Presumably, we're all at home, and looking for things to do. (And if you have an essential job, and you're not at home, thank you. I hope the people you're helping are grateful, too.) I have plenty of things that I could be doing around the house, but there's my ADD problem. I work hard on a task for about ten or fifteen minutes, then I get distracted and drift off to check on (fill in the blank), and then I pick up my phone because someone texted me, and an hour later I remember I was working on that task, which is now a glaring reminder of how I supposedly never finish anything.
I will tell you my one life lesson for dealing with this. And if you're not ADD, this won't apply, so you can skip down a couple of paragraphs. In the past, before I knew about adult ADD, I would go through this cycle (start a task--drift away--cringe), and I would feel like a failure. I would compare myself with someone who could sit down and work with focus until they were finished, and I would--just below the level of conscious thought--start to berate myself. You're so dumb. You didn't even finish that task. You can't finish anything. You're a mess. You FAIL at everything. And I would feel bad, and the unfinished project would remind me that I felt bad, so I would quit.
But now that I understand how this works, the plan is to dump the judgment, remind myself that this is just the way my brain works, and go back to the unfinished project. I can't claim I'm 100% at this. Sometimes I still get into the failure mindset. But I'm way better.
Now I even build it into my plans--OK, I've got about 20-30 minutes of attention time here that I can split it up into two or three tasks. Ten minutes to unload the dishwasher. Ten minutes to start a load of laundry. Ten minutes to straighten up the living room. Then I get a break-- twenty minutes of reading, or instagram, or whatever. If you're the type that can blast through things without faltering, that will sound like such a waste of time. But if you're like me, you can get a whole hell of a lot done by breaking your work into 10-15 minute intervals, and circling back to complete things that take longer than that.
And also, make lists. That way you can keep track of what you're supposed to be doing.
OK, so no surprise here, that was a tangent. This post is supposed to be about things to listen to while you're doing mindless chores, another great strategy for staying on task. Things like folding laundry, or standing six feet apart from people in line at the post office, or walking the dog, are considerably less boring if you're listening to something. And if I'm not bored, I have an easier time staying with what I'm doing.
I have these bluetooth earphones which I bought before I was avoiding amazon, and they work great. You can tap the button on the right earbud to pause what you're listening to so when you get to the front of the line at the post office, you don't have to dig out your phone.
Audiobooks work sometimes for me, but honestly, I mainly listen to audiobooks on road trips--and again, it's that attention span thing. Listening to an audiobook requires more of an investment in keeping up with a plot and characters, whereas listening to a podcast can be a lot like eavesdropping on the people behind you in line, or next to you at the coffee shop.
I just did a search to see when was the last time I talked about this, and I was a little embarrassed to see how many times I've told you about my favorite podcasts. So I will skip that this time, because for the most part I'm still listening to the same ones. But I have listened to some individual episodes of podcasts that aren't on my usual rotation that were super interesting to me. Here you go:
Ten Things to Tell You, episode #57, Is it anxiety or intuition? (not usually a fan of this podcast, but someone recommended this episode and it is good)
Without Fail, Feb 17 2020, The Church of John Green (starts slowly)
Reply All podcast, episode #158, The Case of the Missing Hit
Throughline podcast, "Apocalypse Now" 6/12/19
(fascinating history of evangelicalism in the US)
Without Fail, Oct 7 2019 "The Cyclist Who Blew the Whistle on Doping"
And in case you haven't heard, Brené Brown has just started a podcast called Unlocking Us. I've only listened to the first episode so far, but it was good.
Stay healthy, stay safe, and as much as you can, stay home. And pass along any podcast recommendations you have.
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