Now before you scoot away, this is not a religious post. 

It’s just my attempt to put a little interest and humor into my headline. I have a really hard time writing interesting headlines.

So my dad had quite the sense of humor, but it was the dad kind. You know, not so funny. He got a lot of his jokes from church. (He thought Everybody Loves Raymond was a dirty show, so you can imagine.)

Anyway, here is one of his jokes:

A pastor goes to visit one of his older parishioners and he asks her if she believes in the hereafter.

She replies that yes, she does believe in the hereafter. She’s always finding herself in a room saying, “Now what am I here after?”

You can stop laughing now.

As a total aside, he also used to tell people that to get to heaven you had to go through Atlanta first. 😉

Now the point that I am getting to is this: do you often find yourself in a room wondering what you are there after?

Me too.

It’s very common with ADHD.

A friend of my daughters, married with a couple of young children, contacted me recently when she found out I work with people with ADHD. She was forgetting a lot lately and wondered what to do.

I gave her ideas about different kinds of planners, dump lists, setting routines, finding one safe place to put things that needed to be safe, and more.

The answer I got back from her was that it wasn’t big things like that, it was the little stuff. The here after stuff.

I have to be honest. I’m a little stumped as to what to tell her.

I was hoping that you could help. Please, please, please, if you have any ways that help you remember the little stuff, leave a comment and help her.

In the meantime, here are the ideas that I have come up with:

• I still stand by the dump list. Getting it all out of your head and onto paper frees up your brain for other things. Maybe even the little, here after things.
• Writing down tasks for the day can help too, although I recognize that in general, the little things aren’t on the list.
• I had a boss who used to clip notes to his tie clip so he wouldn’t forget them. This was before sticky notes. Again, it may or may not help.
• Medication can help a great deal sometimes. I have no idea of her situation as to that.
• Simplifying your life can help.
• Learning to live in the moment also helps. Pay attention to what’s going on around you as it’s happening rather than thinking of what’s coming next.
• Talk out loud to yourself. If you repeat what you need as you go to the room in question, it can help greatly.
• Tell your kids what you need. Young ones are always eager to help and are great at making sure you follow through.
• Put things where you use them or at least in the same place. My husband has a dedicated area in the garage for his tools, but when he is working on a project or three, they can be anywhere.
• Try stopping for a minute and doing some purposeful breathing, almost as if you are meditating. That can stop the panic going through your head and perhaps recall the thought.
• Give it up for the moment and go on with your day. At some point, when you least expect it, you may recall it.

So come on. Help a poor girl out.

What ideas can you add?