[Chris]

Daniel: I, also, struggle with ADD. I’ll tell you a technique which has worked for me. I find that I often have great difficulty staying on task, and flit from thing to thing. I am very impulsive and have trouble keeping that under control. As a result, I often find I’ve been active all day, but not very productive. I sat down and made a list of some of the tasks and goals I have, identified which ones are most important, then ‘swiss-cheesed’ them. That is, I poked holes in them until they were a bunch of short and quick little tasks. Then I scheduled them into my pocket computer with an alarm that goes off at a set time every day and a reminder of what I’m supposed to work on. I have another reminder alarm set for 15 minutes later to stop working on that project. I schedule a 15-minute ‘break’ or free time between scheduled times, so I have time to read email, get coffee, see what the cat is doing, or any of the 1001 things that pop into my head that I should run off to look into. That way, during my 15-minute project time, when those thoughts try to interupt me, I can put them off since I know that in less than 15 minutes, I’ll have time to go do that. In the meantime, I’ll just go back to the task at hand. What I’ve found out of this technique is that even if I only work on a project for 15 minutes a day, at the end of a week, I’ve gotten a lot more done than I did before using this technique. And I sometimes find I will work right on through my break time and do 20 or 25 minutes on that task. It takes extra work, but the externalality of the schedule imposes a discipline that I can’t do for myself at this time. You don’t need a pocket computer, a simple kitchen timer would do the same thing. 15 minutes is my time…your’s might be 30 minutes or it might be 5, whatever works. It’s similar to the AA techique of quitting drinking one day at a time…and if that’s too hard to do, then quit for the next five minutes. Good luck! Chris

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Name : Chris, Gender : M, Age : 48, City : Seattle, State : WA, Country : United States, 

[Chris]

Vanessa: I would guess they may be offended because of the manner and assumptions you may be (unconsciously) making in your offer of help. Your phrasing in your question implies some of this: ‘when I try to help them with a task I think they may struggle with.’ Do you ask if they need help or do you just ‘help’ without being asked? We all have things we struggle with, some of them more publically and obviously than others. But it is through overcoming our struggles that we often find our greatest rewards. So doing for someone can often be no help. I remember a very powerful commercial Apple computer used to run. It showed a person in a wheelchair, struggling to get through the day. The voice-over went something like this: ‘At Apple computer we make products that let ordinary people do extraordinary things. But sometimes it’s nice to celebrate when extraordinary people do ordinary things.’ My personal guidelines are to extend the same curtesy to disabled folks that I extend to anyone else. I try to be patient with anyone having difficulties, whether they are disabled, a child, elderly, or just with their arms full of stuff. I try to smile and make eye contact and with that smile silently say: ‘Take your time, but I’d be happy to help.’ If they make eye contact back and seem exasperated, I verbally ask if they would some help, and if they agree, I then ask what help I can do. (Try not to assume what help someone needs. They can tell you and it’s often less than you think they need.) And lastly, when you run across someone who seems angry at your offers, remember it may not have anything at all to do with you or their disability. It might be something very similar to the things that make you crabby and cranky. Take care

User Detail :  

Name : Chris, Gender : M, Age : 48, City : Seattle, State : WA, Country : United States, 

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