It is easy to see why ADHD is often thought of as a made up condition. The symptoms can easily come across as the afflicted simply being lazy or unmotivated. The other problem is that the symptoms tend to just be magnified versions of just normal behavior. We all get distracted and have trouble maintaining focus sometimes but I have to be hyper-aware how that is going to be affecting me all day. I can't just assume that I'll be able to buckle down at some point and get work done. If I want to have any success at anything I need to plan ahead on not only how I am going to do it, but also how I am going make sure I'm focused for that period of work. Which is also troublesome because I have to plan for my planning. It is easy to miss a planning session and simply just let a day slip away because I'm busy fucking about. And that seems like such a dumb reason not to get things done. Shouldn't it be easy to recognize when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing? It should be, but it isn't.
I'd also like to think it would be easy to follow things through until they are done. Writing this post, for example, should be easy. You open up a browser window and just write until you are through, but no less than 5 times (so far) I've clicked out to do something else while working on this piece. I wish I was able to just control myself a little bit better on that front, but the biggest problem is that I do it without conscious thought. When I click out I'm not thinking that hey I should go look at something else, my brain just goes on auto-pilot opening a new window or looking at something where else. And then I catch myself and come back to where I was.
The big problem I see with this is that it is preventing me from doing a lot of deep work. When I'm able to stay on track longer I can produce work that is of a much higher quality because my brain isn't also thinking about that email I just unsubscribed to. It is just focusing on the task at hand and that is something I need to work on. Right now I think the best way to work on that is to work on taking that decision making out of my own hands - or at least the unconscious decision making that takes me off track without realizing it. And by that, I mean preemptively setting things up so that it is harder for me to get off track. Not having my phone right in front of me or even in easy reach is a start, but I've got to work on how to keep what I'm working on in front of me. The first thing that comes to mind is simply turning off the internet, but I'm not sure how actually effective that would be. My first concern on that is that I'd want to be able to research things while writing, but I'm not sure that that is actually such a good idea. Maybe I just need to write down what I want to look up and do the research after my writing session. Keep writing to writing and other work to it's designated time. That might work, of course, I'll need to actually download the music I'm listening to or at least find another way to listen to it. This might be worth pursuing.
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