Hello,

I have been taking adderall for about 3 years now. My prescription is for 40 mg/day, and i have tried both XR and IR. I have noticed that I have a really terrible time shifting from task to task with the medicine. It's gotten to the point where now I only take it when I specifically have to do something and have a large chunk of time in which to do it. IE, if I have one class at noon I will not take the medicine until I get home at 1:30 pm because I can't study in the morning, go to class at noon, and then return home to do homework. I didn't notice it as much before because I was working full time and my days were much more uniform and there was less task switching. However, now that I am in graduate school I am realizing that this is a problem. I would really like to be able to move from task to task and keep my focus in whatever I am doing. Has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so does anyone have any suggestions? I am open to trying new medications/a different combination. I have an appointment with my doctor, but I find it very helpful to get the opinions of people on this board so I would appreciate any advice you might have.

If relevant, I also take chantix (stop smoking medicine), xanax occasionally when I can't sleep, and loestrin 24 (the pill). I usually take adderall only about 3-4 days a week because i don't like being so hyperfocused every day of the week.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Sounds like adderall XR at it's best to me. I use as well and I notice that too (In fact i've been "trapped" posting on these forums since like noon this morning).

What I do to cope is, I try to not take the pills with out a clear cut plan of action that I intend to take. I list it on a small little piece of paper. Check a general store for those little memo pads, I find them to be the perfect thing for the Adderall user. When ever I feel the need to switch tasks, I look at my memo pad, I look specifically at the next task, and just kind of ease into it. Sometimes it feels as though I'm not switching tasks at all if I concider the entire memo pad as my task, especially if the tasks on it are very brief.

Sometimes this task switching makes me feel kinda bad. That feeling is my over-stimulated focus oriented portion of my brain screaming "ONE MORE SECOND OF THIS TASK, PLEASE!!!". It feels like, "everything is ruined" by taking my attention off my current obsession. If the thing I'm switching to is important enough to me then I go for it the hard way, otherwise, like today, I forget about my MKTG speech due several months from now.


First thing to do in order to get out of the "obsession trap" is to stand up. I usually find that things don't feel quite as bad as I thought they would. Then I just force myself to forget about everything I was just doing, which is difficult because when trying to switch tasks it seems that i'm subconciously using all my effort to hang on to my thoughts related to the obsessed-over project (like i'm holding my place in a book with my hand as I search for another page. Just let it be done for a while and let go of the page.

When you first begin the new task it will feel painfull, but for me, after about 7 minutes this new task becomes my obsession and I "get into it" like I was with the first task.

Just keep in mind when you're trying this out that it really only hurts the first 7 minutes of task switching, and you just gotta stick it out for a while. Then it feels just as good as the first task. These pills should really come with instructions, I still haven't figured out all the tricks I need).

Please let me know if this works.