Noticing Your Environment with A.D.H.D.

Information Management: Noticing Your Environment

This week when thinking about information management we are going to think about the environments that surround us daily. For those with A.D.H.D. our environments could be an enabler to our minds moving away from the task at hand. Your environment may mean your work space, your school space, your car, your bedroom, your home; basically any space you find yourself trying to accomplish a task from your to do list. Your job this week is to notice what is working for you and what isn’t. So thinking of it environmentally, what physical arrangements are conducive to your effectiveness at completing each task?

• When you are working or studying at a desk, what visually supports you to get your work done or what might be getting you off task?
• What sounds are in your environment? Is it silent, noisy, music, television, how loud?
• Do you work better by yourself, with a team or just by having someone in the room with you?
• Does your chair support you to sit upright and focus and is your keyboard in the right space?

Another thing to notice is your energy patterns, many people with A.D.H.D. have varying energy patterns through the day where certain tasks are better suited for certain times of day or evening. Personally, I like afternoons better. I have harnessed the energy from the morning and can create better in the afternoon. I know of others who love the morning and find as soon as their feet hit the ground they are pumping out great work. Everyone is unique with this you just need to notice what is true for you.

Some tasks just can’t get done without a person present. This is quite normal for someone with A.D.D. Similar to shadow coaching, when it comes to clearing the desk, organizing or filing ~ sometimes having a person in the room (main qualification that someone in their presence you feel good about yourself) even if they are working individually on their own thing, just having them in the room helps you to get those things done.

As you go through this week, log what you notice into a journal then strive to implement a new change each day or each week to manage your environment more effectively.

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Time Management in Navigating the Workplace

In the workplace most things are time driven and for those with ADHD/ADD who have a particularly hard time tracking time; this represents a unique set of challenges. Some of the challenges of time management include: the awareness or the ability to track the passing of time, noticing what time it is, remembering to stop one activity to start a new activity and being able to foster the focus toward each scheduled activity.

Some jobs have a built in factor of time being tracked for you most of the time. For example one client, a psychologist, has the benefit of her clients showing up at the appointed therapy time and, in some sense, tracking their own time of when to show up, start and end a therapy session. However, once she was promoted into a supervisory role that includes some of the therapy sessions, reports and overseeing the activities of other therapists; she found that without an external trigger she was falling behind on her administrative duties. It was not an issue of ability or skill to complete any of the tasks. It was simply a matter of time management. Once she took a class pertaining to time management strategies, she found external triggers such as pop ups and bells on her computer, her supervisor scheduling meetings with her and occasional reminder phone calls that she was able to quickly get on schedule with her reporting.

Time management for those with ADD/ADHD is unique because their brain works differently. Working with a typical time management expert (one who has studied the art and science of time management) usually gets those with ADD/ADHD overwhelmed, frustrated and ultimately in trouble. But when time management is taught around the way someone’s mind works, wherein the first point is discovering how the client’s mind works and then developing systems to work around the person, everything changes.

So if you want to be on time and know what to do when, I invite you to sign up for my Be On Time tele-forum class offering.

Also, I am presenting this weekend in Minnesota at the ADHD Spring Conference. For more information on my presentation on Navigating the Workplace, feel free to call me at 1-800-929-4127.

Decisions based on Values

Decisions based upon Values

Once we are clear on what some of our values are, we can use them to make decisions. Some of our toughest decisions are what job to seek and accept, what projects to complete and what volunteer opportunities we should say “Yes” to our involvement. We simply have to notice how each is related to our values. Can we express our values freely in each environment? Do our values match up so we can fully engage them to create success? Once we are clear on our values we can use them to determine the best way to utilize our time and weed out that which would be unproductive for us.

For example, one client taught me that he chooses volunteer opportunities based upon qualifications. He found that he was receiving a multitude of volunteer opportunities, so many that he couldn’t accept them all. He leveraged his value of making the biggest impact to determine where best to put his time and energy. He would first determine if he was uniquely qualified to fill the role asked of him. He would determine if there was something unique that he could give more than others. If the answer was “No” then he would pass however, if the answer was “Yes” he would further consider the possibility. His next step was to look at the time commitment, the schedule and energy needed to fulfill asks. If this all meshed then he would take the volunteer opportunity. This was a win for both the client and the organization because both got “the best” for the efforts.

In my life, I recently uncovered that appreciation is a very important value for me. This actually surprised me. However, it has led me to make decisions based upon whether the opportunity creates a space for me to give appreciation and receive appreciation. Since my volunteer time fills quickly, I may pass on an opportunity that doesn’t allow me to utilize this value in some way.

We must all think about how to best use our time and energy. This week let’s work on using our values as the starting point to make decisions about opportunities that arise. First make a list of your values so that when an opportunity arises you are prepared to run down your value list to see if it’s a good fit for you. Say “Yes” to those that are and “No” to those that aren’t.