ADD Treatment Results for Lack of Stick-To-It-Ness or Novelty-Seeking Impulsivity

All right, the best attempts of mice and WRADDers . . . results in 162 puzzles attempted (completed or partially completed).  The remaining 118 include those never attempted, those given up on, or those partially completed.  But I got tired of DNFing so many, and some puzzles just aren't up my alley.  Like Word Math or Cryptograms. 

So as of 6/7, I moved on from that puzzle book to a new one.

I did learn a few things about myself, my tolerance levels for stick-to-it-ness.  And now I'm ready to move on, to address something else or to try another technique.  Let's see what I come up with in the next few days.

ADD Trait to Treat: Lack of Stick-To-It-Ness or Novelty-Seeking Impulsivity

From Pixabay.com

How does it affect me (negative)?:  I start a lot of projects, but I don't see them through.  For example, I like to take videos and pictures, but when it gets time to manipulate, finalize, and post them, I procrastinate until I forget about them.  Some of these projects can be costly or result in more junk.  For example, my decision to learn how to sew on a sewing machine and knit.  Others result in disappointed other people, in the case of them wanting to see the photos and videos. 

How does it affect me as a writer (negative)?: Basically, for fiction, I get a lot of ideas, I write partial drafts or outlines or develop a world or character, but no publishable work is produced, so no one benefits from it.  I have started tons of novel manuscripts, but I can count on one hand how many are finished (that is, ready to publish or submit).  I'm a little better with short stories, but not by much.  Editing stages are boring.  Major rewriting stages are like chomping down on a bad tooth.  Idea stages aren't.  They are like Hershey Kisses.  I run through them so quickly, always wanting more.  I write down ideas and plots and even sketches of scenes, but due to lack of organization or desire to reread 50 pages of scattershot, rambling notes, I rarely use them.  So when time comes to try, I procrastinate because I can't find something, or I have to restart the idea and plan on losing something I really wanted to try in the work, or I waste time and get frustrated trying to hunt that stuff down.  Another example: Although I set up the business essentials to self-publish my works, here it is 5 months into the year, and nothing is up, not even my 30,000-word novella-in-progress.  

Or for nonfiction, you can take a look at my blogger profile and see how many blogs I've started and abandoned.  Or what about that Writer's Market subscription so I could become a magazine writer?  I probably wrote three articles and submitted one, and that submission came before the subscription.

Are there any benefits I want to keep?: Despite what I ranted about above: ideas.  I love ideas.  I just don't always like to take what I have in my head and develop it ceaselessly.  One time, I tried a project of writing down a story idea for every day (or it may have been 1000 ideas for one year).  Great inspiration came from those.  I felt it exercised my creative side, forcing me to not just try the obvious idea.  Also, this side of my ADD helps me develop some preliminary world-building, which I love.  So I want to keep idea and WB generation, as long as I can organize the ideas, keep them brief, and not jump ship from a current work to try out a shiny new idea.

Is there a . . . puzzle for that?: No, but there is a puzzle book.

Let me explain that.  One summer, I saw a TV ad for a brain exercise program to help with ADD.  I thought to myself, What is the cheap woman's substitute?  And I remembered the variety puzzles I liked as a young teen (I failed to do well on them, so they were soon abandoned).  So I tried that . . . for a while.  Did better on them than I did as a 13 year old, and they were fun.  Still, for some reason, I failed to keep it up.  But I remembered it later when I started reading ADD books.  So I picked up another puzzle book.  Enjoyed it.  Saw in it an ad for box of back issues.  And I bought them.  All of that leads me to my current self-prescribed treatment.

I've started about four of five of these, but I have never finished one book.  So that will change.  That's my treatment: finish one.  

Now by finish, I mean I have to make an honest attempt at every puzzle.  If I get stumped, I can Do-Not-Finish (DNF) it, cheat by peeking, or complete the whole thing hideously wrong (this is good for perfectionism too).  I just have to get to the point I consider my attempt on the puzzle complete.  I don't even have to finish it in one go.  Or finish puzzles in any order (that may be a follow up challenge).  Just complete all the puzzles in the book and not start another puzzle book of any kind until I do.  Thank goodness they are variety puzzles!  I'd go nutso if they were all one thing.    

So that's the game plan--completing something that I find fun.  I'll keep you updated on progress.  But before I sign off . . .

Caveat: I do not think I can cure ADD through this or future methods.  ADD is with us, forever.  So I think of it more as exercising a muscle, with the old adage "you gotta use it or lose it" applying.  As a 100-mumble-mumble something pound woman, I'll probably never be able to lift my weight, but that's not an excuse to not work on lifting, say, 50 pounds.  To carry the exercise metaphor further: Sometimes when a muscle hurts or when we prefer to be inactive (I've been in both situations), we neglect exercise.  But physical therapy isn't painless, and it's essential to regaining use of the affected area.  And choosing to put off exercise through a variety of excuses hurts us in a different way.  My feeling is that pain (humiliation or past failures) can make avoiders of us ADD people.  My feeling is that, as ADD people, we are really good at finding excuses to not try things we don't like.  So I believe we need to work on the areas we are weak in to build up some strength in them.  Yet at the same time, I also believe that being ADD is like being a left-handed person in a right-handed world--or to go more extreme, it's like a person with a broken leg facing a world that loves stairs.  Sometimes you got to employ workarounds to do the same thing normal people do.  That's fine, but I'm suggesting sometimes we gotta learn the normal way to do it too.  Sometimes we need to learn both methods, to be ambidextrous depending on the situation.  This series is me trying to do just that: become ambidextrous.

The Dreaded Schedule

Recently, I purchased Fast Minds, a book about ADHD, and from reading the first few pages, I felt like it got me like no other book on this topic has so far.   

I have to admit even before I picked it up, I was thinking about some sort of schedule because of Over the Top's chapters on a goals program.  But I didn't know how to make that work.  I don't like writing down every little thing and I don't like being locked into a time schedule.  When I do that, I inevitably, unconsciously rebel and don't live up to it.

Well, according to FM, I'm not alone in that: "Some people like to schedule out each day hour by hour.  However, many people with FAST MINDS [ADHD-like symptoms] find they are more productive if they allow themselves periods of flexible time where they can choose among their to-do list priorities" (77). 

That's me. (See, the book gets it!)

So I started looking for something that would also allow me room to write down stray thoughts, but I soon realized the best approach for me is not an all-in-one.  I'd rather have a little notebook for the to-do list and thought capture.   For the actual schedule, I'll use the calendar on my cell phone, which is linked to my Google account.  This way, I can move set-in-stone appointments and other items over to the phone, and for the rest of the time, I can pick and choose what to do.  If I end up neglecting something important (like editing my novel, Six), I can start scheduling it in.  The best thing is versatility: I can access my calendar on my Google account, so it's handy when I'm on the computer, or I can print it out if I need a physical copy of my agenda, or I can set my phone to give me an alert to move on to a set task.

Hopefully, this will get me going on being more organized and less forgetful.  Also it will help discourage procrastination on less than captivating tasks.  I've already seen it at work on these.   

Now, if only I can keep it up.  :-)  (It helps having  lots of cute, different notebooks to choose from.)

Cite:  Surman, Craig, Tim Bilkey, and Karen Weintraub. FAST MINDS: How to Thrive If You Have ADHD (Or Think You Might). New York: Berkley Books, 2013. Print.