I recently found a great BuzzFeed article that I think might be helpful to a lot of you and your students with ADHD: 47 Hacks People With ADD/ADHD Use To Stay On Track. To write the article, they polled their online community about the strategies that work for them. I like this approach because it acknowledges that people with ADHD can be experts on their own condition. This article is great to share with students because not only is it from BuzzFeed, which many of them already read, it features advice from real students and young adults instead of instructions from teachers.
47 hacks are are a lot of strategies to review, so here are a few of my favorites:
“Take a picture of your to-do list otherwise #1 on your to-do list will be find the to-do list!”
“I leave sticky notes on my keys.”
“I have to make it a point to remove all forms of communication from my reach so I know I’m only concentrating on the task at hand.”
“When I have a limited amount of time to do something…, I have a kitchen timer that I have go off every 3 minutes. It doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but you can get a lot done. When the timer seems to be going off too quickly and starts to become annoying, that usually means I’m daydreaming or focusing on the wrong thing.”
“I write notes with a dry erase marker on all of my bathroom mirrors.Things seem to hit me while I’m brushing my teeth or doing my makeup.”
“If you have to read something with a due date, separate 10-15 pages with post its and set a time to read it through the day. Let’s say you have to read 90 pages for tomorrow, read 15 pages at 10 am, 12 pm, 2 pm, 4 pm, 6 pm and 8pm.”
“Prioritize what needs to be done by writing it all out and writing how long you estimate each task will take. That really helps me order things in a way that works for me.”
Do you or your students have any great ADHD hacks? If you do, please share them in the comments. Students with ADHD often especially benefit from time management strategies. To learn more about time management check out SMARTS Unit 4A.
Elizabeth Ross, M.A., SMARTS Media Manager
