Whether due to an increase in the incidence of the disorder or better diagnostics, more people across age groups – kids and adults – are being diagnosed with ADHD than ever before. Many people have difficulty with focus and organization – to the point that it interferes with their day-to-day lives. If you’re an adult learning to cope with ADHD, these hacks will help you gain productivity, be more organized, and focus on the stuff that matters.

Learn as Much as You Can About ADHD

One of the most helpful things adults with ADHD can do to better manage their disorder is to become an expert on the subject. Once you understand precisely what ADHD is and how it impacts your daily functioning, you’re better able to develop coping mechanisms that work for you.

Plus, you’ll be less likely to get down on yourself about things that are out of your control. ADHD is a mental health disorder, not a lack of willpower. Recognizing this is a big step in learning how to manage the disorder, and when you seek treatment, you’re less likely to turn to negative coping strategies such as drugs or alcohol.

Make Use of Task Lists, Calendars, and Color Coding

The hallmark of success for adults coping with ADHD is the establishment of clear-cut systems that help to organize your tasks, including the use of task lists, color-coding (which can increase the visual appeal of ordinary lists and documents), calendar scheduling, and a straightforward filing system. These techniques will reduce the cognitive demands of trying to remember where you stored that file or what you were supposed to pick up for dinner, meaning you can focus your mental effort on the tasks at hand.

Taking notes is also effective for many adults with ADHD. The physical act of writing things down often improves memory retention, and it provides an archive that you can refer back to later when you need to recall details from a meeting or an ordinary task. An added benefit of note-taking is that it gives you something to “do,” so you’re less likely to fidget.

Tap Into the Power of Your Smartphone

Most adults have smartphones these days, and while constant access to the digital world can certainly be a distraction at times, there are a plethora of mobile apps that prove incredibly valuable for adults managing ADHD. A note-taking app, for instance, such as Evernote or Microsoft OneNote, can facilitate the aforementioned note-taking. And because your notes are synced across devices and always available, you won’t be dealing with misplaced notebooks or sticky notes.

Also useful for adults coping with ADHD are calendar apps that sync with your task list, clearly showing you exactly what your priorities and scheduled meetings and appointments are for the day. Most such apps offer the ability to set reminders leading up to events or deadlines as well, triggering an alarm on your device with a notification letting you know about an upcoming obligation. Alternatively, there are plenty of stand-alone reminder apps that you can use to set alarms for your most important deadlines and appointments. Calendars 5 for iPhone is great and syncs with Google Calendar. Wunderlist and ToDoist are also great organizational apps worth checking out.

Create Rituals and Embrace Them

Rituals are crucial for adults living with ADHD. When you make your daily demands habitual, you don’t have to think about them; you tend to simply start doing them on auto-pilot. So, make an effort to establish routines that encompass all of the things that you need to do on a daily basis. Do the same things at the same time each day as much as possible.

Routines and habits mean that you’ll go to bed at the same time each day, ensuring that you get adequate sleep, which in turn can reduce the symptoms of ADHD. The same is true for things like eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise.

There are many things adults with ADHD can do to ease the symptoms of the disorder and to accomplish the many day-to-day goals that prove challenging for people who have ADHD. By creating systems, establishing routines to ensure you’re getting ample sleep and eating right, and making use of technology tools to keep you on-task and organized, you’ll find that you’re better able to make progress towards your goals.