in your readings, have you found Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life?

(sorry, that's my only good suggestion! except that in my world, doing dishes is a great way to procrastinate on overwhelming tasks :-) clean dishes offer such a concrete sense of accomplishment...)

lupin.

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For me...if I consider a job boring or mundane, then I just don't get it done. I can run my businesses, keep up with finances, be social, cook...all the things I enjoy, but dishes, laundry, sweeping...nope! Fortunately, I have a husband who believes in each of us using our strengths and he really keeps the house more than I do. For me, it's not an organizational thing...I know all the tips...it's just that if I don't find it interesting, I have trouble doing it. If you can afford to have someone come in and help, it really is worth the money. It's not as much as you think and life is much more enjoyable knowing the mundane tasks are done.

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Kizah said: For me...if I consider a job boring or mundane, then I just don't get it done. I can run my businesses, keep up with finances, be social, cook...all the things I enjoy, but dishes, laundry, sweeping...nope! Fortunately, I have a husband who believes in each of us using our strengths and he really keeps the house more than I do. For me, it's not an organizational thing...I know all the tips...it's just that if I don't find it interesting, I have trouble doing it. If you can afford to have someone come in and help, it really is worth the money. It's not as much as you think and life is much more enjoyable knowing the mundane tasks are done.

1. set goals. Once you achieve them, set new ones. 2. as part of 1, make the goals small. 3. make it a game....

Really, it worked. Some people couldn't understand how I could sit for hours writing receipts... until I told them I made a game of it. I wanted to reach receipt No. XXXX, if I reached it (or if someone beat me to it) I'd just reset the goal to the next one. Keep it reasonable, and don't put a lot of pressure on yourself.

Dishes to me get done in about 3 or 4 tries.... again, I'll break it down into components. Dishes, then glassware, then cutlery and finally plastic containers/pots and pans.

The bedroom is the worst for me but taking a cue from the ADD Friendly way to Organize your life - I work with one side of the room only. Normally unless I have "company" (in this case - I do have a TV in the room - but I only use it while changing or working in the room, never before bed) I end up curled up IN the bed, not making it or cleaning anything else. Keep the actual time you work on the room in small increments - 10 to 15 minutes then a break. Then go back to it. Heck, those breaks are your reward for getting through something you find difficult!

For cleaning in almost any other room, music has to be on (or "dead head" TV - something that doesn't take gray cells to watch so I don't mind missing anything) which just helps me keep moving and getting the work done.

Routine is another plus. I don't mean the type of routine that makes you feel you're watching paint dry, but maybe a weekly routine, just for some structure. Oddly enough, structure is a good thing and really does help.

The book is definitely a good read, and organized for us... to help make it easier for us to actually use it.

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Don't feel bad, I think I have it, also. I also think it's boredom, I told my psychologist the other day, that I don't know what it is, but I'm on one side of the room, and before I know it, I'm in another room, I go from one room to another and don't get anything accomplished, even worse than that, my family doesn't understand me at all, and often criticize me. I can have someone come in and help me; it'll stay clean for about a week, and then it looks like a tornado struck a week after that. I can't even read an organizational book from cover to cover, that even bores me to death. I once had such a boring job, that I daydreamed most of the time, I was always being reprimanded for my low productivity. I think I have a combination of both anxiety and ADHD. People often tell me to sit down, but I think I think better on my feet than sitting down.

I can clean good though, and that's another thing, I enjoy cleaning, and people laugh about that, too. However, they don't understand, I can clean good, but I just can't organize well. Cleaning and organizing are two different things. It seems if I put something down, I'm looking for it the next minute and can't figure out where I layed the piece of paper or whatever. It's like I really have to force myself to focus hard and even that doesn't work.

What I don't understand though, is that they say we have trouble shifting gears from one job responsibility to another, and yet, if I am on a job that is mundane and dong one thing all day long, I just can't focus, I have to have a number of things to do and a vast variety of things. When I worked on the trading floor once on a temp job, I loved it, because it was so highly stimulating. In fact I liked it so much, that I never had a problem waking up in the morning, I enjoyed going to work.

I still can't figure out what I want to do as a career, I was going to school for one thing, but lately I found out, that I dont think I can handle being a teacher, as it seems too overwhelming to have all those children running around and to do it ay after day, I just don't know.

Is there a book out there somewhere for ADD careers? or do I just have to find something that I really enjoy doing and can do it well? I am a caregiver right now, but after 5 or 6 months, I am already bored!

Has anytone read the DaVinci Method, was it helpful?

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If there is any typical thing about ADHD is the not able to oraganize. Welcome to my world and proably so many others. No matter how much we read , how much we understand . It is very overwhelming to many of us is to organize. I always surround my self with organizers because I have a hard time doing it. I tend to be the creative director of many projects , I also begin so many things at one time . If I finish something like my painting I feel a great sense of achiwevement. I read usually two-three books at a time, Listen to music in order to focus on the task at hand. I am in the most impatient human known to man . I want answers now ; and have to do my college on line so I can get up and move , and to take the time to read what my response maybe before I shoot off my mouth. I don't have a break on mouth and thoughts so I will volunteer them without realizing the consquences until it is too late. Fortunately the computer gives me the time to reconsider.

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Before I had kids I could keep on top of it because when I came into a room it was the same way I left it. It might be messy but it was not destroyed! For the last 5 years since having kids, we have lived in a house that is absolutely chaotic - it could best be described as "decorated by vandals". BTW, if anyone is reading this from the UK ... do you remember the Yellow Pages ad where the guy leaves his flat door open when he goes to work and his neighbour thinks he has been burgled? Ooooh ... that was a good ADD tangent!

I was only diagnosed last year but I am finding that as my meds have changed (and increased) this is coming right. The Ritalin was a bit of a rollercoaster but I am now on 72mg of Concerta a day and for the first time in a year (and my life) I am sharp and things like housekeeping are not a big deal any more. I can just do it. Weird. I have also lost a ton of weight so I think the increased self confidence has helped me feel less like a complete failure.

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