One major problem I have is accomplishing personal and career goals without long periods of inactivity before they are achieved, if achieved at all. It seems no matter how strong I am coming out of the gate, I ultimately lose focus and spend precious time daydreaming away. Before I know it months and even years have gone by and I'm still picking daisies.

Does anyone else have this problem? How do you deal with it? Are there any methods of combating this?

have is accomplishing personal and career goals without long periods of inactivity before they are achieved, if achieved at all.

Do you loose interest???? get distracted???? or good ole procrastination ???

Goal setting is hard for me. You have personal and career goals are they specific?????

Yeah, for instance I purchased a house about a year ago for the purpose of fixing it up and selling it. My goal was to have it up for sale by early June, a date that gave me plenty of time. Ha. Its now late August and I still don't have a "For Sale" sign in the yard. It's not because of serious roadblocks that have caused this delay. Its because of these mental joyrides I go on for weeks at a time. I just feel like slapping myself silly.

I think motivation is such a hard thing to achieve in life for us ADDers. Always feeling like we're in a haze or our "own little worlds". I don't know what I would do without adderall.

I know exactly what you mean. With me, I always think that the best way to be motivated is to have a tidy area to work in. However, good intentions to have a big tidy up can easily come to nothing for weeks due to being distracted, doing something else and getting sidetracked or pure lack of energy. Though the thing that I never seem to get round to often through lazily doing something else very unconstructive is reading at least some of my many books.

I can relate to mental joyrides and distraction sapping away my energy and time. I have no concept of time (except very short periods), and my motivation flaggs in proportion to my disorganization.

Recent research in ADHD provides an explaination; it is a deficit of executive functions. Time blindness, emotional disregulation, lack of persistance are all difficulties of ADHD and executive function.

For me, this translates into profound disorganization. My long term motivation towards a goal quickly dissapates like a tidal wave hitting a wide flat beach.

Meds help me sustain motivation and seems to help with organization, but meds alone are not enough. Having some kind of external direction-- school, a structured job, deadlines, step by step plans I plot out (yuck) myself-- these provide external motivation to keep me on track.

Otherwise, I'm a jellyfish. High potential, great ideas, poor execution.

The only thing in life that I could master was dance(maybe because I could physically express myself)besides that,I set goals and before I even start I could care less.Its terrible!!!

I think picking daisies was my worst problem before Adderall. I don't have any major pressing goals right now, but I do make a list of goals for the day.I'll list the must-do's, and then a brief list that would be nice to do if I have time.I feel a lot better when I Know I have things done. Then I can pick my daisies.
Hey, Thoughthopping.Thats a perfect saying, and thats exactly what I feel like I'm doing.

I set goals and before I even start I could care less.Its terrible!!!



I resemble that remark.....some times I don't get past the though of making goals before I loose interest.

I'm really bad about getting motivated, so when I say goals, I really mean the dishes, laundry, ect. LOL. I like writing it down so I can have the satisfactory of marking it off. It's practice for when I actually do have a major deadline.

I'm not sure if this would be considered a problem, but I feel firmly stuck in the present. I have generally mastered my day to day transactions and plans.

Yet I experience this overall loss of direction beyond the day. I just do not know how to plan for the future or seriously embark upon a master plan.

Perhaps I should just let myself relax and pick some daisies. It would be wonderfull... Yet, currently this feels like an empty activity...that this is not enough for me. but I do not know what the plan should be.

maybe I am scared and somewhat aprehensive about the unknown, the failure or perhaps worried about making the wrong choice. I just don't know. And so, as a result of this dilemma, I just sit and wait for some grand inspiration.

AND I AM NOT SURE IF THIS IS THE CORRECT PLAN OF ACTION:mad:

I'm not sure if this would be considered a problem, but I feel firmly stuck in the present. I have generally mastered my day to day transactions and plans.

Yet I experience this overall loss of direction beyond the day. I just do not know how to plan for the future or seriously embark upon a master plan.

Perhaps I should just let myself relax and pick some daisies. It would be wonderfull... Yet, currently this feels like an empty activity...that this is not enough for me. but I do not know what the plan should be.

maybe I am scared and somewhat aprehensive about the unknown, the failure or perhaps worried about making the wrong choice. I just don't know. And so, as a result of this dilemma, I just sit and wait for some grand inspiration.

AND I AM NOT SURE IF THIS IS THE CORRECT PLAN OF ACTION:mad:
Hmmm...describes my life...

And if I DO make plans, I usually OVER plan things (down to the gnat's ****) and when they don't turn out exactly as I planned...well then...why bother becomes my motto...which I hate.

The whole scared and apprehensive about the unknown has kept me rooted in more than one spot. It usually takes a good, strong shove from someone to get me out of that rut.

Grand inspiration? Have one every day...just don't do anything with it due to fear and ???

Eric

Hmmm...describes my life...

And if I DO make plans, I usually OVER plan things (down to the gnat's ****) and when they don't turn out exactly as I planned...well then...why bother becomes my motto...which I hate.

The whole scared and apprehensive about the unknown has kept me rooted in more than one spot. It usually takes a good, strong shove from someone to get me out of that rut.

Grand inspiration? Have one every day...just don't do anything with it due to fear and ???

Eric
yes Eric, you have finished my thought quite well.:cool:

Rut sounds appropriate. I have seen so many plans, ideas and dreams go unfinished with each passing year. But i won't give up hope just yet and I won't compare my life to any other. Most of all I am letting go of any idea of should and so if I sit in the sand for a time maybe I can just create a couple of new castles.

anyone else can enter my sandbox since there is plenty of room.


I've said earlier (on another thread) that tomorrow is (after all)another day... And so I will sit gently and quietly with myself in all of my angst;) and turmoil coming up with some new ideas---yeah:eek:

UGH...daily accomplishments are hard for me. I did real good over all when I was working. I had a set routine. Work was easy cause I had a flexible schedule while at work and others around for motivation. At home w/ just my kids I find myself getting lost in thought, in chat, on web searching for nothing real important, day draming, distracted easily...and the list goes on. I have clutter in areas and try the list thing that only last so long LOL!!!

Here, again, I find a bunch of folks who appear to have been living my life!

I graduated from art school 12 years ago with big intentions. as you might guess, I haven't made a piece of art since then, even though it's often all I think about for days on end.

My personal motto is "When I get around to it."

(does anyone know where I can find one?...a round tuit, that is?)

a round tuit ummmm, that actually sounds like an interesting art project. Or maybe someone who is interested in tools could come with a protype.

But since you, Coyote, have developed this grand inspiration, you could quit your day job and help the rest of us who are still going in circles :confused: looking for the tuit.

Plans..???? those are good...keeping them...???? thats ... well it would be good.... following through with my plans??? that would be even better... :)

I can follow through if I know it won't take long and the list is small...sometimes I use post-it notes to make the list seem smaller...not sure how it "looks" smaller but i pretend to trick my mind! :)

if it's something I don't wanna do well then i just plan don't do it...bad yes when it's for my job....and i have to pretty much force myself to keep going....

cleaning and the like it's easy...OCD is the best for that....(well easy for me I should say)

Joyrides and picking flowers is SO much better....I'm not on meds YET but i'm hopping that when i get on the billion that i'll need then i'll be able to really make my time at my job count!!! :) hehe oh well....

I seem to be able to lump my life into a few distinct areas:

1. The Creative -- inspiration/aspiration, ideas that flit in and out of my head, the image I have of myself "someday" becoming the published author of something more superficial than advertising copy.

2. The Mundane -- daily goals to accomplish things I KNOW need to be done (laundry, setting up kids' dentist appointments, vacuuming the dust dinosaurs threatening to take over the house, etc.)

3. The Mandatory -- any activity that would actually pay the bills, including invoicing clients -- which I have a difficulty doing in a timely manner (especially considering that they typically don't PAY in a timely manner, either).

4. The Wasted -- time spent doing one thing while feeling guilty about not doing something else. That encompasses everything from surfing the net to actual planned "fun" because it all seems to come with a hefty side dish of guilt.

I feel like I spend all my time in #3 and #4. But organization? Motivation? Time management? Actually achieving either #1 or #2?

Ice cube's chance....

In answer to the original post of do you ever get stalled out? I'd say not really. To me life has peaks and valleys. The higher the peaks are the lower the valley's seem. you can exchange peaks and valleys with success and failure and you have the same feeling. Like you stalled out.

You aren't stalled. You're in the valley and every now and then you look up and go "OMG, look at that mountain I gotta climb! Maybe we'll start hiking tomorrow." Right?

It's normal. Ha, did you get that? You did something N_O_R_M_A_L. :D

How you get "stalled" is that you see ALL of the things that need to get done and picking just one seems so inconsequential that you'd rather not pick any.

If you can't tell: I've been there, done that and I've found something that has worked for me. In fact, I've trained a couple of dozen salespeople in the past ten years to do this one thing to accomplish what they've set out to do.

KEEP READING. IT GETS BETTER!

I've learned one of the best ways to keep my focus (yes, I have ADD) when I set goals is to keep the end goal IN FRONT OF ME AT ALL TIMES.

If that means taking a 3 inch wide piece of masking tape and putting it on your car steering wheel and radio dial and dash you do it. If you need to put a marker board up in your kitchen with the goal on it: do it.

Put it on your bathroom mirror. Put it next to the toilet paper.
If you use a mouse pad, wrist rest, computer monitor, laptop or you watch TV you put it ON ALL OF THEM.

Now, the key to this is putting it in the form of a very specific question.
For example, you want to get your house done so you can flip it. You write:
"What can I do today to get closer to the SALE OF MY HOUSE?"


So, the SALE OF MY HOUSE is always in focus...and when you need a little nudge to figure out what to do next...you have the guiding question:What can I do today to get closer to....

You can replace "SALE OF MY HOUSE" with ANY other goal and this will get you there. I have used this to go from making 28k one year to making nearly more than 100k 3 years later.

Once you start this you'll find some days you have a list that just streams out of you. Keep a notebook with you and write it ALL down. Every day keep asking the question and writing it down.

Then pick ANY one of the items on the list and DO IT. Just one. EVERY DAY.
If you have time after that knock yourself out and do two. But DO ONE EVERY DAY. Then cross it OFF the list. But keep all of the pages in the notebook.

NO, it's NOT an average. ONE EVERY DAY.

Do this for 30 days and your house will be done and sold.
After you sell the house ask me what you do with the notebook. You'll love it!

I like how ya put that. I have acalendar on my bedroom wall that i write alot of notes on. I see it right there when i get out of bed. I have also started a PC calendar that has times set w/ an alram that goes off and pops up on screen saying what I should do or have to do or go. Just set that up this week. My pc is in my livingroom and right by kitchen so it is where I spend most my day w/ my kids. So far is helping a lil bit. LOL!!! Now I just have to get myself to listen to it;)

I like how ya put that. I have acalendar on my bedroom wall that i write alot of notes on. I see it right there when i get out of bed. I have also started a PC calendar that has times set w/ an alram that goes off and pops up on screen saying what I should do or have to do or go. Just set that up this week. My pc is in my livingroom and right by kitchen so it is where I spend most my day w/ my kids. So far is helping a lil bit. LOL!!! Now I just have to get myself to listen to it;)
That's great!

It takes 21 days to create a new habit. So, put stuff up all over the place for the next 3 weeks that remind you to look at your computer and put stuff in it to keep track of.

I work from home so I'm on my computer ALL day and WAY too much at night. I have a recurring alarm that reminds me when to take my son to the bus stop...when to pick him up..when to pick up his sister. I'll even put alarms on future days to remind me to research something or prepare for an event (family or work) and then I don't have to think about it.

The really big deal for me is that I stop freaking out about juggling so much stuff so I CAN keep focus on the really important things of TODAY.

I will try that. Life has been so different for me since i stopped working. I am going to keep working w/ this PC alarm ID as well as posting notes around. TY for those tips

I can relate to mental joyrides and distraction sapping away my energy and time. I have no concept of time (except very short periods), and my motivation flaggs in proportion to my disorganization.

Recent research in ADHD provides an explaination; it is a deficit of executive functions. Time blindness, emotional disregulation, lack of persistance are all difficulties of ADHD and executive function.

For me, this translates into profound disorganization. My long term motivation towards a goal quickly dissapates like a tidal wave hitting a wide flat beach.

Meds help me sustain motivation and seems to help with organization, but meds alone are not enough. Having some kind of external direction-- school, a structured job, deadlines, step by step plans I plot out (yuck) myself-- these provide external motivation to keep me on track.

Otherwise, I'm a jellyfish. High potential, great ideas, poor execution.Wow, you explained this well! Good clarity, great visual imagery, and a concise presentation of the latest research on how AD/HD impacts organizatoin and reaching long term goals! Thanks!

Scattered

Great advice Fighting Boredom. That sounds like a good tactic for harnesing the hyperfocus side of ADD. When I have one goal in my mind, everything else shuts out until that goal is achieved (my boss is often very aggrivated about this trait).

Great advice Fighting Boredom. That sounds like a good tactic for harnesing the hyperfocus side of ADD. When I have one goal in my mind, everything else shuts out until that goal is achieved (my boss is often very aggrivated about this trait).

Hey, I know how that is with your boss. There are those who only get where they are by climbing on others. When they see someone who can latch on to those really tough jobs and get them done like it was easy...they tend to feel threatened.

Could be what's up with your boss.