Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Lack of focus, procrastination, possible ADHD, and other ways I suck at life

Anonymous Member · 01-04-2010, 09:17 PM

So, roughly 4 hours after deciding I needed to make this topic, starting a new topic, typing my subject line-- I still haven't typed anything in the message field. I think this picture in itself speaks volumes on the topic I am addressing:

Those 4 hours were spent reading reddit links, reading information about the new keltec 30-round 22wmr pistol, googling hicap 22lr pistols and rifles (for the cheaper ammo) and eventually ending up discovering a new website, looking up all of my favorite stuff on it, checking my facebook, posting a link to this site on my facebook page, and starting a thread about it on another forum. I finally noticed this tab was still open and blank. How appropriate.

So why would I say that I Suck at Life?
I have had, in my life, EXTREME procrastination/lack of focus. This is the big one. I am going to go into overboard detail on this one so that you the reader understand I don't just mean the 'haha, don't we all'

The only driving force stronger than procrastination is hard consequence-laden deadlines. Recent examples: I had four documents I had to make on Thursday. Actually, I had four documents I had to make sometime in the weeks between xmas and new years (they just had to be done before my boss got back today, Monday) which meant I didn't even think about them until Thursday (I had Friday off). I actually didn't even think about them until half an hour before I was going to leave, at which point I rationalized that I could do them at home over the 3-day weekend. They were constantly in the back of my mind, and I spent a lot of time on the computer, but I didn't even log in to my company email to start on them until 10pm Sunday. I worked on them probably a total of 30 minutes between 10pm and 12:30, then decided to go to bed and finish them in the morning (they *TECHNICALLY* didn't have to be done until before my 7am meeting this morning). I optimistically planned to wake up at 4:30 to be at work by 6, but didn't end up getting in until 6:30. At this point my "Oh Fuck Deadline" sense kicked in and I turbo-focused on them, banging them out by 6:57. How ridiculous.

I repeat this cycle every time I have anything due. I have since school. I am overconfident in my ability to create documents and do projects in extremely small periods of time (and I usually can, albeit half-assed), so I put them off forever. I surf the internet at work way more than I'm comfortable with. I have tried to self-sabatoge...I deleted my shortcuts, but just found myself typing the run command for chrome.exe. I uninstalled all of my browsers except IE, which I hate and need for work, and I just used that.

At school, I aced tests, and got A's on my projects, albeit the projects were usually done the night before they were do, at the last possible moment, or sometimes slightly past that. I learned how to game my professors, knowing which ones would accept late assignments. Several times, I took incompletes in classes with BS excuses and finished the (for me) couple hours of work left on the day before the extensions expired. After freshman year, I always registered for classes after classes had started. I don't think I ever got into a class without overrides. Once I didn't manage to register for the class before finals, so my whole semester was voided.

I would never do homework. Not because it was hard, or time consuming, but because the pressure to procrastinate it never came up against a hard consequences deadline, and I knew i could graduate without doing it. One of my professors did not have a deadline for homework, but it was worth 30% of the grade, so I had to do it--so I would do the entire semester's homework the weekend before the final. I did this in four of his classes.

I am a smart guy. The fact that I have been able to make it this far in life pulling this kind of bullshit means I can work hard and fast. I have good ideas. I'm happy with the creative work I do. I like my job. I like supporting for my family. I want to please my boss. I want to be a good coworker. But I don't all the time, and I'm not a good coworker. I grease squeaky wheels. Routine work doesn't get looked at until someone sends a followup request, then I reply saying it's almost done, do it in 5 minutes, and send it to them.

This extends into my home life. I love projects, but I don't finish them. I love organization, but I'm never focused enough to use the systems I set up, and everything slowly (or not so slowly) turns into piles. I broke a drawer on my dresser two weeks ago, and haven't reglued it--I know it will only take 10 minutes, but I'm perpetually going to do it tomorrow. Every time the cat litter needs to be changed/emptied, it's a huge fight for days, then I do it in five minutes...I don't even dislike it very much, it just triggers my work avoidance instinct. I'm surprised my incredibly patient wife has put up with me as long as she has.

I procrastinate financially as well. If something has to be paid in 30 days, that's when it gets paid...at midnight, usually. The wife is completely in charge of the bills just as a survival strategy.

Another thing, possibly related, is my sleep. I have no sleep schedule. I procrastinate waking up, and I procrastinate going to sleep. I stay up on boring pointless shit. Ever since high-school, I've found myself accidentally staying up all night. This was not uncommon, and continues into my adult life--my wife has learned that she has to MAKE ME go to bed. I endorse this generally in theory, but usually strongly object to each specific instance. This, combined with a grown-up work schedule, means I usually get 4-5 hours of sleep a night, and frequently less.

I have adopted ever more complicated alarm strategies to cope with being an adult. Until I did this, I was perpetually late. I have my primary alarm set at ear-shattering volume, and the display time is about an hour forward, to try to trigger my 'oh shit' deadline instinct. I have my cell phone across the room with an alarm set to my ringer, to trick myself into thinking I have a call. If both of those fail, my wife knows to steal the covers and wake me up. I do pretty good with getting to work on time when my boss is at work--If my boss isn't at work, though, and therefore there are no possible consequences to being late, I have a hard time not being a couple hours late.

On days off, regardless of what time I go to sleep, or how much sleep I've gotten the day/night before, I don't wake up. I'm talking, 3-4pm, I'll *maybe* get up, if I have things I want to do or I get hungry. I've not woken up until it has been dark before, after going to bed at a normal time. I've never in my adult life woken up naturally before 11am.

tl;dnr:I chronically procrastinate right up to the point where it will affect my life via job loss or flunking classes, then rush and half ass the due item, I perpetually wait till the deadlines of bills and such, and also I have a hard time going to sleep and waking up.

I don't want to be like this. I am a degreed individual, with a job in my field using my degree (a degree which took me 8 years, by the way, due to the above). I have a great job. I want to keep my great job. I want to excel at my great job. I want to be a good husband and a good father.

I am making an appointment with a psychiatrist this week to relay all of the above (I've been doing this partially to get my thoughts straight)--although, ironically, I'll probably procrastinate that for a while, too. Until today, I'd always thought I just sucked at life, but had a lunch conversation with a coworker who was glad she'd finally had her baby so she could get back on Adderall and start being productive again instead of just surfing the internet and procrastinating. It never occurred to me that I might have a medical condition, I just assumed I was bad at life.

Why is this a thread instead of a blog post? I'm wondering if I am alone. I decided to divulge more about my job than I originally intended, so therefore this post is going to be anonymized. I am a regular member (not that it matters), and bring this to you not because you came up in a google search, but because I consider y'all my community. I'm sure quite a few of you can identify me by the information I've presented here. Good for you. Anyways.

Things I'm looking for from this thread:

Can anyone sympathize with the level of procrastination I'm talking about?
Conversely, can anyone confirm my thoughts that this is not how everyone lives their lives? I had to stop typing at some point, but this extends into every area of my life.
Has anyone ever sympathized with this, and fixed it some how?
Is there a name for this? Is it ADHD?
Has anyone ever benefited from medication for this, or something like this?
More generally, has anyone identified a problem in their ability to focus and gotten a perscription for something like Adderall/Ritalin/Provigil/Modafinil? I'm also up for any descriptions of lifechanging antidepressants, etc

Things I'm not looking for in this thread: "Just stop procrastinating" If someone posted about how depressed they were, posting "just be happy" would probably be bannable. If you just think I need to "grow up"--Ok, thanks for the opinion. Click back, I'm sure there's something else interesting on here somewhere.

Anyways. I don't know why I expect everyone to read this, so thank you to those that do. This was all spewed out in basically one typing session en masse, because I know I'll never finish it if I start to do anything else. Thanks in advance for any support or advice.

By the way, I know you can't suggest medication for me, I am just curious if you have any 1st or 2nd hand stories of medication of any kind fixing this or similar problems in others.

01-04-2010, 09:17 PM	#1 (permalink)
Anonymous Member Addict	Lack of focus, procrastination, possible ADHD, and other ways I suck at life So, roughly 4 hours after deciding I needed to make this topic, starting a new topic, typing my subject line-- I still haven't typed anything in the message field. I think this picture in itself speaks volumes on the topic I am addressing: Those 4 hours were spent reading reddit links, reading information about the new keltec 30-round 22wmr pistol, googling hicap 22lr pistols and rifles (for the cheaper ammo) and eventually ending up discovering a new website, looking up all of my favorite stuff on it, checking my facebook, posting a link to this site on my facebook page, and starting a thread about it on another forum. I finally noticed this tab was still open and blank. How appropriate. So why would I say that I Suck at Life? I have had, in my life, EXTREME procrastination/lack of focus. This is the big one. I am going to go into overboard detail on this one so that you the reader understand I don't just mean the 'haha, don't we all' The only driving force stronger than procrastination is hard consequence-laden deadlines. Recent examples: I had four documents I had to make on Thursday. Actually, I had four documents I had to make sometime in the weeks between xmas and new years (they just had to be done before my boss got back today, Monday) which meant I didn't even think about them until Thursday (I had Friday off). I actually didn't even think about them until half an hour before I was going to leave, at which point I rationalized that I could do them at home over the 3-day weekend. They were constantly in the back of my mind, and I spent a lot of time on the computer, but I didn't even log in to my company email to start on them until 10pm Sunday. I worked on them probably a total of 30 minutes between 10pm and 12:30, then decided to go to bed and finish them in the morning (they TECHNICALLY didn't have to be done until before my 7am meeting this morning). I optimistically planned to wake up at 4:30 to be at work by 6, but didn't end up getting in until 6:30. At this point my "Oh Fuck Deadline" sense kicked in and I turbo-focused on them, banging them out by 6:57. How ridiculous. I repeat this cycle every time I have anything due. I have since school. I am overconfident in my ability to create documents and do projects in extremely small periods of time (and I usually can, albeit half-assed), so I put them off forever. I surf the internet at work way more than I'm comfortable with. I have tried to self-sabatoge...I deleted my shortcuts, but just found myself typing the run command for chrome.exe. I uninstalled all of my browsers except IE, which I hate and need for work, and I just used that. At school, I aced tests, and got A's on my projects, albeit the projects were usually done the night before they were do, at the last possible moment, or sometimes slightly past that. I learned how to game my professors, knowing which ones would accept late assignments. Several times, I took incompletes in classes with BS excuses and finished the (for me) couple hours of work left on the day before the extensions expired. After freshman year, I always registered for classes after classes had started. I don't think I ever got into a class without overrides. Once I didn't manage to register for the class before finals, so my whole semester was voided. I would never do homework. Not because it was hard, or time consuming, but because the pressure to procrastinate it never came up against a hard consequences deadline, and I knew i could graduate without doing it. One of my professors did not have a deadline for homework, but it was worth 30% of the grade, so I had to do it--so I would do the entire semester's homework the weekend before the final. I did this in four of his classes. I am a smart guy. The fact that I have been able to make it this far in life pulling this kind of bullshit means I can work hard and fast. I have good ideas. I'm happy with the creative work I do. I like my job. I like supporting for my family. I want to please my boss. I want to be a good coworker. But I don't all the time, and I'm not a good coworker. I grease squeaky wheels. Routine work doesn't get looked at until someone sends a followup request, then I reply saying it's almost done, do it in 5 minutes, and send it to them. This extends into my home life. I love projects, but I don't finish them. I love organization, but I'm never focused enough to use the systems I set up, and everything slowly (or not so slowly) turns into piles. I broke a drawer on my dresser two weeks ago, and haven't reglued it--I know it will only take 10 minutes, but I'm perpetually going to do it tomorrow. Every time the cat litter needs to be changed/emptied, it's a huge fight for days, then I do it in five minutes...I don't even dislike it very much, it just triggers my work avoidance instinct. I'm surprised my incredibly patient wife has put up with me as long as she has. I procrastinate financially as well. If something has to be paid in 30 days, that's when it gets paid...at midnight, usually. The wife is completely in charge of the bills just as a survival strategy. Another thing, possibly related, is my sleep. I have no sleep schedule. I procrastinate waking up, and I procrastinate going to sleep. I stay up on boring pointless shit. Ever since high-school, I've found myself accidentally staying up all night. This was not uncommon, and continues into my adult life--my wife has learned that she has to MAKE ME go to bed. I endorse this generally in theory, but usually strongly object to each specific instance. This, combined with a grown-up work schedule, means I usually get 4-5 hours of sleep a night, and frequently less. I have adopted ever more complicated alarm strategies to cope with being an adult. Until I did this, I was perpetually late. I have my primary alarm set at ear-shattering volume, and the display time is about an hour forward, to try to trigger my 'oh shit' deadline instinct. I have my cell phone across the room with an alarm set to my ringer, to trick myself into thinking I have a call. If both of those fail, my wife knows to steal the covers and wake me up. I do pretty good with getting to work on time when my boss is at work--If my boss isn't at work, though, and therefore there are no possible consequences to being late, I have a hard time not being a couple hours late. On days off, regardless of what time I go to sleep, or how much sleep I've gotten the day/night before, I don't wake up. I'm talking, 3-4pm, I'll maybe get up, if I have things I want to do or I get hungry. I've not woken up until it has been dark before, after going to bed at a normal time. I've never in my adult life woken up naturally before 11am. tl;dnr:I chronically procrastinate right up to the point where it will affect my life via job loss or flunking classes, then rush and half ass the due item, I perpetually wait till the deadlines of bills and such, and also I have a hard time going to sleep and waking up. I don't want to be like this. I am a degreed individual, with a job in my field using my degree (a degree which took me 8 years, by the way, due to the above). I have a great job. I want to keep my great job. I want to excel at my great job. I want to be a good husband and a good father. I am making an appointment with a psychiatrist this week to relay all of the above (I've been doing this partially to get my thoughts straight)--although, ironically, I'll probably procrastinate that for a while, too. Until today, I'd always thought I just sucked at life, but had a lunch conversation with a coworker who was glad she'd finally had her baby so she could get back on Adderall and start being productive again instead of just surfing the internet and procrastinating. It never occurred to me that I might have a medical condition, I just assumed I was bad at life. Why is this a thread instead of a blog post? I'm wondering if I am alone. I decided to divulge more about my job than I originally intended, so therefore this post is going to be anonymized. I am a regular member (not that it matters), and bring this to you not because you came up in a google search, but because I consider y'all my community. I'm sure quite a few of you can identify me by the information I've presented here. Good for you. Anyways. Things I'm looking for from this thread: Can anyone sympathize with the level of procrastination I'm talking about? Conversely, can anyone confirm my thoughts that this is not how everyone lives their lives? I had to stop typing at some point, but this extends into every area of my life. Has anyone ever sympathized with this, and fixed it some how? Is there a name for this? Is it ADHD? Has anyone ever benefited from medication for this, or something like this? More generally, has anyone identified a problem in their ability to focus and gotten a perscription for something like Adderall/Ritalin/Provigil/Modafinil? I'm also up for any descriptions of lifechanging antidepressants, etc Things I'm not looking for in this thread: "Just stop procrastinating" If someone posted about how depressed they were, posting "just be happy" would probably be bannable. If you just think I need to "grow up"--Ok, thanks for the opinion. Click back, I'm sure there's something else interesting on here somewhere. Anyways. I don't know why I expect everyone to read this, so thank you to those that do. This was all spewed out in basically one typing session en masse, because I know I'll never finish it if I start to do anything else. Thanks in advance for any support or advice. By the way, I know you can't suggest medication for me, I am just curious if you have any 1st or 2nd hand stories of medication of any kind fixing this or similar problems in others.