Can You "Hack" Your Way to Success?

All my life I have felt like an alien who landed on Earth without a handbook. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that everyone else seems to have gotten the guide on "how to be a human." I really felt like Mr. Bean, you know the opening credits when he slams down to earth in human form and has to pass himself off as normal, with hilarious results. I'm now a researcher on women with ADHD, and to my extreme relief, it turns out this is a totally normal feeling among the neurodivergent. We all feel like aliens.

For years now I've developed a coping mechanism that I've discovered is not at all unique to people with ADHD. Any time I find a little trick that helps me get through the day without exploding my life or binge-watching Below Deck while ordering Domino's, I jot it down in a special folder of my notes app titled "ADHD Hacks." After years of compiling these little life hacks, I discovered I had my own tailor-made self-help book. The amazing thing is, after I interview people with ADHD for my work, I discover nearly all of them have their own little notes folder as well. They weren't always called ADHD Hacks, but the contents were the same. Little tips and tricks compiled to help us get through the day.

I've always been a little sceptical of "hacks" and self-help books, as I found most of them weren't tailored to the neurodivergent brain and consequently ended up making you feel worse about yourself. Hands up if you've ever read some blockbuster self-help book called something like "Unleash the Dragon Within!" and got yourself all hyped up about starting your life over at 4 am the next day with an ice bath and a five-mile run, only to snooze the alarm clock until noon? It was less unleashing the dragon and more "awakening the sloth within."

Approaching midlife, I've come to the realisation that the best way to "hack" your life is to truly understand yourself and have some realistic ambitions that don't backfire horrendously. It was only after I shared some of my own hacks with others, and they shared theirs with me, that I thought I might be onto something here, and published the book that genuinely did change my life, How to Get Your Sh*t Together.

I'm sort of embarrassed and oddly proud to say that I really do read my own book nearly every day. Like a lot of people, sometimes you need a little reminding to keep you on track. But do life hacks actually work for most people, and more importantly, can you use them to propel yourself to personal success and live the life you dream of?

Turns out there's real science behind this. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer studied what he calls "implementation intentions", basically a fancy term for a hack, and found that people who made a simple if-then plan were far more likely to actually hit their goals than people who just relied on willpower (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). Even some of the most successful people on the planet swear by their own little hacks. Barack Obama stuck to only grey or blue suits to cut down on daily decisions. Mark Zuckerberg did the same with his grey T-shirts. Steve Jobs had his black turtleneck. None of them were being lazy, they were just protecting their brainpower for the stuff that actually mattered.

So no, hacks aren't cheating. Sometimes the smallest tricks are the ones that add up to the biggest changes.