The Einstein-Ashe Formula for ADHD Management

Which I totally made up as the reason why I can't have fancy things.

I’ve written before about the not-fun aspect of ADHD when you discover something that works really well to counter some particular executive dysfunction…until it doesn’t. The process of hedonic adaptation, common to all humans, means that the app or routine that was fun and interesting at first eventually stops feeling that way.

I believe that the neurotypical reaction is something like “well, I’ll just do it anyway, because it works well.” Not being neurotypical, my reaction used to be “I thought this was the One, but I was wrong…I’ll have to look elswhere!” because the searching for a thing is almost always more enjoyable than the actual having.

And yes, that reaction wasn’t just for productivity apps. It happens with jobs, with houses, with cars, with relationships, with kids…wait, no, strike that last bit. But I remember my father giving me very valuable advice back when I was in yet another serially monogamous breakup: “Son, you’re going to have to eventually keep working on your relationship even after it stops ‘feeling’ good, or you’re just going to hop from one to another your whole life and end up alone.”

The only flaw in that advice was the singular “relationship” — I’m happily and securely polyamorous — but he was absolutely right that every relationship requires more work after the New Relationship Energy wears off, poly or not.

(There’s a side-rant here about some pundits who claim that poly folks are “more attentive” to their partners out of fear of being “easily replaced”, but while I will acknowledge the raging that’s-not-how-any-of-this-works aspect of my reaction, that’s not what this post is about).

That advice from my father, though, turns out to be even more valuable than I think he realized. It’s not just romantic relationships; it applies to relationships with anything, including jobs, houses, cars, kids — and yeah, I do mean that last bit.*

It gets worse: ADHD tax comes into play as well.

The “ADHD tax” is the concept of the amount of money, time, and energy people with neuroemergent brains have to pay in order to live in a neurodifficult world.**

For example, let’s say I try out a new productivity app — Tick Tick was my most recent attempt. I was attracted to the app because it ticked a few boxes that helped my brain:

• It was (supposedly) cross platform, so whether I was on my work computer (Windoze), my own Mac, my iPad, or my iPhone, I’d have up-to-date alerts for things I needed to remember and/or do.

• It had “persistent” alarms, so that if I tried to pull a “oh, I’ll do that later” it would keep incessantly nagging me until I got the things done.

• It (again, supposedly) synced with Apple reminders and multiple calendars. I have to use google and outlook for personal and work, respectively.

• It’s just a well-designed, well-regarded, and useful app for many people — ADHD folks included!

But it was not for me. Why? Well, turns out it doesn’t actually sync very well between Mac devices, so I was getting alerted, doing the task, checking it off — and then getting more alarms and alerts on my other devices, often persistently, which would do things like drain my iPad battery because it was in my bag while the alerts were going off.

It also did not sync with more than one google calendar*** and only sort of synced with Apple Reminders. What it actually did was import all of your old reminders, deleting them from Reminders app in the process, and then create one main list in Reminders called “TickTick” that would take in any new ones. “One list to rule them all,” in effect, but I have used Reminders for years to capture writing ideas and other creative content, and suddenly it’s all gone—sent somewhere deep in TickTick’s lists.

Those features ended up being deal breakers for me, and I unsubscribed the monthly recurring charge I’d used to try it out. But that’s where the ADHD tax starts getting tallied:

• I knew from experience that I needed to try the app before I could be sure it would work — which meant I paid the higher month-to-month rate instead of the yearly discount.

• I spent time installing the app on my various devices, and then when it didn’t work, uninstalling it.

• I spent time learning about the app, how it works, and trying to find ways to fix what was wrong (TickTick support was not helpful, but they were prompt, telling me that the non-sync was a problem particular to iOS, and they were sorry I wasn’t using a more cooperative system).

• I spent a lot of time and energy dealing with the anxiety of the non-syncing alarms, wondering if I’d missed things, or if I’d already done them and forgotten (I’m looking at you, meds), which is exactly what the app is supposed to externalize for me.

Now, this is where I have people who still (!) do not believe ADHD is really a thing, pointing out that I enjoy playing around with software, learning new things, and everybody has the occasional buyer’s remorse when they try something out.

At which point I have to once again, tiredly, repeat: It’s not about the uniqueness of the symptoms of ADHD; it’s in the frequency, magnitude, and impact of the symptoms.

I’ve spent countless hours, thousands of dollars, and sleepless nights dealing with this kind of thing. What kind of thing, exactly? I was about to say reminders, but it applies to calendars, to note-taking systems, to jobs, to relationships, to cars…you get the idea.

What I’m really looking for is that thing that will make my life feel as easy as it seems other people’s lives are — especially those without ADHD.

And here’s the thing: I can, in fact, have that. But I have to take some classic advice from Arthur Ashe and (maybe) Einstein, mix it up a bit, and then — this is the hard part — continuously practice it.

The Einstein-Ashe Formula for ADHD Management

Apologies to the estates of both of these people; I made up that title.

First, a saying attributed to Albert Einstein:

Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

I know, maximalists and the entire Rococo school of art and architecture would disagree. And it’s fine for them — this particular formula applies to my particular form of ADHD.

It basically means that the first mistake I made with TickTick was in not acknowledging that the beautiful complex interleaving of function and interface was actually too complex to suit my purposes. Anything that involves that much clicking back and forth, configuring, etc is going to end up being a system that fails for me.

Not because it’s a bad system; not because something’s wrong with me; we simply are not suited for each other.

So what do I do? That’s where Arthur Ashe’s famous three-part formula comes in.

Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can.

I have loved this simple mantra for decades; however, I’ve found that I need the first two parts switched in order to be effective:

• First, I look at using what I already have — because in my half-century-plus of existence, I’ve accumulated a lot of resources, physical, mental, and relational. Often, the mere fact that I already have it makes it simpler than any alternative, because it’s already available.

• Next, I start before I’m ready. One of the most pervasive forms of procrastination is procrastipreparing — spending an afternoon or even a weekend trying to create the perfect layout, system, routine, configuration, whatever, with the idea that when you get it perfect, it will flow seamlessly. That’s not how life works, literally — and we’ll talk more about that in a later post.

• Then I do what I can. Another bane of getting things done is perfectionism — not starting a task because everything might not be perfectly aligned. In most cases, it’s better to do a little than to do nothing, because eventually doing a little for a long time ends up at a lot.

This article is a good example; I wasn’t going to write about this when I sat down, but for some reason my writing program with the article I was going to finish had to do a long update and download.

Instead I opened up SubStack and started writing. And now, while I’d love to continue for another two thousand words to tell you where I ended up instead of TickTick…we’ll save that for the next article, and see what your thoughts are on this one.

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*Turns out you have to keep feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating them even after they’ve stopped being cute.

**Hat tip to the ADHD community on Threads for those particular terms.

***yes, I have several, and yes, it is reinforcement of the cliché about polyamorous people.