# Making Dynamic Disability Life Doable -- How?? I'll tell you!

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** How to ADHD
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0
- **Дата:** 30.09.2025
- **Длительность:** 25:03
- **Просмотры:** 34,462

## Описание

Making life doable. It sounds great but it feels nebulous doesn't it? Thankfully, universal design can help inform us on some key components that can help us build systems for ourselves -- ALL of ourselves.  

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📚CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:14 Keynote INtro & the Importance of Neurodiversion
03:04 Why this topic? 
05:40 Why universal design? 
10:15 Dynamic Disabilities 
13:19 Design more doable quests - what's that mean? 
14:50 Okay... how? 
24:06 #MakingLifeDoable 

⁉️ WAIT IS JESSICA A LICENSED PROFESSIONAL?
Jessica McCabe is not a licensed mental health provider, but information presented on How to ADHD is reviewed by researchers and approved by licensed clinical psychologist Patrick LaCount, PhD (https://practicalpsychservices.com). While information presented on How to ADHD has historically been built in consultation with researchers and licensed providers, videos posted prior to April 2023 were not subjected to the same formal approval process required by the YouTube Health program.

For more information on the YouTube Health program and verification of health-related content, please visit: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9795167

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## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0) Intro

Hello, Brains. In this video, I'm going to show you a keynote that I did at a conference called NeuroDiversion. This is a new conference. A really exciting conference for this community because it is designed for us, for people who are neurodivergent, who are looking to learn about our brains and connect with each other. This is the first conference. It was designed specifically for this community. So I'm really, really excited to say that there is going to be a second year. You can go to neurodiversion. org and get tickets for ND 26 now. Tickets are already on sale, and if you use the code HowtoADHD - you can get $50 off - this is not sponsored, by the way, I am just really a fan of this conference and I would like there to be a year three. So I'm hoping that people go. So yeah, this is my keynote. It's called Making Life Doable Using Universal Design to thrive as all of ourselves. It's based on a vlog that I did earlier this year called Making Life Doable. But this is a more fleshed out version, complete with slides. And again, it's a keynote. The principles in this video have really helped me make my own life more doable, and I hope that you find it helpful as well. Feel free to share it with anybody that you love that you think might need to make their lives a bit more doable too, or who you just want to understand why you're making the choices that you are making in your own life. I hope you find it helpful. Enjoy. welcome to our stage Jessica McCabe.

### [1:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=74s) Keynote INtro & the Importance of Neurodiversion

[ Music Plays ] Is this on? Okay, cool. I promise I won't do this in Italian. All right. Well, thank you so much for the introduction. I'm really, really happy to be here at NeuroDiversion. The very first one. You guys, we got here for the first one ever. I'm assuming there's going to be another one. So I turned down every in-person speaking engagement that I was offered this year because I'm a new mom, except for this one. And there's a reason for that. It's because NeuroDiversion aims to do something really exciting, specifically, design a conference to be accessible to the people it is meant to benefit. And not just people with ADHD, but all neurodivergent people, which was a very ambitious goal. And frankly, I had to see how they did. But this is revolutionary that they're even attempting it, because for so many of us, it can make attending a conference doable. When an event is designed to be welcoming and accessible to users with diverse needs. Everyone benefits. And in a world designed for neurotypical people, our neurodivergent community, this community is our greatest strength. Being able to. I'm going to cry. Like on my first line. I'm so sorry. Being able to gather. Being able to gather with this community in spaces that are accessible to us is not something I thought I would see, and it's a profound opportunity. So thank you everyone who invited me. Thank you for everybody who made this event happen. Thank you guys for buying tickets. So they hopefully do this again next year. And, hello, Brains.

### [3:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=184s) Why this topic?

Welcome to my keynote. Making life doable. Using universal design to thrive as all of ourselves. I will explain. So why did I choose this topic? Because I think we neurodivergent people deserve more than a doable and joyful weekend. We deserve life. Ten years ago, my life was not very doable or joyful. I had all these ambitions and responsibilities and potential. And I was living up to pretty much none of it. I talk more about this in my TEDx talk and in my book. I won't go into it here, but what I may not have mentioned was that because of my failures, I felt I didn't deserve joy. I was going to say, how many people have ever felt that way? Like I didn't do my homework. I don't get to go outside and play. Yeah. And it wasn't for lack of trying. I was trying so hard. I was reading self-help books, listening to advice, exploring strategies. All of them designed for neurotypical people. But I was not neurotypical, so it did not go well. Then, over the last ten years, through my TEDx talk, my YouTube channel, my now New York Times bestselling book. This is the first talk I've gotten to say that I learned ways to try different, not harder, and shared tools and strategies specifically meant for people like me. People with ADHD tools like the ones you are no doubt learning at this conference. after a lot of practice working with my brain, not against it, my life became doable. Hard? Yes. Exhausting. Yeah. But doable. Not every day. There are still bad brain days. Days when I was extra tired or stressed or I couldn't access my meds. And at the time, I just accepted that it would be kind of useless on those days and on my good brain days, I would make up for that. And because I could. Because I had tools and strategies and enough good brain days to sort of keep up for a while, I became all the things I had wanted so badly to be productive, reliable, successful. And then I had a baby. And of course, I knew it would be difficult. different. I knew it would be hard. I had done my research. I had tried to prepare. even once I was through the fog of postpartum depression and the three chaotic months they call the fourth trimester, when I was hoping to move forward into my new life as a working mom, I looked around me and realized that once again, my life was not doable. Joyful. Yeah, I loved being a mom. Have you ever made a baby laugh until she gets the hiccups. It's the best, but doable. No, not at all. Why not?

### [5:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=340s) Why universal design?

I still had all the knowledge that I had. I still had my toolbox. I had this big book. I wrote all about it. So why couldn't I just function like I used to? I will tell you why. Because my tools, systems and strategies were designed for a version of myself that had ADHD, but not a new mom with ADHD. This was a whole new level of hard. There's a reason. This is why a lot of previously undiagnosed females get diagnosed after having a baby. The demand on our executive function goes through the roof at the same time as our ability to cope plummets. As a new mom with ADHD. I was sleep deprived. I was emotionally dysregulated. I was cranky and forgetful and impatient and foggy and. Oh. Not unlike the version of me on those bad brain days. Only now this is me on most days. I couldn't just write these days off anymore. Like it or not, this version of myself had stuff to do. Things it couldn't wait for a good day. And now the stakes were higher. I needed systems that work for her too, which brought me to the concept of universal design. How many people already know about universal design? Cool. A good amount of you. Cool. So Universal Design was created as an alternative to traditional design. Traditional design is what we encounter most often. It aims to be accessible to the average user. If some users, like us, have needs that fall outside the average accommodations are needed. For example, my kitchen was designed according to the needs and preferences of the average sized American adult. I'm short if you can't tell. These are platform shoes. I am shorter than average, so I use a step stool as an accommodation to help me reach the cookies. Universal design is different. The design of a product, service, or environment to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible without the need for adaptation or accommodations. When I attend a typical conference, I need to accommodate myself by bringing my service dog, a friend, earplugs, noise canceling headphones to help me navigate the noise and the crowds and the overwhelmed highlighters so I can be like, what do I want to do? The NeuroDiversion conference, however, is different. It's designed to be more universally accessible. They have designed an event that theoretically provides built in quiet areas. Hard to do in a warehouse, but shorter sessions. Yes. Intentional downtime between events. This way I don't have my lanyard, but these lovely lanyards that let people know if we want to be approached or not. So when I'm overwhelmed, I don't need my service dog protecting me. I can just be like, it's yellow. Let me come to you. These examples illustrate the first two principles of universal design equitable use and flexibility and use. There are seven principles of universal design. Feel free to take a picture because this will be important later. It'll be on the test. I'm so sorry. We all have trauma around this. No tests. Equitable use flexibility in use, simple and intuitive use. Perceptible information. Tolerance for error. Low physical effort. Size and space for approach and use. There are tons of examples of universal design that we interact with every day. Take zero step entries and automatic doors. They are used in almost every grocery store, big box retailers. And there's a reason for that. Because they make the store more accessible to all users, which is good. They would like people to shop there. But whether you're on foot, in a wheelchair, whether you're pushing a cart, carrying a bag, wrangling kids, the entry design provides equitable use, adequate space for approach, low physical effort, and is simple and intuitive. Curb cut outs are the classic example of universal design. They were designed for wheelchair access, but they also work great. If you're pushing a stroller, pulling a cart, or, riding one of those dope little electric scooters they have all over big cities. They're usually painted or textured to give you perceptible information that you are on an incline. And as someone who has tripped over many, of many a curb, I can tell you they are much more error tolerant. Just make sure not to stand in them while you're waiting to cross the street. Because if my friend Joe is rolling down the street in her big power wheelchair, you might end up in her lap. But hang on, I'm not here to talk about making things accessible for everyone who wants to shop at a supermarket. Get around Austin, or attend a conference. talking about making my life more doable. And I'm just one person, right? Oh, and her and her and every version of myself I have been or will be in the next few weeks, months or years. All of these versions of myself have different needs and preferences and levels of ability, which is why applying universal design principles, typically meant to make things usable for a wide range of needs and preferences and abilities, makes sense. All people have some degree of variation in their daily function based on factors like health, sleep, stress.

### [10:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=615s) Dynamic Disabilities

But part of what makes us divergent is how broad our functional range can be, right? With our difficult to regulate brains and spiky skill profiles, the difference between our highest and lowest functioning can be huge. And the thing is, this realization, this epiphany that I had, that I shouldn't expect one version of myself to do what the other versions of myself can. It turns out I posted about it two years ago. Anybody else have, like, epiphanies over and over and you're like, wow, this is brilliant. Wait, what? Yeah. So ADHDers often feel like we should be able to do something because we've done it before, or there are difficulty with focus or productivity isn't a real disability because sometimes we can do it just fine. Guys, ladies. Gentlethems. That is the disability, the inconsistency. And this is not just an ADHD experience by the way. This is an experience familiar to so many of us with dynamic disabilities, which yes, is a real term. Thank you very much for asking. The term dynamic disability describes a condition or impairment where the affected person's functional ability fluctuates over time. It was coined in 2019 by somebody with chronic illness and it's amazing. Tell everybody this variability -- It's based on factors that are unrelated. Effort. Dynamic disabilities can be due to divergent neuro types, co-occurring conditions, chronic illness or other visible and invisible conditions. For us, doing our best looks different every day. And if a strategy or system will work for us universally, it has to be designed with all these versions in mind. All of these versions of us in mind, or at least as many as possible. As I realized once I had a baby, not enough of my tools and strategies were designed with my most extreme selves in mind. Although I designed my systems to work with my ADHD brain. Hi baby. I wanted her to see what mama does. I'm good. Although I had designed my systems to work with my ADHD brain, I was still designing how I organized and managed home, work and personal tasks for the average user. Me on an average brain day. Or let's be honest, me on the day I designed the system. Which let's be real, if I'm creating a new system, probably a better than average brain day. Unfortunately, that energetic, motivated version of myself creating that system is not the only version of me that needs to use my systems, and it certainly isn't going to be the only version of me going forward. In fact, as a new mom in this last year, I've met a version of me I have never been before, one that is dealing with postpartum depression. Can't take a whole day off to recharge and suddenly has to do most things one handed, or with a baby strapped to my chest. If this new life is going to be doable for me, I have to design with every Jessica in mind, from the most functional to the least.

### [13:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=799s) Design more doable quests - what's that mean?

What do I mean by least? Well, let's imagine our lives as a role playing game. Hello, nerds. All right. In Dungeons and Dragons, when you try to do a thing, whether it's fighting orcs or charming maidens, you roll a 20 sided die a d20 to see how you do. How high you have to roll depends on two things. Your ability score. Basically, your skill level and the difficulty level of the task, which is variable. So the other day I had a quest to get me my daughter our bags and a yoga mat out front door Ideally without dropping anything or knocking anything over. Now, if my dexterity level is low, it is. And the difficulty level of this task is high. I was exhausted and look at all of the hazards in my way. I'm going to have to roll a pretty high number to succeed, like a 19 or 20. Which means I have to be pretty lucky to get through this passage with minimal damage. As it happened, I rolled a three. I didn't hurt anyone. But I did knock a whole lot of stuff down on my way out the door. There's only so much we can control. And sometimes in life, we can't help rolling threes. However, by incorporating universal design into how we set up our homes, routines, and systems, we can design our lives so that we don't need a lucky roll to be successful, even if our skills aren't where we would like them to be. Instead, we can design our quests to be more doable by lowering the difficulty level.

### [14:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=890s) Okay... how?

Okay, how? At Stanford's Institute of Design, Design thinking is taught as a five step process. Empathize. Define, ideate. Prototype, and test. The first step empathize, means I have to seek to understand the people who will be using my system, who in this case, are me. Many messy, marvelous me's. So I ask myself some hard questions. The first being who am I designing for? Who am I? When I am at my most impaired. Her? No. her? Actually, her. This can be an emotional process. The designers at Stanford emphasize that the empathy step should be free of judgment, but it can be really difficult to do that. It can be very difficult to face up to just how hard we struggle on our most impaired days. Feelings of shame and internalized ableism can pop up. When that happens, it's time to take off your judgy robes and put on your honesty hat. And a great way to do this is to start with facts. I most more likely to fumble, trip or drop things at my most impaired. I completely forget to check my calendar so I miss appointments or I double booked myself. At my most impaired? I can't find something. I just had, and I also have a migraine with aura, which means I also can't look for it. We can also look at our varying energy levels. At my most exhausted, I can't get up to feed myself. And we can look at when we're at our best, at my most creative. I can't get up to feed myself. See how this works? Universal design all of ourselves. By beginning this process, by connecting with my most extreme selves, I can more clearly state my design objective. Here's mine. I want to be able to do a good job on a bad day. That's it. If I can say at the end of a bad brain day, I still did a good job at the things that mattered to me. Good enough anyway. That would be huge. Life changing. Really? So for a week, whenever I ran into a situation where the difficulty level was high enough that the dungeon Master of my brain would be like, roll a d20. Like getting out the door without knocking things over. I wrote down what I was trying to do, as well as what got in my way. The barriers. And I did this. Importantly, I did this whether or not I succeeded because I don't want to be like, I rolled the d20, like I rolled it to nat 20. Like, this is fine. No, like the difficulty level should-- No, you can't count on rolling that d20. So any time it felt challenging enough, then I'm like, I don't know how this is going to go. Write it down. what kind of stuff did I write down? Not stories, not the how are the why of the trouble. Not because I suck at cleaning my house. Facts. Observable, verifiable facts, literal barriers. No blame. Along with the barriers I encountered, I also kept track of my joy. What made a day? Good. We deserve more than a doable life. We deserve a life worth doing. Speaking of which, if it's too much to do two logs in the same week, do one week and then one the next, I had to do them both at the same time because I needed to finish this talk, and I started it last week. So, but tracking the joy was essential because as a colleague of mine, Doctor Deirdre Kelly, pointed out in eliminating the barriers, I didn't want to accidentally eliminate the joy. This can happen during the design process. Yeah, it would have been a lot easier to get out the door that day if I hadn't been carrying two bags, a baby and a yoga mat. But my morning time with my daughter brings me joy, as does my yoga practice. And a little lizard. The little lizard on the shelf is from my mom's garden, and it brings me joy to have it greet me when I get home. So any solution I design would have to make this task less difficult without eliminating my sources of happiness. Once I kept a barrier log and a joy log for a week, I use them to identify patterns and set priorities. There's a reason you do it for a week before you try and come up with strategies, because that trying to get out the door with all the things, knocking things over, that happened once that week. You know, it happens 17 times a day. I was thirsty, but I encountered barriers in getting myself a drink, -- Drink! Yeah. All right. Do you mean when you're breastfeeding, you drink like a lake a day? So. Yeah. Barriers. My couch is on the same floor as my water dispenser, but I struggle to get myself a drink when I'm down there because the drinking glasses are all the way upstairs. The physical effort it takes to retrieve the water is the barrier. So that was step two. Define I define the problem. Now step three is ideate where I brainstorm ideas to solve the problem. Since I want to generate solutions that will be accessible to my most extreme selves, now would be a good time to review the seven principles for universal design and see which might apply. So my current system glass is upstairs. Water downstairs is failing me in several areas. If I have to go upstairs and then back downstairs. Not even just upstairs. Also back downstairs to get the water every time I want to drink. That is way more physical effort than I can reasonably expect for myself, especially my thirsty self who is most likely to be collapsed on the couch in an exhausted heap at the end of the day, and also currently watching Star Trek. It also fails on simple and intuitive, because why do I have a water dispenser located so far away from anything I can dispense water into? So let's see. I could move the water dispenser to where the glasses are, which, no, I can't because there's no space for it there. Because I would be blocking a walkway space for approach and use. Or I move the glasses to where the water dispenser is, which. No, I shouldn't do that because tolerance for error, the water dispenser is on the way out the door. Where that ledge is. I would end up with so much broken glass from all the water glasses I left on that ledge on my way out the door, so I could get disposable paper cups and store them near the water dispenser. But that seems wasteful, particularly when I have a million reusable water bottles. Or I could gather up the water bottles I have scattered all over the house and in my car and put them in a box by the water dispenser. So when I want to drink water and I'm downstairs, I can fill a bottle that can go with me wherever I am. Simple and intuitive. And also the water dispenser again is near the door. So when I'm on my way out the door, I can fill a water bottle and take it with me. Flexibility in use. And then when I inevitably move all the water bottles to the car and all over my house and all I have left is an empty box, I can take that box and go on a water bottle hunt. This is more physical effort than, say, paper cups might have been, but it is less physical effort than going up and down the stairs every time. I'm thirsty, and way more error tolerant than sticking my face under the water dispenser spigot and trying to pour the water directly into my mouth, which yes, I have done. So now I prototype. Voila! A box of water bottles right near the dispenser. I put this together right before I left for this talk, so I'm just at the beginning of step five, but I have high hopes. If it doesn't work, maybe I will try paper cups. Or I can go back to the ideation step and keep brainstorming. Or I can ask a friend who was like, why don't you do both? Why don't you have paper cups and the water bottles? So when you don't have water bottles, you can still take a drink, but you're not really wasting a lot because I was like, oh, right. That's actually really important. Designers do not work alone. They work with other people, brainstorm with other people. Often we can't solve the problems our brain created with the brain that created it in the first place. This process recommends that you get to a prototype quickly, though, even if it doesn't work out in the testing phase. This is especially important for people like me who struggle with perfectionism. It doesn't move us forward if we get stuck in ideation, hoping to find the best possible solution before we try anything. After all, as Stanford Design professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans say, the unattainable best is the enemy of all the available betters. is a box of water bottles in a janky cardboard box, the best solution? I don't know. Probably not. But is it better than hauling my thirsty butt up and down the stairs? Or worse, not drinking at all? Absolutely. This is what it looks like to use universal design to make it possible to do a good job hydrating myself on a bad day. And it makes it easier to hydrate myself on a good day. Of course, my extremely hyperfocus self is currently yelling. But what about all the other things? There are so many things which yeah, there will always be things. I'm only at the beginning of this process, but that's why it's called a process, not a procedure. Applying universal design to your life is not a one and done fix. It's more a way of thinking about ourselves and how we approach our everyday demands, as well as our joys. It's about not letting a hypothetical best get in the way of a real life better. It's about accepting all the variations of who we are without judgment, and acknowledging that every variation is worthy of a doable, meaningful, joyful life. I always go home from conferences feeling like a brand new version of myself. Being with people like me. People who are passionate, open to learning, full of fresh ideas. It energizes me for days afterward. And if you feel the same, I would challenge you to bring this weekend home with you. I will be sharing my journey of designing a more doable life across my socials using this hashtag, #MakingLifeDoable. And I encourage you to use the same hashtag to share your own designs. I would really love to see them. I hope you're inspired to imagine a life as accessible and joyful as this conference, or what this conference will be after many future prototypes. And I wish you all a nat 20 role. Maybe not every day, but every once in a while. Bye, Brains! So, yeah, I, I did half of that.

### [24:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwYplADskr0&t=1446s) #MakingLifeDoable

I did go home and start working in earnest to apply universal design principles to make my life more doable. You can see some of that from, our series with Cas from Clutterbug. But I did not use the hashtag making life doable to talk about any of it. Because apparently, remembering to do that was not doable for any of my selves. So let me know in the comments below if you would like me to, make this hashtag a thing if you would like me to use it, if you would like to use it so that I can see what you're doing to make your own life more doable. Let me know. And, I will talk to my team about how to make that doable. Thank you to our brain advocates and all our Patreon brains for not only making this video possible, but making us going to the conference possible. Not only last year, but next year as well. So very, very excited that we get to do things like that. And it's because of the support that you provide us. Like subscribe. Click on the things and I will see you next video. And maybe at NeuroDiversion. Bye brain.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/15238*