"Systems" are good, BUT...

Over the past few years, I have created myself a bunch of "systems" that seem to help me focus more and basically live as a somewhat "functioning human being."

That's of course a "good thing," on the greater scale of things, and I recognize that I have put so much effort into it because I really do not want to become "one of those people" who ends up living their lives functionally only as a result of taking a giant handful of medications and supplements every day. It's bad enough that I've had to accept that I will probably be taking blood pressure meds, for the remainder of my days. I am not sure why-- although my mother being a functional alcoholic might be partially to blame-- but I have always viewed the need for "chemical help" with considerable suspicion and loathing.

Part of that suspicion is also related to my general belief that our society tends to excessively "medicalize" perfectly normal parts of the spectrum of human experience.

"Oooh! He FELT something! Give him a pill..."

I really hate that crap. It's a cop-out, in my opinion. Now, I'm not suggesting that there aren't people who genuinely need medication to function, but I am saying that we tend to just "throw medicine at problems" rather than trying to actually discover and isolate their root causes... and then promote actual healing, rather than ongoing "treatment."

But I'm digressing. Because that's what I do, as a person with ADHD.

The point here was that I have created myself a bunch of "operating systems" (lists, timers, etc.) by which I stay some semblance of functional. However... as effective as those may be in keeping me on an even keel, I sometimes find myself wondering if the 30-45 minutes I now spend every morning "setting up for the day" are really worth it. Has the "system" I've created become more of an encumbrance (and a time-waster) than a help?

Ultimately, I don't think so. I feel helped by my increasingly spotless home office and my system of notes and schedules, and that bears out... in terms of what I can look at and say "I actually accomplished that" at the end of the day. However, it's important that I remain mindful of my tendency to eternally "fine tune" and create "subsystems of subsystems" when all that's really needed is an overall framework.

Mindfulness is essential, when you live with ADHD... because there are "tempting distractions" around every corner; even those "corners" actively designed to help.

ADHD Musings: The Thing About Deadlines

One of the things I have long realized about myself is that I work best "to deadlines."

To explain that a bit further, what I am really saying here is that if there is not a "looming deadline," odds are that I will not get anything done, at all.

Take this week, for example. I know that I wanted to get a large number of new auctions listed on eBay by this coming Sunday, as part of giving my rare stamp business a boost. Now, creating 150-odd listings on eBay is pretty time consuming... especially with merchandise like rare old postage stamps: They have to be "selected," then "scanned," then the images have to be "formatted and color corrected," then the description for each has to be individually written and uploaded to the staging area. All in all, it's a LOT of work.

So I say to myself-- probably two weeks ahead of the "launch date"-- that if I just get a little bit done every day, then the whole thing won't creep up on me and be a giant stressful mess at the very end. Because "giant stressful mess at the the very end" is how I tend to work.

And so, here we are, on Friday, with three days remaining before I had planned to get these sales made public. And where am I?

Even though I know that getting this done is essential... and that being able to pay our bills this month depends on these sales... I really have not been able to motivate myself to do much work on getting the auctions ready. Sure, I have sat down to "get started" a number of times, and I have "dabbled a little," but in about 75% of my available work time, I have managed to get about (maybe!) 10% of the overall workload taken care of.

This has been a pervasive pattern in all aspects of my life, since being a teenager who never could "get around to" homework until an hour before it was due. Of course, I have always been able to "excuse myself" by stating (quite truthfully, I might add) that "I am brilliant under pressure," and I always DO tend to get these things done. But not without a horrible last-minute "death march" to get there. And 90% of the time? The results are usually stellar... better than most people's, even if they worked tirelessly on the same thing for three weeks.

Maybe this doesn't have anything to do with being ADHD, at all. Maybe it's about "work styles." That is not really clear to me. "Distraction" definitely plays into the mix... distractions seem so much more appealing, when there is plenty of time. Unless I feel the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, I am not given to "doing what must be done." Character flaw? Work habits? Inherent laziness? Aspects of ADHD?

And it's not that I am not aware of the "passing of time." In fact, I regularly "count down" how much time I have left, to do the remaining work... I know exactly how many days and hours remain. But unless there is "severe pressure to perform" being brought to bear, I don't feel inclined to move.

This is not a good thing... as I have recently been diagnosed with severe hypertension, and I am becoming more aware of things I do that are constitute underlying stress patterns. These "last minute rushes" to do the essential things of life are extremely stressful.

Somehow, I need to overcome my habits... and reduce stress. So here I am, writing a blog post instead of working on my eBay stuff. Because I still have "plenty of time."

Ironic, no?

Understanding My Own Processes

A friend (who's also a counselor and therapist) recently asked me how I "deal with" ADHD, especially given that I am not using meds or "seeing anyone" about it.

It made me sit down and clarify my "process," and I concluded that I have really been "experimenting" with my life, for some time, now. There are essentially two parts to this "gig" for me... and I recognize that they are probably "peculiar" to someone whose issue is the "primarily inattentive" variant.

One, I have learned to become very mindful of the fine line between what is simply "being an HSP" and "my Myers-Briggs/personality preferences" and what is "a condition." We must know-- and acknowledge-- where we simply are "wired that way" and where we have a "condition" we can actually do something about. But you already know that part, I'm sure.

Two, the most helpful thing I have learned is to live through a process of allowing and working with the ADHD, rather than trying to "combat" or "fight" it. Again, a mindfulness practice is essential to me... that is, being aware of the moments when I start "drifting."

It might be something like "Uh-oh, I'm writing this article and I just had an idea for another article...." So instead of metaphorically "slapping myself" and saying "FOCUS!" I "allow" a one-minute sidetrack to sketch out a few quick notes of the new idea, and then I resume writing the "main thing" I was previously working on.

I manage to at least give the appearance of focusing pretty well by (A) being a ferocious note taker when my mind wanders and (B) having a dozen-odd manila folders by my desk, roughly organized by topic/concept... into which my "loose side notes" get filed immediately.

As I have written previously on these pages, the notes serve the purpose of "pulling the idea out of circulation" (inside my head) so-- in a sense-- I can go back to thinking about the main thing on my mind. In a sense taking notes means I can tell myself that I have "acted on" the sidetack, and committed it to a form of "permanent storage" so I don't have to have swirling thoughts about it in "active memory."

It's basically a technique of functionally "taking away" from the swirling cloud inside my head-- a constant (and quite active) process of simplify, simplify, simplify. Somehow, it is easier for me to deal with the physical mess of all the paper scraps, than the mental mess of trying to track too many ideas in my head. From a purely functional perspective, it also means that I get a lot more done.

Now... I'll bring back up that this process works for me; in general the notions of time, structure and organization flow pretty "naturally" for me. This may not work as well for different personality types.

I have also found that "breaking state" (like going to a different part of the house to do certain tasks) can be quite effective, too. If I can remove myself (physically) from my venues of "easiest distraction" withOUT also removing myself from my creative "power spots" (not always possible) that can really help.

ADHD Coping Tools: Record Keeping and Concentration

I have been "keeping track of things" since I was a little kid.

I always used to think that it was merely something to help me because I seemed to have a pathetically poor memory. Ideas would come into my head; I might act on them and then have forgotten everything, 10 minutes later. As I learned more about psychology, it occurred to me that my desire to "keep track" of everything might not be memory related, but instead signs of OCD.

And yet?

I really wasn't "recording things" because I felt any kind of obsession, but because it helped me keep track of things; in a sense, the recording served as "place holders" that allowed me to be somewhat functional in life.

All these years later, I still "keep track" of a lot of things. As I have come to embrace the idea that this "thing" that causes me to lose my place so easily is not "poor memory," I have also come to understand that there are "tools" I have been using for most of my life... and whereas they may seem "weird" or "OCD-ish" to some, they are actually helping me.

So what exactly does "recording" what I do, in the course of a day, do to help me? It helps me restart abandoned projects where I left off, rather than leaving me to fumble around to figure out my "place." It helps me "manage" my efforts to keep 4-5 "project lines" running, side by side, without getting overwhelmed.

Yes, I do "lose some time" because it takes time to write things down, in addition to doing them, but it is not a major issue for me. The bottom line... recording things allow me to create some "illusion" that I am able to concentrate my efforts.

Being a Highly Sensitive Person with ADHD

I am a Highly Sensitive Person (or HSP).

And I am an HSP with ADHD.

Lots of HSPs are afflicted with ADHD, but for several years now I have been pondering the overlaps and connections. Being an HSP is not a "diagnosis," it simply means you have an inborn genetic trait; your body is "hard wired" a certain way. You feel more; you feel more intensely.

The "intersect," as I experience it (and other HSPs have shared very similar experiences with me) is that because being highly sensitive makes me "feel things deeply," I experience the effects of ADHD more "intensely." And sometimes those experiences feel "amplified" to a rather debilitating extent.

It is really important to understand that being an HSP and having ADHD are two distinct situations. One does not CAUSE the other, and one does not IMPLY the other. To the degree there are correlations between the two, they are typically "non-causal."

Stated differently, I am having "the same ADHD experience" as everyone else, but because I am an HSP, how that feels is more intense than most people's feelings.

One of the places I have struggled most is to manage the "limited bandwidth/energy" I often have because I am highly sensitive alongside the general distractability that goes with ADHD. The end result is this "state" in which I feel overwhelmed and overstimulated (the "HSP part") by the fact that my inability to focus (the ADHD part) is keeping me from being able to efficiently navigate daily life.

In a practical sense, it has manifested as periods during which I feel totally immobilized... not by my actual work and chores, but by knowing how much effort it will take simply to stay focused.

It's hard to explain-- and perhaps it doesn't really make sense unless you're also an HSP, yourself. I will of course add in here that my "issue" is the Inattentive form of ADHD (wikipedia), which is quite different from the well-known "Hyperactivity" form most people are familiar with.

I am still trying to make sense of the "intersect" of the two. Here's a metaphor that helps me a little:

I think of myself as a piece of machinery. I have a fuel tank containing a certain amount of fuel. As people, we all have "fuel tanks" of certain sizes. As a Highly Sensitive Person, I burn the available fuel faster than most people. As a result, when I am faced with the consequences of my ADHD, I have less fuel available to "fix things" and simply "keep plugging along," till whatever I needed to do is done. This leads to a "secondary feedback loop" in which I feel overwhelmed because it feels like no matter what, I won't have the fuel reserves to complete what I need to deal with.

Many years ago, I used to think of it as "Bailing out the Titanic with a tea cup." No matter what, the ship would "sink." My efforts were only sufficient to slow down the inevitable sinking.

Hence, a period of years during which I have been trying to "simplify" my life, so the "available fuel" will be sufficient to deal with the "stuff of life"... because there's no "increasing the size of the fuel tank." The answer, continuing with the ship metaphor, isn't to become better at bailing, but to make sure I'm on a smaller ship.

If you are an HSP with ADHD, "simplifying life" may be one of your single best coping tools-- and I also mention that because many HSPs are loath to resort to medications, because of the stronger impact of side effects.

"Functional" Distractions... as an ADHD Coping Tool

I am eternally looking for ways to make my "scattered" life easier to navigate.

For a few years now, one of my most effective tools has been finding ways to engage myself in what I think of as "Functional Distractions."

The bane of my existence (and the underlying cause for much of my non-productivity) was always the fact that I would get sidetracked into doing "useless things" and end up with a day where I actually worked for maybe 30 minutes (net) and spent ten hours exploring a variety of mostly useless "rabbit holes."

Some part of me wants to rationalize that I was sidetracking because it was the only way to stay awake, and that maybe my research would "be useful some day," but that excuse has never really done me much good. Bottom line-- for 99.9% of the population-- is that unless we work, and actually accomplish things, we can't pay for our rent, power bill and groceries.

As a self-employed person for almost a couple of decades now, the temptation presented by alluring distractions has always been great. It is just soooo easy to stop to check email, check Facebook, follow a link, and before I know it, another two hours have been eaten off the clock. Of course, since my issue is "inattentiveness," I also have to be constantly on alert for simply "staring out the window" (for 45 minutes) or day dreaming.

I have already written about my "scattered work" which I call making a living... and it is really the result of deciding that it is inevitable that I am going to sidetrack... so when I do sidetrack, why not make it to something "functional" rather than something "useless?"

There is a certain irony in the fact that this blog was started as a form of "side tracking," because I felt like I'd be unable to find my ramblings about living with ADHD among the thousands of posts that make up my private personal journal. Besides... it seemed like a right thing to write this stuff "out in public," just in case someone else might see it and find it useful.

"Functional Distractions" is a system by which I give myself "permission" to get sidetracked from something that needs to be done... as long as I sidetrack into something else that needs to get done. Running a number of microbusinesses is ideal in the sense that I can switch between very different tasks-- all of which need to get done. I can write here, then go list five things on eBay, then do some photography, then do ten minutes of book keeping, and it's all "in bounds," even though I am flitting around like a hummingbird on crack.

It may not be the most efficient way to work, but it's a lot more productive-- at least for me-- than trying to focus on a single task and then zoning out permanently after 30 minutes.

"Cyclical" ADHD?

Sometimes I can't help but think that this ADHD thing is "cyclical" to some degree.

There are weeks/months when it seems like I am barely affected at all, and then there are weeks/months where it is all but impossible for me to focus on anything, even for a few minutes. It makes me wonder how the human "natural cycles" plays into the condition.

Haven't really found much discussion or documentation about this aspect of ADHD.

Of course, just because something hasn't been "discussed" doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Then again, it's entirely possible that there's no connection and "it's all in my head." Or it could just be a reflection of my natural tendency to "think too much."

Still... when I look back at my years in school, there were also periods back then when I was clearly bale to stay more focused and get my studies done. And yes, I am pretty sure I am not Bipolar.

It's all a learning process, I suppose. Being aware of the "cycles," and the fact that my ability to stay focused moves in cycles... teaches me that I must make efforts to "make the most" of periods where I am able to concentrate.