Hello all! My name is Jess. I'm 25, and was diagnosed 2 years ago after failing out of college twice. I transfered, got some medication, worked closely with an advisor/mentor, and managed to graduate finally (it took 6 years total). I am someone with major determination to do well and I just kept hitting ADD road blocks (though I didn't know it at the time). Now that I'm done with school, I've found a job I quite love, thought it's not at all where I had planned to be, and I'm not sure I'll stick with it, but for the time being it's great. However, I keep falling short at work. I have read so many books, tried nearly every suggestion, and even come up with a few on my own, and I still am hitting some of those road blocks. So here's the thing:

I am an office manager for a small, local yoga studio. I do EVERYTHING. I'm the only hired employee of the business, and I really do manage just about everything from client communications, to managing the volunteer program, to basic filing and office work, to creating flyers and posters, to answering phones, to booking appointments, to paying bills, etc. The only thing I DON'T do is manage the books (Thank God for accountants). I can be surprisingly organized when working with other people's lives, but my own is a mess. So, in general, I have no problem staying on top of the various tasks, however, the occasional task comes along that is impossible for me to take on. And more often than not, it's a REALLY important task. So of course, it doesn't matter if I got through 50 tasks in one day if that one really big one wasn't finished. And my boss, though a sweetheart of a person, takes no prisoners as an employer. I know that it is frustrating to her when some of these tasks don't get done, and it does absolutely nothing for me when I get her e-mails asking me about them and why they're not done yet.

After failing out of college twice, I've come to realize most of my failures as opportunities for positive change, but that doesn't stop me from never wanting to fail again. Yet it keeps cropping up. And I can't seem to get around it. Does anyone have any suggestions for ways that perhaps I can tackle some of these road-block tasks? Or, really, any other suggestions for making ADD work at work? I don't want to lose this job, but I'm afraid that I might if I can't start to get a grip on some of these tasks. And I do fear what another failure will do to me mentally and emotionally...

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