Lists everywhere?

[Anonymous]

Does anybody else do this? I get to work and I’m almost paralyzed to start anything until I write a list of things I *should* accomplish for the day. Of course, this doesn’t mean I accomplish the entire list, but…

For me, it’s almost a security blanket? I somehow feel better having written objectives down. I guess the biggest issue here is that I don’t always complete the entire list.

And my desk is a mess. I hate my desk.

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[kc5jck]

Occasionally I’ll make a list or add to one. And occasionally I’ll actually run across it again and see how much I had planned to do. It’s sort of like looking back through an old photo album. Reminiscing about “yeah, I’ll get around to doing that some day.”

It’s the down side of the hyperactivity aspect and having TMP . . . Too Many Projects.

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[nellie]

I find that really long lists get “lost” – hmmm, must be the the cat

But when I notice I’m behind for the day I make a short list. I have a whiteboard on the wall in my kitchen and I jot down the stuff that absolutely needs to get done and by what time. Surprisingly it does get done when I have a deadline and crossing stuff off always feels so good!

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[Amy]

I’ve got a To Do list a mile long. It’s organized (somewhat) though in Remember the Milk. But – if I don’t write it down, it doesn’t get done.

Unfortunately though, I have some things on there that I have no idea what I meant by them!

Amy

http://acatwithadhd.com

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[Wgreen]

The following is an excerpt from a paper on ADHD written by Russell Barkley, Ph,D. It appeared under a subhead entitled “Time is the Ultimate Disability” (link: : http://www.continuingedcourses.net/active/courses/course003.php)

“Teaching time awareness and management to a person who cannot perform time awareness or time management, no matter how much they may know about time and time management, is not going to prove especially fruitful. …We should not be surprised to find that the person with ADHD often may not even show up for the appointments for such rehabilitation or show up on time given his or her disability in performing within time. Understanding time and how one comes to organize behavior within it and toward it, then, is a major key to the mystery of understanding ADHD.”

It’s easy to connect the “Time Management” and “Organization” dots, because those dots are contiguous. Getting things done is just EXTREMELY hard for the majority of ADDers, or at least the ones I know. Notes/lists are great if you can manage to use them. But alas, many of us 1) soon get tired of making them; 2) lose them; or 3) often pay no attention to them because we can’t find the motivation to act. In the same text, Barkley uses a maxim to explain why trying to make notes and lists is often not enough: “ADHD is not a disorder of knowing what to do but of doing what one knows.”

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[nellie]

Wgreen, interesting. So am I supposed to be depressed or relieved after reading that bit ?

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[Wgreen]

You’re supposed to be hiring a personal assistant…

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[Amy]

Every time I hear “personal assistant,” I think of Sharona/Natalie from the show Monk. Anyone else watch it?

Amy

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[trashman]

I loved that show!

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[Anonymous]

Nellie, I use a list in the same way you do…..3,4, maybe 5 things I need to do, buy, etc. ADD people are not the only people who use lists, the 3M POST-IT note business is a multimillion dollar business (check out the notepad section in Staples), as are BlackBerries, electronic, note pads. etc etc. The world is a busy, frantic place, if you drop the ball from time to time or find it difficult to keep up on a daily basis….your the same as most every other person in North America. North Americans work themselves to death, always more more more more….more wealth, bigger home, eat out more, fancier car….more debt……it is no surprise more and more people can’t cope on a daily basis.

Fact is, the pace in N. American is insane (has been for years) and continues to escalate…do more with less……work smarter not harder, all are slogans designed to get more productivity out of people than they possibly can do in a day……week….you get the point. It starts now in pre-school…..it’s no longer ok to learn to read in school…most kids can already read before school, same with math………Jeeze Louise!!!!

People are falling by the wayside, all the time…heart-attacks, cancer, violent break-downs (every week)…..record numbers of people taking stimulants (and increasing) to get through a day…..all disease(s) of the industrial age, so careful about falling victim to the propaganda….none of it is to the common person’s benefit…….in fact it is the converse.

As for Barkely-ism…….your question may well be appropriate…….

Toofat

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[quizzical]

I think for me the main purpose of a list is to calm my mind down. I’ve got all these things swooping through – Gotta sign the kids up for such-and-such – Make a dental appointment – There’s some event coming up; what was it? – and making a list is just a way to “shuffle the papers” a little bit. I may not act on any of the list items, but it helps me feel less anxious to gather up all those swooping thoughts in one place.

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[Anonymous]

I feel a huge sense of calm down just by writing the list – I think that might be because its a step towards actualy getting something done (althogh sometimes a pseudo step). I know the list is impractically long, esp for things to do that day. However, I think writing them down does help with remembering some of them (as I usually don’t bother to look at the list any more). Intersting ly, I only do this for things to do at home or after work, not actual office assingments. Hmm

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[Author]

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