Category: Productivity

It’s Not My Fault

Blue Pills by ltshears via stock.xchng

I got good grades in school, but it wasn’t because I worked hard and studied and applied myself. It was because I knew how to be invisible so that I didn’t get called on in class, I had an intuitive ability to figure out the correct answers on multiple choice tests, and I could bullshit my way through an essay. I never felt like I’d applied myself 100% on anything I ever did, even the 80-plus page novel I handed in for a creative writing assignment in grammar school (which I’d already been writing on my own), because I felt like it needed editing and the plot was weak. I was lucky I did as well as I did because I was easily distracted, I made careless mistakes, I had trouble following instructions, I procrastinated like it was my job. I was a model terrible student, and all of my bad habits followed me right through to my adult life.

At some point it occurred to me that maybe I had ADD, and I took an online quiz which said, yep, you certainly do, but online quizzes tell you that everything is wrong with you, so you don’t necessarily go searching for psychiatric help because of them. It wasn’t until I realized that I suffer from mild bipolar disorder (I always mention the mild because it is actually pretty different from full-blown bipolar disorder) and my psychiatrist, in the course of treating me, screened me for ADHD, that I found out that I officially have ADHD without the H, or old-school ADD.

She asked me if I wanted to do anything about it. I said, Let’s focus on the bipolar, and hey, maybe it’ll get better once that’s out of the way. And when that medication started to work and I started to come out of my mild depression, I did become more productive, so that was cool. But I was still easily distracted, still made careless mistakes (which is a problem is a detail-oriented job like mine), still did all those lovely little ADD things. So I bought a bunch of ADD books and even read one of them, and I made schedules like I’ve been doing for years and I didn’t follow them and I set alarms to remind me to stay on track and I still wandered off into emails and websites when I was supposed to be working and I still made careless mistakes and said things without thinking and all that fun stuff.

After it seemed like the bipolar medication was working pretty well, my psychiatrist came back to the ADD, and I had to face the truth: I couldn’t accept my ADD as a medical condition. I know that ADHD is a real and legitimate disorder. I didn’t question the validity of ADHD or ADD. I questioned the validity of my ADD. My whole life I had thought of myself as scatterbrained, lazy, disorganized, a procrastinator.  This wasn’t a disorder, something outside of my control. It was a flaw in my personality, something that I could control if I just tried hard enough, and I obviously wasn’t trying hard enough.

I think the hardest part, the part that made it most difficult for me to deal with the diagnosis, was the hyperfocus. When conditions are right, I can focus on a good book or on writing or even a good movie or TV show to the point where the rest of the world disappears. It’s pretty much the same as flow. But since I can focus on things that are fun or engaging, shouldn’t I also be able to focus on things that are boring? Other people can focus on difficult tasks or conversations (I can’t even concentrate on conversations with people I want to talk to!). Why can’t I?

Because there’s something wrong with me. And it’s not my fault.

I think it’s going to take a long time for me to accept that, but for now I’m trying to move on despite my reluctance. I’ve been taking Adderall for about a week and I’ve actually accomplished things, reasonable, normal things. I haven’t cleaned the house from top to bottom but I’ve done the laundry and the finances. I haven’t single-handedly done six months’ worth of work, but I’ve cleaned out my email inbox. I didn’t finish my novel, but I did a good amount of writing. And this is my first non-ROW80 blog post in four months. This is apparently what I’m capable of. I still have to decide to actually do a project, but once I start, I know I have a good chance of finishing it, and finishing it in a reasonable amount of time because I won’t go wandering off for an hour looking at Facebook or my email. I can still get distracted, and I still have trouble following a schedule, but I feel like now I have a chance. I may never be able to put in that 100%, but maybe now I can put in 90 or 95%. Even 85% would be an improvement. And if I try hard enough, maybe someday I’ll be able to accept that this is okay, that I’m not cheating, I’m not using medication to make myself better than everyone else, but to make myself the same. To make myself normal. I used to want to be special. I still do, just in a good way. A functional way. Hopefully this will help get me there.

Scheduling Success

Diary Planner by Hilde Vanstraelen via stock.xchng

I’ve been a procrastinator pretty much as long as I can remember, but it’s only in the last few years that I’ve really tried to do something about it. All through school I managed to hand my assignments in on time, and sometimes projects at work would take me longer than they should, but they always got done, eventually. But when I decided to re-dedicate myself to my writing, I quickly realized that I would have to deal with my procrastination or I would never finish my work-in-progress. There are no external deadlines, no teachers or bosses standing with their arms crossed, tapping their foot impatiently. Yes, I’ve told people that I’m writing, and I’ve even told them that I plan to have a rough draft done by the end of the year, but it’s not the same. No one is going to give me an F or fire me if I don’t hand in my work. The only person I have to answer to is myself, and so far, I just don’t seem to be that afraid of me.

So I’ve been trying to figure out how to get myself going. I’ve read blogs and books and done challenges and found online friends to cheer me on and I’ve made some progress, but I haven’t been consistent. I’m having trouble putting all the pieces together, but I think I might be on the verge of a breakthrough. In the comments a few posts back, a fellow writer named Gerhi Feuren pointed me towards a great blog post by Penelope Trunk about willpower. I highly recommend you read the whole post, but Trunk’s key point is that willpower is a limited resource. As she says, “It turns out that we only have a very little bit, and we cannot be demanding it of ourselves all day long because that would exhaust our supply and make us nuts. Which is, of course, what I do.” This idea was a revelation to me. I’ve been cursing myself for years for not having “enough” willpower. At any given time, I’m trying to exercise more, eat less (and better), spend less money, clean more, be more organized, get more (and better) sleep, do more work, and get more writing done. All of those things require willpower–more, it would seem, than I have.

Luckily, Trunk has some ways to make the most of your limited supply of willpower. Her first tip is to set a rigid schedule. This makes a lot of sense to me. Life is made up of habits and ruts. It’s easy to do something that you’ve done a million times before. If you’ve brushed your teeth every night right before bed, then tonight it’s not going to take a lot of willpower to brush your teeth. So all I need to do is figure out a schedule and then stick to it. Piece of cake, right?

If only. Another one of Trunk’s insights comes in to play here. Number three on her lists of things that you can substitute for willpower is “accurate personal assessments.” In this case, the thing I need to accurately assess about myself is my energy level, because the most effective schedule will plan tasks that require a lot of brain power for times when your energy is highest. You might already know when your peak performance times are, but if you don’t, check out Charlie Gilkey’s productivity heatmap. Gilkey is a godsend for creative people who are trying to be as productive as possible. I’ve just started using his planners (which I’ll talk more about at a later time) and they in turn pointed me towards the heatmap, because they encourage planning based on your personal energy cycles. I’m still working on my own heatmap because I’ve been caught in a cycle of going to bed late and waking up late, which makes it hard for me to chart early mornings, but I’m excited to think that I’m making progress towards not only being more productive, but also towards a better understanding of myself and my natural energy patterns. It’s unrealistic to think that we can operate at 100% all day, every day, so we owe it to ourselves to figure out our best times so that we can take advantage of them.