My office is a nightmare. The shelves are crammed with what was originally placed on the shelf, plus all of the things that were stuffed on to of those things. There are file folders on top of books, there are books on top of files, the lesser used printer has stuff that can’t be chanced with getting lost on one of those full shelves. Behind me, the floor is piled high with papers, file boxes, laptop bags (I seem to collect them), and plenty more stuff. The irony is that while I have never been a neat person, my office never used to get this bad. It is truly terrible now, thanks to me being diagnosed with ADD, but not for the reason you think.

Correcting ADHD Behavior

Many have noted that being diagnosed with ADHD can actually be liberating at first. There is a great sense of relief at knowing the name for what has been going on for all these years. Frankly, Attention Deficit Disorder isn’t really all that scary sounding. To me, that sounds way better than something like depression or even Seasonal Affected Disorder, with its unfortunate acronym telling you exactly how to feel about that one.

However, after a while, ADD becomes like any other chronic condition. You start to try and fix it, or manage it in some ways. There are often two components of ADD treatment. One is often ADHD medication, the other is behavior modification or therapy, usually in conjunction with a health professional or ADD coach. Either way, the self-aware ADDer will eventually become aware of at least some of the things that his or her ADD seems to propagate within their personality.

For me, the biggest problem I have in the entire world is procrastination. I have no doubt that I could have had success a hundred-fold above and beyond everything I have ever achieved in any arena in life if I could just stop procrastinating and get things done at even a semi-reasonable pace. Many ADDers report being unable to adequately focus and get going until a deadline looms. For me, the deadline must often pass, and the consequence be severe before I can get going. It is the one thing that I would gladly change about myself.

Knowing this, shortly after being told I have ADD I noticed myself organizing my office ahead of a huge, important project, with a very looming deadline. Like many ADDers, I had a reasonable excuse for this ADD trait kicking in. After all, I would be much more productive if everything were organized neatly and I could find what I was looking for right away.

The catch, of course, is that a full office organization of this kind can take hours, precious hours that should be spent on the task at hand. Organizing would have been helpful last week. Doing some of the 20 hours of work that are left before the deadline 12 hours away, would be much, much, more helpful. And so, I stopped.

Unfortunately, that was years ago and I haven’t really organized since. Every time I even think about organizing a list of important things to do floods my mind and I feel guilty for moving around even one scrap of paper, believing that what I am doing is procrastinating. Frankly, that is what I’m doing sometimes, but doing that occasionally would likely be better than getting to where the current state of my office is.

This is a sneaky ADD issue to avoid successfully. Often, in our attempts to better ourselves and “make up” for the various character trait of ADHD that cause us distress, we overreact. Shifting too far is often no better than staying where you were on the behavior spectrum. It can be difficult to see when you have overreacted, but there are some signs to look for.

Signs You Have Overcorrected for ADD

1. You set a hard and fast rule – Life isn’t static. Things change. Organizing isn’t always procrastinating. Sometimes it is good, even necessary. If you have a “never” or “always” lurking in your mind, you may have overcompensated.
2. The new situation is just as bad – Never cleaning leads to a state just as bad or worse than cleaning too often, or at the wrong times.
3. You feel bad about doing something – Adjusting to ADD is about understanding how your mind works and making tweaks to the things that you want to in order to achieve your own goals, which should be primarily about happiness. If you’ve set up a structure that makes you feel bad about doing something, then chances are you’ve overcorrected. Stop and think about what you actually feel bad about. Should you really feel bad about that? Feeling bad about cleaning or organizing is not what I wanted. I wanted to be sure that I was doing it for the right reason at the right time, but it progressed to just feeling wrong about doing it at all. If you feel bad about overeating or not exercising or yelling at a spouse, that makes sense. I’m fine with feeling bad about those things. But if it doesn’t seem right that you feel negatively about something, then it probably isn’t.

Have you overcorrected  any of your ADD traits? What kinds of ADHD symptoms have you gone too far with?