[cc101]

For me the first step to managing ADHD was to realize that the name "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" doesn't really tell me much that's useful. It doesn't have any useful attack points. Consider instead: "difficulty Organizing and Sustaining a Directed Effort". I work on each of these three issues separately.

Directed Effort: it is hard to take the time to explicitly declare exactly what I want to accomplish. I struggle not to just jump into an effort, but that is pathological.

Organize: having declared what I want to accomplish the next step for me is to explicitly organize exactly how I am going to go about pursuing that direction. Again my tendency is to just jump in and "do it". Again that is pathological.

Sustain: My commitment to any effort decays rapidly. I need to create an explicit schedule of sessions for reviewing my progress and refreshing my understanding and commitment.

The one key word that makes this work is "explicit". It's painful, but without making the effort to write it out in complete form, my projects wither away. This is not a magic solution, because even then it is a struggle to get to completion. I use an outliner for this.

I have struggled with ADHD for 75 years. That is my best understanding of the problem.

[tra3]

Brilliant advice. Maintaining a schedule is a meta project itself though. I find that the energy there ebbs and flows as well. Some days I cannot create a schedule; much less follow it. Do you have a similar issue? If so, how do you deal with that?

[cc101]

I have no magic solution I'm afraid. The first thing I do every morning is load my outliner and review what I have listed that needs to be done (organized by day, week, month, half year, and year). From this I compile a list of what I would like to accomplish, but it's a very good day that I get more than a few things done. ADHD is a perpetual struggle. But, so is life. Good luck.

[dusted]

You just reminded me that I have a fairly well-populated kanban board from one of my past (lost) efforts at getting organized.

[andrei_says_]

How do you approach the emotional difficulty for each of these - like resistance to shifting attention or starting a scheduled activity for example?

[cc101]

If I understand you, you are asking about procrastination. You hint at my own perspective about this. I think procrastination is not resistance to doing a task. It is resistance to starting a task (i.e. quitting what I'm doing). I find myself often anxious to accomplish a task (that is I am motivated) but I can't get started. In spite of what it seems, it is not a lack of motivation.

What often works for me is to concentrate on the very first part of the task. Usually this is something trivial like defining the variables for a program or scraping the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher as part of an effort to clean the kitchen. I find this relatively easy to do. I promise myself that if I just do this easy task, I can go back to what I was doing, but once I'm started it becomes easier to continue than it is to return to what I was doing.