ADD
Skills
For some people with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder being on the right medication is all that is required to get better. For others medications are only half the battle. The other half involves learning to do things in a way that keeps their ADD from slowing them down (or stopping them altogether.) This way of doing things is called “skills.”
What are the Attention Deficit Disorder skills?
Attention Deficit Disorder skills are strategies, tricks, and habits that are useful for coping with the difficulties caused by ADD. They cover such areas as organization, prioritization, focus, and memory, to name a few. Here are some examples:
Problem:
Memory
Because people with ADD are so easily distracted, they frequently have attention
lapses in the midst of conversation. (They “zone out.”) During that moment
that they are not paying attention the other person may be communicating
important information, such as instructions from the boss about a project, a
key point from a professor or what their partner wants them to pick up for
dinner.
Skill:
Recapping
Recapping your perception of a discussion briefly at the end will uncover any important points you may have missed. Phrases such as, “So
what you you’re looking for is…”, “Let’s make sure I heard you properly,” and
“This sounds important. Let’s make sure I got it right” are good lead-ins to
recapping. (Note: the last phrase is a particularly good one for ADD people to
use, since they are often perceived as not interested in what others are
saying. When you make it explicit that you recognize the importance of what
someone else said, you
correct this misperception.)
Problem:
Organizing your bills
The excitement value of paying a bill is low for people without ADD.
For
those with ADD it can be an excruciatingly boring chore. Many with ADD find it so
unstimulating that bill paying doesn’t get done until late fees start to add up
or they are in danger of losing their phone service.
Skill: OHIO
OHIO is a memory aid for the phrase, Only Handle It Once.
As soon as a bill arrives, open it and pay it right then, if you can. This not
only ensures that it will be paid in a timely way, but avoids another common ADD
problem: losing things. You not only save money from late fees, but save a
tremendous amount of time not having to look for bills later. The OHIO skill
can be used in many other situations as well, such as responding to memos at
work and dealing with calls on your voice mail.
Problem: Lateness
Arriving late to work, social engagements, classes, and meetings is one of the
most frequent problems for people with ADD. This is in part due to the
impaired sense of time that is a feature of ADD. Additionally, those with
ADD are easily distracted by whatever is between them and the door, making
leaving a place on time to get somewhere else a drawn out process. When
you arrive late you start off with a strike against you. The people
waiting for you are often irritated and consider you lazy, and inconsiderate
friend or an irresponsible employee, even if none of these are true.
Skill:
Punctuality
There are two important steps to arriving on time. 1) Know the amount of time
needed to get from here to there. The best way to do this is not to
estimate (we have already noted that these estimates are generally inaccurate,)
but rather to actually time yourself. Use a watch to figure out how
long it really takes to get ready to leave and to get from your door to the
actual room (not just the building or general vicinity) where you need to be.
You may want to add a few minutes to the total to account for the inevitable
problems that come up along the way. 2) Use something to alert yourself as
to when you have to start getting ready to leave. I often recommend an
alarm watch. A good product for people with ADD is the Invisible Clock,
which is an alarm clock you can discretely carry like a beeper (http://www.invisibleclock.com/.)
It is important to keep track of how you do - if you find you are still arriving
late, go back and change your start time to account for the reality.
Which skills are most important?
ADD is not “a problem,” it’s a set of problems. For each person with ADD there is a unique set of obstacles they face, which will be different from the ones someone else with ADD has. This means that defining which skills are most important involves analyzing how your ADD affects you. This is a step-by-step process involving:
1. Identifying
problems which have arisen
2. Prioritizing which are interfering most with your life
3. Finding the skills which best address the target problems you have identified
4. Implementing the skills according to the prioritized list and
monitoring your progress.
There are two crucial things worth noting about skills. One is that they put the control back in your hands. This means you are no longer a helpless victim of your ADD. The other important point is that skills change the way you can think about yourself and your difficulties. Since skills are about being “effective,” they help avoid the ADD trap of thinking of oneself as “lazy,” “dumb” or “spaced out.” By measuring your behavior in terms of effectiveness instead, you allow yourself to focus on the positive goal of what will work best. This is generally a much more constructive way to think about one's problems.
[About Nicholas Schwartz, M.D.]
© copyright 2006 Nicholas Schwartz, M.D.