this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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Any advice that starts with "just..." is automatically invalid.
... Make a list and do one at a time.
... Set a reminder.
... Install some time-tracking productivity software on your phone or computer.
... Go for a walk and clear your head.
... Keep a jug of water nearby.
Man the tips work for some and not for some. Just is some people's way of trying to make it easier, seem easier to remove the threshold just a tiny bit. You don't need to shit on the people trying to help
It's not that the methods are bad or ineffective, it's that the advice is unsolicited and condescending. Do you offer to help everyone you meet with every one of their medical conditions? You meet somebody with a rash, and you say "just rub some vaseline with aloe on that, it'll go away." You don't know the cause of the rash, or if that will help, or if they tried it already. There's no "just" anything that makes ADHD go away.
Or maybe don't go poking people with the very specific stick that they've spent their entire lives associating with disappointment, stress, anger, and sometimes punishment, aka "Just perform-action", and expecting to never get snapped at.
Speaking from my own personal mental health journey: Those bits of advice that didn’t work 5 years ago may work now. I couldn’t use mindfulness while my ADHD/C-PTSD was at its peak, but after working on a few other things, suddenly it became a useful tool even if I couldn’t use it for years and years. The advice was still good, but refusing to return to a tool because it didn’t immediately work in the past and getting frustrated and letting that frustration turn to anger doesn’t get me what I am looking for.
I definitely agree that it could be helpful, but given one of the common co-morbidities with ADHD is Oppositional Defiance Disorder i don't think its a helpful thing to bring up for many people with ADHD in a normal conversation; as the phrase goes, "Change comes from within"
When the advice is akin to telling an amputee to just grow back a limb, yeah you kinda do.
I understand that the advice is coming from (what they consider to be) a good place, but that doesn't change that the advice is coming from a place of ignorance and shows they likely have no understanding of your situation. I've had NTs try this with me, and they get mad when I systematically tell them why their advice is not applicable or coming from a place that shows they have no understanding of my situation. And sometimes they've even told me that I'm just not doing it right, because if I was, it would work.
Generic advice is only good when you can't be bothered to understand someone's situation and feel the need to insert yourself into someone else's life, and without being asked a good amount of the time.