Your Attention Please

Before saying anything, you need to answer a few questions for yourself:

1. What are my strengths?
   We all have them so dig deep
2. How is it helping me?
   One client told me that she had a lot of energy and her out-of-the box thinking heloped her solve problems more easily. Another who was a salesman found that clients liked to work with him because he always seemed to be “on the ball”. Another who was a social worker felt that she was better able to empathize with her clients
3. How is my ADHD hindering me at work?
   Difficulty with concentrating, with organizing, excessive perfectionism…
4. What is the specific problem I want help with?
   Can’t concentrate because of noise or traffic, difficulty getting organized so often looking for things, difficulty with constant distractions of email and phone, can’t seem to organize time well, etc.
5. What solutions do I want to propose?
   Will this solution help or should you consider a different career? What is the cost to the employer? Where can it be found?
6. How can your employer help?
   Do you need your employer to help defray the cost of coaching, provide you with an accommodation, change something in the way he or she works with you?
7. What’s in it for my employer? Why would your employer help you? What does your company stand to gain from reducing or eliminating your problem?

In most cases of course when your employer provides help, he or she ends up with a more productive employee; however, what is the benefit? Will you be able to get more done? Will you improve your sales? Will the quality of your work improve? It can also be an opportunity to solve a problem, or improve the way the company does things. For example, one client who got help with his productivity, was able to help other colleagues, non-ADHDers, also improve theirs.

 It will really help to know your strengths to give you confidence when you see your employer. Be prepared to offer information on the solution you are proposing so that you don’t have to run after him or her a second time.

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A new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) lose approximately 22 work days a year! Imagine! That’s more than a month of productive time less than other people get to do their work, build their businesses, achieve their goals.

Of course, the study only focused on 8-hour work days. ADHDers lose productivity on their off hours as well, missing out on time for themselves and time to spend with their families. Entrepreneurs who typically work longer hours (because they have more to do AND because they love it) are probably losing far more of their time and energy into the productivity black hole.

Poor productivity and lost hours is one of the biggest complaints my ADHD clients come to me about. They often feel that time just slips through their fingers despite their best intentions, often leading to feelings that they aren’t living up to their full potential. Of course, it’s pretty hard to live up to your potential when you only have 11 months to do a full year’s work! The good news is that for adults with ADHD, with help to implement ADHD-friendly tools and strategies, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Once my clients learn to work with their ADHD instead of against it, they are amazed at the dramatic difference it makes in their lives, both at home and at work. It also often astounds me just what adults who have learned to work with their ADHD are capable of achieving. My clients frequently report productivity leaps using these special strategies and tools that let them deliver 8 hours worth of productivity in 5 hours.

Of course, as this WHO study proves, results like these are impossible to achieve without ADHD-friendly strategies. My clients learn to:

·        match tasks to their energy flows,

·        create systems to reduce or eliminate lost productivity,

·        eliminate procrastination

·        better prioritize so they work smarter instead of harder,

·        reduce or eliminate distractions,

·        master self-control and self-management, and to

·        take advantage of productivity tools and systems that protect your productivity like Fort Knox.

If you, like many of my clients, face ADHD or “entrepreneurial ADD” every day, and you’d like to learn more about how these ADHD-friendly productivity enhancing strategies can change your life, please enroll in this easy to follow email course (ecourse) at http://www.productivitymythsbusted.com

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Here’s what one ADHD adult wrote about managing her communication skills at work: 

I have a hard time communicating at work.  Most people don’t understand me.  I process information differently than most people do, I get bored with repetition.  I have trouble communicating even though I know what I want to say but when I begin speaking I get tongue tied and nothing comes out right.  I think it’s because I am so concerned about loosing focus and getting off subject…something I do all the time. How do you manage your ADHD at work?

My answer:

Many of my clients have this type of issue. The ADHD brain continues to process what is being said and so misinterpretations happen. You’ve actually mentioned one of the best ways to avoid that:

1) summarizing what you’ve heard. You might say: “so the decision is…, do I understand this correctly?” and you may want to check if it’s ok to discuss outside of the meeting.

2) don’t be shy to ask questions. A lot of my ADHD clients are afraid to ask any questions because they think it’s not normal to do that or that they’ll embarrass themselves or look stupid. Reality check! we all need to ask questions sometimes.

3) ask them to summarize what they understood of what you said: “I just want to make sure that I communicated effectively to you what I was trying to say. Could you recap what I just said, please”. Communication breakdowns don’t just happen to ADHDers, in fact, with the crazy busy life we lead today, many people find communication difficult. So it doesn’t sound ”abnormal” to ask to summarize.

Finally, if you don’t put yourself under stress to capture absolutely everything that is being said, you’ll be able to better relax when you speak to people and a relaxed brain is able to absorb information much better than when it’s under stress.

Tell me what you think? Are there other issues you have that you’d like addressed in this blog?

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According to research quoted in Dr. Russell Barkley’s new book on adult ADHD, there are 8.1 percent of adults with ADHD in the U.S. Given the similarities in our ancestries, it’s also safe to believe that these figures may be similar north of the 49th parallell.

Oddly enough there are still some people who question whether it exists. They question its existence because there are no “objective tests” to identify ADHD. While it’s true that there are no blood tests or x-rays used to diagnose ADHD, when groups of adults with ADHD are compared to groups of adults without ADHD, SPECT tomography (by the way that is an objective test) shows a REAL difference between the brains of ADHDers and non-ADHD adults. Unfortunately the same test cannot be used to diagnose it in one adult because the differences in an adult cannot be compared since no human brain is exactly the same.

So health professionals who diagnose adults with ADHD by taking inventory of their symptoms and use a series of questionnaires, as well as, family, academic, social and work histories, and cognitive and attentional tests.

This work up is a lot more than what is used to diagnose another ailment that no one seems to dispute: the “common cold”, which if you remember is diagnosed using signs and symptoms described by the patient. There is no blood work or X-ray used to diagnose the “common cold” when you go to the doctor.

So just because there is no objective test doesn’t mean adult ADHD isn’t real. There is real pain and real suffering and ADHD adults suffer even more by not being able to get the help they need because they can’t “come out” of the dark.

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We often hear that success in sports starts with “a love of the game.” I don’t think that’s true.

Why? It’s easy to love the game. The game is exciting. Not everything that’s easy is bad (work smarter, not harder… right?), but in sports most people love the game. That’s why they play. But do they love the practice? The practice is boring. The game is a rush. The practice is mind-numbingly repetitive. The game gets all the glory.

I firmly believe that entrepreneurial success is inevitable if you’re doing what you love. However, if you want to know if you’re doing what you love, ask yourself, “Do I love the practice?”If you choose your “game” based on your values, and interest and you work with your strengths, you’ll love the practice AND the game.

To your Focus! Action! Success!

Linda

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