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I actually don't care about the status/karma aspect of votes. Negative votes would be more constructive if reasons were given for it (aka feedback). Positive votes, what is their use even? A "seal of quality" granted by HN users or simply a measure of how interesting a post appears to the HN crowd? It's probably the latter. Hard to make judgments about the general quality of the post by vote counts alone. At least HN is not like the YouTube trending section where a lot of clickbaity videos appear. You will encounter titles like:

"I ate nothing for 1 hour and this is what happened" "I bought $200,000 worth of bananas and now I'm broke (and sad, lost in an island full of monkeys barely scraping by)" "You won't believe this happened" "Do this one trick (and waste 10 min of your time)" "I almost got killed"

I'm sure you even encountered fancier ones, but these are what came off the top of my head.

How to get people hooked on our site long enough and make them watch ads? That's YouTube for you. HN is quite different and thank goodness it is.

Speaking of a Scott Meyers type of book for ADHD people, I've found these:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201794 - https://adhdpro.xyz/ - https://blog.aaronjy.me/software-development-and-adhd/

I bumped into it while searching for other posts related to ADHD.

Fair enough. I suspected that my posting above could come off as "bro-science".

But regarding the supplements or nutrients omega-3 & zinc. They do help. I provided the findings. Meditation also works.

Some links supporting my case:

https://www.additudemag.com/slideshows/treating-adhd-without...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-best-strategie...

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/add-adhd/treatment-for-ad...

Key points I made out of these links above:

- Mindfulness/Meditation - Omega-3 (EPA > DHA) - Zinc - Protein - Exercise 30 min/d (walking, calisthenics) - Low sugar, caffeine, and carbohydrates - Schedule/"game plan" (calendars, task lists)

I am also disappointed with how this "Ask HN" of mine unfolded. It is perhaps my fault. I should have clarified things from the start. My intention was to (prematurely?) optimize self-help strategies without medication, but my point wasn't well taken it seems.

I have found 2 self-help guides:

- https://www.helpguide.org/articles/add-adhd/managing-adult-a...

- https://www.get.gg/docs/ADHD.pdf

Okay, you handled some of your ADHD symptoms with stimulants, routines, and sleep. How did you fix your social/interpersonal skills? Don't you have trouble interpreting social cues correctly?

What about organization? How did you fix that? Or will medication fix all of the above automatically?

Any experiences with lion's mane?:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323400#potential-b...

There are more supplements. You better do your own research on these:

- Tyrosin - Theanine - Creatine - Protein - 5-HTP - GABA

At best they might help, at worst, you wasted your money. PS: Have you tried fish oil (or perhaps algae oil) and zinc? According to the findings I provided, they might help you too.

Thank you for your input, gang! :)

Okay, to summarize, here are the list of things that might help when you are unable to get medicated or therapy:

1. Supplements: Omega-3, Zinc, Lithium (has severe side effects, but it works) 2. Mindfulness: Meditation/Yoga 3. Routines (according to HN answers)

Here is the list of things that I personally (!) think that might help:

4. Digital organization: Johnny File System, PARA Method

Here is the list of things I am personally (!) unsure about:

5. Offline organization/planning: Bullet Journaling 6. General organization: minimalism? Decluttering?

The list of things that need also attention:

7. Social skills & interpreting social cues correctly 8. Interpersonal skills & soft skills (manners?) 9. Effective "crutches" for things like impulsivity

Some more ideas that might help or not - these are rather experimental:

10. Fasting (for mood improvement?): https://www.hal.inserm.fr/file/index/docid/789122/filename/F...

And remember: use your own brain first don't trust anyone so easily! :) (Except your therapist/doctor, if you have access to one.)

Final note: we need a Scott Meyers type of book for "Effective ADHD".

This is somewhat unrelated, but the things that help me most are:

1. The Johnny File System: https://johnnydecimal.com/ 2. The PARA System: https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/

I mix the PARA system with JFS by numbering it in the JFS manner. For example, I have a note called "Minimalism", so I store it in "02-AREAS" like this:

"2.01 Minimalism"

Now let's say I want to totally change my minimalism list, then I am going to archive that in "04-ARCHIVE" like so:

"4.01 2.01 Minimalism"

Then I reuse the 2.01 for my minimalism list again.

Another side note: Bullet Journaling is something that I am looking into, but I am not yet familiar with it. My take on it is: you are an operating system scheduling tasks out of a task list.

This is what a key in a bullet journal might look like paired with Standard Notes:

• task x completed > moved forward < scheduled task (future) ~~cancelled~~ ○ event - note ! important

Regarding JFS:

https://www.reddit.com/r/datacurator/comments/cucufy/my_pers...

This is what I used as a reference to organize my folder system with JFS.

To be clear, therapy and medication is the best available option, but not everybody has access to it. In that case, what would be the next best option? (That is what I am actually asking.)

Also, there are some restrictions on medication in certain countries (e.g. Japan):

https://addadhdblog.com/adhd-in-japan/?doing_wp_cron=1601997...