Sent to me by Longtime Buddy Mervyn:
AAADD – Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder
This is how it manifests . I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the front verandah table that I brought up from the mail box earlier, just after the mailman had made the delivery.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I put my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage bin beside the table, and noticed that the bin is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.
How to replace a jean button – that looks like a jean button. But, then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway (and the mailman picks up the mail at noon) I may as well pay the bills first. So, I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only 1 check left. My spare check book is in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke I’d been drinking earlier this morning.
I know I was going to look for my check book, but first I need to push the Coke can aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. The Coke is warm, so I decide to put it in the refrigerator to make it cold again. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the dining room table catches my eye — they need water.
I put the Coke on the dining room table and discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to put more water in the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the table, go to the kitchen sink to get a jug and fill it with water and suddenly spot the TV remote on the window sill. Someone left it there.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I’ll be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the window sill, so I decide to put it back in the living room where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers. I pour some water in the jug, but spill some on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the kitchen bench, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:
– the car isn’t washed
– the checks aren’t written for the bills to be paid
– there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the dining room table
– the flowers don’t have enough water,
– there is still only 1 check in my check book,
– I can’t find the remote,
– I can’t find my glasses,
– the garbage hasn’t been taken out
– and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I’m really tired now. I realise this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it.
As I replied to Mervyn, that’s actually quite a productive day… for me.
…and the hose in the driveway is still running.
I thought it was just me.
Seems I always have at least 12 projects going on.
Even though I work on all of them everyday none of them ever seem to get done and there’s always more projects being added to the list. One finally gets done and 5 more are added.
Sounds like my regular daily routine. I’ve got some things organized by day – if its Thursday I do the laundry, if its Friday I buy the weekly groceries. Sounds real good until I realize that I often don’t know what day it is.
One of those Breitling “Day/Date” watches is on my Bucket List, for that precise reason.
Add to the mix a wheelchair-bound – neuropathic – spouse (or a national government) and the charm and humor rapidly dissipate.
.
I can handle the task list. I organize and rehearse it in my head and I am good to go. The caveat is if only I am left ALONE. It’s the interruptions that are my downfall.
Knock at the door (rare)
Phone call (rarer still)
Honey do
Babysitting grandson (18 months old. Not his fault)
Fill in the blank.
Any one of these is enough to completely crash my train of thought and leave me sitting staring blankly at the wall, drooling. Now if y’all will excuse me, I should have shut off that sprinkler an hour ago.
I’d like to know how he managed to remember that list to narrate it.
Probably last week’s list. Or his wife was watching, and took notes.
The only bit missing is the one where he walked into the room and couldn’t remember what he wanted to do there.
I use a weekly planner to keep track of appointments and chores. On the side I write up my chores as a checklist then fit them in on days I do them or plan to do them. It helps. The weeks where I go without my planner/list I get sucked into videos of guns and history and such.
JQ
My suggestion would be to throw that ghastly planner in the trash. It’s interfering with your education.
The only way to ensure that things get done is to STOP MULTI-TASKING!
you’re right. I worked at a place that loved multi tasking. Management folks love it but it is really doing several things poorly at once.
JQ
I only ever do one thing at a time — just not completely.
What could I have possibly been thinking of that the toilet didn’t get flushed?