Adult ADD Strengths

Adults with ADHD aren’t the only people who have problems with clutter, but we seem to have more problems than most people do for a variety of reasons. I.e., being more impulsive, distractable, disorganized and having more trouble than most people doing boring repetitive tasks, ie cleaning up stuff around the house.

One thing I’d emphasize is the importance of doing one room at a time. Or a portion of the room. Bite off a small sized chunk vs trying to eat the whole elephant at once. ADDers can often see the entire picture and get overwhelmed by it instead of seeing just one piece and working on that.

Great ideas are conceived and subsequently lost in the hands of creative geniuses, everyday. Frustration, rationalization, and despondence loom as creative people jump from idea, to idea, to idea… and fall short of actually making ideas happen. It is a shame that most creative breakthroughs never materialize.

via Kineda

Now this sounds like it was written for adults with Attention Deficit Disorder doesn’t it? While lost creative ideas aren’t solely the domain of adults with Attention Deficit Disorder, they probably occur more frequently with us, and cause us more grief than non ADDers

The Action method is a method of productive creativity by a company called Behance.

Serial Filler talks about the true cost of stuff.

It takes time and energy to take care of stuff. Physical stuff, intellectual property, outdated issues, unresolved traumas and conflicts, even memories. I have a choice: caretake my past or build my future.

How true. Many of us ADDers like the stimulating process of accumulating physical and intellectual things, (something new! cool!) and fail to consider the true or full costs of those things beside their initial purchase or creation prices. Which in the long run is often the smallest cost.

Every posession you have you need to:

• find a place to keep it, and in doing so reduce your available space to move in.

Chris Pirillo was here in Vancouver with Ponzi recently to speak at the Northern Voice blogging conference. He also did the Chris Pirillo show at the Take 5 Coffee shop downtown the night before Moose Camp. Chris talks with Vancouver blogger Will Pate, Scott Beale from Laughing Squid and Identity Woman, and myself.

Chris needs no introduction to those of you involved in the high tech world. For the rest here’s a line from his bio

The geek among geeks: technologist, television host, magazine columnist, blogger, author, and entrepreneur.

He’s the #1 search for Chris on the internet. He runs the Gnomedex conference, the Lockergnome content network, a podcast show, and his own blog and more.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity is a book by David Allen on the topic of productivity that is a big hit in the blogosphere and there are several blogs that have been inspired by GTD. I particularly like his idea that we shouldn’t be relying on our memories to remember to do items and if we have a system to keep track of all the loose bits of data we have to do AND WE REVIEW IT REGULARLY, it frees up psychic space in our brain that we’d otherwise use to keep reminding us to do things (usually at times when we can’t). He also has a good visual matrix to process incoming information into logical areas. While their are core principals to the process, there’s a lot of room in flexibility in actually implementing it.

TA-DA Lists is a free online to do list program. Allows you to do a basic to do list, and leave it on the web so you can access it from work, home or cell phone. It’s a hosted service no software to install and you can keep the lists private or public, even subscribe to your list in RSS. It’s a very basic program there are many more comprehensive ones but sometimes basic is all you need.

Created by 37 Signals the creator of Basecamp business project management software.

Want to catalogue every book, movie, music, and video game that you own digitally? Have a Mac and a firewire camera? Try Delicious Library.

You can use the webcam to scan the barcodes and it builds a searchable digital library, creating covers to be used on your digital bookshelf or ipod. You can even track items your friends borrowed. Via squee.gee at Core77.

Sometimes people with ADD have been known to by more than one book. I’ve had up to 3 copies of the same book (I read a lot and have too many books). It can be difficult for someone with Attention Deficit Disorder to organize their library and remember what they have if they buy a lot of books. This is an easy way to organize and keep track of all your digital collectables.

From Professional organizer Daine Halley.

Want to win 8 hours of free organizing? Do you live in the greater Vancouver area?

The Professional Organizers in Canada, BC Chapter are having a Messiest Closet Contest.

When I mentioned this at my Vancouver Adult ADD Support Group Meeting on Tuesday, seemed liked there were a lot of willing contestants:)