So, well, I stole this tip in part from a fellow ADHDer. It was a cover-story about a family of 4 where every single one of them suffered from ADHD. In the first few minutes, the mom mentioned casually that she always has the date of the last water-change of the aquarium on a sticker in the front, which usually prompts enquiries from visitors.
And voilá! Just like that, I had the solution for a problem of mine! I own an aquarium and, for those who don’t know, you’re supposed to change one percentage of the water (25-30%) every week or every other week, depending on how many living animals are producing nitrites in the aquarium. In my case, there are not a lot of fishes (it’s severely underpopulated) and I have plenty of plants, so I can stretch this for a longer time, but it’s not advisable. But I do. Because I forget. Because I remember when it’s a bad time to change water, and then I don’t remember when I have the time. Or I remember, but I figure out I changed it recently enough. But, but, but…
At one point, this problem became so bad that the plants actually…. crapped out on me -even if the fish were still pretty happy. The pants basically crapped out on my because algae took over – which is not pretty but doesn’t bother or harm the fish one single bit.
Well, I replenished the plants in the aquarium and for a couple of months, I have this stuck on my aquarium:
It tells me when I cleaned it the last time, how often I’m supposed to change each filter component (there’s 3, they neither need to be nor can be changed simultaneously. How am I supposed to know when to change what out of the top of my head?!) and when I last changed each. As you can see, today I I cleaned it and changed the “Biocarb”. The Nitrax needs to be changed as well, but I’ll do that one with the next water change.
What you can’t see from the foto: this is written on a piece of paper and the paper was then covered in transparent film that goes over the edges and, in turn, fixates the paper on the aquarium (over the filter, so no blockage of nice bits, and yes, the filter is usually turned to the wall, but I have the aquarium as a sort of central room space divider). After every time I do a swap, I swab the last date with the makeup-pads and nail-polish remover I keep next to the aquarium and fill the new date in with a special marker. And voilá! Everything looks nice and is well kept.
What are some of your life-hacks as an ADHDer (or non-ADHDer, for that matter)?
Rambles of a tired person 