This is easy! I got this one. Use mnemonics.
Say you want to remember to take a particular bag with you when you leave. Close your eyes for 5 seconds and imagine something outrageous, surreal, balls out crazy. Only takes 5 seconds, but the crazier the image you make up the better.
For this one I might imagine my postman or UPS standing there when I open my door, with the bag covering his head. Or I might imagine that bag as a giant bag full of rabid weasels blocking the door.
You might not even see the image again, but you will remember the bag. Shit’s like magic.
I’m gonna have to try this. I’m running low on postit notes.
It’s life changing. Unfortunately, how are you going to remember to remember?! I use mnemonics mainly when I don’t want to leave the house without something, but it’s worth practicing for any event. 5 seconds imagining something stupid is all I ask. Try it!
It’s hilarious when you walk up to the door and think, “Oh yeah, you’re going to camp, grab the .22 rifle mag.”, and you have no idea how that happened. LOL, sometimes you don’t see the pic, but somehow your brain does.
I don’t use any long term memory tactics because if I’m doing it wrong, what I remember yesterday will blend with what I remember tomorrow, and if it’s different, I’m in a world of hurt.
I don’t understand how it happens every time. EVERY TIME.
Sounds like lots of folks who could take advantage of SmartTags/Airtags and the “notify when left behind” function. Tuck/Clip a tag in thing that needs to go with. Get electronically yelled at if you get to far.
Having a mnemonic helps me with routine everyday things, though one-time things require the “attach keys or block door” method.
What I have settled on for routine items is a numbered list. Nothing complicated to remember. Just which item is which number.
When I get ready to leave my house, or stand up to leave work, it goes like this counting in my head:
1, 2: work phone and personal phone in one pocket
3, 4: wallet and keys in the other pocket
5, 6: watch on my left wrist and water bottle in my right hand
[7, 8]: if necessary: wireless earbuds and backpack
Plus at work, I have a strict rule that I cannot put my keys anywhere but my pocket. My fob to get in the building is on my key chain, and after the second time I locked myself out I made the rule. If I do take my keys out of my pocket to clip/unclip something like a USB flash drive or nail clippers, the keys stay in my hand until they go back into the pocket.
This is relatable. In my experience, the only way to prevent is to make it literally impossible to leave for the place without bonking into the thing. Like don’t put the thing next to the door, put it in front of the door.
Yup. I put the thing on or in my shoes.
For real. I have sometimes put important things on my jacket, and my jacket in front of the door. That works. And I still tend to pick up my jacket so the thing I was to remember falls to the floor because it somehow still doesn’t occur to me that I put my jacket on the floor in order to remember something…
Make it the door.
I would move the thing out of the way and then realize halfway there
Just put it in your car. Worst case scenario you can get it from the car really quick if you forget.
deleted by creator
oh well, if it was important I would remember
“Hm. If I can’t remember, it must not have been important”
“FUCK IT WAS MY PASSPORT”
Assuming you’re driving, I find putting my car keys with the thing works. Just be careful if you have a fob; sometimes they don’t work as well after being in the fridge.
You know the video where one guys father put the fob into a small safe, and the guy lifted the safe into the car and the car started?
Should have lined the safe with aluminum foil or something else to deter the signal.
Put car keys under the thing
I swear more than once I put a thing resting on the door so I would have to take it when leaving but I somehow moved it and left without…
Hah that’s what I do, or my wallet
spends 20 minutes looking for car keys
Put thing in front of the door, not beside it. Make yourself have to move it away to move on without it.
If it’s small enough, I like to put it in one of my shoes.
Yesss, I feel so seen!
Don’t put the thing in an easy to remember spot, or an easy to find spot. Put it in an inevitable spot. It has to be physically impossible to leave without it.
Small items can go in front of the door, or put the keys with them, ideally clipped on with a carabiner. Large items have to either block the door, or go in the car ahead of time immediately when I think of it.
Combine this with a wife who is a pro at losing things, and if something is in her way she’ll move it to the nearest open flat surface with no time or reason.
Or thing goes in my shoe
With the car keys.
And all other EDC items and thing I need for wherever I’m off to
I don’t think i’m a dinosaur, but I’m clearly in this comic…
The trick is to have the things obstruct the door, so you’re forced to become consciously aware of them as you leave. Nothing short of that (or a spreadsheet for packing if you’re going overnight) works for me.
This is why I have magnets on my door. So if it’s something like a form or an envelope to mail, I can stick it right over the doorknob
I always put my keys on anything I need to remember, since they’re the last thing I grab before I head out, and I can’t lock the door or start the car without them. If it’s more of a concept, I write it on a post-it, then put the keys on that.
What idiot put this thing in front of the door? Oh well off to where I need to go!
HAH! Too true 😢
Next time I’ll leave a note describing why the thing is blocking the door on the thing.
Huh I wonder why that note is on this thing in my way, oh well I’m late gotta go!
I will LITERALLY tie things to my car keys.
I bring a satchel with me when I leave the house. I leave it in the car 99% of the time, but it has my sunglasses, sanitizer, umbrella, etc. in it. So, it’s helpful to bring along. I toss my keys in it and whatever the important thing is. If the important this is too big, I wrap the strap of the satchel around the thing or wind the strap around some part of it. I still forget things sometimes, but this has helped me significantly.
That’ll be the one time I decide to use my front door instead of garage door on the morning lol
But wait, you forgot your coffee. Go back inside, set the important thing down, get your coffee and lock up.
I swear ADHD is like life in hard mode sometimes.
There was a meme I saw on Lemmy a while back that said undiagnosed ADHD is like having life set to hard mode but you and everybody else think you’re set to easy mode.
Getting a diagnosis and/or treatment doesn’t change the fact that you’re on hard mode, but at least you know what you need to tackle.
“Thing thing thing remember to bring the thing” “I always forget things, but not this time because I’m thinking about thing” “I must have ADHD for always forgetting to bring things” “How do other people just remember things?” “There’s a bunch about me that’s different from other people, probably from my undiagnosed ADHD” “Like how I can’t focus during conversations because my mind drifts” “And how I…”
2 minutes later
“I forgot the thing”
Another good tip is to try a positive reminder. So, instead of: “Don’t forget the thing!” you’d rather tell your self: “I will totally take the thing!”
Doesn’t work :( It still took me a week to finally bring that pack of biscuits I bought to my office.
I have forgotten my suit pants for two separate weddings.
I’m starting to suspect ADHD in my genes… lol
I don’t often personally identify with this comic, because I don’t have ADHD, but I feel this one deeply.
I have found that putting things by the door doesn’t work as well as putting them with things that you will never forget to take. For example, I don’t wear shoes indoors, so I will put the thing I need to take inside my shoes. Or since I have a private garage, I can simply put it in my car ahead of time.
One thing I learned from Dr Drew from the Loveline days is to put your keys with that thing. He would put his keys with vaccines in the fridge to take with him when he left. So if you plan to drive when you go put your keys with the thing or the thing with your keys. I always thought about having a “take box” an box dedicated solely to holding the things you need to take somewhere.
Sounds like an easy way to lose the keys and forget the thing. Have to always have the keys in the pants or risk forgetting them… at least until the front door gets closed.
In the situation described, it sounds like he needed to bring along vaccines that would have to be refrigerated. I wouldn’t normally use my keys to remember something, but if the only time I used them was when I put them in the refrigerator, it might theoretically be okay, except for the thing I mention in the next paragraph. Definitely less crazy than me putting my shoes in the fridge.
But the other thing is that I’m personally a bit paranoid about losing my keys, or having somebody take them, and can’t ever leave my keys in a public area of the house. I might actually have to put my shoes in the fridge like a crazy person.
![Out of sight, out of mind [ADHDinos]](https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/c84a1739-5085-408b-bb3d-72950276491e.jpeg){kind=link}