Comment by mtlmtlmtlmtl

Your points are well taken, though I want to nuance them a bit. My experience(with severe ADHD-C) is that this type of advice can work. It's just that it's not something you can just decide to start doing and immediately find success at. It's just a lot more complicated to get this off the ground, but it's possible. For some complex organisational system, you need to compile that system into "ADHD byte code" and for that, you need to bootstrap a compiler. Create an incredibly simple, extensible system which can do things your ADHD brain can't on its own. Then you need to find ways to force yourself to follow that system using various hacks like alarms tied to QR codes, body doubling, regular therapy or home visits, etc. then you can start implementing more complex structure in that system. And even the simple system is not gonna be easy. It's gonna take months of trying, failing, starting over. The ADHD brain is absolutely capable of developing habits(just look at the comorbidity rates between ADHD and various types of addiction), it's just a lot of work.

I'm in the process of doing this myself, and after 8 months, with many setbacks, I kinda have a base system I'm following that's significantly improving my quality of life and ability to keep up with everyday tasks. And it's still a struggle, but it's getting easier.

I'm writing a blog post about it currently, which will be more structured. It's about how I used my software dev skills to think about and tackle my ADHD(and other issues). Not about writing actual software(although software is involved), but imagining the brain exhibiting ADHD is a software system , identifying the "bugs", and combining concepts from software dev and behavioral/cognitive psychology to fix, or at least mitigate them.

This blog post could be finished two days from now, two years from now, or never. ADHD is still hard to live with, and I'm still quite dysfunctional. I guess if I do finish it, it'll be worth reading since I'll be on to something...