I just finished reading a great piece on #lifehacks for dealing with #brainfog and #executivedysfunction https://medium.com/@sn0wflake/dealing-with-executive-dysfunction-how-i-hack-my-life-718874160f68 by @Damage
I can't claim to know what they're going thru, but I face a simlar struggle in my own life. I can personally vouch for many of the lifehacks in the piece.
Brainfog and memory problems seem rife in my family/ My mom has #Fibromyalgia + #PTSD, my little brother has #ADHD, and I was diagnosed with #Autism and Major #Depression.
One thing that stood out in @Damage's piece is how they discussed using technology to help them manage. I've been trying the same and have had a lot of luck.
I wrote a bit of my own on that here back in February. https://medium.com/scat-sense/clawing-productivity-away-from-the-void-53841451e51f
A recent additions to my set of lifehacks is a gifted Amazon Dot. A way to ubiquitously set timers like "remind me in an hour to check the laundry" has helped me not need to depend on others as much. Surveillance fears aside, I'm very thankful for that.
@ultimape this looks awesome, I will bookmark it :) I would love an AI helper like that too. I have always wanted a smart house. But am a bit skeeved out by amazon. hmm. might look into it though. <3
@Damage I've been using google's phone based assistant for a while and it works OK, but lately it seems to take forever to respond. Having it just work is really important since i am so quick to forget little things like laundry.
I've been looking at DIY options, but in the meantime just having something there to take the emotional burden off my significant other is a miracle for me.
@ultimape @Damage I am looking into making a small and relatively cheap home server thing that will let you have something you own.
I like the idea of monica (https://monicahq.com) but I wasn't able to get into using it. And it doesn't have the sort of 'randomly remind me that I need to eat' features that I need.
I have a lot of trouble with smartphones so I have never tried any of the phone-based assistant things.
@inmysocks @ultimape hehe monica for the very busy executive businessperson! or, disabled people who can't remember what day it is. my friend pointed out recently that he'd like to be able to name Alexa or whatever equivalent 'Computer'. LIKE IN STAR TREK !! I would like that.
@Damage @inmysocks The assistant can be set to be 'Computer'. But I say that quite often so it didn't work well hahah. Right now I have it set to 'echo'.
Friend has a roomate named alex... So it fires when people say "alex, uh, ..." XD
My biggest challenge is I don't operate on a 24 hour schedule. Everything, even reminder apps, are locked in to that format. Sometimes my lunch time is 3am, sometimes its 5pm...
I need to find a pomodoro app for Alexa. That worked well for me to tempo my day.
@ultimape there are some things i forgot to mention. ill have to do a part 2. one being the realisation that i can use technology to have articles etc read aloud to me. so finally i can actually read articles.
@Damage oh, I'd love that. A lot of the people I follow regarding productivity swear by reading tools.
I'm a voracious reader myself, but if I could have things read to me on the go it would make a big difference in not being chained to my computer as often.
I find myself laying in bed in the morning trying to wake my brain up by reading things, If I could listen instead I could work on the rest of my day at the same time.
@ultimape I'm using an app on my android phone called @ voice (or something like that) - when I find an article I want to read I click the usual 'share' option in my phone browser and the option to add it to my reading list comes up. The voice is a little robotic but it's not actually that bad, and I've 'read' more articles in the last few months than I've ever managed before! I wish I could do the same with kindle.
@Damage I couldn't find that or one like it, but I found out that getpocket.com/ 's android app can read articles now. Time to set that up again!
Since I've written that piece, I've been collecting a bunch of resources exploring stuff on depression and productivity over in an are.na channel that you might also appreciate: https://www.are.na/ultimape/ruminations-on-depression-and-productivity
And have a specific channel for my more nerdy obsession with becoming a 'surface mount cyborg' -> a proxy way to discuss trying to deal with my own particular troubles.
https://www.are.na/ultimape/surface-mount-cyborg
Did you know Google's AIY voicekit https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/voice#project-overview can run in offline mode? Seems promising.
@ultimape @Damage stay strong!