Deltas for ADHD?

The benefits of having a set routine and how it helps with ADHD. Here, I'm not talking about those disciplined scheduled blocks or something, or asking you to do anything over the top. Find things that are the least effort for you, things that you do enjoy, obviously. And then build your life around it.

I can't guarantee that will work for everyone. It sometimes doesn't even work for me. People like nuance in their lives, and I agree that it gets boring doing the same 5 things every day. But for most of the day, if you reduce the cognitive load from your brain and let a couple of scheduled tasks fill it, like deciding what breakfast you want and just repeating it throughout the year, deciding what you'll be doing at a particular hour of the day, it reduces the cognitive load, makes it easier for you to do that thing, and builds a consistent habit.

And as someone who doesn't have a positive outlook on life in general, someone like me who is a pessimist, you would not see much benefit in it. You would feel like life is slipping away. I don't know what meaning this life has, but that is the point.

Every day, you are a newer person. Borrowing from calculus, let's say the person you are right now and the person you were yesterday have a difference: delta. The delta in this case is a very small number/difference, and we have a tendency to ignore it. It might not seem meaningful to you.

And there are two POVs to this. The delta can either help you become a better person, or the delta can let you fall into the trap of becoming a worse person. It depends on how you take it. The change is so small that you can ignore it. And if you constantly look for a negative pattern, “I haven't done anything good, I haven't done anything good”, then the delta is likely to be regressive.

But if you have a positive outlook, the delta may be progressive. You may look back at yesterday and think that, wait, I went to the gym yesterday, I went to the gym today, I don't feel anything. But if you look at this from how integration works, you can sum up small deltas, you integrate it over a long period of time, and you see that you have come a long way.

And you, as a person with a non-neurotypical brain, might always think that, you know, I need to do this, I need to do this. You will watch YouTube videos. One of the things that you have to do is to stop watching YouTube videos; stop watching any tutorials. They will not help you.

You like that noise. You like to consume it. You may even use it as background noise. You may add it to Watch Later. You will try to implement it, but it will not work out for you. That is the harsh reality of the situation.

The one thing that has a shot at working is routines. Routines so layered, so structured, and so rigid that if you don't stick to those routines, you will feel like your life is falling apart. And I'm not saying that is necessarily good, but if the routines are good, if the routines are aligned with your goals, then, hey, at least you are making progress. Even though you may not notice it, you are making progress.