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Living With ADD – Productive Procrastination?

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The guys over at the website MakeUseOf.com usually write articles about software, websites, and other utilities. For those of us with ADD and technical skills, it’s a productivity nightmare. Not because they do anything bad, but because they offer up so many electronic goodies in the form of free software and tools that it is hard not to get distracted and end up spending hours tracking down all of the great new distraction free writing programs and testing them out when you should be working.

ADD Tips at Make Use OfWhen an article showed up in my RSS feed from the site regarding “productive procrastination” I figured it was a typo, or more likely, a targeted SEO keyword phrase that they were aiming for with the article. I do the same thing here and on other blogs and websites in order to court Google’s SERP favor. Every title I write on this blog, for example, I end up trying to shoehorn in either ADD or ADHD plus some other useful keyword in order to not torpedo my own posts.

In this case, it was neither. It turns out that the article’s premise is that there are ways in which one can procrastinate in a productive manner. The idea being that if you are going to procrastinate anyway (not a bad premise), then you may as well do it in a way that is beneficial to improve your overall time management. For example, if there is a way you can network or otherwise build your professional contacts network while you are not writing that report that is due Monday, at least the time being wasted is building up something that you need anyway, maybe sooner than you think if you don’t finish up that report!

Like many good ideas, nothing in the article is earth shattering, but the concept could be used to one’s advantage.

After thinking about it for a few minutes I considered my own list of ways to procrastinate productively:

  1. Return phone calls – Everyone procrastinates using email, so that doesn’t count. Actual phone calls, however, are usually important enough to count as productivity.
  2. Pay Bills – If you are an adult with ADD, you know that paying bills can get lost in the shuffle. If you aren’t writing that 1,000 word article due in two hours, you might as well avoid some late fees while you are not doing it.
  3. Blog – If you have a professional blog, or a website that makes money from your writing it, then write and post an update. It might not be the most productive thing you could be doing, nor the one that would earn the most money (Ahem!) but it could pay off in the long-term and it might make you feel better to get something off your distracted mind so that it can focus on what it should be doing.
  4. Read – Not fiction, not websites, real, live, knowledge building reading. If you can’t focus on what you should be focusing on, then try and get smarter.
  5. Nap – If you aren’t getting enough sleep, or you are just tired, getting distracted is too easy. Procrastinating when you are tired is just as easy. Try a 20 minute snoozer and see if it restores your productivity. If it works, that “wasted” 20 minutes will probably make the remaining hours and minutes of your day more productive enough to make up for the nap. Just don’t get sucked into laying in bed all day.

Anyone else have ideas for productive procrastination?

Myths About ADHD Article

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The folks over at Huffington Post showed up in my ADD news alerts, which seemed odd since it’s more of a politics / news website than a science website or a health information site. Of course, that means that a journalist came up with a sensational enough angle on ADHD to get an editor to give the green light. Most of the time, the results are not good for either ADD education and awareness or for the propagation of stereotypes about ADHD.

The angle that got a spot on the huffingtonpost.com front page was ADHD: 12 Myths and Facts. (Kudos on the SEO title, guys.)

So, what "myths" and "facts" did they come up with for their bite-sized review of all ADHD science and ADD research?

  1. Pesticides being linked to ADD. — They call it a fact. They aren’t wrong only due to careful wording. The real fact is that a recent research study showed that children with higher levels of one pesticide chemical were diagnosed with ADHD at higher rates. That leaves out a lot, like all of the children with ADD who do not have high levels of organophosphate as well as all the kids with high organophosphates, but no ADD.
  2. ADD Risk Higher When Mom Smokes or Drinks During Pregnancy — That’s true of just about everything.
  3. Food preservatives linked to ADHD – Researchers linked hyperactivity, which is not the same thing to some food preservatives.
  4. Sugar Causes ADD – Big fat myth. Good catch on this one.
  5. TV and Video Games – Myth
  6. Bad Parenting – Myth
  7. Brain Injury – Myth, but really inconclusive. Specific brain injuries are not common so finding a link it tough.
  8. Diet – Myth, at least the way people talk about it. Of course, eating better always helps. There IS some evidence that Omega-3 levels are low in ADD kids, but that isn’t the same thing as saying more Omega-3 would help ADD symptoms.
  9. ADD Genes – This one is starting to be accepted as a fact, at least among scientists and researchers.
  10. Over-diagnosis of ADD – Possibly true, although many kids with ADD are never tested, so maybe it’s a wash. Ironically, the most over-diagnosed condition in children is actually sinus infections. Doctors just hand out antibiotics when there is green mucus, even though a real diagnosis takes either a scan or 14+ days of symptoms. So many parents "know" that their kids have a sinus infection that it just isn’t worth the doctor fighting them on it.
  11. Lead Exposure – Not a lot of science here. Again, lead exposure isn’t that common, so getting a pool is tough. It’s a possibility though. Lead messes up a ton of stuff in the human body.
  12. Other Chemicals – Some chemicals are very harmful to the brain and nervous system. Assuming that ADHD can be "caused" at all, harsh chemicals might be one of the things that could cause ADD, although there is no actual link established by any legitimate research.

All in all, not a terrible article, if not very informative. Of course, as a bite-sized digest in the form of a slide show, you could do a lot worse.

Dealing With ADD Procrastination in ADHD Adults

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When it comes to ADD, there are plenty of co-morbid indicators. That’s a fancy, psychological jargon way of saying that ADD occurs in conjunction with other psychological and mental issues. For example, people with ADHD are more likely to also be diagnosed with depression. Whether depression is caused by ADD, or ADHD is caused by depression, or whether there is no casual relationship at all, is unknown. But, a person with ADD and depression has depression as a co-morbid indicator of ADD — or vice versa.

Another very common condition that often occurs in people with ADD is procrastination.

While everyone procrastinates sometimes, there are people, both with and without ADHD, for which procrastination is a very big problem that constantly threatens their lifestyle, rather than an annoyance. Unfortunately, adults with ADD are more likely to fall into the former category.

In fact, many undiagnosed adults with Attention Deficit Disorder never consider undergoing an evaluation for ADD because they believe that their "problem" is actually just with procrastination as opposed to a potential case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Among those diagnosed with ADD there is an ongoing difficulty in reliably distinguishing between issues that may be symptoms of ADD and those that may be more closely related to chronic procrastination. What makes determining where the obstruction to success lies so difficult is that most adults with ADHD developed procrastination habits and coping mechanisms simultaneously over the course of their life making the symptoms of ADHD indistinguishable from plain procrastination.

Books To Help With Procrastination

Books about procrastination and dealing with procrastination litter the shelves of the bookstore. Some books are better than others, but I’ve always found one very frustrating detail about procrastination help books is that they all seem hell-bent on tying procrastination to perfectionism, and therefore procrastination is caused by fear that what you do won’t be perfect.

This rings about as hollow to me as possible, and yet, it seems like many books about procrastination spend more pages on trying to "prove" that procrastination is caused by fear of failure. If you think that you do not have a fear of failure, then you just don’t understand that you are a perfectionist, and that not living up to being perfect is your problem. Therefore, procrastination is caused by perfectionism (which is just a form of fear of failure) and by the time they are ready to move on, I really don’t care what that book has to say because it no longer has any credibility in my mind. At the very least, whatever kind of procrastination that author is talking about, is not related to the procrastination from ADD that I might have.

I recently picked up a book about procrastination on a visit to the Tattered Cover bookstore. I do this all the time when I go into bookstores. I find a topic that might interest me and then I read a page or two from the book to see if it sounds like something that I might give enough weight to to actually read the book instead of dismissing it as some self-help guru’s attempt to make money off of some newspaper column or TV show appearance that they have. Most of the time, I just put the books back on the shelf. Something makes me roll my eyes, or think that it won’t resonate with me.

This time, however, I grabbed a copy of The Procrastinator’s Guide to Getting Things Done. I don’t really care about the title, but I happened to read a page near the beginning of the book where the author states that your inner procrastinator’s voice is very seductive, saying things like, "Oh, you can get that done later. You have plenty of time. You work better under pressure anyways." All of this sounds very familiar. But, what pushed it over the edge for me was the next paragraph which basically said, "You’re smarter than that. Don’t play the fool to that voice."

Now, THAT definitely resonated. In face, as I stood there with the book in my hand I actually felt like a fool who had been played for years by my inner procrastination voice. I’ have never really thought of it in those terms, but it has definitely given me a tiny handhold in my daily battle against procrastination, which is more than I can say for any other book about procrastinating, or focusing, or buckling down, or building new habits, that I have read in a very long time.

I haven’t read much of the book yet, so a whole-hearted endorsement of The Procrastinator’s Guide to Getting Things Done is a ways off, but I did manage to get to Chapter 3, which is titled, "What Are You Afraid Of?" — Check out the ADD tools and ADHD tips for those.

Uh, oh. Another book ruined by a tunnel-vision author who cannot let go of their "shocking, earth-shattering, enlightenment" that all procrastination is really just fear of not being perfect. But, then, just as the storm clouds gathered, something happened.

The author has a checklist that is designed to help determine if fear (of perfectionism or of failure) is your problem. That’s fair. It’s not like it is not one possible cause of procrastination, it’s just that it is not the ONLY possible explanation for why people procrastinate.

The book’s author, Monica Ramirez Basco, has a six point checklist to help determine if fear of failure / perfectionism is the issue causing your procrastination. The very next thing, is a different checklist. This procrastination checklist determines if fear of failure is NOT your problem.

That’s better than I have gotten out of any procrastination self-help book I’ve found in recent memory, so I’ll keep reading. In fact, I was so excited, I came right to Addessories to share my find with others who have ADHD and procrastination issues and might like to have a possible ADD and procrastination resource.

Ironically, it’s near the end of the month and I have tons of writing projects due, so technically, this who post is procrastination. But, at least I’m writing 🙂

Is Fear Causing My Procrastination Checklist

Fear is not your problem if:

  • You are feeling lazy
  • You are tired
  • You are discouraged
  • You just can’t concentrate
  • You would rather be doing something else

Hello, #4 and #5! Come to Pappa!

Natural Cure for ADD – Exercise

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I’m not sure if we got on someone’s radar somehow, or if we are showing up in certain search results, but I have gotten an increasing number of comments and emails regarding exercise as a cure for ADD.

Let me start by saying that I am a proponent of alternative treatments for ADD, if you can find one that works for you. I am skeptical that any one little change to your lifestyle will result in a cure for ADHD in adults or children. In fact, if some little adjustment to how you go about your daily life “cures your ADD”, I would question how legitimate your diagnosis was in the first place.

ADD is not some little nitpicky, attitude adjustment waiting to happen. If you believe differently, you are in the wrong place.

That being said, let me also point out that exercise has been shown to have a beneficial effect on attention deficit disorder. Of course, it has been shown to have a beneficial effect on heart disease, depression, sleeping problems, fibromyalgia, and just about everything else that medical science has a name for. In fact, at this point, it is probably a waste of money to study whether exercise is helpful for medical conditions, because I think everyone with or without a medical degree or PhD can see a pattern here.

Of course, being helpful is not the same thing as a cure. For example, if you have heart disease and embark upon a medically sound exercise regimen, that is going to be very helpful, but you are fool if you have serious heart disease and you are not also taking prescription medications that can make an even bigger difference.

Likewise, while aerobic exercise might improve your ADD symptoms substantially, if it is not enough, then you should also avail yourself to other possible ADD treatments, alternative or otherwise, although you would be wise to continue exercising as well.

If you want a stronger endorsement of exercise as a cure-all for ADD or ADHD, you’re going to have to find someone trying to sell a book or an expensive, herbal supplement, or something, because I know that while exercise always makes me feel better in the long run, and does indeed help my attention issues somewhat, it is not enough to “cure” my ADHD.

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