Procrastination? Removed My Lynchpin!

[Anonymous]

Powcat: I’m sorry you’re feeling so down. I know that feeling and it’s miserable.

In my case, what keeps me from starting is being overwhelmed. I am great at standing around looking at the mess and coming up with a plan to get things organized, but I can’t quite put it into action. I have a small apartment and I need more storage space. OK, that’s not really true; I have enough storage space, it just isn’t organized very well. I keep repeating the mantra in my head “a place for everything and everything in its place”, but it doesn’t help.

I keep saying that I need a “staging” area, a place to sort things out and put like things with like things so that I can put them all away where they belong. Then I end up with a mess on my bed (usually the only large cleared off surface in the joint) and I end up piling the junk up somewhere so I can go to sleep. And so the mess seems to migrate around the apartment in that manner.

I am overwhelmed. I guess I get so far ahead of myself inside my head that I am paralyzed and I don’t know where to start. I have asked for help from my sister and my nephews, but I don’t think they enjoy helping me. I tend to micromanage everything and get mad if someone throws away something I wanted to keep. I know that makes me sound like a hoarder, but it’s not that, it’s just that I think it’s a little disorienting to have someone else moving my stuff around. Even though my place looks like a tornado hit it, I can usually find things that I need to function every day (keys, umbrellas, my handbag, etc., etc.). When things get moved around, I feel a little out of sorts.

One of the best things I ever did was to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK or was it GOT-TRASH? I can’t remember now, but I want to get them in here again. They send a couple of guys with a truck to your house and all you have to do is point to whatever you want them to remove. They take garbage, recycling and even things that will be donated to charity. The last time I did it, it felt so great, but it’s been a few years now and I’ve got another mountain.

Are virtual hugs allowed here?

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[powcat]

thanks dear, really appreciated!

I totally know what you mean by Staging Area; never actually realized it was a THING.

and the migrating mess… ha ha ha. for me, it’s my clothes. every morning, in an attempt to put together an outfit, I transport the pile of clothing on the floor onto my bed – believing I will finally sort it out and hang it up in the closet when I get home. every night, that pile goes right back on the floor to make room for me to sleep, because I’m too tired to deal with it! migrating mess, yep.

you can’t help me clean my apartment but you have made me laugh, thanks! and I just remembered how my sense of humour kind of gets me through my life a lot of the time. I can literally be walking down the street and crack myself up just by thinking of something in my head. we are lucky to be as creative as we are! helps to deal with the not-so-lucky aspects of our brains…

it does feel like I get paralyzed, you are right about imagining everything too far in advance.

I like to fantasize that I am a genius – because a lot of amazing people in history were huge weirdos. so I like to daydream that maybe I am in that place where no one gets it, but one day I’ll blow everybody away. oof, that’s embarassing to actually write out!

good night and thanks for your swift reply. this site is pretty excellent.

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[Anonymous]

I like Bejewelled, too. I am a ClubPogo addict.

I DO NOT turn on my computer first thing in the morning. Nope, I wait at least 15 minutes. I have to feed the cat and eat…..LOL

Yes, I eat while watching TV and messing with the computer. So I don’t do two things at once. I do three.

I like the concept of a staging area. I’d have to clean for weeks to get that. LOL I do make some progress but my DH cannot abide an empty space. I can’t keep up.

Anyway, I don’t dump my clothes on the floor. I have an exercycle for that. The floor is for books and magazines. LOL

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[Anonymous]

Bobbie40N, you make me laugh.

I don’t turn my computer on first thing in the morning either; mine never gets turned off.

I get up, feed the cats, feed the dog, pour myself a bowl of cereal and I sit down at the computer to eat breakfast. That’s probably why it takes me three hours from the time I get up to the time I leave the house. Sometimes it’s best if I just work from home.

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[powcat]

yay! thanks guys.

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[Anonymous]

Ok, today I started with a new therapist and he recommended this site. Now I have watched the movie and loved it. I had to click on this procrastinator post cause it’s who I am. After reading many of the posts I no longer feel so alone. So a huge thanks to everyone who has posted. The thought of doing housework is completely overwhelming for me, which is odd because I used to be self employed as a house cleaner. 😆 I’m also going to apologize ahead of time if there are any missing words in my sentences as my brain runs WAY faster than my fingers. lol. I have piles of stuff everywhere and I hate it. I wish I had the ability to keep everything tidy and organized but haven’t figured that one out yet. My bedroom looks like a bomb went off, with clothes everywhere. I can collect the clothes and bring them downstairs put them in the washer and then the dryer and once their dry put them in a hamper……and that’s where they stay until everyone in the house has worn them and their dirty again. Anyways just wanted to say hi to everyone here and that I very much so understand you guys and am happy to have found the procrastinators club.

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[nellie]

pearljam1997,

Welcome to the “club” I couldn’t help responding in relation to your comments on housework. That’s always been an issue for me especially laundry – boy can I relate to that one! However, before finding out I have ADD and starting medication just sorting felt like I was twisting my brain LOL

Anyway there is hope!. In the meantime I recommend a book called ADD-friendly ways to organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg & Kathleen Nadeau.

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[Anonymous]

The problem, IMHO, is that everybody in the house has to be on the same page. If an ADDer is working like crazy to keep things organized — or to get organized — it is hopeless unless everybody cooperates. I can manage myself. I had to when I was single. I was really neat. I got teased about being so neat, but I knew I had to be.

But once I got married, I started to lose ground. My DH is messy and he has a lot — A LOT — of stuff. I make suggestions, offer to help, offer to organize it all, and he does not want any input at all. It is very hard on me.

I feel like everything within my view demands some attention, some energy, from me. The more stuff I see, the more drained I feel. It is hard to do anything because there is always something that needs doing between me and my first goal. So, I do my best for most of the house and I keep a couple of places for myself where I can sit and be calm. But it isn’t enough.

I find that I never do things I like to do — like bake, because there are too many obstacles. I will work like mad to clean up the kitchen and he will see the empty spaces (surfaces I need in order to cook) and he will buy more appliances. He likes to cook too, so it’s not that he doesn’t use the space. I swear that he can’t tolerate an empty space. And that is exactly what I need. (sigh)

So, don’t beat up on yourself for the clutter. It really requires cooperation.

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[nellie]

You’re right about the cooperation. Especially if the ADD person is the woman of the house since women usually bear the burden in the housework & child rearing tasks. There’s a chapter in Sari Solden’s Women with ADD book where she writes out a sort of “woman wanted” ad, that describes a woman’s typical “job” description. It’s really funny on the one hand but rather too close to the truth on the other.If it was a real life help wanted add no one would apply If you have a chance to pick up the book it’s well worth it.

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[Anonymous]

Thanks, nellie, for the reading suggestion. I have added it to my list.

I was lurking around here yesterday evening and I looked at the blogs section. There is a challenge for anyone interested. It is supposed to help reduce the clutter. We are challenged to close closet doors and tidy up every room we enter — just for a few seconds — throughout the day for next week.

So, I signed on and it is going okay. I showed it to my DH and hoped he would cooperate. He grunted and by now I think he has forgotten, but maybe if he sees me doing it he will give it a shot. We’ll see.

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[anniea]

Finding myself frozen, and frustrated over PHONE CALLS…uuuuggghhh…

The lynchpin is fear of failure/success it think.. Now I have to call the guy and tell him I didn’t make the calls, and re-scheule…

I KNOW this is ADD… reading the posts helps me remember not to forget.

now off to the phone

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[Evelyn]

OMG!!! Yes. I thought I was really crazy. I couldn’t do the dishes or anything else for a couple days. I was wracking my brain to figure out why. Then it dawned on me. I needed to put the dishes I had washed previously away. I took it as they were blocking my way. In the moments following that realization, I thought I had found the Holy Grail to end my procrastination. Then it happened again a few days later, but the previously washed dishes were already put away. I just had to force my self through them, I had no idea what was going on. I was so upset, broken-hearted even. Now I can see that it may not have to be related to the task at hand. WooHoo!

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[allan wallace]

Hmmm, I’ve never been a stickler for protocols, and probably should have announced my arrival in an ‘Introduction’s Thread’, but this will just have to do; G’day from Downunder! 😆 I’ve just been directed to this site from a support grough for ADHD which I’m in the process of joining.

It’s somehow comforting knowing that there are other grand procrastinators shamefully slinking about, and that I’m not the only one that is made to feel like some freak that has somehow managed to take chronic under-achievement to previously unplumbed depths! It is refreshing! Yes, the world could be on the cusp of oblivion, and I’d be pottering about doing nothing, promising to get around to something that I just can’t be bothered to do until tomorrow, or the day after, or sometime later, any time but right now! My procrastination has been my ‘achilles heel’ for so long that I’ve often wondered if there is any way out of the abyss that was once just a well worn rut….for example, I injured my back in 1989 playing tennis. I said that I’d get it looked at later that week. Fast forward to 2012 and in one week I saw a doc twice, and had a CT scan. Nothing too serious, but it illustrates my ‘efficiency’. Twenty bloody three years later I got around to it. If there is a panacea to procrastination, I’d love to taste it… 😳

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[Anonymous]

Hi Allan. Welcome. Where down under?

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[allan wallace]

G’day Jules, I’m currently in the Mecca for clipboard clutchers, Canberra *shudder*, but have lived in Victoria, West Australia, and spent 3 years in the Antarctic Purgatory of Tasmania….still restless, and not sure of where I want to be. Wherever I go there I am 😆

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[Author]

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