Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the other things ADHD podcast.
You're not missing? Oh,
I'll tell you. We I was going to sing. But I was trying to think of which song from the musical Cats I should base our jingle on today, because we're going to talk about
Mo, Marie.
But I didn't, I didn't want to sing that because I can't talk Jennifer Hudson and I can't forget that movie. And I know that it's Jennifer Hudson that sang it in the recent film version of cats the musical. But this morning, I had to go back down to the basement twice to get a load of laundry started. Because the first time I went down, I put the laundry into the washing machine and I put the soap in the soap dispenser. And then I left about 10 minutes later, I thought I don't hear anything. God dammit. I didn't press the start button on the washing machine. And it strikes me that many of us with ADHD have
incredibly poor, short term memory.
Oh, gosh. That's why I blew it on singing our jingle because I forgot
that I was gonna do it.
It was either that or you got distracted by something on your screen. It was one of the two things right? That's the
shiny thing.
Yeah. Wait, they're talking about MC Hammer on Twitter?
Why? Go check that out right now. What are we doing?
Wait, what was that? No, I I've done the exact same thing with the washing machine. You know, put clothes in, put this open and close the door and then walk away and walk away every time and actually the best thing ever and in and this is also why I don't cook. Right. We've talked about this before I don't cook because I forget that I'm cooking something. Yeah, um, and I would always hate doing laundry. Because even if I remembered to turn it on, I would forget about it. Yes, but now, I have a smart washing machine and dryer that connects to the Wi Fi. And there's an app on my phone, and I get a push notification on my watch. When when the dryer washer is done. The only
case that we could possibly make for the Internet of Things that doesn't end with Julie Christie inadvertently and unwillingly carrying an AI human hybrid in the movie. Demon seed is for accessibility technology for people who can't remember, if they started the washing machine and who once they start the washing machine can't remember that there's a certain period of time after which it ends, during which you can remove the clothes and put them in the dryer after which point when you remove the clothes, you will notice that they smell like funk and need to be washed again. Yeah, yeah, well, it's me Have I know?
Yeah. Oh, no, I know. I mean, there's also on the app on my phone. So let's say I don't hear the washing machine. I can check on my phone. I can be like, Oh, I did forget. Now I will go downstairs as opposed to like, you know, maybe I'm just going hard of hearing. Which, you know, might be the reason it runs in the family. So, so yeah, like, are we I mean, it's it's this interesting. You know, I kind of alluded to it. It's this interesting tension between did I forget? Or did I just get distracted? And is there any difference at the end of the day?
Yeah, I think this could be a very interesting topic for today's episode of all the things ADHD
all the what? Yeah, but Hmm. Well, that the there's also I mean, that there are all the memes about this all the memes. But you walk into a room and you forget why you walked into the room like you literally are like, I came to the kitchen for a reason.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, what was that reason? Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need to like, what are we doing here?
Yeah, there's like I think there's a name for that's like the threshold effect. As soon as you cross the threshold it like has a memory wiping it's like passing like a computer disk under heavy magnet like you. You prompt cross that barrier between worm and the other. And you're like, What is my name? Is this my house? Why am I here? For
for the younger listeners of this podcast. It used to be that you would hold store things on physical disks or diskettes. And it was a very fragile technology where if it were to go by a magnet, you would either erase or at least very badly scramble and screw up whatever data happened to be on that disk or disk. It is 3d media. Yes, it is the 3d version of the Save button. It used to add the save button actually represent something physical from a bygone era of what 30 years ago 20 or 30 years ago.
Look Here we and that's the second part, which is I can visualize, like it's nothing, a five and a quarter inch floppy diskette. And a floppy disk, I know that it's called the disc, I know that the smaller one was the plastic case with the metal sleeve that slid back and forth. That is a diskette. Because it is a smaller version of a disc. I can remember the years that various personal computers were introduced, and I can remember every single detail from my childhood. Even if in my childhood, I regularly forgot where I left my bike. Why are we like this? So some of us have very good long term memory, almost photographic memory for things that happened in the past, we remember tiny little details of of things that other people maybe don't remember.
So many things that I remember that everyone in my family are like, What are you talking about? Yeah, like, no, no, it happened?
Yeah. So my husband, I have complementary skills in this regard. Because his short term memory is amazing. Like he, you know, he can walk into a room and remember why he's there. I am, like, so impressed by his capacity gifts. What? Yeah, like he leaves the house on an errand and remembers to go to all the places he said he was going to go to, and I like, go out. And I'm like, I'm going to go to Shoppers Drug Mart, and I'm going to buy appealing foot mask and a lip balm, and I get there and I buy one box of Kleenex so that I have a reason to stand in the store, trying to remember what it was that I put your pants and shoes on, left the house for, and then actually entered the store. I know that I'm here because there was something I wanted to buy, but I cannot remember. But then my husband also like does not remember like what year we got married or you know what the living room color was in the first house that we have, like, I remember all of that stuff in the moment. Like the the sort of memory that I need for like living my day to day in a way that does not involve so many missed dentist appointments and unpaid bills, like I had don't have that kind of memory. But I will be like, I know that that was in 2008 because this happened and I had hair cut. And that was like the Christmas that your parents came to stay with us? Yes. Like my parents came for Christmas. I'm like, they came close. They came in this year. And then they came like I don't know. Like how does that happen? I don't I don't know. Yeah,
I don't know. And that's, that's exactly the same thing with me. Right? I can, I can recall an incredible detail. Not all of my childhood, obviously. But like, so much more of it than my husband remembers, or even my own parents remember about like our, like my childhood. Or even you know, my brother's? I'm like, do you remember when this happened when we were kids? And he's like, I don't know. We were curious. Yeah. What? Same thing, like even talking about stuff that happened in our own kids lives, right. I'm like, do you remember when your daughter did this to remember when our son did that? He's like, No.
Like, no, I reminded my husband the other day of this like, thing we had going for a long time when we our kid was transitioning from taking baths every night to taking showers but she they were not great at getting into the shower and washing appropriately and getting their hair done. And sometimes guys open their eyes. And so for like, probably a year and a half my husband would put his bathing suit on and get in the shower with our kid. And he does not remember any of that. And he did it for almost two years. Right? I was like, wow, that was like your job because used to be in charge of bath time. He's like, I remember that. As like never that time you dropped your phone in the tub and you drowned. It is a cookie. I remember that. Yeah. And then for like, a year and a half you got in the shower with our kids. And that was your ritual. He's like, I have no recollection of that at all. And I was like, Huh. And he's like, did you get that thing from the post office? I'm like, what?
Yeah, it was the post office. Yeah, rounding your car with us? Yeah, yeah. Driving around in your car, like with with shit in the trunk that you're supposed to drop off somewhere. And they keep opening the trunk when you go to Costco and they're like, why would you drop it? Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
You know, part of that's executive function for me I'll put stuff for like the giveaway. I'm gonna bring devalue village or whatever. And it stays there often. I'm embarrassed to say four months because yeah, no, no. I'm going to put it in the trunk. And then like one of these days I'm gonna muster up the energy to go there and then I forget right or I remembered I'm like, No, not now. Like yeah, now we're not now I'm not doing it now. No, no, yeah, unspecified period. And then like you say, like, I will go to the garden center and I hope that you want to buy a trunk full of potting soil and I open the trunk and I'm legitimately surprised by the things that I put in my trunk even though I was surprised in that same light just one day prior when I went to the grocery store, right I can be surprised by that forever and still not managed to remember to bring it to the place and I won't be at the garden center saying Okay, my next stop is definitely Value Village. I might not do it. Not now.
Yeah. And then I forgot to cross the street. No, I like next door maybe but like It's not a left turn. It's a left turn that what oh, no, no, I'm making a left.
Turn, I'm gonna go. I'm sure there's a line up there. I'm gonna wait for like I'm going to optimize I'm not going to satisfy says, I'm going to optimize this. And the end result is I completely forget. But something on the back of my mind, it's weighing the whole time.
Until Until you forget about it. And then remember it when you open the trunk the next time.
Yeah, you're like, yeah, so they're like, this is substantially impairing. Like, it's funny. Like,
I literally had a bag of like, we cleaned out the bathroom. And you know how you get the toiletries in the hotel. And sometimes, we still think we're grad students, so we have to share those things.
You're like Ross kind of stuff at all in your bag. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so I think I legitimately drove around now it was it was our beater car. So we didn't go grocery shopping with it was literally just like if we needed an extra four wheels to get to some place. But I think I carried around a garbage bag of toiletries in the back of my in that trunk right for a year.
Right. So if you got stuck in a snowstorm on a Virginia highway, it would be very hygienic. It would be it would be would smell great. You would have shower caps, right. tiny bottles of shampoo. Should such a thing become required to clean your windshield yet, right? No,
it's oil based, right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you could moisturize because be very dry with the air blasting. Yeah, I don't know. Like, yeah. And like, this is not just like annoying, like some of this is gendered, right. Like, who can't remember to turn the laundry machines on, especially like the woman who's supposed to be good at this stuff, right? Or like, I will vacuum half a room, put the vacuum cleaner down because I need to do something and then forget that I was vacuuming. And then like, hours and hours and hours later, Tom will be like, can I put this vacuum cleaner away? And I'm like, No, I'm not done. He's like, but when did you start? I'm like, Well, I started this morning. He's like it like it takes five minutes to do this. You're just gonna finish it now. Like, well, no, I'm not gonna just just leave it there.
I'm gonna just say. Yeah, yeah.
And I forget.
Yeah, well, my kids, I mean, it dries my husband up the wall. But like, we are terrible, like myself, my son, my daughter, all of us ADHD, and putting things away. Right. Right. Like, we will eat food at the table. And then, like, once we're finished eating, we'll forget about it. So like, I get up every morning, and there are dishes all over the kitchen table, because kids ate breakfast. And then, you know, left. You know, part of that is also the timing issue of just like a dark background. And it's like, you know, it's they're optimizing. Right? It's like, I eat as quickly as possible. And then because I'm of course late because I decided to of course, you know, yeah, no, yeah, exactly. Right. Like it's not but it but it's also I legitimately and then that there's a certain blindness as well with it, where it's like, they don't even notice them. They it's like they forget they exist in a really tangible way of like, you know, did you, you know, did look at the table, what do you see nothing. And they're looking at the table, they literally can't see it. Like, they just just like, white noise. So it's just, and I do it too, like I do with the with with different things. But there's a there's like a, almost like not even just forgetting about it. But like, or even forgetting its significance.
Right? So this is the kind of inattentive part of the inattentive. ADHD, right. And so part of the reason that we can't remember things, it's because we don't notice things. Part of the reason we don't notice things is because 75 things are going on in our heads at the same time. And it's like listening to four radio stations simultaneously, right? Only some of that's coming through, right and probably none of it is coming through very well or one thing is coming through very well. But you were supposed to be listening to the weather, but you got caught up in a Drake song because constantly and you missed the weather, even though it played while you were listening to it. But you were like, your brain tuned itself in to the wrong station. Even though for them. We're playing at the same time and you knew you were supposed to listen to the weather one, but you were like, ooh, shiny. Yeah, Drake wants me to call him on his cell phone. I better go pay attention that right now. So like yeah, part of it is we are inattentive. So part of the reason that I forget sometimes to press the button to turn the washing machine on is that while I am loading the washing machine I have my headphones on I'm listening to a podcast. Yeah. So I'm like mechanically doing this thing with my body like a type of muscle memory. Like these are the steps I like, you know, you know where my laundry basket is. I don't have to think about it. I know where all my dirty clothes are just like I have a routine and I can do it largely on autopilot. You know, but the autopilot is not. It requires a little bit of attention. And sometimes I don't even give it that little touch. This is how sometimes I come out of the shower and my conditioner is still in my hair. Or I have shaved one leg. Right and I mystified. I'm like God gave me like, how did you like, forget that? And I was like, Well, I was thinking some interesting thoughts are like, I brought my speaker into the bathroom with me. So I'm singing along with this new song. And I just figured out what are the lyrics and somewhere in that I failed to pay the minimal amount of attention. So, you know, those of us who all of us, I think he all types of ADHD do have some level in attentiveness with them, and also an incapacity to direct our focus to the thing that matters, just because it's important if something else is more interesting, that's where our attention goes. So that tendency to not notice things coupled with that tendency to not really be able to decide what we're going to pay attention to means that we never it's not like we forgot, it's that we just didn't think to do you know what I mean? Like we know exactly this thing, right? Yeah.
Yeah, we didn't notice. And that's exactly it. You didn't notice that you that it was time to turn on the washing machine, right. Yeah. Like, my son was notorious. Now he's finally because part of excuse me, part of it is that routine, right? There's a there's a certain, like, certain things that do become kind of rote. That that you know, and I know that that both my kids are very certain things have to be done in a certain order in a certain way. And then it's done that way all the time. And that way, everything gets done. But for a while, recently, I don't know what it was. But my son just started forgetting to flush the toilet when he was done. Yeah. And they have the room. And maybe the problem is, is that now what after we've moved, the kids have their own bathroom? Right? So like, we have one up in the master bedroom, there's one sort of on the main floor, that's kind of the the little half bath, and then they have their own bathroom. And he's, of course on his phone when he goes to the bathroom. Fine, whatever. You know, if it wasn't it wasn't his phone. There'd be books or magazines beside it. Fine. We all did it. Right. But, but his routine is and I know because like you can hear the toilet lid close after
taking always closes it. Right. Wait. So the other visual reminder that flushing is required is now gone. Yeah, exactly. environment is not offering the cue. Hey, yeah, buddy. Yeah, close the lid. And like whatever you put in that toilet bowl doesn't exist anymore.
Yes. Exactly. Until someone opens it and all those moments. Yeah. And then. Or, even worse, the flesh. And it would get clogged and you'd forget to tell us
Sure. That's worse when you
feel like oh, then his sister walks in and is like, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I forgot to tell you a clog the toilet.
Yeah, like we got the rest of that to our imagination. Yeah, no, but
but then. And then is the teenager he is for a while after that. It was like he'd come out of the bathroom. Did you flush the toilet? Yes. Are you sure you flush the toilet? Yes. Why? Why are you good? I'm like, because I'm not. I'm not doing that. Again. I'm gonna. Well, this is the routine, because
this is what I do with my kids now, because some of these things just have low salience. Right? If you leave your dishes out, even though you know you're supposed to put them away, when you come home, your mom says you were supposed to put your dishes away. And you say, Oh, I'm sorry. I'll try to remember tomorrow. Okay, great. But if like I might get a bunch of Mike Well, exactly. Because my kid has a bunch of jeans you're supposed to do to like one of them is like you have to put your boots in the closet, you have to turn the light off in the closet and then close the goddamn closet door. I don't want to look into a ratty ask closet all the time, and you have to empty your school bags. And by the time you go to bed, all of the things that belong to that are on the dining room table and the breakfast bar and on the couch have to go upstairs. And I will normally find myself downstairs at 1030 which is like the point at which now they're in bed and they've done their final sweep and if stuff is still out, I make them get out of bed. Right and they grumble and I'm like, but this is your job not mine, right? And so becomes more salient for them as they come downstairs. Now they're like, I don't want to have to come back down. Right? So I've increased the pain point there for them a little bit because I was absorbing the consequence of that right. So that's one thing and and I will say to them sometimes too. And this is like, advice I need to take for myself too is like well, if I was actually paying attention to the thing that I'm doing, I won't miss two steps. Yeah, right. I won't if I wasn't listening to a podcast, I would not forget to press the start button. It's just it's a button like it's not like I have to go gather buckets of water important like it just is literally a button it takes one finger and one second. And I regularly forget to do it because I'm not paying attention to the water. But then the thing is, the thing is Lee if I was not listening to my podcast, I was gonna say started the line because it's boring. You Gather all my stuff without something to think about, right. And I think a lot of our listeners will probably find themselves in this bind as well, like it's too boring to focus on the task. But you can do the task as long as you are, you know, distracting yourself with some loud music or a podcast or you're like, you know, fidgeting or whatever it is that you're you're ironing during the meeting, or like, whatever it is, like, and then you try to like, you know, get the cotton setting, but then you forgot to change the cotton setting on your iron to silk, because you were sort of paying attention, the beating and sort of paying attention to the ironing, and now you burn a hole in something. But if you weren't doing both of those tasks at the same time, you would be doing either a better
task. Oh, exactly. Yeah, no, it is. And it's, you know, I've talked about this how, you know, watching my son, make eggs in the morning drives me nuts, because he does it in his own idiosyncratic way, while he is watching his phone. What if he didn't wasn't watching his phone? He would not ever make his own breakfast. That's right. And so that's why I kind of have to just be like, I get it. I know. It's okay. I'm, you know, breed. But I think that the flip side of that, though, is is again, this this inattentive part or not knowing what we should pay attention to, and having all that. I think that that's part of what makes the long term memory. So much better. Hmm. Because we don't pay attention to the things that people assume you should quote unquote, be paying attention to. And so we're taking it in a certain way, all in? Yeah, right. We're looking at the big things, we're looking for the shiny things, we're looking for the moments. And because we're making all of those connections, and all of those different channels, I think there's, to me, my experience is there's a richness, right, our memories, because of that the long term stuff that you know, if we're gonna go the inside out the core memories, we probably have a billion core memories, right? Like she has like three or two, like, what are the four or five core memories that she has, with ADHD, I'm pretty sure probably have, like 10,000 to a million core memories, like the gold balls are just shooting out. times. Yeah. And
like, that's part of what makes remembering the daily stuff harder to write as if you are like, shooting in HD all the time, right? Yeah, going up a lot of space in your hard drive. And it's real hard, like to use the working memory for anything other than like working on the storage. So like, I think that's why we also tend to remember things that do not have high salience for other people. Like remember that one time we went to that place, I don't know why remember that that time that you said, you always want to buy a yellow house like, like, what, like, I don't know why I remember that. I know I do. And I wonder if we tend to have better sort of long term memories of these types of things also, because like, I know, you have rejection sensitive dysphoria, and I'm autistic, and I missed everybody's social cues all the time that we are focused so intently on reading the entire situation, right in any sort of high stakes, medium stakes, low stakes, like we went to, I was the start of the school year, and I had a new classroom and all new classmates and like I that is imprinted on my brain because I was in fact focused so hard on trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and how not to screw it up. interpersonally that like, I was shooting in like Technicolor. IMAX, everything and it was like yeah, it was like another I don't know, was like grade seven or grade eight. I'm like it was grade five. I'll tell you why
that Yeah.
Like it's partially trauma memory there too. Because we're always like hyper vigilant in situations that might cause us stress and so many situations cause us stress
so that so I'm glad you brought cuz I wanted to bring this up too is my research that I've been doing on memory and memoir. And and neuro divergence and those kinds of things is that there is a concept called trauma time. Yeah. And it is somebody called it one of the quotes that I found is on it is that it's like a portkey like in Harry Potter. It's like a portkey. And there's something that just sucks you in and makes me in that like the now and not now. And suddenly the knot now becomes the now through that your key traumatize knife. We Yes. But and what I saw what was interesting, too, because it's one of those moments where, you know, it's like, oh, that sounds like a lot of how about how people with ADHD experience time? Yeah, that is the trauma time. And then I saw this tweet about something unrelated, but it clicked for me. He's like, I don't know anybody who's neurodivergent who has not experienced deep trauma. Right? Right. And I was like, oh, yeah, shit, that's you're not wrong about that. And so, so it's, it's, again, this intersection of trauma time, versus how our brains are already wired to see time and memory. And those two actions working together. Are you know, the, the, I call it the past is always present, right where it is. And that's kind of it trauma time. Yeah, but but that's but that's the thing right like, because when we can recall those memories we do we recall them in HD. Yes, we recorded them in HD and they haven't degraded. Yeah, that's keep with the media metaphor if we know degradation, there's no passing. Nobody passed the magnet. Yeah, yeah, no one passed the magnet even if they didn't have any impact because there's like a lead shield there. Um, so, so it's, it's, it's this really interesting sort of thing where again, um, you know, we we forget some little stuff, and have an incredible memory for other little stuff.
Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, I like I know, I don't know why this is. But I was like joking. At the dinner table the other night. That I remember more Beastie Boys lyrics than my child and my husband No, have any lyrics to any song ever? I don't know why I remember that. There's something the way that encodes in my mind or it might be like this three weeks in grade 11, where I listened to Paul's boutique on repeat because I had to do some hallway surveillance for stuff because I was a prefect, because of course I was and which I remember I'm like, and I know why I did that. And the cassette tape was red, because it was the first issue of cassette and had the big pullout thing with the lyrics. And I would check the lyrics. And this yellow, Sony Walkman and yellow Sony sport Walkman. Yeah. And it was like, I know why I was roaming the hallways, it's because somebody kept pulling the fire alarm during exams, and the fire alarms did not like have any sort of security on them. And so the people were doing already very well on the exams were taken out of their exams, to walk up or down the hallways to make sure that nobody else pulled things. And I just remember feeling superduper proud about that. Because I was like, I'm such a great student. I feel like I get to walk the hallways and listen to my cassette tape. So be while it was like, you're like a dark grey, because I'm out there. That did not like occur to me at all at that point. But yeah, so I don't want to me the Beastie Boys lyrics. And I know the entire story about how I came to know that but again, you know, I go downstairs and I forget to turn the washing machine on, or I will talk to a student after class and the student will say, blah, blah, blah. They're like, Oh, yeah, okay, I will send you that. I'm just gonna get back to my office, and I will send you that. And it's not like you get back to my office. And I think I'm too tired to send that note. I
have completely forgotten forgotten. Yeah,
I just said something to the student. Did I? Yeah, I was like, Did I teach today? Like, yeah. And so like, I think what you're talking about with the routines and stuff is super crucial, right? Because I know my working memory is shit. I can't remember anything. So what I try to do is like Mike, you know, like, let's say, in any given day, I can call on my working memory, I don't know 10 times to be like, okay, like that's one spoon of just expended. Right. So what I try to do it by routines is regularize my days, so much that I have fewer things that I have to remember. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, way if you were things that I have to remember. So, you know, like, when I get in the shower, I do everything in the absolute same order. Because if like, like sometimes my kid busts into the bathroom, it is like, Mom, I need you to sign that thing on school day, but I don't like what, and then they're like, Okay, and I'm like, what? And then that's when I forget to shape one of my
Yeah, was I you know, yeah,
I'm learning like, also this like stupid. Like Chopin, my nemesis. I'm like learning if anybody listens to Chopin. This is like, Opus 55. Number one. It's one of the Nocturnes I call it the singsong nightmare, because that's what it sounds like. But it's seven songs in one song. And they each have different technical challenges. And there's one part that's got triplets in the right hand, which is a chromatic scale moving towards itself. And then the left hand is in quarter notes. So it's Oh, ah, me. So the rhythm is almost impossible. Or you can you can only look at one hand at a time, right? But you sort of need to look at both hands. And so I've been working on this, like maybe eight or nine bar passage for several weeks. And what I'm trying to build into my hands, is that when I panic, my hands keep going. Yeah, because they know. And like, that's how for me, I have to address my working memory deficits is I have to drill and kill. Like, that's what I have to do with my routine. So like, we were talking about going back to work after code, I was like, Yeah, we need a routine about what goes in the bag. Right? And when, and that's why for me, when everybody comes home, their boots go in the closet, right? And the closet door gets shut and everything gets hung up. Because if you have to remember to do it later, they're not I can't even remember to finish vacuuming one whole room that's 200 square feet, right? And you can remind me seven times that I haven't finished it. And I, in my mind, I started the job, therefore it must be done. And it's like, gone, right? So I try to build these things into my life so that I don't have to remember so now when a student talks to me after class, I will be like, I'm not going to remember this, right? Send me an email, send me a calendar invite. And then I will say like, if I don't get back to you, please remind me right? Like I am here and I'm paying 100% attention to you right now. But So I've just taught, you know, this grad class for three hours in a row. And even if I hadn't used any of my 10 memory items yet that day, after three hours of being at the front of a classroom, I'm not, I'm just not going to remember because my, my working memory muscle is withered. And it's never, it's never going to be even approaching normal. And sometimes it's much, much worse than any normal human would ever function. And I have to find ways to work around that. And that's hard, because sometimes I forget to put my strategies in place.
Yeah. Well, for me, it is a so I've talked about how, until the routine gets drilled in for my son, there's alarms on his phone. Yeah. Right. And like it was literally every single step of the way. That there was an alarm that went on his phone. And then after a while, he didn't need the alarms anymore. Right? It was drilled enough into him that he didn't need it. And he even got enough of a sense of even the time passing. Yeah, right, that now suddenly, 15 minutes made at least 15 minutes. In the morning. Yeah, for doing this these particular task. 15 minutes. Yeah. made sense. Right. Like, he doesn't know what 15 minutes feels like in any other context. But it's not it's not generalized. No, it's not generalized 15 minutes, it is those specific 15 minutes between when he starts eating and when he needs to be done eating, and when he you know, when he gets up, versus when he needs to be dressed, where you know, and all of that. And so that's proven really helpful for him. For me, it's like I am I'm just slavishly follow my calendar. Yeah. Right. Like if I sit down at the beginning of the academic year, and just populate all the kids activities, all my known activities, you know, everything, all of that kind of stuff, where I'm going to be, and we have a shared family calendar. And as soon as you know, I say that to like, I like send me a calendar invite. I will go wherever the calendar tells me to go. That's right. So I know you have notification 10 minutes before it happens. And I'll be like, great. This is, I have no idea what the Zoom meeting is about. But there is a link to it. Yeah, I said yes to it. And hopefully when I see the person on Zoom, I'll remember what this is about. And there'll be an agenda. Someone will tell me
what Yeah, so like, what you've done there is like, you have reduced all of your memory requirements to one memory requirement, and that is to check the calendar. Yeah. Right. And that when you even like put a failsafe for that, which is like notifications on my wrist, right. And that, and that works
on my computer and right, yeah.
And that would be crazy. So I like I'm a straight note for that. But yeah, like I found, like this past week. Monday was a holiday, right? It was like, is it Presidents Day? Is that what it was for you? Yeah, it was for us present family day for us. And because that was a Monday that felt like a Sunday, then Tuesday was a mess. And Wednesday was a mess. And I woke up today and I thought, God, what day is it? Because I have I don't have that feeling in my body of having June. I mean, like so. So Tuesday, for me, feels like the day that comes after a Monday. Right? And a Monday is the day that comes after a Sunday where I'm relaxed. And so Monday has a certain energy to it. That's different from the Tuesday energy. And then Wednesday is a day that I teach. And I did not teach this week because it's reading week. And so now I'm like in that period between Christmas and New Year's that everybody neurotypical people joke about, which is like, you know, Christmas Day, the day after Christmas, day, day, what New Year's have what like, but that was me this week, because like Monday didn't. I didn't do the things with my body and my brain that I would normally do on a Monday so that when I woke up Tuesday, I thought it was Monday. Yeah, when I woke up Wednesday, I thought it was Tuesday. Right. And today, I don't know what day it is.
Yeah, I do and to what I do want to know what our university did was just to really mess things up. So we you we have you have a lot, you know, because you started have on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Monday, Wednesday schedule Tuesday, Thursday. I know we're going so there's a lot of Monday holidays. Yeah. They made Tuesday, a Monday.
Dude, that was pioneered by the University of Waterloo. They gave us a reading week a couple years ago in the fall for spec but it was two days. It was a Tuesday and a Wednesday, but school had started on a Thursday, but Thanksgiving was a Monday. So they had these days. They're like and that week when we come back Thursday, it's actually going to be Monday. And I was like, fuck off.
I can't do
this stuff. Like I don't
understand what's happening because you know, I always have mistakes in the data of my soul. Oh, well, the time is happening every year. But I was like, I tried to couch it in terms of like, you know, people when they take a Monday Wednesday, Friday class like sometimes have childcare lined up for Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or they have like, a part time job that they work or they have, like obligation out of whatever, like a sports team that they play for. And like if the whole world doesn't turn Thursday into Monday, like, that's just not gonna work for a lot of people. But for me, it doesn't work because I have no idea what's happening. No. How do you want me to remember that? Like, don't go out of your way world to make it harder for me to remember stuff because I already suck at this. I really, really do. It's like the productive of untold stress. And like, I think that's why I wake up in the middle of the night panicking. I'm like, Why did I forget today? I'm pretty sure it was something right. You know, something important maybe that I missed like the other day, I don't really told you I got in. I'm so excited. I got invited to do a keynote. Which is great, because I like I bookmark a bunch of calls for papers about things I want to apply for. And then I forget, yeah, yeah. So at this point, you know, like Linda, veg Elista, in the early 90s. Like, I don't get it a bid for less than $10,000. But now I'm like, I don't go to a conference. Unless I'm the keynote. It is not because I'm arrogant is because like I never fucking managed to apply on time. And also partially because my interdisciplinary work means I get rejected by ground level conference organizers, but they'll say people will invite me to keynote. Yeah, I've had papers rejected from like, the very same instantiation of a conference that I keynoted. And I was like, All right, you choose people. Yeah. So I was like this, that stuff. And anyhow, so I got this invitation. And I was really excited. And I read it on my phone before I get into bed in the morning. And I was like, Yeah, I had to read away, get up. I gotta remember this. And then I got up, and I forgot. And then I forgot all day. And I was like, I really have to answer this person tomorrow. I'm not going to use them at 11 o'clock at night, when I remember. But I'm going to do it first thing tomorrow morning, and I forgot again. And then so I was like, Okay, I'll do it now. And I did it. And then the next day, somebody was asking me about something. And I was like, Yeah, I'm not I don't have anything like lined up at all. If it sound like I'm not sure I got invited a keynote that day. And I was like, I'm gonna fucking forget that I'm like, I've put it in my calendar. And then I can put a one month reminder and a two month reminder, like, hey, heads up. Remember, you're like, Who forgets that they're keynoting something?
Well, me. Yeah, no, I
do that too. And I've told you how I forget that we're just maybe it's the way is the time that I forget that I'm going to a conference, which means that I have to cancel my class, because I can't be at a conference. And in my classroom, this is of course, before zoom will have the same a simultaneously. And so I'll be talking. I'll tell my A literally I used to do I think I've told the story here before, but I'd literally tell my class. Okay, here's what we're gonna do for Friday. See, you then don't forget, here are all the things you're gonna have to do. Here's what we're going to talk about great. They, you know, are filtering out and a colleague of mine who teaches immediately after I do filters in and goes, Hey, what about that conference? When are you leaving? How are you doing about that? Thursday? Thursday, and we're going to eat he's like, okay, great. And it doesn't. I'm in the hotel room. Yeah. And the notifications on like, yeah, notification on my phone goes off that I'm supposed to go and teach the class now. And I'm like, oh, fuck, I am out of state. And so I am like messaging this same colleague, going like, Hey, could you just go into class and right up on the board that I'm not going to be there because I forgot like that. And he's like, you're at a conference and you've forgotten. I'm like, yes, I forgot.
Because those are two different domains. Yeah, no, exactly. They're two different domains. And people I think neurotypical people don't understand ADHD. Remember, books like this, like things are in buckets, and they don't connect right then. So I have a bucket for travel where I will like, you know, I have my airline ticket booked and I've got the airport shuttle booked and I got the hotel booked and I my papers all written and it doesn't occur to me I'm actually teaching one of those days. Right and I will like you go to class and talk about what's going to happen in class when I'm not there. And then I will leave it I'll be like, I better start packing right at the just doesn't connect gate. The story of my teaching does not connect with my research based travel and then I will completely forget that I've like got a bunch of stuff that I have to do with like Olins teachers or something, I will just because those, those are different worlds, for me, right? Did they don't, they don't connect, I have to put them in one calendar. And also I will say here that one element of Universal Design for teaching is to be able to absorb teacher blurps like this. So when I got my Trudeau fellowship back in the days when we were allowed to travel that the Trudeau fellowship is like largely based in traveling places like seven trips a year and I thought Oh man, I'm gonna screw this up a lot. And also some of that travel you don't have a lot of notice for like to go to Montreal for like a strategic planning session or whatever. So I design my courses everything is on learn like on Brightspace which as you know, I hate but it is a necessary evil, but what it does allow me to do is like a sort of before the pandemic type of hybrid instructional design that's able to absorb unexplained unexpected absences not just by students book by me Right, so I get everything lined up so that even if I am unable to be in the classroom, for a given session, the material is there for them. And they can do it without me. And I don't have to plan it in the moment. And also another great thing about courseware systems is if you like, wake up in the morning, and you're about to get on the plane, and you're like, Fuck, I'm supposed to teach it to this afternoon, you can send an email to everybody right away, like through the course website, and you will know that they are going to get it, right. So like universal design, sometimes it's about making it harder for you to screw stuff up that you, you know, you wish, like I wish I could be the different type of person who remembers that, like when I'm in New Orleans on Thursday will also not be at Georgetown, right? Like, I wish I could remember that. But I'm not that type of person. So I need to build some systems to reduce the consequences for others. When I do that, it's the same as setting like notifications from your washing machine, right? It's like, I'm not going to get better at this. But I don't want the consequences. I want to minimize the negative consequences from this and to build some strategies around that.
Yeah. So as you were doing that, I remembered that I had booked plane tickets and hotel for a conference and I'm going to in three weeks and have not put on my calendar.
Oh, you were doing all of us yesterday. Yes.
That's what I was doing. I was telling that story. Because and I realized I actually have a class visit that I'm supposed to do that day, which I'm going to have to reschedule now that we're
doing this in real time I love them are demonstrating in real time for people, which also means you probably only heard about 60% of the story that I told me like cuz you looked at me like it's my turn to say something and you have this like, look in your eyes like it's my turn to say something
we all get but that's that's years of own trade.
I know, of only ever faced
60% of the attention, I guess radio signals, or other channels. And you're
just I just remembered I forgot to do something. While I'm doing that. Here's a third thing that I did not even remember that I forgot. Now I'm thinking about it. I wait. Now there's a pause in the conversation is my turn to say something? What are we doing? Right? Like that is? Right. That's everything there? That's yeah, yeah. It's just because you are aware that you're gonna forget stuff. That is like having four radio stations playing in your head at your same time, which means like, you're not forgetting what you were going to say in response to my story. You weren't really listening to my story. And you don't know. But you know, you're supposed to say something. So it's not just you forgot, right? It's like you forgot to pay attention. But you were paying attention just to something different. That was urgent that if you didn't pay attention to right now, we're not going to remember to
know exactly, I would not have remembered it. It would have been like, Oh, sure. I'll go to your domain class on Monday, the 14th. Even though I'm going to be in Rhode Island, actually, at that point, I will be at an airport. But like, forgot. No, I'm bringing my daughter. She's not gonna let me for guys. So yeah, no, she's. But no, but that's but that's it in a nutshell. And it's because again, you said booked the plane and the hotel and by mine. I just did that. Oh, wait. It's not in my calendar.
It's not like I forgot to press the button on the washing machine. Right. So you did like 90% of the job, which was book all the stuff that that you did not put it in your calendar, which means like none of it's worth a hill of beans.
So speaking of memory, we kind of forgot to end this episode. You'll hear next week how we basically spend a half an hour trying to end the episode and forgetting to partially because we get distracted partially because we remember other things. And partially because ADHD isn't an all because of ADHD. I don't know. Yeah, I do. It's all because of ADHD. Anyway, I'd like to thank Amy for reminding me to remember to put my trip on the calendar so that I don't end up scheduling meetings with myself or with anyone while I am supposed to be in Rhode Island in a conference. As always, I am ready writing on Twitter, and my co host Amy is did you want, you can always email us at all the things adhd@gmail.com You can visit our website, all the things adhd.com And you can just smash the Follow button on any of your favorite podcast. Streaming providers. Again, won't ask you to rate us but very much smash the Follow button. And tell your friends about us. When they're talking about something completely unrelated and it makes you think of a podcast episode and you just blurt out oh my god, there's this podcast all the things adhd with Leo and Amy and are just so amazing. And your friend will be a little confused and probably look at you like a confused puppy with their head cocked to the side but maybe they'll give us a listen to. Anyway. Thank you for listening. Tune in next week for part two of our conversation
