The new thing I added last week was a second med-day dose—that’s one 20mg tablet in the morning and a second 20mg tablet about six or so hours later. I’m not consistent the times I take them, but the idea is to take the second one about an hour before the first one wears off so I don’t experience the crash, but do continue to have the positive effects throughout the afternoon and into the evening. My schedule isn’t the same every day–although I do try to get up at the same time every day, my routine can vary greatly, so I can’t really have cues built into my routine for when I take my medication. It needs to be taken with food (or about a half-hour before eating), and meals are one of those routines that varies greatly.

I was in Redmond, Washington last week teaching SharePoint to Microsoft employees. Regardless of which time zone I’m in, I now try to keep my body clock on my regular East Coast time–yes, this means that I get up at 3am and go to bed around 9pm when I’m on Pacific time. Since I feel like I’m on top of my game when I’m front of the classroom, and I didn’t want to risk still having a lot of stimulant in my system at bed time, I skipped the afternoon dose on those days. However, I did take the afternoon dose the other days.

The afternoon dose has been a very positive thing. The positive benefits do in fact continue throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Before the afternoon dose, as well as before I even started the medication, I was usually exhausted by 8pm or so. I wasn’t sleepy, but just didn’t have energy to do much of anything except read and the regular base things that interested me. With this second dose I can easily help my wife with housework, do other creative work, and I’m more fully engaged with the people who are with me.

I do still experience the crash, but it’s typically around 10pm or 11pm. I’m usually not doing much at that time except winding down anyway, so it’s not too bad. I just experience a sudden and immense tiredness that lasts for about an hour.

I have noticed that a couple evenings I had a harder time getting to sleep than usual. I would lie in bed, I was tired, but it took me a while to get to sleep. This doesn’t happen every night, but it has happened some. I also don’t think it’s happened two nights in a row either. Perhaps it’s because I’m back on getting a regular 5- to 6-hours of sleep each night instead of 8-hours (you’ll remember this is where I function best). If I don’t sleep well one night, I don’t seem to have a hard time getting to sleep the next night.

Concerning my physical health, I continue to find that I have more willpower to consistently make high-protein/low-carbohydrate food choices. I reduced my weight by three more pounds. If you’re not keeping up with that, that’s a total decrease of 14-pounds in 4 weeks (although this was my fifth week on the medication, I didn’t start making diet changes until the second week). Exercise (or rather ‘physical activity’, since I hate the word exercise) has gone well too. When I was in Seattle, I had one free afternoon after I had everything set up for my class and I went for an hour-and-a-half hike in Bridle Trails State Park. I brought a redeye flight back home Friday night and I had about an hour to kill in the Charlotte airport, so I went for a 3-mile walk around the airport. I felt really good from all that too. Last night I went hiking on the trails around Radnor Lake in Nashville, TN. Although the physical benefits of regular physical activity have never motivated me, the mental benefits do. I had an especially stressful day yesterday and I really needed to expend some energy and spend some time in nature as well. Although I didn’t ‘feel’ like doing it, I think the Ritalin does strengthen my willpower and ability to say ‘yes’ to the right things.

I’ve been both humbled and amazed at the people that have connected with me through reading these blog posts. A lot of people have opened up and shared about their experiences with Adult ADHD and their experiences with medication too. Everyone isn’t as comfortable sharing publicly about their mental disorders as I am. I’ve vowed to keep their secrets though and I have no intention of breaking that. I’m very much enjoying those friendships (both old and new) and the fact that we can talk about the trials and triumphs associated with this disorder. I mention this as a public way of thanking those people for connecting to me, and also to let others who are reading this know that you can contact me privately to talk about your Adult ADHD experience and you can know that I won’t judge you, nor will I share anything you share with me. Life’s journey is much easier and more enjoyable when we don’t feel like we’re on the path alone.

I’ll close with a book recommendation. If you are an Adult with ADHD, the book More Attention, Less Defecit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD by Dr. Ari Tuckman (visit his blog for lots of great articles and his podcast)  is something you should definitely read. It’s written as a collection of many short articles, written and organized in a style for readers with ADHD. There is an entire section in that book on ADHD medications. If you’re not yet taking any medication for your ADHD, I want to suggest that you pick up this book and read that section so you have some good background information. Don’t depend on your doctor to know everything about ADHD medication or to share everything she knows with you—this is your life, your body, and you mind, and you need to empower yourself with as much knowledge about how it all works as you can.

Generally speaking, this week’s experience was the same as previous weeks and I seem to have settled into a bit of a groove with it. At first I thought that some of the benefits I was experiencing may be due to the placebo effect, but now I think they really are due to the medication’s physiological effects of Ritalin on my brain chemistry.

Because I had experimented with taking two pills on three mornings (by my doctor’s direction), my prescription was for 30-pills, and there were 28-days between doctor visits, I had to go one day without taking a pill at all. Since I feel the most “in the zone” when I’m teaching, I decided to make one of those days my day off the medication. The day went well, but I did notice that in the evening I was feeling more lonely and generally down, especially that evening.

I had another successful week eating a high-protein/low-carbohydrate diet and reduced my weight by another 3-pounds. That’s a total decrease of 11-pounds in 3-weeks. The Ritalin seems to strengthen my willpower and makes it much easier to make better choices, even while traveling.

Yesterday morning I had my follow-up doctor appointment. He was well pleased with my progress too. My heart rate and blood pressure was fine, he was really excited about my weight decrease, he was glad I was happy with the positive changes in my thoughts, and he was glad my wife was happy with the changes as well. Two weeks ago she mentioned to him at church on Wednesday night that she was much happier with me now. Yesterday he told me that was a really good thing because sometimes the person being treated feels great but his family is miserable. I’m thankful to have a doctor who is a brother in Christ to keep me in check and a godly wife to encourage me support me. These are two great blessings in my life.

My doctor has asked me to add a tablet in the afternoon, about an hour before my usual crash to keep the medication in my blood stream longer. Neither he nor I want the crash to happen in the middle of the work day and neither of us want it to happen in the early to mid-evening either when it may interfere with activities with my wife.

Yesterday was my first day taking an afternoon dose and it went well. I was really productive and focused all day long, even into the evening. I experienced my crash around 10pm and it seemed to be a harder crash than ones I experienced in the afternoons.

My doctor asked me about my sleeping patterns and I told him that has been fine. In fact, I’ve been able to get back on my 5- to 6-hours a night schedule which is typically where I function best—however, left to my own I can easily sleep (or rather lay there) for 8- or 9-hours just thinking and wear myself out for the day. I don’t think I slept much at all last night. I resisted the temptation to look at the clock and I think that for most of the evening I was in a state almost somewhere between awake and asleep but not entirely in either one. This is something I’ll need to continue monitoring.

This week I’ll be in Redmond Washington teaching SharePoint to Microsoft’s employees. I try to stay on my East Coast time schedule regardless of which time zone I’m in, so that means that I’ll be getting up around 3am. I’m not sure when I’ll eat breakfast or have my first caffeine, or when I’ll take my pills. I’ll just have to see how things work out. Also, I’ll be coming back on a red-eye flight. Those are always tough as well, especially since I don’t usually sleep well on planes. I’ll end up with about a 30-hour day between waking and getting to nap in my bed. So I think the time zone challenges and the cross-country travel will be huge things to deal with this week. I’ll let you know how it all went next week!

The big experiment for me this week was to try taking two pills in the morning—my doctor prescribed either one or two each morning. I did this for only two days and didn’t have a good experience at all. I felt very nervous and kind of light-headed all morning long and my afternoon crash was much worse than with only one. One day I had no caffeine and the second day I consumed my regular amount of caffeine and things were about the same both days. I couldn’t function well at all on that level of medication so I decided to go back to just on 20mg tablet a day.

In general I continued to have the same experience as in previous weeks. I was able to focus better and generally felt more positive and outgoing–the “subtle but significant” changes I’ve blogged about before. One day had some contracts to read and I noticed that I was able to focus and understand them much more easily than usual. I typically have to read, re-read, and sometimes re-read a paragraph yet again in a contract to understand it. A coworker even told me he had a hard time with those contracts so I felt that was a very positive thing.

On Sunday I didn’t feel like I took a pill at all. I woke up hyper-focusing on some negative things and noticed it was easier to ignore them right after taking my pill. Then it soon started back again. I wasn’t able to focus much in church either and I felt very frustrated most of the day. I didn’t experience the afternoon crash either. It was as if I hadn’t taken a pill at all that day.

I didn’t get in much exercise this week, so that could have been a factor on Sunday as well. I did work outside around the house installing new shutters and window boxes on the house, so that was physical, but not as exhausting as my usual hikes.

I was able to continue strictly on my high-protein/low-carbohydrate style of eating this week. I only reduced my weight by two-pounds, which was a little frustrating after the six-pound reduction last week, but that’s OK. We’ll see how next week goes. I do think the Ritalin strengthens my willpower in that area.

I’m teaching a SharePoint training class in Dallas, TX this week, so next week’s post may be brief as well since I don’t feel like I need any extra help when I’m teaching. I go back to my doctor next Monday and we’ll see if he wants me to stay on the same medication at the same level, wants me to add an afternoon dose, wants me to try a different medication, or wants to do something else. So I should at least have that to report.

I was teaching a SharePoint Training Class in Chicago for most of this week. I feel like I’m on top of my game when I’m teaching, so the thought had occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t take my “power pellets” this week (Note: some people call their antidepressants their “happy pills” so I now refer to my ADHD meds as my “power pellets”). My doctor wanted me to take either one or two each day, but my prescription was for 30-days and there are 28-days between visits. So in order to test this I’ll have to go without for a few days. I eventually decided that this early in the testing phase that I shouldn’t skip it and that I should stick with just one pill per day.

I noticed that I felt more outgoing and uninhibited this week. I’m not sure if that was due to the medication or due to the fact that I got a free upgrade on my rental car and I was driving a Dodge Challenger muscle car around all week. I found myself engaging strangers in conversation more easily and joking and picking with my students even more than I usually do. As usual, my students really enjoyed the class. In fact, since this is my blog, I’m going to toot my own horn a little and publish some of their survey comments about me as an instructor:

• Ricky – very upbeat and entertaining; obviously very knowledgeable of SharePoint; explained things well.
• Ricky was great. He is obviously very knowledgeable, and he does a good job of bringing tech-y stuff down to everyday user level.
• Ricky is knowledgeable and enthusiastic. I appreciate his flexibility in approaching the course content – he struck a great balance between the demos, lectures and presentations.
• Ricky kept everyone interested and entertained. He also provided real world examples to give us some kind of idea of how real businesses are using certain SharePoint features. I think Ricky did a great job in covering the material specified in the course outline and providing little bonus demos depending on the questions asked. I can’t think of anything at the moment that he should improve on.
• Ricky- good instructor very knowledgeable, the demos were very informative. He was a very good instructor.
• Ricky was excellent. No improvement necessary.

This brings me to another thing I’ve been experiencing that I attribute to the medication. I don’t seem to care nearly as much about what other people think. At one time I wouldn’t have posted those comments because I wouldn’t have wanted to appear proud. I would have thought about it, wrestled with the idea, and then decided not to. However, I feel like I’m going with my instincts on some things more now. I guess time will tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I know that people with ADHD are known for blurting out things without thinking about the consequences. I’ve always been exactly the opposite–I think carefully before I say almost anything. I choose my words carefully, I think about how others might respond, I think about my response, and their response to that. It’s kind of like a chess player thinking through the next several moves in a game of chess. I can do this quite easily and incredibly rapidly. Like most people with ADHD I do tend to interrupt people a lot when they are talking. This is because they’ve said something that has triggered a thought, I’ve thought several comments ahead about how it will play out, and now I can’t wait to make my comment. This was all nearly an unconscious thing for many years and a few months ago I became conscious of it. When I realized it, I asked my wife if she did that and she was amazed that I do it. I think this behavior is something I developed as a coping mechanism many years ago.

Although I’ve seen significant improvement in many areas, I feel like I’ve slipped in others. This morning I misplaced my wallet and spent about 10-minutes looking for it until I found it. Last night I let the dog out and forget about her until the neighbors found her up the street and brought her back home. Although these are things that are common for many people with ADHD, I’ve usually had systems to keep them from happening and now those systems seem to be failing a little more. Perhaps it’s just coincidental. I don’t know but I think it’s worth noting.

In spite of the failing systems, I feel happier in general. I’m much more care free. I’m not stressing about every little thing. I remember on my job interviews in the past, one of my weaknesses was that I was too detail oriented and that I needed to loosen up and allow myself to make more mistakes. I kind of feel like maybe I’m there now.

When I worked with the excellent productivity coach Tara Rodden Robinson a couple years ago, she pointed out to me that I had a lot of negative self-talk as I shared about myself. She mirrored some of my comments back to me and I was surprised–if someone else had said those same things I would have realized how negative that person was were about himself. I think I’m now thinking much more positively about myself and the things I do. I’m not sure where the medication fits in with that, but it’s significant and worth noting.

I think the biggest benefit for me so far is still recognizing that I’m tired and then giving myself permission to rest without feeling like I have to be doing something. I recognize both physical tiredness and mental tiredness as well. Before, I felt like I had to be constantly doing something. Now I don’t feel that need nearly as much. When I get tired I go rest. I realize that resting and recharging are two different things and I’m experimenting with some things that might help me recharge. I used to feel that I should be able to do mental work all day long. However, now I see that mental work is much like physical work, that I’m not a machine, and I can only do so much each day. I don’t have to feel bad about that, I don’t have to apologize for that, and I don’t have to cover it up. This is very empowering!

Another benefit last week was that I was able to get back on my high-protein/low-carbohydrate way of eating. It was rather easy for me to do this even though I was traveling. In the process I reduced my weight by six pounds! That was weight I had gained over the past month or so, but it was still good to be able to knock it off so quickly and to so easily get back on track. So I think the Ritalin has strengthened my willpower in this area.

I asked my wife for a comment on changes and she simply said, “You’re a lot nicer.” In the words of Captain Spock I find that, “Fascinating!”

I did discover one negative pattern yesterday. It wasn’t apparent when I was teaching last week, but in retrospect over the past couple weeks, I find that around 2pm in the afternoon I suddenly feel very tired. It seems to last for about an hour. I think this might be a ‘crash’ from the Ritalin wearing off about that time. My doctor said we may try adding a second mid-day dose after this first month trial. If this is a ‘crash’ and it is inevitable, then it would be helpful if that was closer to bedtime.

Next week I’ll be taking two pills each morning, 40mg, for most of the work week, so I should have some new things to report.

I’ve shared about several of my coping mechanisms for motivation and productivity here in the past, such as the First This Then That Technique and How to Power Through Email, Complex Projects, or Boring Tasks by Tracking Your Progress. I still use those techniques. In fact, I’ve discovered that what may work one day may not work another day, so I have to have a toolbox full of techniques so I can find something that works for me at the time. For the past few weeks I’ve been using a couple other techniques that have helped a lot two.

The “I’m Doing…” List
My regular readers know about how much I depend on lists and checklists for lots of things. I do have my regular GTD style next action list that I try to work from and that’s where most of my tasks come from. In the past I would just draw a line thrrough things on the list as I completed them (yes, I use paper for my task lists). I still do this, but now I also keep a 3×5 Post-It Note pad on my desk where I write down what I’m working on at the time. This is my “I’m Doing…” list.

When I select something from my next actions list to work on, I write it on my “I’m Doing…” list. The list stays close to me and in my field of vision. If I get distracted I glance down and see it and remind myself, “Oh yeah, I was ‘Responding to Don’s email about the article.’” When I see that I can usually get back on task. If the thing I got distracted by is actually worth doing later I’ll add it to my task list; either way, I’m usually able to quickly get back to my previous task without having to consciously try to remember what I was doing.

When I finish the task, I mark through it on both lists. If I do have to do something else in the middle I write that task down as the one I’m currently doing (occasionally, but rarely, I may have 3 or 4 things open on my “I’m Doing…” list. I only mark through an item when I’ve finished working on it, so it forces me to get back to what I was doing before. Another benefit of the “I’m Doing…” list is that at the end of the day I can see everything I accomplished in one place. This is encouraging as there is no doubt that I’ve been productive.

Ask Yourself, “If I Had Nothing Else In The World To Do But…, What Would I Do?”
This is a technique I use to help  overcome initial procrastination and overwhelm. Once I write an item on my “I’m Doing…” list, I still have to get started working on it. Sometimes this is easy, but other times it’s like pulling teeth to get myself moving on it–especially if it’s a big task or one that will require a lot of mental effort.

The conventional wisdom is to break these tasks down into smaller tasks, but this is often difficult to do as well. When I experience this, I ask myself, “If I Had Nothing Else In The World To Do But <the task I’m working on>, What Would I Do?” This helps me get into the mindset that it really is the only thing in the world I have to do; then I can usually break through my resistance barrier. Once I’m moving on the task and I develop a little mental inertia, I’m often able to keep working on it with little difficulty. If I get stuck again, I ask myself the question again.

Let Me Know How These Work For You
I hope you will give these two techniques a try and that they work as well for you as they have for me in recent weeks. If you do try them, let me know how they work in the comments. As always, let me know how you’ve modified these techniques to make them work for you as well.

I was introduced to her work about 8 years ago when I read her book The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life. As I worked through The Path, I learned a lot about my talents, skills, and calling and formulated my personal mission statement, “My mission is to Empower, Challenge, and Advance People through Technology for Personal Growth.” I soon shortened this to simply, “Empower. Challenge. Advance.” and it’s been the tag line of my blog ever since. If you haven’t yet discovered your mission in life, I would suggest you work your way through The Path as well; it really is a great book.

On Friday, February 17th, I was skimming through my Twitter feed while waiting on a flight in the St. Louis airport. I saw the following tweet from her:

I hadn’t yet read her book The Four Elements of Success, but I had read some of her tweets about it so I knew it had something to do with how the metaphors of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water relate to each individual’s success , but that was about it. I was extremely surprised to learn that I had won a free Path Elements Profile. At the time I didn’t even know what a Path Elements Profile was.

What is the Path Elements Profile?

The Path Elements Profile is a short online assessment that takes about 10- to 15-minutes to complete. The assessment consists of 16 four-word sets. In each set, you rank the four words in the order with which they describe you most. It’s incredibly fast, easy, and doesn’t take a lot of thinking—in fact, you don’t want to over-think it all.

When you finish the assessment, you’ll receive a 13-page report with lots of great information to help you better understand how you relate to the world around you. It’s kind of like what you would get with other “personality tests” such as the Myers Brigs Type Indicator, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or the Five Factor Model, except that the analysis centers around the metaphors of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water.

My Results

When you finish the test, you’ll find that you have Essential Elements, Moderate Elements, and Different Elements. Earth is my essential element, Water is my moderate element, and Wind and Fire are both different elements. This means that I most strongly exhibit many of the behaviors associated with the element of Earth, many of the behaviors associated with Water, and very few of the behaviors associated with Wind and Fire.

I felt the assessment was quite accurate for me. It correctly identified many of my strengths such as:accurate with details, organized and scheduled, analytical, factual, satisfied, consistent, and trusting. It also identified many of my challenges such as: boring, perfectionist, emotionless, self-critical, passive, and complacent. As I read over the strengths and challenge of Fire and Wind types, I could recognize why I often clash with people who exhibit many of those strengths and challenges.

One particular section that stood out said, “Earth can be more successful if it will: Loosen Up – and Open Up!” I remember very early on after meeting my wife she told me, “You need to loosen up!” and she’s been reminding me of that for over twenty years now.

Three full pages of the profile explains how my profile type tends to respond in a variety of situations such as Adventure, Anger, Conflict, Fear, Fun, and Leadership. I found the insights in this section to be both confirming and eye-opening. In the section on communication it said, “Relies on written or verbal, not physical, communication.” In the Leadership section it said, “Does not respond well to emotional, undisciplined leadership.” I’ve always considered bold displays of emotion and lack of discipline to be childish and repulsive, but couldn’t have put it in these words before seeing this.

At the end of the profile are 8 questions to answer and work through. four questions are in the area of your strengths and four of them in the area of your challenges. As you work through these questions you’ll create a plan for growth and improvement. This is incredibly valuable and something that I’m sure I’ll be mindfully working on over the next year or two.

Summary

It costs $49.00 $28.99 for a Path Elements Profile. I probably would not have paid for one before I won one. However, after receiving the results, and working my way through the growth and improvement plan, I’m confident that I’ll get far more value out of it than it would have cost. So, yes, I do believe it would have been well worth the cost to help me see myself in a different way. It’s incredibly hard for us to get an outsiders view of how we work and interact with others.

Having said that though, it will continue to be important that I continue to review and work in the areas I’ve already identified in my growth and improvement plan. I think that without work in this area, the profile is fun and interesting, but it won’t make a lasting improvement on my life and the lives of those around me.

That afternoon, a good friend sent me an Instant Message inviting me to a concert.  I typed my reply, “I really wish I could, but I’ve got some work I absolutely have to get done tonight.” I was about to press the Enter key to send it when I had a thought, In five years will I remember that I worked late tonight?

I have no idea what inspired that question to pop into my mind, but in an instant I realized that in five years I would have absolutely no recollection of working that night or what I had accomplished. However, if I went to the concert, I would probably still remember it five years later; my friend would probably remember it too. Sure, there were some benefits to working late too.

I held down the backspace key and began typing again, “I would love to! Thanks for thinking of me!” We had a great time at the concert and just hanging out together. I’m so glad I went.

And the fallout from the work I didn’t have done wasn’t nearly as bad as I had originally imagined  in my mind. I still had time to do some of it, even though it wasn’t as polished as I originally wanted.

So, what opportunities do you have today? Which ones will you remember in five years? Which ones will you choose?

About twenty years ago I worked with my Dad installing fire sprinkler systems. One time we were doing an inspection in a very large manufacturing plant. The plant  had signs posted every fifty-feet or so throughout the plant that said, “Motivation is not an external pressure applied, but an internal force released.” That phrase stuck in my mind and has been with me ever since.

If that statement is true, then how do I release that internal force of motivation?

Like a geyser, sometimes the pressure has to build up before it can be released. Once there is enough pressure, or a small puncture, it will be released. Until then, there is no evidence of motivation.

Sometimes I’ll build up pressure through procrastination. This is a bad way to build the pressure. I wait until something absolutely has to be done and I’m experiencing the pressure of a looming deadline; that releases my motivation.

Sometimes I’ll build up pressure by starting something small. If I have a report to write, I might begin by telling myself, I don’t have to write the report, but I’m just going to open Word. Maybe I’ll save a blank document with the filename of the report. Then before I know it I’m writing the report. The idea is to find the smallest activity I have the energy to do; once I get started, the rest of my motivation can then be released. This is like sticking a pin in a water balloon to get my motivation flowing, then, as it flows, the pinhole gets larger and I have more motivation flowing out.

Sometimes I need to build resolve by doing something totally unrelated to what I need to do. Resolve can be related to motivation, but it’s not exactly the same thing. Resolve means, “to come to a definite or earnest decision about. To build resolve, I sometimes use a technique I call the First This Then That Principle. I then use the resolve to release motivation.

There are three very simple steps to apply the First This Then That Principle:

1. Make a statement about what you are going to do. This is the action that you are resisting. The more specific the statement is, the better it is. It could be something like, “I’m going to work on my income tax returns” or “I’m going to write the report”. Those are both OK, but if you can make it a small definite action (like I mentioned in the “Start something small” section above) it would be even better. Consider something like, “I’m going to gather the necessary income tax forms” or “I’m going to locate the statistics for the report.” This is the “That” part of the equation.
2. Do something you aren’t resisting. While you’re doing it, periodically remind yourself what you’re going to do as soon as you finish. This action could be something like walking around the block, driving to the coffee shop, taking a nap, reading a chapter in a book, watching a television show, or just about anything you aren’t resisting. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a productive task. A 10- to 20-minute activity usually works well for me. If the action is too brief, like a quick trip to the bathroom or getting a cup of coffee, you may not have enough time to build much resolve. If the action is too long, like going to the movies or walking for an hour, you may use too much energy on the activity and not have the energy you need for the activity you need to do. This action is the “First This” part of the equation.
3. As soon as you finish the first activity, immediately start what you originally planned to do. Make the transition immediately. If you need to work on your taxes, and you chose to walk around the block first, then as soon as you walk back into the house, sit down at your desk and start gathering the tax forms. If you need to write the report, and you chose to watch a video first, then as soon as the credits roll, go to  your computer and start locating the statistics for the report. It’s very important that you do this action immediately. Don’t check email first, don’t check Twitter, don’t go the bathroom, don’t get a cup of coffee. When the first activity is done IMMEDIATELY start the next activity. The momentum will mix with your resolve to release your motivation. This immediate transition becomes the “Then” part of the equation.

So, give the First This Then That Principle a try the next time you have difficulty motivating yourself to do something. If it works for you, let me know in the comments. If it doesn’t, let me know that too. As always, I welcome any other questions and comments you may have too.

Now, I need to document the steps in a SharePoint Administrator Training lab project; first I’m going to take a walk and then I’m going to log into my virtual machine.

However, I do set goals for things I would like to achieve over the course of the year. In recent years, I’ve fallen short of several of my goals in several areas. I’ve met some of my goals, but I haven’t done nearly as well as I would have liked.

My Weekly Goals

Usually I’ll set a goal for things like a certain weight I would like to achieve or certain projects I would like to finish or other similar things. Since my diagnosis with Adult ADD (Attenion Defecit Disorder), I’ve been thinking about things in terms of the amount of attention I give them. This has led to a change in my goals for 2012 and how I track those goals.

I’ve given myself a set amount of attention I would like to apply to in certain areas on a weekly basis. Here are those areas:

• Work 5-hours on Mindful Worship
• Work 5-hours on Spears Technologies
• Work 5-hours on my college studies at West Coast Bible College
• Create something worth sharing
• Hike for 3-hours
• Eat high-protein/low-carbohydrate for 5-days
• Interact socially for 3-hours
• Encourage others 10-times

There are other areas of my life I want to work on, but these are the areas I’ve fallen short in the most over the past year and want to work on this year. I’ll probably add more areas later on, especially as I find better ways to quantify the amount of attention I invest in the area.

Why Have I Chosen A Weekly Break-Down of Attention Invested?

I’ve wanted to bring my goals down to an area where I feel like I have more control and I can invest more energy and attention. For example, you’ll notice that two of my goals are related to health and fitness (hike for 3-hours and eat high-protein/low-carbohydrate for 5-days). Ultimately, the results of this will be reflected in a decrease in my weight. However, if I set a goal to decrease my weight by a certain number of pounds, it’s easy to get discouraged if I do well and don’t see the decrease in weight (or as rapid a decrease as I would like). However, by doing these two things consistently on a weekly basis, I know I’m moving toward an over-arching goal of improved health and fitness.

Last year I set a goal to publish 25 new Mindful Worship meditations; I only published one and that was way back in January. I also set a goal to write a book in the area of Christian meditation and I didn’t do any work on it at all. Both of these things are too big for me to get my around fully and although I know they are achievable, they seem too big and it’s easy to get discouraged and sidetracked.

I’m Tracking My Goals with Grades

Each of these goals is an ideal. I realize that I’m not going to meet each of these goals every week—it’s just not possible. So, I’ve decided to give myself a letter grade in each area. Here is how those letter grades are calculated:

• Work 5-hours on Mindful Worship
  Grades: 5=A; 4=B; 3=C; 2=C; 1=D; <1=F
  
• Work 5-hours on Spears Technologies
  Grades: 5=A; 4=B; 3=C; 2=C; 1=D; <1=F
  
• Work 5-hours on my college studies at West Coast Bible College
  Grades: 5=A; 4=B; 3=C; 2=C; 1=D; <1=F
• Create something worth sharing
  Grades: Yes=A; No=F
• Hike for 3-hours
  3=A; 2=B; 1=C; .5=D; <.5=F
• Eat high-protein/low-carbohydrate for 5-days
  5=A; 4=B; 3=C; 2=C; 1=D; <1=F
• Interact socially for 3-hours
  3=A; 2=B; 1=C; .5=D; <.5=F
• Encourage others 10-times
  9-10=A; 7-8=B; 5-6=C; 3-4=C; 1-2=D; <1=F

Most weeks, I should be able to reach a satisfactory “C” level in most of these areas. In fact, I should be able to reach excellent “A” or great “B” grade in most of them. Some weeks I will find that I need improvement “D” or totally fail “F” in an area, and that’s OK and to be expected. No one is perfect. However, by investing a small amount of attention in each of these areas each week, I know that I’ll be moving in the direction I want to move in regarding these areas of my life. A lower grade just means I’m not moving as quickly as I would like while a higher grade means I’m moving along at a good clip.

The other nice thing about weekly grades is that I start with a fresh slate each week. I may get a “D” or “F” in an area one week and then get two or three “A”s in following weeks. By starting each new week with a clean slate, I’m motivated to do some work in that area the next week.

At this point, I do plan to calculate monthly and quarterly summaries.

Questions and Comments

I’ve read dozens of books on motivation, organization, and goal setting. I don’t recall reading about anyone else setting and tracking goals exactly this way, so you may have some questions. If you do, please ask them below. You may have questions about how I chose a particular goal or the details behind one. Ask that below too. You may have ideas for how to expand on this idea; if you do, please share those below for others’ benefit.

The Liberation of an Adult ADHD Diagnosis

Let me begin by saying that there is something very liberating about my diagnosis. I don’t see my ADHD as a disability in any way—in fact, just like with Steve Jobs, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and Albert Einstein, I feel it has been a strength and a contributing factor in my success up to this point. However, there are challenges and difficulties. One of those challenges is that it’s difficult (and sometimes impossible) to stay mentally focused and engaged on tasks that we don’t find interesting.

Imagine that you were wrestling with The Invisible Man. He has you pinned to the floor and no matter how hard you try to get up, you can’t; there is this unseen resistance that you can’t overcome. You feel paralyzed for no reasons and just feel like if you tried harder you get up. You’ve never heard of The Invisible Man before, you can’t see him, he’s bigger and stronger than you are, and he’s got you pinned to the floor. Then suddenly, someone (probably your clinical psychologist or psychiatrist) throws a bucket of paint on the two of you. All of a sudden, you realize you aren’t paralyzed after all—you just have a big man on top of you holding you down. Now you can see your challenger! After he has been identified, you are then on a level playing field where you can meet his challenges.

This is what my ADHD diagnosis was like for me. Now that I can see my challenger, I can find ways to overcome those challenges. To those without ADHD, these may seem like small insignificant challenges. That’s OK. You’re wrestling with The Invisible Man. But those who are need some strategies and techniques in order to win the fight. This article is one such strategy that I’ve stumbled upon that helps me tremendously.

Progress Bars – What Are They?

You’ve seen progress bars when your computer was performing some kind of processing. There is usually a graphical bar and sometimes they will display a percentage complete. Sometimes they will even display the number of items to be processed and indicate the current process that is in progress. I don’t remember, but I think I got the idea in this post from this latter kind of progress bar. I’ve been using it for several months now and it’s really helped me. There area few ways I implement the method, and I’ll try to share as many of them here as I can.

Counting down – How I Power Through Email

When I process my email inbox, my goal is to process everything there and for my inbox to be empty. This is what David Allen calls Zero Base and what Merlin Mann calls Inbox Zero. When I start processing my email inbox, I grab a scratch pad of paper and write down the number of emails that are currently in my inbox. Then periodically as I process them I will scratch through the number and write down the new number. For some reason, this helps me to see the goal as getting closer and helps me to maintain my focus on the task.

I have several email addresses, all for different purposes. Most of them are combined into one email inbox, but some of them have to remain distinct and separate. In my main email account I also have lots of things that automatically got a label named “ads’ that I only process once every week or two. I write each one of these down as a separate column as I’m processing each one. Here is a picture of my scratch pad after processing three email accounts.

You’ll notice that I will often process several emails before scratching through a number and writing down a new one. At other times, I’ll only process one email before I scratch through and write down a new one. Essentially, I do this each time I feel I need a boost to my focus. Writing down the new number brings my mind back on task to process the next email.

Marking-off Numbered Tasks – How I Power Through Reading Books

For as long as I can remember, whenever I was reading a book, I would always make a note of the last page of the chapter I was reading at the time. This gave me a short-term goal to work toward and I felt really good when I finished each chapter.

Right now I’m reading a book for school that is very challenging to stay focused on. To take this book one chapter at a time is too big of a chunk for me. However, to take it one page at a time is about right.  So, before I read a chapter, I write down the page numbers for that chapter on a piece of scrap note paper. Then as I read each page (or sometimes after reading a few pages) I will mark through the page number(s) I’ve just read. If I’m tempted to stop reading, I can usually talk myself into reading, “just one more page,” so I can mark of just one more number.

Here is a picture of a couple pieces of my scratch pad. The first one shows all the pages marked through after reading Chapter 10 and the second one shows the pages I need to read before I go to bed tonight.

Journal What I’m Doing as I’m Doing It – How I Power Through Complex Projects

I love to document things. This has been a very helpful tool in writing courseware for the SharePoint Training classes I write and teach. As I’m working through a project I will often document my progress to help me stay on task. As I perform different tasks, I make notes about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and sometimes little conversations about how I’m feeling at the time. This documentation is not only encouraging, but also useful for troubleshooting. I recently had another consultant take over for me on a job I had been working on. I gave him all my notes about what I had already done so he easily knew the landscape of the project. I usually take these notes in Evernote. Here is a screenshot of part of one of those notes:

Chat Style Documenting of What I’m Doing as I’m Doing It – How I Power Through Boring Tasks

Sometimes a boring task doesn’t really lend itself the kind of detailed documentation I’ve indicated above and it doesn’t include numbered or counted items like in the previous two examples. I need something in between; I need something like Twitter or Instant Message. Sometimes I’ll Instant Message a coworker what I’m doing at the time, and update this each time I switch to a new task.

Here is an actual chat session I sent to one of my coworkers. Notice that I was providing updates as though he were watching a server automatically perform the tasks.

I also have a simple chat client installed on my own web server and I’ll use that to do this sort of thing as well. Here is an excerpt from when I was packaging some hardware and handling some emails. Notice that once again it has that computer-like tone of: I’m starting… I’m doing… … completed.

This could be accomplished using a Twitter account as well.

Amateur Cartography – How I’m Motivating Myself to Exercise

One of my favorite ways to get my body moving is walking. However, I find walking around my neighborhood very boring. I do like to be out in the woods though. I’ve been using the GPS on my phone to map some trails. I’ve also been taking other notes about the trails, and I’m gathering quite a bit of information about them. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll use it, but at the end of a hike I feel like I have something to show for it. I can look at my data and see that I have created something of value. One of the reasons I’ve never liked to exercise is because I don’t feel like I have something tangible to show for it; now I do.

Conclusion

So, there you have it… five ways I document my progress. These simple tools help me stay focused on the task at hand until it’s done. There are many variations you could take on these five methods too. Hopefully you’ll share your own ideas and tweaks in the comments.