Is it ADHD or Human Nature?
Puryear’s Principle of Human Nature #2:
Once we find something that helps us cope with a problem, we will quit doing it.
And this does apply to me. Oh, my.
The Index Card System for ADHD
I was doing great with my index card system, but gradually I let it slip. I started putting every new task, or even ideas or phone numbers, on the red to do card, which is supposed to only have 5 things on it – the list of 5. It was easiest to just pull out the red card, write on it and move on. Bad.
A New ADHD Strategy
Once I realized this wasn’t going well, I changed, But I didn’t go back to the old way, using the yellow index card for new things and then putting them onto the red card or others as appropriate.
Instead, now I use a yellow sticky note on the inside cover of my appointment book. It is much easier to pull out the big appointment book than to search for the yellow card among all the other cards in my pocket. And it’s easier to change the sticky for a new one than it was with the yellow card.
How ADHD Works
With ADHD, we get bored easily and our focus center gets turned on by novel things. So maybe after we’ve done something for a while, we need to change it. Even if it has become a habit, although I hope that’s not true. So maybe it’s ADHD, or maybe it’s just Puryear’s principle number two.
More on this next time. Or soon. Maybe.
doug
ADHD Questions O the Day:
Can you contribute an example of this phenomenon?
How could you use this ADHD strategy with technology instead of index cards or stickys?
Irrelevant ADHD Comments O the Day:
Just for fun, I put ADHD into each heading. More instances of ADHD in a post are supposed to make it come up earlier on google if someone googles ADHD. Who knows?
I don’t really know if today’s principle is principle number two or one or three. With my ADHD I can’t keep the numbers straight.
#ADHD @dougmkp #adultADHDstrategies
- “Well, where did you last have it?”
- The ADHD Creative Mind
- Where am I now?
- ADHD can make the simplest htings difficult.
- Its not ADHD, he’s just being a normal kid – in detention, expelled, flunking, ostracized, etc.