We ADDers tend to forget important things and lose important stuff. Not just misplacing a business card and forgetting to water the plants – but misplacing the car and forgetting to feed the kids! The culprit is weak working memory: inability to temporarily store and call up info.
A Built-In ADHD Alternative Treatment Solution
Sure, medication, diet, exercise can help us mitigate that weak working memory. But we have a kind of built-in natural, alternative ADHD treatment solution: Our unique way of seeing the world. See, we ADDers tend to be visual-spatial thinkers — we learn and handle information better visually and with pictures than with our ears and through text. Knowing this relative strength can help us with our weakness for losing and forgetting.
For ADDers, Seeing is Remembering
Putting something in a drawer or in a pile –- and therefore out of sight — is the same as burying it in the Sahara. It’s not just ‘out of sight, out of mind’, it’s ‘out of sight, out of EXISTENCE.’ So we ADDers must do everything we can to keep important and easily-lost items IN OUR LINE OF SIGHT.
Therefore, associate every losable item with an easily VISIBLE SPACE that it will call home. Good example is an “entrance center” near the front door. When you get home, keys, glasses, phone, umbrella, etc., all go there. It’s a table or a cabinet or just a cleared space on the dining room table. It also of course functions as an “exit” center for when you head out.
An Action Step to Help You Stop Losing/Forgetting
Here’s an Action Step from ADD Crusher™ Video I, Way 5, that takes less than 10 minutes and will help you stop losing your stuff…and your mind!
Finally, go back through the list and with each item and location, call up the mental picture of it — really visualize each in your mind’s eye: the keys on the hook, the remote in the tray, etc.
When you can see them IN YOUR MIND’S EYE in their proper place, and also WITH THE TWO EYES IN YOUR HEAD, you’re on your way!
And if you like simple, evidence-based tips and strategies to help you (or a loved one) manage your ADHD, then you will love the award-winning ADD Crusher™ multi-media program, which is endorsed by over 100 ADHD coaches around the world. And here’s an opportunity to get the program at 25% off: Just go to ADDCrusher.com and use promo code BLOG25 to get that steep discount. It’s 100% effective, with a 100% money-back guarantee.
Bless,
Alan
P.S. Be sure to forward this to anyone you know who might have a losing/forgetting handicap — whether ADHD or not! ab
