Have you ever knocked a big pile of papers off your desk and not bothered to pick them up? Have you ever spent more time working on a to-do list than actually performing the tasks on the list? Do you need a good laugh, followed by a helpful bit of advice? Check out this short video over at Totally ADD.
My question for the Totally ADD guys: Did they have to stage the video, or was there a desk all ready to go, stacks of papers and all? (They could have filmed the clip at my place right now, no preparations necessary!)
You don't have to have ADD for a desk to look like this! I'm a big fan of to-do lists, though if I get so busy I actually have to make one, I know my life is already tilting out of balance. When that does happen, to-do lists help move the clutter from inside my head onto the page, and there I can keep track of it with less stress.
Posted by: Priscilla | February 28, 2012 at 01:32 PM
Priscilla, I love the way you put that: "To-do lists help move the clutter from inside my head onto the page, and there I can keep track of it with less stress." It does feel like that to me. Although sometimes it feels like the things I need to do are flying all over the place, not just inside my head, and putting them on paper keeps them still long enough for me to even see what they all are.
Posted by: Kathleen Christensen | February 28, 2012 at 08:40 PM
I have mountains of papers stacked by topic all over my floor. Does that count? Actually, I think the pace of life and the overwhelming amount of information available at any second are the greatest contributors to my issues.
And To-Do lists are helpful, but if they're too long, I don't get to everything and then am depressed!
Posted by: Laurel Kallenbach | September 17, 2012 at 09:08 AM
Laurel, stacked by topic sounds great! The papers on the floor of my home office right now are spread out randomly.
Ned Hallowell, a psychiatrist who has ADD and writes about ADD, wrote a book called Crazy Busy, which is all about the fast pace and glut of information these days: http://www.drhallowell.com/crazy-busy/. He coined a term--something like pseudo-ADHD--to desribe the difficulites even non-ADDers can have in today's environment.
I also relate to getting depressed looking at a half-finished to-do list. At some point, I started making myself focus on what I *have* crossed off on my lists, not just on the things I haven't.
Posted by: Kathleen Christensen | September 17, 2012 at 10:23 AM