ADHD, the acronym for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can cause alarm in children or adults. There are ways of helping sufferers turn the chaos into calm, from paying the bills on time to dealing with seemingly insensitive friends or family.
Developing ways of overcoming the worst that ADHD presents you with, can help you organize your life and interact better with others. Strategies to surmount the worst that ADHD offers have to start with a positive mind set from the sufferer. Additionally, patience, resolve and practice are required to enable any changes for the patient.
Being easily distracted and suffering from an inability to concentrate are classic symptoms of ADHD. This can happen at work or at home and presents the individual with many challenges.
Daily planners and reminders are the first step in availing yourself of the means to organise the clutter. Help comes in the form of categorising the objects that need attention, from ones that are necessary to ones that can be stored or discarded. Make lists and write notes to help maintain your newly established routines.
Assign designated areas for items such as keys, bills and other important objects. Put the ones that require less attention into closets or drawers. If possible, throw some away that you don’t need.
Calendars are particularly useful, be they physical examples or reminders on your laptop or phone. These day planners help you to keep on top of upcoming events, appointments and deadlines.
Paper notes, if that is what you are using, in the form of lists, permit you to keep on top of tasks and impending engagements.
Returning phone calls promptly, filing papers in a designated place and cleaning up messes punctually, all help you keep on top of things that can bring about procrastination.
Delays in dealing with the mail can get on top of the ADHD sufferer, choose a time and a place for attending to the day’s post and then act quickly to trash it, file it or deal with it.
Alternatively electronic means are a versatile way of saying goodbye to that trail of paper behind you. Requesting an emailed bill in place of a paper one is a good place to start.
Managing your time can be troublesome for ADHD sufferers. Losing track or underestimating how much is necessary to achieve a task are common ailments. This may cause frustration in yourself or create tension in your relationships with others.
Identifying what symptom of your ADHD illness is affecting you the most during a task can help in such situations as deciding how much time to allot to study, for example, when thoughts of other tasks are filling your mind.
Using a clock can be a simple, but effective way of keeping on top of your timing schedules. ADHD sufferers often observe time differently to others. Give yourself an allotted amount of time to deal with certain tasks and set alarms to remind you that the prescribed amount of time has elapsed.
Allow yourself an extra ten minutes for a half-hour task, giving yourself an identifiable cushion. The same strategy can be set up for making appointments. Prepare to leave 15 minutes earlier than you know is necessary so there is no rush to find the appropriate documents or your keys.
These tips could be seen as simplistic, but effective use of certain strategies can be the start to a well-earned break from eternal worry or distraction.
Tim Williamson, a psychology graduate from the University of Hertfordshire, has a keen interest in the fields of mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.
