Of the many possible analogies for what it feels like to have Adult ADD (or ADHD), one I tell my colleagues is this: go to your office or cubie (or any room at home) and attack with aplomb the 300 emails, 4 proposals, 11 phone calls, 6 bills, what’s for dinner, 3 birthdays, what’s that noise, 2 meetings, 2 friends’ issues, where’s my tie, 20 students with essays due, a building inspector come to scrutinize mold, phone’s ringing, a surprise auditor come to assess your books, neighbor’s dog won’t stop barking, an empty stomach from cranking through lunch, and a need to pee what you’ve been holding in all morning, all while Radio WNUT plays loud, intermittent screeching tones that deliver shocks equal to those delivered to the “Harrison Bergeron” characters in Kurt Vonnegut’s SF story.
Yes, this is what it feels like to have Attention Deficit Disorder. This is what we ADDers experience on a daily basis. It is what drives us, what makes us feel unique, what makes us feel weak, incompetent, and overwhelmed…until we get help, the right diagnosis, the right meds, that is. And then, even after the appropriate and correct treatment, we typically need some special strategies, some exclusive tricks for managing this insidious and particular disorder. Following are some techniques that work for me, for friends I know who use their ADD to their advantage, and for ADD experts who have established tried and true techniques for focus, productivity, and self-esteem.
1. CONTROLLING RUNAWAY TIME
One of the phenomena I can get all kinds of mileage out of is how much time passes when I am hyperfocused. Thanks to great meds, I can get into a project, or talk with a friend on the phone, or go off on a surfing/researching adventure that as you might know can take me away for hours. I won’t know I needed to stop some three hours back unless or until something “louder” snaps me out of my reverie.
I use a kitchen timer, then. For example, when I know I am going to be talking on the phone with someone who is as much of a yakker as I am, and I know in the past our conversations have lasted up to four hours (!), I now set a timer for one hour, tell my friend I am doing so, and keep true to the signal. When the bell goes off, it is time to say the closure stuff, and set up a “date” for the next time, say how great this was, and say good-bye. No, no. Really. No “one more thing”s. No imaginary snooze alarms, where you reset for another fifteen minutes.
2. SLEEP and SLEEP SCHEDULES
Speaking of snooze alarms…. We work and play hard as ADDers, and likely sleep hard and long, too. If you need to wake up at a certain time, set the alarm, then move the alarm clock OUT of REACH-across the room or even in another room (if it is still audible). This forces you to get up and break the snuggly comfort.
While we’re here on the sleep topic…. Some ADDers have a hard time waking up and struggle as they wait for their meds to kick in for the day. My doctor, Monroe A. Gross, told me that these people try setting their alarm a half-hour earlier, getting up just long enough to take one pill, then laying back down to finish sleeping until the meds work. Of course, this works for those of us who don’t have any trouble going back to bed and sleeping after we have broken our sleep (the opposite of the above alarm clock trick, that is).
3. READING
As a kid and then as an adult in college, I read alot. I mean a lot…a book a week, at the least. As the ADD progressed, and even after or especially because of the wonderful meds, I found reading a most challenging task.
Not because I couldn’t understand the words or because the content bored me, but because I struggled with staying on task, with reading word for word without jumping around, finding something better to do, or wanting to speed through the pages.
or with attending to the material rather than letting every other passage remind me of something that would take my thinking to a zillion other places.
A couple of tricks have helped me not only get through a book but actually absorb and enjoy it in the process: one thing I do now is use a piece of blank cardboard to block all but the one line I am reading.
You can use the tag board that comes in paper, an actual piece of blank paper, or any bit of recycled cardboard from those candy bar twelve-packs, for example. I like the weight of the cardboard, as I can control it, guide it down the page like a blank bookmark, and use it to be physically active as I read, too.
Another trick is one MCC Madelyn Griffith-Haynie recommends for people who are not visual learners or for those who wish to cut down on the distraction factor that pictures may contribute to: use a large sticky note to cover up the pictures. This not only blocks your eye from constantly straying from the text, it is a safe way to cover pages without tearing them or gumming them up.
Finally, reading online. There are several closely studied practices involving reading by way of a computer screen, but I will go into just a couple more pertinent to us with ADD.
One, if glare bothers you, or if you read online for long periods of time, get a filter for your pc. For a few dollars, the anti-glare monitor filter, with Velcro attachments, will cut down on bouncing this and overwhelming that.
Two, if you find it helps to have larger font, hold down the Ctrl key while hitting the + sign. The text will enlarge for your comfort.
And three, if you are in search of a particular word or phrase and don’t wish to spend a lot of time getting sidetracked with all the wonderful ads or goodies all over the page, hold down the Ctrl key, hit the F key, and when the window or box appears, type in the exact word or words you are looking for…to get right down to business!
4. SAYING “NO” TO INTERRUPTIONS
This is a hard one for so many of us-with or without the joy of ADD. We have jobs that allow, encourage, or enable interruption; we have attachments to phones; we have drop-in visitors; we have spouses and kids.
Now there is the belief that the person who puts a “NO SOLICITING” sign on the gate is the one the sales people go to, for these people can’t say “No,” know they can’t, and try to put a sign up to solve the problem.
For some of us, the sign might work: in a positive tone, note your temporary unavailability (I am unavailable…), then, to put those ready to just walk in at ease, add a time you will be available (I will open my door at ______).
That’s one trick. Another is to verbally discourage-also in a positive tone, using positive language (instead of “I am not okay with interruptions,” try “I am happy to meet by appointment, agreed-upon time, lunch…, instead of right now” or “I prefer the scheduled session over the drop-in”). Now here is the trick to this one. You have to say what you mean, mean what you say, and stay with it, consistently.
There will be those who discount, ignore, or just plain not hear you. As my therapist says, it’s along the lines of “Changez le disc….” You might have to state your unavailability or preference once, then repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, in the same, calm, same words way. Uh-hu, I appreciate that, and as I said, I will be available at___.
Another strategy involves the phone interruptions. At work, and that can be at work at home if you are as I am, a freelancer. The phone will ring, and first, I am jolted out of my zone. Second, it is six out of seven times a solicitor. ARGGGGH!
Turn on the answering machine, mute it, unplug the phone-or, if you have such a function, turn off the ringer. Then have a set time of day when you listen to and return phone messages.
The third strategy also deals with work-at-home gigs: if you are a freelancer, contractor, or private small business owner, you might have a spouse and/or kids who do/does not “believe” you are at work. So as you are zipping along so beautifully in your zone, he or she may just walk right in and start yammering about needing help finding a sock, being hungry, or just wanting to “chat”. Again, the necessity of well-defined boundaries is imperative. Do the sign, do the announcing of time-frames when you are available and unavailable, and repeat as often as necessary.
5. MANAGING MULTIPLE TASKS
Now that you have gotten the external interruptions and distractions down to nil, it is time to practice what you preach, if you will.
First, many of us ADDers love lists-love making them. I do a task list throughout the day and finalize it each night and put it in front of my pc for the following day, but you may have other times the list-making will work. Point is, make a list.
Next, as one of my friends always said, “Do what’s in front of you…,” or, as another program slogan holds, “First things first” and “One day at a time.” You know where I am going with this: do ONE THING at a TIME.
Yeah, sure, easier said, Roxanne. Okay, if you are a chef, a multitasking hunter out in the field, or in any type of work that mandates multitasking…, well, then your ADD will facilitate nicely, won’t it? Studies have actually shown that we ADDers are more compelled to do more than one thing at a time, whereas those without ADD couldn’t possibly do what we do. I’m not talking about not doing several related tasks…, I am speaking to how we want to do several tasks of several projects, diluting the process by multi-multi-tasking, if you will. Rather, the idea is to to some degree compartmentalize, to manage one project at a time. So if you prefer to not be all over the place, doing so many bits of so many different projects that no one project ever gets completed, then try the one-thing-at-a-time approach.
Then, here’s the cool part. You get to a) cross that task or project from the list…to great self-satisfaction; and b) get to reward yourself.
Most important is rewarding (rather than punishing, that is) yourself for staying focused. Say you love computer games. And what rare ADDer doesn’t just eat up the repetitive motions involved? Or you are, as is typical to many ADDers, a big-time staller, procrastinator, preferer of TV-watching over test-studying. Tell yourself that you will work for X number of hours and then can play that video game or watch TV or whatever when you are done. This not only takes away the additional displaced focus throughout the day, but gives you something to look forward to…. It’s like dangling your own carrot, and actually getting to eat it, eventually.
6. GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION
Many if not most ADDers, again, like to, need to, are compelled to live a lifestyle and work a job that has many layers, that involves a soothing more-than-non-ADDers-can-take dynamic. We need the TV on at the same time as we type. We need to have seven windows open on our pc while one of them hosts NPR or the local radio broadcast.
If it helps, if it facilitates, use it! As Ann Scheck in her ADDitudes Magazine article, “Secrets of Focus” writes, this action works as a kind of buffering: “…When stress surfaces, a relaxing counter-measure may help.” And as Scheck quotes David Moon saying, “Constant stimulus screens out other distractions.”
If it helps to listen to music while you read, go for it. If it is impossible to focus without the TV blaring, have the TV blaring. When I taught at an art academy, one of the teacher guideline policies was to allow for doodling and sketching during class. Giving permission to the secondary act is empowering and justifying!
And if sound is involved where there are others who can’t deal with sound while they work in the same space as you, well, that’s what the gods invented headphones and ipods for, right?
7. FEND OFF BOREDOM
While really good meds might virtually eliminate this symptom (Mine do), if you face boredom or even dread, a couple of techniques might help:
It’s nine a.m. and you have a load of work. One self-help author (whose name I have now forgotten) suggests tackling the smallest or most interesting/engaging task first. This way, you get momentum for the larger or less-interesting tasks.
Or, as Carol Henderson, a film producer in Hollywood, suggests, get a friend/colleague to come in and join you on a project: the teamwork will be a source of stimulation, companionship, and buffering, soothing distraction (the good kind).
8. PERMISSION to MOVE, BOSS
And as Henderson and many others also suggest and attest to, getting up and moving about helps to remedy several symptoms for those of us with ADD. While I used to make “Help Me” signs I would hold up out the window of the endless conferences, so that a friend would come in and say I had an important phone call, you can be more appropriate, as it were, by just whispering to a colleague you are stepping out.
Step out, move around, shake off the ennui, and then return.
Also helpful for me in any meeting, even with friends, is to be doing that infamous multitasking, grading papers, taking notes…just plain doing something while the other something goes on. This helps keep at bay such things as rude interruptions, off-the-wall questions, or utter imploding madness!
Reference:
- ADDitude Magazine. Online and by subscription. www.additudemag.com/
