True Story: A Robot Vacuum Has Changed My Life | Scary Mommy
Following on last week’s conversation in the comments about robot vacuums, this post is absolutely spot on. The Roomba’s magic isn’t even in the real-world burden it removes. It’s all about the psychological burden.
You know how it feels when you’re totally, out-of-your-mind overwhelmed and someone offers to take a tiny thing off your plate? Maybe it’s picking up the dry cleaning or loading the dishwasher or calling to reschedule dinner with a friend. Something small, a single drop in your ocean of despair.
But somehow a tiny gesture like that can free the logjam in our brains and get us thinking maybe we can manage after all.
Here’s the thing: in a household full of ADHDers, you might be less likely to encounter that magic gesture.
If you can outsource it to a machine that will do the equivalent of saying, “Hey, I have a few minutes, let me run the vacuum for your real quick?” And if that machine can repeat the favor every day? That could clear a lot of logjams.
ADHD in action, folks: this 100-dollar bill has sat in my wallet for over 7 months (since I returned from a vacation to Canada). | Jaclyn ☕️ The ADHD Homestead on Instagram
Things fall apart sometimes and that’s okay. Whatever. The biggest and best lesson I ever learned was not to sit and cry (literally) and berate myself until I feel worthless over something like a Canadian bill still being in my wallet.
Decluttering Tips: 3 Teeny-Tiny Steps To Help You Get Started | Be More With Less
Yes, yes, yes. It’s all about the tiny steps. Big undertakings are usually too overwhelming to be successful for us ADHDers. Setting the bar low allows us to get our foot in the door and start feeling the positive effects almost immediately.
ADHD and Numbing Out | Healthy ADHD
I love how real and honest Liz is about this stuff without being judgmental or negative. I’ve been trying to bring awareness to my own numbing behaviors lately. This morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m. full of anxiety about work I have to do in the next few weeks: keep on track with novel revisions, finish a conference talk, order books and promotional materials to stock my table at a few upcoming events. And those are just my must-dos. Behind that I have two new book drafts, an app I want to get into public beta this spring, and a few other business projects.
The thing is, when I try to work on these particular tasks I often feel tempted to zip over to Twitter or check Google Analytics or do any number of other things that’ll numb my feeing of overwhelm.
Yes, I know I feel much better when I just sit down and do the work 😉
Excerpt from Liz’s post:
Remember, numbing out is any activity we do when we are avoiding FEELING something.
Binging on Netflix, scrolling through social, posting, tweeting, and even eating can all be used to buffer/numb out.
You also might start to numb out if you are trying to engage in some activity that makes you FEEL overwhelmed, or icky in some way. Like a difficult phone call, or a major project at work.
The other major indicator that you have been buffering is the terrible feeling you get when you stop. Whatever feeling or action you were trying to avoid comes directly into focus.
You feel panicked and self-critical. The opposite of how you wanted to feel when you started buffering.
Right Brained | ADHD Man of Distraction
My husband is left-handed and we both have ADHD, but I never thought to make the comparison this way. It’s kind of true though: so many aspects of our surroundings don’t even register with a neurotypical person but pose a legit barrier to an ADHDer.
I don’t necessarily think things should be designed for ADHDers any more than I think things should be designed for lefties, but living with my husband has taught me how easy it is to design for both. For example, we have a ladle with a pour spout on both sides. All our scissors are ambidextrous (except the left-handed ones he uses for special precise cutting projects).
In other words, many people simply design from their perspective and forget to consider others. Why only put a spout on one side of the ladle?
To the point Kelly brings up in his blog here, why have television screens throughout the entire restaurant? I’m interested to hear your examples: environmental and design choices that could be more inclusive without causing any substantive inconvenience.
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