How Do You Get Work Done?

canuck asks: "I am currently a university student and have a major problem: being able to simply sit down and get work done. I can set aside a day to work, whether it is homework or contract work, and I will be lucky to have an hour done before dinner time. The only time I can actually get solid work done seems to be after midnight under a lot of pressure (ie. a deadline the next day). This has led to too many 5 a.m. nights and turning down too many invitations to go out only to stay in and accomplish nothing. I have stopped playing games, stopped watching TV, tried reading the Seven Habits book, and am currently seeing what classical music does for me. I don't think I have ADHD, and I am not sure what else to try. If it is computer work, the web is always a click away, and I can always escape to my imagination. I know many of you will have had the same problem. Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem, be it a little trick, medication, or anything else?"

I would recommend some exercise

Exercise would be my first recommendation. It will keep your sleep habits in line pretty well. Physical activity seems to be what's missing from most of our lives today. If I don't make it to the gym, my schedule will slip quickly to 1AM, 2AM, 4AM...which isn't good since I left college years ago ;-) The other thing I would recommend is finding a buddy to go do exercise with you. It helps if you're both accountable to each other for showing up. And just having someone to do it with you doesn't hurt. This carries over to work as well. I'd imagine you sit there thinking about a million things, but you can't concentrate on what you need to do because it seems like you can put it off. The later, you wind up with many things to do and little time. You get a bunch of work done at this point, but there's so much you have trouble keeping up with it. I had the very same problem in college. Another thing that might help you is getting a job a couple hours a week. As long as I've had something constant to do, it's kept me going. Just don't get something that follows you home...go there, do your work and then head to class or do some homework. Honestly, part of it is just sheer will as well. You have to resist the urge to just read a page and put stuff down. Set a bedtime for yourself and a wake up time for yourself and follow them. That's about the best advice I can give you. If you do have some mental disorder such as ADHD only a psychologist can diagnose it. Although many times it's over diagnosed.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

Recommend exercise on /.? R u nutz?

ya u r right, we dun like even typing in all the lettrs.

An easier solution

Stop posting to slashdot asking why you aren't getting work done.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

Uh, I have heard quotes that the lethal dose is anywhere from 4-8 grams of caffeine.

The LD-50 is 10 grams: [geocities.com]

The LD-50 (lethal dosage that would kill approximately 50% of the population) is 10 grams of oral administration. This is equivalent to approximately 100 cups of coffee, or 50 Vivarin pills. One exceptional case documented survival after ingesting 24 grams of caffeine. The minimum lethal dose of caffeine given intravenously was 3.2 grams.

While coffee drinkers often have caffeine blood concentration of about 1-10 mg/L, a concentration of 80 mg/L is considered lethal.

And like the poster before me said, that would be 100oz.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

How the hell do they know that?

Doctorr: So if you press this button, the life support system will dispense Morphine.

Patient: Well, what does this button do?

Doctor: Oh, don't press that. That's the caffeine button.

(Patient pushes button).

Patient: Ah yes, that's the stuff.

Doctor: Jeez! Are you crazy!?! In your condition?

(Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....)

Re:I would recommend some exercise

I would NOT recommend caffeine of any kind. In fact, stop drinking it all together. I used to have the same problem you did, and nothing seemed to be able to change it. There have been many threads on ./ about the effects of caffeine, and for more information I suggest looking there. Basically, when you need sleep and take caffeine, the caffeine blocks your body from feeling tired, while still having all of the effects of drowsiness. You're brain is asleep, but your body is awake and you lose cognitive functions.

I used to be very addicted to caffeine, but quit because if i missed drinking coffee or a coke, I started to get horrible headaches, and it just scared me too much. As an added bonus, my productivity shot up quite a bit. It really is all about regulating sleep for maximum concentration. I highly recommend a normal sleep schedule and stay away from caffeine. (IANAD)

Re:I would recommend some exercise

I don't think the problem here is lack of energy, but rather procrastination. People procrastinate for various reasons. Whether you absolutely hate what you have to do, or whether you are sure that whatever you come up with will not be acceptable in quality, at which point you blow it off til 1AM the night before, and blame subpar results on not giving it much effort in the first place.

A better approach would be trying to analyze why exactly the author of this Ask Slashdot is pushing work off til the last possible moment.

This [amazon.com] book might help him get a firmer grip on understanding the exact reason. It has a chapter on procrastination and seems to address exactly what he described.

Good luck.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

There's a split here between those who look for moral explanations, and those who look for explanations in substrata.

I'd try changing diet and habits like caffiene first. Attentive mechanisms in the brain are neurochemical, like everything else in the brain. I know it's a horrifying idea for some, but the fact is that we are physical, material beings, and our minds and personalities are products of that physicality. If those basic changes don't help, then it's appropriate to look at self-help or personality-based issues. But all the self-help in the world won't do a bit of good if you're going against hardware.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

Mind and body are really one and the same; the split between them is artificial. So changing diet, exercise, etc., will not just improve the physical aspects of attentiveness but also the mental/emotional. I think as you exercise more, quit caffeine, or eat better, you might find that your motivation increases and you may find yourself facing the emotional challenges in your personality in a healthier way.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

I agree with this 95% - but I think a hardware/software metaphor isn't too stretched here. There are some "levels of analysis" that are more effective at the software/mind/thought/personality level, and some that are more effective at the endocrinology/neurology/physical health level.

But one place, among many, that the metaphor breaks down in that there's a less graceful degradation in computer technology. A broken computer just doesn't work; there's only a limited range in which hardware problems will appear as system behaviour problems. A body which is having "problems" will still apparently continue to operate the same for quite some time, especially for very subtle things like concentration, attention, mental energy, etc. Because the brain and body degrade more gracefully, it's harder to distinguish between high-level and low-level causes for issues.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

IANAD either, but I find that caffine helps me in moderation. Moderation being what most /.'ers probably call insanely low levels ;-)

I drink 1-2 cups of green tea a day. This gives me a small level of caffine on a daily basis. If I miss a day or two, no problem, but if I miss a month or two, I start to see how my schedule slips.... I also try to get 8 hrs of sleep a night, etc.

Bear in mind, I do have ADD (official diagnosis), so your milage may vary.

I think too many people use Caffine as a way of staying awake when they should be sleeping. This is a big problem. Excersize also helps, but the caffine helps me too.

My general advice is:

1: Try to live a healthy lifestyle-- eat well, sleep well, excersize.

2: Small ammounts of caffine within this framework are not a problem but don't use it to abuse your body.

3: Experiment with avoiding things like tobacco, alcohol, caffine etc. and see how your body responds.

Re:pyDance or Stepmania

Actually, last year I went to RedOctane.com and bought to of their ignition 2.0 pads and a copy of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution), after playing DDR once in the arcade. It has made me much more fit and I have noticed a sharp increase in my energy levels and metabolism. It is not monotanous like exercise, and it is a quick 30 min, full-body cardiovascular workout (you must use your entire body to keep yourself balanced). I'd seriously recommend this to anyone, don't worry about looking foolish, once you get good at it you will be quite impressive. If you don't even want to initially invest the money in the pads, go to ddrfreak.com and try to find an arcade near you that has it, and spend one or two dollars to test it out. So far this year, I have gotten about 7 friends addicted to this game. My Computer Science buddies and I at Clemson play it during coding sessions to clear our mind, not to mention it's a good way to reward yourself for hard-work. -Justin Ames

Gumption traps

Some of the best advice I've seen in print is in Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". But the details are hazy, so I'll give you my persoanl take:

- if you're struggling within yourself, you're lost. Learn to recognise this mental state (of internal struggle) and drop it immediately.

- instead, look with detachment at the 'lazy' half of the struggle. The more clearly you see it, the less power it will have.

- once the laziness is clearly seen, visualise yourself beginning the task, in detail. You can do this lying in bed or anywhere, but the important thing is to get over the initial hump, and sort out a clear picture of the first steps you need to take.

It's this startup-barrier that's the real problem, but reducing it to a manageable size is just a question of thinking it out clearly (not sweating, exercising, or promising rewards or threats).

Re:Gumption traps

Excellent advice. I find that it's easy to leave important things on the to-do list if they're big and nebulous ("Do project X", "Solve problem Y"). But identifying the first small task can break the logjam. How many household chores are held up because the first step is "buy drain cleaner" or "find 3/4-inch screws"?

In the case of a student, maybe it's "look for book X in the library" or "re-read chapter Y", or "write some header comments in each file", or "write a function to parse these strings". After that, the other steps become clearer.

Thats a time management issue

I dont think its about time management, its about how you spend your time. You dont have to be organized, when I solve a problem I solve the complicated part first and then work on the easy part.

In school I read chapter after chapter just going right through the books staying a couple chapters ahead of the class, I then re-read or scan the chapter the test is based on and I pass the test.

Repeat that again, going chapter by chapter and then go backwards and rescan chapters when its test time but just read as much as you can at a time. Dont be precise, dont be like (I'm going to read exactly 2 chapters), instead be like (I'm going to read at LEAST 2 chapters)

Then just read until your eyes get tired, if you read 4 chapters, good, take a break; make a few posts on slashdot, play quake or some game, then open up the book again. Repeat this process for the entire day just switching from task to task, going back and forth when a task becomes so boring you cannot stand to do it anymore.

I can read for a good couple hours, maybe 3 tops, then I cant stand to turn another page and I come online. Sometimes talking to friends helps to get your mind off of it, so call a friend.

Other than that, just try to always be doing some kinda work, even when I post on slashdot I have about 5-6 webpages open where I'm doing research, I never just do a single task, when slashdot gets boring I go back to the research picking up exactly where I left off.

Re:Gumption traps

I'm sorry to say but, my inner greed trumps my inner lazy. Often times greed bitch slaps lazy because lazy doesn't seem to understand we have bills to pay.

Set smaller goals

"... reducing it to a manageable size..."

My wife has worked with ADHD kids and tells me this is the best thing she's seen to focus and motivate them to produce (other than intrisic motivation, which is of course the best motivator, but this technique does lead to intrisic motivation).

Think about what you should be able to accomplish in 15 minutes. Set an egg-timer for 15 minutes, and do that task you visualized. You can eventually work up to larger increments. You'll probably find yourself beating the timer in some cases.

I know it sounds simplistic, but knowing that pressure seems to be a large motivator for you, the motivation of knowing that bell is going to go off sounds like it might do the trick. This stuff works on adults as well as children. In my wife's experience, it's never failed her (with her students).

Re:Set smaller goals

I have severe ADD and a job that requires me to work independantly and get stuff done. I have been using an egg-timer that I have modified (busted) so that it is too quiet for my coworkers to hear outside of my cube. This keeps the lynch mobs at bay.

I keep a list right next to the timer and when something comes up that needs doing but isn't what is at the top of my list (a distraction), I write it down on the list. Since the egg timer interrupts me every few minutes, I don't find myself pissing away as much time when I do get distrsacted.

Another reason my mind wanders is boredom. I always make sure I switch tasks when the timer rings if I can switch and come back later without losing my place in what I was doing. That way, I am always doing something new and I don't just give up and go read slashdot.

This also helps with procrastination. I find it easier to start on even the most odious tasks if I know that in 10 minutes, I can put it down for a bit and catch up on my email.

Re:Set smaller goals

Since I've ADD, I think I've gotten to be an expert on motivation without really trying. I'd obsess over it. But so often I'd feel bad because it was so easy to forget all my plans and just do whatever.

The right motivation definitely made all the difference for me. It was about my values when it worked . I just had to decide the value of the kinds of things i found myself doing. When I started realizing all the missed oportunities I was creating by bouncing from thing to thing it straightened me out a bit. It was too easy to spend all afternoon playing quake (I didnt have the attention span for command and conquer :) )or whatever instead of doing homework... but when I realized what those activities were costing me in terms of missed opportunity it stuck with me more, not just with school but also with 'fun' stuff. It was much more rewarding for me to have a hobby than a tv or computer game habit.

That being said, medication helps. You might be hesitant to use amphetamines but I feel far more focused than if i had a cup of coffee. In fact, the coffee sometimes hurts more than it helps. There's two parts to it, which im sure healthy people feel to a lesser degree too- part one is getting excited enough to do anything other than space out(caffine helps) but part two is actually getting something done efficiently- i.e. reading a book and not having my eye bounce from paragraph to paragraph or skip around like crazy (caffine doesn't help much at all.) When i read for fun I'd almost never be able to read a book from begining to end. I'd hop around until the whole thing got read. Needless to say, I didnt read much fiction.

To the guy asking the question, theres only one guaranteed way to focus on college that I know of, and I've tried a lot of different things. Quit right now and get a job (probably a lousy one, but not for a lack of trying). Pay all of your own bills. Work 40 a week and try to be independant. Don't take any help from your parents. Just try it. Work retail or landscaping or something entry level. Try to picture your future. It will suck. If you were having problems deciding what you wanted to go into, you'll have less. You'll get the old-man-now-what-the-hell-did-i-do-with-my-life-sy ndrome at 19. It's priceless. You'll want out of such a crappy life and you'll learn whats important- you'll think a lot less of playing quake instead of studying.

It will light a fire under you. Look around in class and look whos always there, sitting in the front, arriving early and taking immaculate notes. You'll see a lot of thirty somethings and first-generation students, at least if you go to the right kind of school. You might have lived a comfortable middle-class existence up till now and you want to keep living it. Nothing wrong with that, but you can't forever, and some people never get a chance at all. The only risk is you'll never go back to school if you quit. Just make sure you have a plan for going back...loans whatever, savings. When you pay for it yourself you'll do better too.

Basically, life doesn't suck enough, or you haven't found a passion. It makes all the difference in the world. No mind tricks, just a nice reality check. You don't get a second chance at life so you better start deciding how to live it.

It's the only real thing that ever worked for me (my life sucking).

Re:Gumption traps

The ideas from "Zen..." are superb advice; the problem is that it's very hard to state them clearly and succinctly.

For me, guilt was always a reliable indicator--if I was feeling bad about something (whether it was something I was supposed to be doing, or something I had already done), then I knew I couldn't function effectively. As long as you are beating yourself up, there is no way you can do your best work.

I think this may be happening to you, because you state that you have stopped playing games and watching TV, which suggests that you are punishing yourself in an attempt to improve your behavior. This simply won't work, as you have observed.

Instead, when you find yourself struggling with these feelings, just stop it. Recognize that it is counter-productive to think bad things about yourself. Once you can dissociate your thinking from your emotional baggage, you really can see things much more clearly.

At that point, you can calmly decide to start whatever task is before you. Once you are over the initial hump, the momentum of what you are doing should carry you forward.

And do give yourself a break once in awhile. If you are not enjoying life, then what's the point of getting on with it? Good luck.

CANCEL YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION

The web is a massive time waster. I didn't
need it (didnt have it!) when I was in college.

Cancel it, or pick up a 2400 baud modem. You can use that to check your mail, but it will keep you off the web because it will be just to slow..

Now you can get your work done instead of reading Slashdot, and all sorts of other silly webpages..

Disconnect from the net

Actually he is right, moreso if he tweaks it just a bit by making it difficult but not impossible to access.

Want to get serious work done? Walk across the room and disconnect the network cable from the wall. Really need access (like to submit your homework, as you suggested) walk over and plug it in, submit your work, and then unplug it again.

For someone that is easily distracted, removing the ease of distraction (ie, a direct connect to the net) is better than Ritalin.

Re:Disconnect from the net

Want to get serious work done? Walk across the room and disconnect the network cable from the wall. Really need access (like to submit your homework, as you suggested) walk over and plug it in, submit your work, and then unplug it again.

This is exactly what I do. A small improvement on this is to get an X-10 computer interface, and connect the network cable to a 12V X-10 controlled motor (Lutron, Makita, etc.), so that instead of having to get up to plug/unplug it, you just press a key on your keyboard and it remotely and physically does it for you. Taking it further, you can set it up so that when your cursor hovers over Mozilla, it automatically plugs in the cable for you. It works really well, and as soon as I finish writing this, I'll get right back to that paper I'm supposed to turn in tomorrow morning!

Re:I would recommend some exercise

I have had similar experiences and I focus on two solutions:

1) Regular exercise (even 20 minutes of brisk walking each day can help) and keep the coffee consumption fairly low (it tends to make you scatter brained)
2) Break projects down into smaller chunks. For example, if you have 100 pages to read, break it down into 10 10-page chunks and do them one at a time with breaks in between. Or if it's a complicated project, break it into steps and follow a similar pattern.

The only other thing is to JUST GET STARTED. Sometimes the first chunk/step is the hardest step. Just do it, as they say....

Re:I would recommend some exercise

I have to agree with your "JUST GET STARTED" advice. That's the first thing I thought when I read this article. For me, I was often overwhelmed by the large scope of some projects, and I didn't know where to start. Or worse, I just didn't have the motivation to start.

But, if I just started doing some work, even if it was the most half-assed prototyping, my mind soon got into gear and I got going. It also helps me to start working when I think I don't have time for it, such as an hour before I had to go to class. The artificial deadline made me want to finish up whatever little task I had started before I went to class.

I've tried setting aside whole days for projects, and it never works. I always goof off because I feel I have so much time on my hands.

Re:I would recommend some exercise

I identify completely. For me the biggest hurdle to overcome is getting started because when I have some task that seems enormous, I get overwhelmed. I look at all the things I have to do rather than focusing on taking the first step. When I actually do get to it, I realize it's often not so bad, and after getting that first step done, I have a sense of accomplishment which pushes me to take the second step, the third, and so on...

I struggle with this in almost every area of my life: my professional career, work at home, spare-time hacking, even romance. The only way I can really get stuff done is to take it in chunks. The thought of cleaning the entire house may be daunting, but certainly the thought of loading the dishwasher isn't so bad. And after I'm done with that, mopping the kitchen floor isn't that big of a task, and so on....

Avoiding Distractions

You can put all your "distracting" applications into a group that your "work" login doesn't allow access to. You can remove the network cable except in specific pre-planned periods.

Nowdays I have to get a lot done, and there are a few things I've found very helpful (and believe me I used to do my homework in the lesson it was being handed in for 8))

- If I think of something else that needs doing I write it down, I don't start doing it disrupting the current task
- If I think of stuff late in the evening I write it down so I dont spent the night trying not to forget it
- Split big tasks quickly into a list of little subtasks, cross them off as you finish them
- Don't sit on irc , its the ultimate productivity killer and distraction bar none (some people seem to swear by putting all their non "work" stuff on a seperate desktop so its not in their vision except when they take a break)
- Remember you can read your email just once or twice a day. Ditto web news sites/slashdot
- Don't look at a pile of things and think I really ought to be doing something. Do *something* even if its pick the easiest looking task to knock off the list.
- When you build up a pile of tasks that can't be done in the required time (wait for final year university 8)) prioritize them and cross of stuff you have to discard, don't sit around doing nothing because you can't do them all.
- Get into a routine (I'm dire at this but when it works it helps). Get up read email, go do work the same pattern every day.

Ultimately though its about willpower., someone suggested exercise, one good exercise way to learn about relaxation and willpower is martial arts. Not all of them are about beating the crap out of people (although if you like that sort of competitive thing there are plenty to choose from), others like Aikido are much more about self control and at the extreme soft end they verge into deeply internal things like T'ai Chi .

some concrete mechanisms for that

Quoting the esteemed Mr. Cox:

If I think of something else that needs doing I write it down, I don't start doing it disrupting the current task

Get a tiny voice recorder. Not the 60+ minute digital dictation things, just a little one that captures 30-90 seconds of voice. I bought my first one of this VoiceIt model [vxicorp.com] for $40 7 years ago and it changed my life. I never EVER forget anything now (which has it's own problems :) because I can just dictate it into the voice thingy and transcribe it into the PDA/whatever later. If you rely on scribbling it down, you'll often fail right from the start because A) you'll forget before you get a slip of paper and pen, or B) writing isn't an option -- like when you're in traffic, mowing the lawn, etc.

It's critical that it be small enough (credit card sized) that you just carry it in your pocket everywhere, not just when you think you might have some bright ideas ...

Cell phones these days often come with a voice memo function, but that solution is often lacking due to A) size of cell phone and B) they won't store more than 5 discrete memos. I frequently have 10 piled up in my VoiceIt before I have a chance to sit down and transcribe into my PDA.

Remember you can read your email just once or twice a day. Ditto web news sites/slashdot

One way to effect this is to turn OFF automatic retreival of your email from your mail server. When you're ready to spend 15 minutes on reading and replying to emails, hit the "fetch" button. Auto-retrieval just breaks your concentration every five minutes.

And, finally, cable TV is evil. Cancel it.

Re:Avoiding Distractions

Alan! What the blazes are you doing surfing slashdot? Get back to work!

Re:I would recommend some exercise

Heavily agree with above posts.

In addition, to get your circadian cycle in sync (which gives you more energy) you can do these things:

1. It's more important to wake up at the same time. You can't always force yourself to sleep, but your body will entrain if you force yourself to get up at the same time each morning. That means NO sleeping in on weekends.

2. Expose yourself to light first thing in the morning. Preferably, I would suggest going outside but you can also get specific lights that simulate sunlight.

3. When you excerise, the best time to do that is several hours before going to bed.

Programmers tend to have delayed-phase sleep syndrome (which means we like to stay up late).
People who are delayed-phase, tend to migrate toward those jobs they can do at late hours and don't have to wake up at a specific time to do them.

a MUSICAL exercise and a question about ADHD

When I was a guitar major in college and had a rigorous night job, I had heard of this practice regimen put together by a well-known jazz guitarist named Howard Roberts (Hal Leonard Publications). He called it the "Superchops" program. You practiced an hour a day, six days a week for twenty weeks. It basically went something like this:

1.) Clear your work area of all things not pertaining to the lesson.

2.) Make a ten-minute recording of what you were going to play over.

3.) Stop. Make quick mental notes of what you are about to do.

4.) Play over the recording.

5.) Break. Two minutes. Put the guitar down, stand up and stretch, etc.

6.) Repeat #4 and #5 two more times. That's about it. The POINT is that an hour every day of something is much more beneficial than cramming a bunch of hours into one day, and provided you are not SUPER tired from what you were doing that day, your current physical condition shouldn't be a problem-exercise is good, of course :)

Try setting up a daily work regimen of whatever you are doing that has REALISTIC goals for daily achievement. It worked for me.

NOW ABOUT ADD/ADHD...and NO this is NOT FLAMEBAIT!

Ritalin is a class two drug with side effects similar to cocaine. [scetv.org] Frankly, no kid anywhere should be ingesting it, and neither should you.

My question is (and this is REALLY going to piss off some people), does ADD/ADHD REALLY EXIST? Is it an officially recognized disorder by the CDC or some other government body, or well-respected independent body? Or is this a massive bullshit campaign?

It is going to take a lot of convincing to prove to me that we are not just making excuses about why our kids can't concentrate in school, yet they can come home and concentrate on kicking my ass on Half-Life. Find me the links that show me that ADD/ADHD actually and truthfully exists. Better still, post decent links that outline BOTH sides of the debate.

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral. - Reverend Lovejoy

Chalupa

Re:a MUSICAL exercise and a question about ADHD

Ritalin is a class two drug with side effects similar to cocaine. Frankly, no kid anywhere should be ingesting it, and neither should you.

Definitely. Cocaine is much cheaper and easier to come by, and you don't need a Doctor's prescription.

Re:a MUSICAL exercise and a question about ADHD

My question is (and this is REALLY going to piss off some people), does ADD/ADHD REALLY EXIST? Is it an officially recognized disorder by the CDC or some other government body, or well-respected independent body? Or is this a massive bullshit campaign?

It's simple -- check the DSM IV. The DSM-IV is the fouth edition of the criteria professional psychologists use to diagnose mental disorders. It is essentially the bible of psychology. And according to the DSM-IV, ADHD does exist. The DSM-IV definition is apparently:

Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

* Persisting for at least 6 months to a degree that is maladaptive and immature, the patient has either inattention or hyperactivity-impulsivity (or both) as shown by:
Inattention. At least 6 of the following often apply:
-Fails to pay close attention to details or makes careless errors in schoolwork, work or other activities
-Has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play
-Doesn't appear to listen when being told something
-Neither follows through on instructions nor completes chores, schoolwork, or jobs (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand)
-Has trouble organizing activities and tasks
-Dislikes or avoids tasks that involve sustained mental effort (homework, schoolwork)
Loses materials needed for activities (assignments, books, pencils, tools, toys)
Easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
Forgetful
Hyperactivity-Impulsivity. At least 6 of the following often apply:
HYPERACTIVITY
-Squirms in seat or fidgets
-Inappropriately leaves seat
-Inappropriately runs or climbs (in adolescents or adults, the may be only a subjective feeling of restlessness)
-Has trouble quietly playing or engaging in leisure activity
-Appears driven or "on the go"
-Talks excessively
IMPULSIVITY
-Answers questions before they have been completely asked
-Has trouble or awaiting turn
-Interrupts or intrudes on others

* Begins before age 7.

* Symptoms must be present in at least 2 types of situations, such as school, work, home.

* The disorder impairs school, social or occupational functioning.

* The symptoms do not occur solely during a Pervasive Developmental Disorder or any psychotic disorder including Schizophrenia.

* The symptoms are not explained better by a Mood, Anxiety, Dissociative or Personality Disorder.

Code Number is based on the symptoms during the past 6 months:

314.00 Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Predominantly Inattentive Type. The patient has recently met the criteria for inattention but not for hyperactivity-impulsivity.

314.01 Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type. The patient has recently met the criteria for hyperactivity-impulsivity but not for inattention.

314.01 Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Combined Type. The patient has recently met the criteria for both inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity. (Most ADHD children have symptoms of the Combined Type.)

Specify "In Partial Remission" for patients (especially adults or adolescents) whose current symptoms do not fulfill the criteria.

Re:a MUSICAL exercise and a question about ADHD

I felt the same way as you regarding ADD. It doesn't really exist. As a matter of fact, I had the exact same argument: How can you not be able to accomplish something at school or work, yet play games into the middle of the night with unbreakable concentration?

Games are short term goals. The longest games last an hour or two at most. And even then, there are even shorter term goals within a single game. One could argue that FPS games have the shortest term goals of any game out there. Every second that you haven't been killed, you have reached a goal. If you happen to kill a person AND not get killed, you get two goals in one second! But I digress.

Work, on the other hand, often requires longer term goals. You have to spend many hours dedicated to one task to achieve a goal. One trick is to break that long term goal into several short term goals. Another trick is to take goals off of your task list. This is the one that I needed to do. I was getting so upset with myself for not working, when I thought I should be that it caused many internal problems. You have to know when to play and when to work. You must make it OK to enjoy life a little. I would always feel guilty about playing until I decided that it was OK to play online for a couple of hours.

The problem is not just one little thing that can be fixed with a pill. It takes training and self discipline... and a pill. For over 20 years I tried to convince myself that I did not have ADD, that I was just lazy. I joined the U.S. Navy to prove it to myself. Guess what? I have ADD. I need a pill to help my brain concentrate on one thing at a time. I sought help from a counselor, who then sent me to see a psychiatrist for one reason, and one reason only; to get a prescription for my ADD. You see, I am a smart guy, I have drive and determination, I am good at video games, but no matter how much I wanted it, or how much I tried, I could not stay focused on a single task for any length of time. I walked into the psychiatrist's office and we started chatting. Within 10 minutes she tells me that she knows what my problem is and has only one question to ask. She asked me, "So, how much coffee do you drink a day?" "Well, I don't drink coffee, I drink Dr. Pepper. And I drink about 3 liters a day."

Come to find out, caffeine has the same effect on the brain as Ritalin. There are actually about 7 different types of ADD, each with a different symptoms and treatments. The severe cases require Ritalin. Mild cases require exercise and counseling. I fall somewhere in the middle and take a different kind of medication. I am down to 1 liter of Dr. Pepper and two pills a day :) I will be on the two pills for the rest of my life. Which really stinks, but I am up for promotion, so I guess it doesn't stink to bad.

My advice, don't waste your life fighting a losing battle. Go see a counselor and find out how to fight your particular problem. I didn't want to admit to myself that I had ADD and it cost me some of the best years of my life.

Re:a MUSICAL exercise and a question about ADHD

I am a psych major, but I have to agree that ADHD is for the most part a scapegoat, I was diagnosed with it as a kid, but could sit on a computer, or infront of a book for 8 hours, oblivious to the rest of the world. So I'm guessing that I had the old cliche "not challenged enough" disorder instead. Yes, I'd say ADHD is something to label hard to handle kids, a nice diagnosis that allows them to be drugged into passivity for the benefit of over taxed teachers.

But, in my experience in clinics, and with some "problem children" ADHD is also a very real illness. Some children DO have it, and you can tell easily which ones have the label for convenience, and which one actually suffer. So you can't completely dismiss the disorder just because it has been misdiagnosed a signifigant number of times. Also in kids with severe ADHD you can see abnormality in MRIs and brain scans, so their is an undeniable physiological component, and a measurable chemical component to the real disorder.

I'd say that under 50% of the current crop of ADHD kids actually have a disorder, and the rest of them are just normal (or brighter than normal) kids who are bored or overly inquisitive.

With that out of the way, I'd say that under 50% of the current kids with REAL ADHD actually need drugs to control it, teaching self-discipline using coginitive conditioning works very well, and benefits them throughout their life, even when they "out-grow" ADHD. Sometimes drugs might be needed to stabalize them to the point where therapy is possible, but should not be continued past active therapy. Ridalin is not a panacea.

This really isn't the psychologist fault (some of it is), but the school systems. My parents were threatened with my expulsion if I wasn't doped up. The amount of pressure put forth by the schools is ultimately to blaim for this epidemic of ADHD cases. That and it enter the pop-psych movement, and the national psyche, making it a convenient scape-goat for the lack of self-discipline.

I can't find a link to an online DSM (the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic Criteria Manual) but it is a recognized psychiatric disorder. I have a physical copy, but no online copy, sorry. Do a search in google for "DSM online ADHD" and you can see that it IS officially recognized.