Adult AD/HD Ambitions #1
My schedule has become wide open recently due to two of my homeschooled kids going back to public schools. One I'm happy about because she's learning disabled and I questioned my ability to adequately handle her needs. Besides, this six year old did not take to homeschooling well at all. "I want to go to real school," was her mantra. The second child, my nine year old, needed homeschool because she was allergic to No Child Left Behind. I spent all last year teaching her how to read, how to add and subtract, and how to write well. She, I discovered, was one of those functional illiterates. She pulled the wool over all our eyes until I began homeschooling her. What a lot of work that was to get her caught up, but it was worth it. Now she craves a social outlet and since we are in a different school district it is possible the same problems will not arise. We'll see.
I believe that education must be fun and interesting for children, so if homeschooling is dragging them down then either I change my game or we change their learning environment. In this case, public school was the solution. I'm still homeschooling my thirteen year old which is working out for us, but I'll miss teaching my nine year old, even if she did drive me crazy.
Now that I have more time (since my thirteen year old is self-efficient), what will I do with it? Read news? Post on slashdot and digg? Make custom icons on my dock? Read some more news? If you have Adult AD/HD then you know how much of a time sink the internet can be. It's the perfect distraction. One glowing window within our immediate field of focus offering limitless opportunity for new and exciting images, text, sounds, and more. Since I've decided to make mastering my AD/HD a goal for my 42nd rotation around our sun I thought I'd chart my progress on my blog and invite others to participate.
Here's how it will work. I'll post every Monday what my goal is for the week. It may be something simple like "Remember to use timers" or something more challenging like "Break my news addiction" or even "Be on time everywhere everyday this week." Post what your goals are and check back with your progress throughout the week. Together we might make a difference in each others' lives. Or at least we can laugh at each other. I expect nothing short of comical failure for some of my goals, especially any that require punctuality. However, even if we are on medications, AD/HD doesn't go away. We need to train ourselves to cope and function so that we can improve our quality of life.
That's how I see it at any rate. Let's get this week started. Worse case scenario, I make a fool of myself and my readers have a good laugh at my expense. Best case scenario? I master these annoying little foibles of mine.
Update 1/21/08 2:23:40 PM: Thanks for participating. I'm closing the comments for this post. Starting up the next post on Adult ADHD
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I believe that education must be fun and interesting for children, so if homeschooling is dragging them down then either I change my game or we change their learning environment. In this case, public school was the solution. I'm still homeschooling my thirteen year old which is working out for us, but I'll miss teaching my nine year old, even if she did drive me crazy.
Now that I have more time (since my thirteen year old is self-efficient), what will I do with it? Read news? Post on slashdot and digg? Make custom icons on my dock? Read some more news? If you have Adult AD/HD then you know how much of a time sink the internet can be. It's the perfect distraction. One glowing window within our immediate field of focus offering limitless opportunity for new and exciting images, text, sounds, and more. Since I've decided to make mastering my AD/HD a goal for my 42nd rotation around our sun I thought I'd chart my progress on my blog and invite others to participate.
Here's how it will work. I'll post every Monday what my goal is for the week. It may be something simple like "Remember to use timers" or something more challenging like "Break my news addiction" or even "Be on time everywhere everyday this week." Post what your goals are and check back with your progress throughout the week. Together we might make a difference in each others' lives. Or at least we can laugh at each other. I expect nothing short of comical failure for some of my goals, especially any that require punctuality. However, even if we are on medications, AD/HD doesn't go away. We need to train ourselves to cope and function so that we can improve our quality of life.
That's how I see it at any rate. Let's get this week started. Worse case scenario, I make a fool of myself and my readers have a good laugh at my expense. Best case scenario? I master these annoying little foibles of mine.
This week's goal:Be PerfectBegin with the end in mind by remembering to use timers
This is going to be an ambition of mine that I'll visit over and over again throughout the year. I have a timer for my Dashboard (ProdMe) and a timer in my iPhone. Both of these can make sure that I don't spend longer working on projects than I have time for. Theoretically. (^_-)
Update 1/21/08 2:23:40 PM: Thanks for participating. I'm closing the comments for this post. Starting up the next post on Adult ADHD
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Comments
Of course, remembering to use them is another story altogether. Maybe I should make that a goal for this week, too.
Good luck, Doug!
I think you touch upon the big problem with timers: we need to remember to use them. I can't remember all the times I meant to use a timer but became distracted, lost a few hours to a project, then remembered about the timer far too late. LOL
~Douglas
JeanJeanie's tip about 15 min. intervals is excellent. Breaking your work down into increments is an excellent way to help one's AD/HD mind tackle a big project. I tackled my video project one clip at a time. It's frightfully dull and setting such small goals is the only way I'm going to be able to get through it.
How's your goal going?
The last couple of days have been filled mainly with small, quick tasks, though, and I've been saving the more time-consuming stuff to do while I listen to podcasts.
I need to get back to my novel today, though. That's where a timer seems to come in the most useful for me. Well, that and filing. Blech, filing.
I really want to make time today to write in my novel, too. So getting work finished in a timely manner will be important to me today.
Good luck with your day. Thanks for keeping us posting.
You may need to change the sound if you find yourself tuning it out.
I've noticed that after a while, I no longer hear the alarm from ProdMe. It fades into the background. Not because it's faint, but because my mind tunes it out. I have the same problem with PDAs and iPhones. I have to mix up the sounds or I'll tune them out. If you are the type of person that this happens to, you should choose an alarm that lets you select the tone you'll hear.
I'd like to quote my journal from "last night." I had a great day Thursday thanks to my use of timers:
18 January 2008
Friday - Entry 162: Although this day started off poorly, I was able to salvage it by limiting how long I worked on each project. I repaired my chromonica, played it, drove children all over the place, played my pennywhistle, did my art exercises twice, sketched, did email, took care of the kids, and wrote in my novel. Considering how much time I spent reading news [too], just imagine how much I could have accomplished without distractions.
For those not in the know, I am a full time Dad. That is my job. So I was quite busy yesterday. That I was able to squeeze in so much personal time was due entirely to my use of timers. Otherwise, I would have been lost in each project. As much as I like to lose myself in a project, there is an awful lot of wasted time when I'm not conscientious of time.
What do you think?
Whatever works ...
After a week of making a better effort to utilize timers than I have done before, I can't say I made consistent progress. Some days were good; some days were terrible. As JeanJeanie pointed out, we need to remember to turn timers on. That's the weak part for me. An impulse grabs me, even good ones, and I'm off to the races before I set limits on how much time I'll spend there.
I'll continue to experiment with timers. I may focus next time on tricks to remember to use them since I work well with them once I remember to use them!
Congrats, Doug! I'm glad they're working so well for you.
I'm closing comments now because I'm starting up this week's project. Hope to see your comments there.
~Douglas