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Guessing you’re not feeling much like smiling, but you made all of us smile by sharing that story! The perfect blend of an all-too-familiar scenario – what’s in my hand? – but with an interesting new twist!

Hope you get your smile fixed up soon!

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Oh, wow – the “I already told you that” comments. Annoying when it’s the hubby, but for me, worse still is when the kids say it. Because it means either 1) I’m actually not paying attention to my kids or 2) They’re trying to fake me out! “Yeah, Mom, you said I could have an extra hour playing Wii – don’t you remember?”

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Ugh, non-verbal cues….I’m so bad at those. It’s made worse because I can sense they are there, but I don’t know for sure, so I just worry about it. Or sometimes I’ll get a look thrown my way – was that for me? Or somebody else?

Actually, what I’m really stressed about most of the time is the “politely indirect” request. The cliche example is the host yawning or “suddenly” exclaiming, “Why, look at the time!”

But I find every chat I’m in has my wondering if somebody’s trying to hint something at me. “Wow, you were really working hard out in the yard today – you must have gotten a lot done!” says my neighbor, and I’m now thinking, “Is he telling me I was annoying him with the leaf blower going too long?”

Or I’ll bring some Halloween music to a Halloween party and it’s “Wow, you have a playlist for everything, don’t you?” and now I’m worried people would rather I shut the music off. Or, if I’m feeling slightly less paranoid, I’ll decide they like the music just fine, but they’re secretly thinking, wow, what a nerd, she brought music! Because, yeah, it’s a little bit nerdy, to bring music to a party since I’m not the host, but these are collective-effort parties: potluck-type things, and if I didn’t bring it, nobody would, and I happen to think parties need music….

Maybe those aren’t the best examples of out-of-sync communication. Perhaps they are better examples of out-of-sync behaviors, which I sense is my biggest issue and fear. I’m the clueless nerd. I’m way too worried about what other people think, and yet I’m not exactly sure what they are thinking!

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MissWho, I find that story to be a really good metaphor for my ADD brain! It’s not like I’m completely off topic, just….on the previous channel!

As for the out-the-door problem, it’s definitely one of my biggest hurdles.

Interestingly, I find that if the event in question is a one-time thing the odds are much higher I’ll arrive on time. (Because I have to rely on outside info only to estimate the time needed. Example: a doctor’s appointment in a place I’ve never been. One with one of those “Please arrive fifteen minutes early….” OK, sure. First appointment: On time!

Then after that, I’ve “figured out” I don’t need the full fifteen minutes for the paperwork – maybe there won’t be any! And I’ve “figured out” that Google Maps’ time estimate is just an estimate – I’ll get there faster! Somehow! And I’ve “figured out” that they don’t mind if I’m five minutes late! Because, well, when I sign in the blank that says Appointment Time with “9:30” and then the blank that says Arrival Time with “9:47,” they never whip the clipboard away and smack me on the hands with it…

But maybe they should. And of course if they start charging a late fee, I will probably start being on time again….

We have an expression in our house we love: “To the pain.” Those who are geeky/old enough will remember that it comes from The Princess Bride.

To the pain: It’s where they set the meter on the torture machine. It’s a great unit of measure for just about anything in life. Your commute, your job, the price you’ll pay for the cell phone contract, the number of steps in your Christmas Card routine….it’s all “to the pain.” Everything is determined by some mysterious awesomeness/hassle ratio, determined by you but often cannily calculated by salespeople as well. Why does Apple charge 30.00 for every accessory? To the pain! Why do I live in a place where every grocery store is fifteen minutes away and every appointment 25 minutes away? To the pain! Why does the gas gauge have to be on steady orange and not just flickering orange before I will stop and fill up? To the pain, and I guess now I will have to go to the gas station, rather than waiting for one to happen along on my route to the doctor’s appointment I am late for….

Wow, overly long post. I’m thinking maybe the question I had earlier – did I take the pill, or just get the bottle out? – is being answered…

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Super-sticky post-its? I didn’t know they made those; I don’t use the regular ones because they fall off everything!

Our library stopped stamping the due dates on the books a few years ago – so adding a note to each book would probably be a big help. I try noting the due dates on the calendar but it doesn’t always happen….

I like the reading room idea, too – most of the reading happens in the family room, so it wouldn’t be a big change. I could limit the reading in other rooms to non-library books. And with the post-its on the library books, they’d be easier to spot!

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WOOT WOOT WOOT ^5s all over the place!!!

So glad this thread is still going strong – makes me happy every time I visit! I’ve definitely got to get back in here more often! I

I don’t make it in here so often because I’m in organizing mode most days, and I want to keep it going, but I definitely need to find time for the good old stuff – my workouts, which used to be my escape from organizing, have gotten the back-burner treatment; need to get those muscles back! – and this forum!

Spent some time last night getting caught up with the posts in various threads. Could that be what inspired me to get some long-put-off tasks done?

OK, at least one of them wasn’t my doing – my boss called me – but it meant I finally got some info from her that I needed for my calendar, so I’m still happy! So many work questions settled – hooray! Now I know what I still need to do to get ready.

This one’s all my doing though: grabbed an accordion file that sat in our home office for who knows how long and went through the whole thing. Pitched a bunch of papers, put the financial stuff in an envelope for hubby to deal with (and probably discard) – most everything was from 2002!

One thing I did NOT pitch was my husband’s Social Security card, which was sitting in there with all these grocery store receipts! Holy cow! Put it in our safekeeping place and e-mailed him to tell him where it was.

The entire thing was made so much more pleasant by two things:

– The whole “keep or toss” business went SO much faster! Thank you new perspective and meds!

– I had a lovely spot to work in. One of my organizing projects was to clean up our sun room. It’s been our kids’ playroom and for most of its life you couldn’t even walk across it; you had to ballet-dance. Finally chucked out a bunch of stuff (old coloring books, anyone?) and found better homes for the rest (Lego drawers! Yay!) and it is so much nicer to look at – and be in! I’m looking at sunshine on fall foliage and just feeling so pleased – and relieved – to reclaim this space as something beyond a dumping ground with a layer of dust on top!

Felt so good about the papers project that I then went online and settled up the overdue fines on all the library cards in the family. Major ouch there, but so much better to have that behind me!

I’m thinking I might have to start a new thread about how to do libraries when you have ADD. I always check out way too many books, renew them to the limit (nine weeks, for crying out loud), and still manage to return at least half of them after the due date. It’s almost like we are renting books, rather than borrowing them!…No, no – new thread…Going there now!

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Wrestling with major PMS today, so I thought I’d write down some accomplishments of the summer to see if I can get out of my funk.

I cleaned out a basket of two years’ worth of the kids’ school papers (thank you Olympics!) and went on to clean out a major kitchen clutter corner that had formed around all those papers.

Compiled a list of my singing repertoire on the computer.

Got back into an exercise routine by doing laps at the pool.

Read books. Not sure how many, and it’s not many, but more than usual.

Related to the reading, I had a major insight about the way I shift focus – mainly, I need to give myself a generous amount of time to switch gears. It might take some time to settle into the chair, and I might have to re-read the first couple of pages of a book, but after that – if I don’t beat myself up for my lack of concentration – eventually the focus tunes in and I can read effectively. Seems like a bit of a “DUH” but I really wasn’t giving my brain the extra time it needed to switch tasks. Realizing that I CAN read again (I used to be able to devour books, once upon a time) has been really exciting.

Taking that knowledge out into other spheres has been interesting, too…realizing why I’m not “fast on my feet,” understanding why I want to stay at the pool all afternoon when the kids want to leave after an hour, grasping why I hate it when my husband is driving and asks me to suddenly find a map and navigate, or pinpointing the reason why I hate going for Mexican and being asked halfway there “How about Chinese instead?” The classic image of an ADDer is a restless person, but in me the ADD has the opposite effect – I really struggle with change. So my challenge is to find ways to acknowledge this and work with it.

Wow, that went all over the place! But I do feel better. I’ve missed this forum – summer busy stuff kept me away – but it’s so good to know it – and all of you – are here for me!

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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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Love your screen name – I can relate! And the two-boys-fighting-derailing-thought-trains scene is way too familiar….

Once I used a timer set to ring every ten minutes when I couldn’t get through on a phone call. Worked really well! Now I just have to remember to try that again some time….

Good luck on Monday! Hope you get through!

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I’m the one who hates online magazine articles presented as “slide shows.” Why does a list of ten things require clicking through ten pages, each one sentence long and accompanied by a lame stock-image illustration?

I’m also not fond of video instructions – you’d think videos would be more ADD-friendly than text, but I’d much rather read (skim ) the directions at my own pace!

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I hate packing, too. What’s worse is that once I’m at my destination, if I don’t have something that I want, I have a REALLY hard time letting it go, no matter how trivial….”I am SO ANNOYED that I didn’t bring those TOASTER TONGS!” Innovating some new version of the forgotten item helps with this, but it’s funny how much these things bug me – maybe because I expend so much effort packing and still can’t “get it right”, despite computer lists, special drawers for travel items, beginning the process days ahead of time, etc, etc…..

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SWEET!

(still trying to figure out a keyboard version of a high-five)

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Used to work in an office….some aspects of it I liked, many others I chafed at. I could not come in on time to save my life. Yes, very ADD, but there were lots of ADD factors, not just one. Lack of time sense, yes, rebellion, yes, immaturity, yes, morning sluggishness, the list goes on and on. I liked the routine, I liked it when my duties were clearly defined….Essentially, I liked to be told what to do, but now how to do it. Shyness was a huge problem; I always felt timid and lacking in confidence, unpolished, even though I knew I was a smart person.

I could probably go on and on, but I’ll leave it at that for now. These days I have two part-time occupations but am primarily an at-home mom. I would say both my part time jobs – singing and living history work – are fairly ADD-friendly, though they have their pitfalls!

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*SLAP* Way to go, Robbo!

I like your list idea; maybe after my vacation I’ll sit down and write one too!

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Interesting topic. I would say that right now I have a television habit rather than an addiction, as in, at about 8 o’clock or so my routine is to settle into the couch and see what’s on the dial. If there’s nothing on I usually have a few things on the DVR I can watch. So it’s definitely part of my evening ritual, and I do feel a certain frustration if there’s nothing on.

I can easily see how easily TV can become an addiction – especially for those who live alone. I have a noisy family around that keeps me from needing the TV for company, but when nobody’s home it seems really quiet in the evening unless the TV’s on.

Interestingly, much as I love the TV on at night, I absolutely HATE it in the morning. Just too much noise at that hour of the day. Could be that the morning programs are just louder, or, more likely, I’m not a morning person, so I need my quiet time.

Another thing I’ve always found funny is how much more annoying the TV is when I’m not watching the program myself. It’s really hard to be in earshot of a show somebody else is watching!

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