One of the observations that clinicians, parents, and even folks with ADHD make regarding the condition is that when playing video games, for example, the affected person can sit for hours highly focused. Which begs the question, what is it about the games that allow a person with ADHD to maintain focus? It's often how the games are designed. Rewards, consequences, and goal-setting. Frequent and repeated dopamine and serotonin hits.
Now, obviously, most of our daily living activities are not designed around a "game playing" strategy. However, there could be. Most people don't walk around with a list of tasks to check off and goals for the day. However, there could be. Most people don't have a list of short-term goals leading to long-term goals. However, there could be. Think about game design, then how can one apply these same strategies for daily life.
Interestingly, in order for productive people to be productive, for people to be high-achievers in life, it's all a game playing strategy. These people wake up with a purpose, things to do, goals to meet, etc. Now, if you're just wandering through life, with none of that, and you have an ADHD condition on top of that, well that sets you up for some disadvantages that are of your own doing.
I am not suggesting for a second that ADHD is "all in one's head" and that there is no role for medications. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, what I am suggesting is that, for some, there are daily strategies for being more productive and focused.
Ooh, I've actually got something for this.
Look here:
LifeUp，Upgrade Your Life - Gamify To-Do App
I experience the same problems that people with ADHD have (I actually was technically diagnosed with it but I tend to forget this fact until it's brought up. I cant focus, I cant get motivated, all of that, despite WANTING to. Particularly with some of my goals right now (I'm learning programming, art, and game design) I need to, you know, keep constant progress, but it wasnt happening and it's bloody frustrating.
My therapist suggested to me recently (as we had a session all about this) that I try to look for some way to use my phone to track activities I was doing, as maybe that could help. I discovered this app here later that day.
The entire point of the app is exactly what you described there, to give you goals (and dopamine hits) related to the things you're wanting to accomplish, while taking other things (like just sitting down and playing games) and using them as rewards or something. When you complete a task on your list, you get EXP to level up stats and get coins and such. So, it wraps everything up in video game mechanics.
So, I set it up a couple of days ago, I've got this long list of activities and tasks and such, some of which are meant to be daily, others weekly, a couple are one-time only but by a certain deadline, you can set it up for each one. Each earns different amounts of coins and different amounts/types of exp, depending on what they are and how difficult/important they are (you set that when you make them). Some require multiple steps that are tracked (like, do X 7 times in a day) and so on. And then I've got the shop filled out with things I like that work as a reward. Too much Youtube has been a problem with me for awhile, so I figured, okay, that can be one of the types of things I can put into the shop. Want to watch a long Youtube video? Dont do that unless I can buy (or craft, you can set up crafting recipes too) the related items. There's an inventory for holding things you bought or earned until you're ready to use them and you can even create lootboxes with coins or items in them. You could create items that are ONLY gotten from lootboxes or crafting, if you want to do that. For anyone who uses Tasker (which I'm not familiar with) this app can apparently connect with that, so... that's a thing? Seriously I dont know what that is, I'm new to Android. But apparently that's very exciting.
The whole thing requires a bit of setup, and it's only going to help you if you're careful about it. Like if I've got something that I set at, say, 100 coins in the shop, but then I create some really easy task and set it to give 10 bazillion coins on completion, that's going to blow the whole point of the thing. So you want to try to balance it out well, which can take a bit of finagling (and as someone with real game design experience, it really feels like that). But you can change stats/settings on any element at any time, so when you want to tweak the balance, you can do that.
One thing I did on mine (after seeing someone else do it) was that I set up a couple of items that are like "this amount of real money towards a new game". Like, I have a bad habit of just buying things at random on Steam, which is stupid on multiple levels and not too satisfying. So, here now, I wont do that until I have the required items that add up to the amount that the game I want costs. I even came up with a couple of crafting recipes that can let me turn some of the Youtube items into game-money items, and same the other way around. I'm still tweaking and balancing all of it. I've got two big game releases on Steam I'm REALLY waiting for, so that's what I'm focusing on spending coins I earn on, is to reach the right amount for both of those. Those games release in just a couple of days, can I get that much before then? I dont know, but I aint buying them until I do it.
All in all, this is going really well so far, and I'm still adding and testing things as I go. And it occurs to me, this is exactly the sort of thing that works in terms of how I do things. Like, playing something like Minecraft, I absolutely will do all sorts of really mundane tasks in that game because it is so good at creating rewards from any task you do in it (such as strip mining, that is not exactly an exciting activity but holy heck is it rewarding and satisfying in-game), so that concept really works for me with an app like this. But of course, you gotta stick with it.
This aint the only app of its type, there are others, but I like the features this one has and the way it's set up (and the fact that it's a ONE TIME PAYMENT, not some constant subscription thing like half the stuff in app stores), and the fact that it doesnt try to go with like a D & D or fantasy theme (not fond of that kind of theme). This is all the bright colors and things I like. But there are others for those who want the concept but a different theme.
Anyway, just wanted to bring that up since it's certainly an option.
tasks can have a time limit, like "sort contents of box's for 30 min" which is important as it makes starting the task easier for me, I know exactly what to do and I know after 30 min, I'll have a success, a checkmark on my list, no matter if I finished sorting the box or not - having the time limit, that I MUST obey to, also makes sure I don't spend more energy than I have, which is a real risk for me and my adhd, but that leads to burnout and days where I can't do anything.
