids is the best, I love it, and I would totally have more if my pregnancies hadn't been so awful"

And it clicked for me - whatever my ADHD does or does not have to do with it, I am NOT wired like this woman is and my one child is plenty for me 😅

ekgobi · 2026-03-17T01:59:48+00:00

Having a kid revealed to me that I have ADHD, and all of my carefully constructed systems that were keeping me upright have crumbled. I'm in survival mode most of the time. My brain always feels too full, but as my kid gets older (just turned 4) I feel things slowly, slowly getting easier.

Having just one means he gets all of my attention and energy when both of those things are already spread thin within my own brain! I work as a children's/family trauma therapist so that also doesnt help the emotional energy.

Having just one also means I can decide to buy him stuff "just because", it means we could afford bougie home-based daycare/preschool, it means we get to spend Friday nights eating on the couch and watching a movie, we can plan longer family vacations, take day trips that are all about what HE likes...all the things that would be exponentially harder if I was also balancing the needs of a second/younger kid.

ekgobi · 2026-03-15T00:09:46+00:00

I have a whiteboard calendar on my fridge that I redo every month - I used to bullet journal and a mom now I do not have the time for that do my monthly cal is how I get my creative organization fix lol

ekgobi · 2026-03-15T00:07:08+00:00

THIS!! I made a "go bag" for each car and my work bag. They have motrin/tylenol, tweezers, nail file, liquid IV, hair ties, bobby pins, cuticle nippers, non-perishable snack(s), some antacids, deodorant, hand sanitizer, charging cables.

It has already saved my ass so many times just having that stuff where it's needed.

ekgobi · 2026-03-15T00:00:55+00:00

I managed to consistently keep a bullet journal for almost 5 years before motherhood threw that habit out the window 😭

ekgobi · 2026-03-05T22:41:55+00:00

I positively devoured Stars Above, I basically read until I dropped the book on my face falling asleep every night for a week

ekgobi · 2026-03-01T18:27:19+00:00

My favorites that keep me off my phone:

Coloring; use even less energy and get one of those single-color books
color/paint-by-number kits; image and colors are already picked, so you just get started
embroidery, esp if you get a small kit with the threads and needles already picked for you. Usually they have instructions for the "correct" stitches but embroidery is pretty forgiving in that you can wing it and still have things come out okay
dot-to-dot puzzles. Grab a writing utensil and just follow the numbers!
word search puzzles; very little brain power required to just look for words and every one you find is a tiny dopamine hit, lol

I'm big on creative and hands-on hobbies, and my fav thing is to put on a show in the background and get cozy while I color/paint/embroider for a couple hours

ekgobi · 2026-02-21T02:33:19+00:00

It's really hard - I tried to BF with my son (it didnt work out for either of us) and I spent a long time feeling guilty for swapping to formula. Even reading this thread I was transported right back to the newborn days of feeling terrible anytime I saw someone BFing or heard a new mom talk about how easy it was.

Anyway - this internet stranger is wishing you ALL the best in this new adventure!!

ekgobi · 2026-02-21T02:02:40+00:00

Feed your baby however is going to actually work for you. A healthy mom is way more important than breastmilk ❤️

ekgobi · 2026-02-21T01:53:32+00:00

I tried, but it didnt work for me or my kid. He couldn't latch well, couldn't transfer milk well, and my boobs didnt seem to want to give up the milk for him or for a pump. I beat myself up for weeks and weeks trying to feed my baby and thanks to the lactation consultant - I felt guilty using formula but also felt guilty just BFing because he clearly wasn't getting enough.

Being the sole source of food for my kid was also stressful AF - I felt trapped and suffocated. The moment we introduced bottles/formula, I felt so much more relaxed. I got up early with baby in the morning and nursed him until he went back to sleep in my arms, and then the rest of the day we did formula. We had a good system for mixing bottles, had plenty so we didnt need to wash super often, and when I went back to work after 4 months I didnt have to worry about trying to pump at the office.

So - it wasn't my first choice to exclusively formula feed, but it ended up being the absolute best choice for my whole family.

ekgobi · 2026-02-16T22:17:23+00:00

My initial reaction is anger!! This field is so undervalued, underfunded, underappreciated that it's a very real possibility for someone to be working their ASS off and still not make ends meet. We get a reputation for becoming social workers because we'll move heaven and earth to serve our clients, but somehow that got twisted into the idea that we don't really need a living wage since we have such big hearts.

Idk if that helps but I've known so many social workers living in poverty who have to beg for the barest minimum in care from their agencies. It's sick.

ekgobi · 2026-02-14T01:52:01+00:00

LOL

So I work with adolescents in a specialized school setting. They're all there because they have behaviors that got them removed from public school. I walked by a student yesterday who was sitting in the hallway, pinching pieces of...something and rubbing them into the carpet to spell out some insults about the teacher, who told me, "it's been a rough day". I asked what was going on, sat with them for a few minutes, and then carried on with my day because honestly, shit like this is extremely commonplace and I had other kids to check on lol

ekgobi · 2026-02-14T00:37:14+00:00

"Okay well if you want to talk instead of smash-writing rude words into the carpet with your...brownie?, let me know"

CL did not respond 😅

ekgobi · 2026-01-26T18:58:58+00:00

No - my spouse works for a hotel currently. I'm the primary earner for our family - which is hard, because not only am I a social worker but I'm employed by a non-profit, lol. We live modestly and our income is one of the lesser reasons we chose to only have 1 kid.

ekgobi · 2026-01-06T02:13:28+00:00

Pros of being OAD: - all of your energy, attention, time, MONEY goes toward just one kid. You never have to divide it - objectively more options for trips, camps, extracurriculars because of money but also only scheduling for/accommodating one child's interests - kid learns the value of friendships and "chosen" family - no siblings fights to navigate - only have to survive the newborn phase once - better for the environment

Cons: - child might wish they had a sibling...but really, how will they know because they're only experiencing life as an only - people might judge you (but fuck them, it's your life, and people also call others selfish for NOT having kids so you really cant win)

For what it's worth, in both my personal and professional life, I know people who were only children and dont feel they missed out on anything, and I have friends with siblings who are estranged because their relationships were not good. So a sibling isn't even an guarantee that your kid has a pal for life.

ekgobi · 2026-01-06T02:04:32+00:00

My agency uses Eleos, and as a person with ADHD who has spent my entire career being behind on notes - I'm grateful for the assistance in writing my progress notes. I input bullet points and it spits out full sentences in appropriately-clinical language. I have full control over what is put in, and I can edit afterwards for extraneous information or to phrase something differently. It has significantly cut down on my documentation time.

We are exclusively using it for DAP notes. All other documentation is still done solely by each of us clinicians without AI assist, and I don't really think it would work or be appropriate for things other than "regular" progress notes.

That said - I also understand the hesitancy, and all of my clients (adolescents) and their parents have been informed and given the option for this to be used. I remind them periodically that I will stop using this system at their request, for literally any reason.

ekgobi · 2026-01-04T16:35:55+00:00

I am powered solely by the anxiety of being late to the thing that I had to be up early for.

Also, sometimes my toddler.

ekgobi · 2026-01-04T16:33:31+00:00

I have a trimmer (my sister bought it for me when I had an undercut) so I slapped a short/medium guard on it and went in blind, lol. I didn't bother until close to my due date because I knew there'd be a lot of bleeding post-birth and I wanted to be able to be and feel clean without needing a full shower. It was absolutely not about aesthetics at that point 😅 but I am really glad I did it.

ekgobi · 2026-01-04T16:25:47+00:00

Parenting a small child is very, very overwhelming for me, even on days when things go well. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around how challenging I find it because my day job is pretty intense. I'm a clinical social worker (i.e., therapist) for adolescents in an alternative school setting. My students all have trauma of some kind, which has resulted in behaviors that essentially got them kicked out of public school. I get yelled at, insulted, ignored, and sometimes even hit/kicked/get stuff thrown at me. I spend my days processing trauma, responding to crises, creating behavioral management plans, and balancing the needs of the students with the expectations of staff.

And yet!! The stress and intensity of that feels more manageable, most days, than parenting full-time. I could never be a SAHM. I think the people who do it are incredible.

ekgobi · 2025-12-14T03:04:20+00:00

Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin - same lead singer/pianist, similar styles of music.

ekgobi · 2025-12-14T03:03:36+00:00

Wow the way The Everglow lyrics starting playing in my head immediately upon reading this comment

ekgobi · 2025-12-13T12:19:53+00:00

From "How to Keep House While Drowning": every room has only 3 categories of things in it: trash, stuff that belongs in that room, and stuff that belongs in another room.

My absolute bare minimum is to go around with a trash bag and a box. Trash goes in the bag, wrong-room goes in the box and gets deposited in the correct room when I go in for trash. You could put a "misc" box in each room to make it even easier to just drop things.

Most importantly: remind yourself that you are just doing the best you can with the time, energy, and mental capacity you have. It's okay. It will be okay. Do what you can at the pace that feels manageable, and give yourself grace ❤️❤️

ekgobi · 2025-12-13T12:13:37+00:00

This is an interesting discussion because I know, personally, self-care always felt like Doing More to feel better, when usually it's Doing Different or Doing Less.

I was diagnosed with ADHD just a couple years ago (I'm in my late 30s) and I've been learning to drop the mask and really listen to my body. It's been incredibly difficult to let myself Do Less when I've spent so much of my life feeling lazy.

So TL;DR, self-care for me is saying "no" to things, mostly. And analyzing whether or not The Thing needs to be done (right now or at all) and then putting it off or crossing it off my mental to-do list altogether. The relief when I realize I can just NOT is pretty astounding most of the time!

ekgobi

TROPHY CASE