Does Your To-Do List Just Get Longer?
How many times do you go through the day, and at the end of the day realize you didn’t get done half of what you intended? But, how could that be possible, you were doing stuff all day! This is a very common problem, for everyone. Especially for people with ADHD.
Don’t feel bad, this doesn’t mean that you are not doing something right, or that you will never figure it out, even though you have tried EVERY personal productivity solution out there! It just means you didn’t figure it out today. But hold on, there is hope.
For those of us with ADHD there are a few reasons that we don’t get done what we would like. Among them are:
· Setting unrealistically high expectations
· Working in environments that are not conducive to us getting the most work done (traditional settings are often quite challenging for ADDers)
· Being easily distracted
· Not effectively prioritizing our daily activities at the beginning of the day
· Because we tend to work from the whole picture down to the pieces, it can be hard to figure out where to start on a particular task
Though each of these reasons, and there are more, deserve, in fact, require, their own solution and attention, there are a few things you can do to help things improve.
First, try to be realistic in your expectations of yourself. If you think you already are, you may be right. Then again, maybe you’re not. Try taking your expectations of when a certain project will be done, and giving yourself and extra 10%, to allow for unexpected surprises (you know the ones, the kitchen sink overflows, flooding the kitchen, or the microwave catches on fire when your pre-teen inadvertently puts metal in there). This can be very helpful in allowing yourself to give yourself a break!
Try to be in control of your environment. If you work best with a little background noise but your office is constantly silent, try an iPod. Listening to background music can help tune out the little noises that so often pull our attention away from the task at hand (just make sure it’s not your favorite music. Singing along to the lyrics at work could be bad. Funny, but bad).
Next Monday I will address some of the other challenges to getting our daily lists done. And keep an eye out for an upcoming announcement that will help you clear that age-old to do list!
Have you seen this new study?
Have you seen the results of a new study in Tokyo about the mothering instinct and whether or not it is biological? Researchers used functional MRIs to look at the activity in a mother’s brain when shown pictures of children that are happy and in distress. What is most interesting in their study is the finding that a mother’s brain activity is actually markedly different when shown images of their own baby in distress (crying for their mothers) than it is when they see pictures of other babies.
This is not to say that moms don’t react when they see other babies in distress, but it seems significant that their brain activity is increased when they are shown images of their own children upset. This raises the question “Is the maternal instinct hard-wired into our brain?”
There’s not enough information yet to make that assumption, but it certainly does open up the possibility. Now, no studies have been done yet on fathers, though I’m sure those will come in time.
What is interesting to me about this particular study and the possible implications of it is a question I am often asked. “How do I explain this to my husband? I understand what ADHD is, but my husband doesn’t believe it.” Or he doesn’t accept it, or he doesn’t understand it, or he won’t acknowledge it. The list goes on. So, this recent study brings about the question, do we as mothers understand simply because we are hard-wired to understand and feel our children’s pain? Or are we more understanding than our male counterparts? Or does it simply seem that way?
