Why can't every day be like yesterday?

I don't know that I have ADD, but I definitely have concentration problems. Could be job burnout, who knows? It can take me 10-12 hours to do 6 hours worth of work because I keep stopping to do other things - surfing the web because an idea popped in my head and I have to take care of it NOW, or "gee, the garbage needs taking out, it can't possibly wait a couple of hours," or "I'd better check the mail as soon as it gets here." Then I get sidetracked and my work day stretches later and later into the day, until it's 9:00 at night and the kids are heading to bed and nothing besides staring at a computer all day as been accomplished.


Yesterday I set the timer for 1 hour increments and wouldn't let myself stop working until the timer rang. Sometimes it went off and I was in the middle of a report so I worked more than an hour. Sometimes I finished a job 5 minutes before the hour, so I gave myself an early break, but it evened out to hour stretches of work at a time. I didn't start until 10:30 in the morning. I was done by 5:30.


If I can do it once, why can't I do it every day and have time for me and my family, like people who work a 9-5 job away from home do? If I could tell my brain "just wait, take care of everything when you're done work, and work will go faster" life could be so much better.

It's my work habits that cause a lot of frustration for me, because I don't have long stretches of down time. It's like I'm either sleeping or sitting at the computer, and when I'm not at the computer, I'm thinking I should be and getting ahead because I know I'll be dragging my feet later.

Last night I was able to set up three tents, walk to the library, stop at the grocery store, play computer solitaire, surf the web, watch some TV, and chat with my daughter online. I was able to accomplish that with nothing more than a timer and determination, so I have to rule out formal ADD, since I can do it without anything stronger than a cup of coffee in my system (actually no coffee yesterday). Now, how to do it on a regular basis, that's the question.


P.S. Time to shut down the PC window and get that timer cranked up.

Way to go wi_fighter! Look at you go.

Hey, now that you know you can do it, maybe it will be easier to get done more frequently. Baby steps. You should be (and I hope you are) very proud of yourself after yesterday. You're doing great! Don't beat yourself up over a bad day. Each day is new and fresh with no mistakes.

It worked again today.

My biggest downfall is getting distracted by the Internet. Since I work online, it's a reallllly big distraction. There's no escaping it. I have to keep up this running dialogue in my head that it will still be there when I finish work.

I need to keep this up so when the kids are back in school I can get my work accomplished between 8:00 and 3:00. I know it CAN be done, it's just a matter of doing it. I get soooo easily sidetracked. I want to try and hang up work early while there's a few weeks of summer vacation left, so I can do stuff with the kids on more days than just the two remaining weekends.

I hope no one thinks I'm making light of ADD. I know some people don't have a choice but to take medication. I could probably use it myself, but I can't. I have to self-medicate with caffeine and Sudafed instead and hope for the best.

Yay for you once again! You're doing great! Pretty soon this will be a habit. Way to go!