| To be clear: I'm getting that from a psychiatrist and a psychologist that I've seen. Of course they would have an economic incentive to over-diagnose. Do you happen to know what one actually does in order to "pursue constant discipline and self-monitoring"? Mindfulness meditation is not really that effective, but I might have been doing it wrong. Running in the morning seems to have had some effect but I can't yet tell. The only things that have been effective have been applying external constraints by: - Getting married to someone willing to yell at me for getting distracted. - Installing http://selfcontrolapp.com/ and putting it on before I go to bed. - Putting my smartphone near a co-worker's desk when I get in in the morning. - Making sure my monitor faces out towards the common area so someone could look over my shoulder. - Keeping a lab notebook so that I can remember the state in my head if I do get distracted. - During meetings, pushing people to be very clear on what problem we are trying to solve. It works okay. I am a fairly productive engineer as long as I am on a team where I can succeed at that last bit. But I've never been able to get rid of the internal urge to check my email or HN or Twitter. Or worse, to look things up about, for example, the role that the Harlem Hellfighters and other WWI vets played in the Civil Rights movement of the 1920's and 30's. So whenever I have a weekend to myself to work on projects in my spare time, I don't get anything done and I haven't known how to even make progress toward fixing that. |
Why would your Dr have an economic incentive to over-diagnose? I was diagnosed a year ago with ADHD and I have tried every self-discipline technique you can think of without success. The quantified self just becomes an effort in futility and depression when you see where you are wasting time, actively try to correct it and still fail. I saw my Dr every six weeks initially when trying out medications. I see my Dr. every three months now instead of six months so that I can have my prescription renewed as she can only issue three one month non-refillable prescriptions but that's a tiny amount of additional money my Dr. is getting. I suppose if the Dr. is diagnosing this on a large scale the volume adds up but it just doesn't seem worth it. Especially with the changes to schedule II drugs and their prescription/distribution in the U.S.
I've been medicated for the last year and it's been a life changing experience. My own day sounds similar to what you describe below as far as the distractions go. I cut down to two monitors instead of three as I was using the third for just email and other communication tools. I now hide those on a virtual desktop. I do occasionally miss the third when I have a code window on one, and an output/debugging window on the other when having all three full screen would be easier but that's about it. I only let communication apps send me notifications once an hour instead of in real time which helps. I also have scheduled blocks where the notifications are blocked on my phone and computer except for specific people which is a new feature of Android 5 that I really like (Priority notifications). The medication has helped me build a routine and stick with it, and I'm hoping that when I decide I'm ready to try going off of it full time I will be better able to continue that trend. I don't believe for a minute that I will be able to eliminate all of it completely but I hope that I will be better prepared to handle it.