Dr. Buckley's Self-Help Book Blog

The Hunter: ADHD and in Business

Once upon a time, ADHD was adaptive.

The author of ADHD Secrets of Success: Coaching Yourself to Fulfillment in the Business World (2002, SelectBooks, Inc.) is the first major proponent of the theory that people with the traits associated with ADHD were well adapted to prehistoric hunter/gatherer groups. In this book, Thom Hartmann discusses why farmers (the patient, detail-oriented folk who make up the rest of the population) have the advantage in middle management and other organizing roles, while hunters are natural at entrepreneurship and sales. The two do best in the modern world when partnered up for business, just as human beings first discovered in the few thousand years B.C. Today's average person is a genetic mix of the two types.

The hunter travelled across miles of tundra and woods in a day, taking all his wits and energy could catch and gather. Today, the hunter is lucky he's not completely extinct, since the early migrating farmers he eventually came in contact with lived in communities characterized by disease incubation, larger fighting armies and stable tool-developing societies.

Having recently revisited the hilly and river-fed Stonehenge area myself, however, it is easy to see how hunter/gatherers might be useful to the comfortable, less visionary farmers. The distractible, visually-oriented and impulsive individual can spot dangers and opportunities, change course quickly, and tolerate--and even enjoy--risk-taking. The hunter-gatherer trades his furs, medicinal woodland herbs and fruits, and traditional wisdom for the superior and always available nutritional products of the farmers. The hunter becomes the riverside night watchman and runner, and the farmer becomes his army.

It is a commonly heard maxim in the years since this book came out that you must partner up with those whose abilities are complementary to succeed. This is not to say that a legal partnership is in order (the author has some pointed warnings about these), but do divide the responsibilities of your workforce according to relative strengths, and do not allow yourself to be "promoted' into a management position that does not suit you.

This book is short, with short sentences. It is geared toward the ADHD reader, in other words. In addition to gathering a lot of quick tips, you may find you wish some of the ideas were 'unpacked' more. Nonetheless, it is a quick primer from a successful entrepreneur and ADHD facility director with much relevant experience and examples that he shares candidly.

I recommend this book to anyone with ADHD who wants to earn a better living by making their style work for them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Need a Reason to Clean? Try Feng Shui.

Many of us are not by nature organized or efficient in various areas of our lives.  The popularity of television shows about hoarding attest to the widespread struggles people are experiencing around material acquisitions they have no clue what to do with.  Watching--or knowing--a serious hoarder can put your own more 'average' mess in a different perspective.

But it isn't comfortable or normal to live in a mess, even if it is common.

And for those with diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, medications and therapy 'homework' may only address the problem in part.

What makes neatness sustainable is, in my opinion, a lot like what makes healthful eating sustainable:  it has to make some kind of philosophical sense to you, and even fit in with your spirituality or culture somehow.

Take, for instance, the way the French deal with food in their every day lives (pre-McDonald's, anyway.)  There is a cultural code governing their meal choices:  you eat something easy and delicious (butter and sugar are welcomed) for breakfast, something substantial and seasonal--eaten one course at a time for appreciation and digestion--for lunch (after which you'll work/nap/work for several hours, and just enough to sustain you overnight for dinner, which is relatively late.

So it is with the rational take on Feng Shui presented by Connie Spruill, FSII and Sylvia Watson, FSII, co-directors of the Feng Shui Institute of America, in their book Feng Shui with What You Have: Maximum Harmony, Minimum Effort (2004, Adams Media.) How you use the system of Feng Shui to declutter, organize and decorate your home has to come out of the meaning you make of your life and the principles you intend to live by, whether you're conscious of these yet or not. The authors take you through exercises early in the book that focus you on what your real wishes for your life are, and guide you through the feng shui system of clearing out and reorganizing your space to reflect your genuine intentions... without buying a lot of expensive stuff, Chinese trinkets or other superstitious clutter.  You might even say it's just good design. 

But the authors have used the Chinese code for the physical environment to guide this effort, just as the French have codified eating to get maximum aesthetic, spiritual and nutritional benefit from food in a way people from other cultures may never understand (I mainly understand it from having spent a summer with a traditional French family when I was a young adult.)

Mostly, however, the Western reader will likely be impressed with the common-sense translation of this code for us beginners.  Think about it: how do sharp edges versus soft, rounded edges make you feel?  Red versus blue?  The connotations are mainly the same across cultures, but have we as Westerners been trained to think of the impact on us of these things in our environment?  You can't even get to enjoy these subtleties until you make a practice of decluttering first.

Americans have become increasingly aware of the mind-body-spirit connection as Western scientists 'validate' it.  But there's a fourth dimension that we have yet to really embrace, and that is the effect of even the smallest changes in our environment on our functioning.

I'll give you another example, and then leave you to hunt up this wonderful little book.  My younger son, now 8, tends to wind up before bed instead of winding down.  The tired-er he is, the more wound up he gets, until it can turn into a real battle.  But since a professional organizer suggested a few years ago that we paint his room different shades of blue, with dark brown flooring, he gets to sleep in half the time.  Deep blues represent the water element of feng shui, and chosen carefully (blue can be depressing), they connote sleep for a restless child.  Or as the authors put it,

"Learn from Water's introspection, acceptance, and stillness: Honor what lies within, meditate, and remain still."

Who could resist?

Smartphones as Self-Help

Recently, I've seen a surge in the ability of smartphones to improve the quality of life for people dealing with all kinds of life problems from tedious wait times to social isolation to attention deficit disorder to adjustment to aging.  Clearing away the smoke from the old worries about addiction to smartphones, they really do serve some healthy purposes. (Personally, I think if you have an addictive personality, you can get addicted to almost anything... ) This is one of those times--during a hot, dry summer of odd comings and goings in in my own life and those of others in my local and extended community--that I want to take time to discuss media, other than books, as self-help.   

I've had my first generation iPhone since November 2007, when I moved my psychology practice to full-time.  Since then I've had the opportunity to observe the evolution of the smartphone's use from a novel luxury to a common individualized tool (are you hardware-dazzled Apple or software-canny Android?  Are Blackberries more your style, with their tangible keyboard, even though they may or may not work properly at all?)  Do you mostly call, text, email, or play games on it?

Some people are holdouts to the smartphone, citing cost of the data plans.  But I suspect some of these are the same people who avoided pagers in the 1990's and cell-phones after that.  Many like their freedom and independence, and see increased capacity to communicate as a tether on their spirits.  Indeed, using the location-based social networking tool Gowalla, I was able one day recently to determine that my esteemed colleague and office-mate Tim Ketterson was lunching about a mile from me, and lured him to a Starbucks in between for coffee and brainstorming.  My smartphone has definitely eliminated some professional isolation for me.

When my days are very full--and most of them are--I can be late going to fetch a client from the waiting room.  More than half the time, I find them engrossed in some reading on their smartphone.  After I get their attention, they glide past me with a look of importance, deftly turning the magical thing off and seeming to switch seamlessly to I'm-going-into-my-session mode.  I have to say here that something wonderful has happened over the past several years: people have learned how to turn their cell phones off. (What a frequent disruption that used to be, right in the middle of a psychotherapy session!)

This leads me to the subject of smartphones and distractibility.  If we think of attention deficit as a problem that occurs on a spectrum from mild to severe, even many of us in the very mild range--especially empathically-attuned and/or novelty-seeking type personalities--benefit from externally-set-up cuing to return our focus to where we want it to be.  Alarm-setting, scheduling, meditation apps with count-down and bell timers, texting, easily readable 'pushed' pop-up messages with priority predetermined by the user are all tools smart phones allow us to personalize with remarkable effectiveness in most cases I've seen.  If there is too much else on your phone that is time-wasting and does not recharge you in any way, you can delete it.  Use good sense.

Decreasing social isolation is a significant function of the smartphone, done judiciously.  I only became a Facebook user myself about a year ago, having been influenced by nebulous--but common--fears about being a therapist who can be contacted via the internet.  (Like most therapists, I don't friend my clients on Facebook, but sometimes do so through LinkedIn, the professional social networking app.) Most smartphone users I know use the Facebook app to stay informed about the status of their friends, as well as interests and activities of acquaintances they might grow closer to.  As in the illustration I gave earlier, the apps Gowalla and Foursquare, partly by publishing through Facebook, provide the additional advantage of being able to keep informed about the interesting, or shared, whereabouts of friends you might want to meet up with informally. In contrast to predictions of Facebook mainly causing people to spend a lot of time on people they don't really care about, even some places of worship are finding Facebook makes members more comfortable and familiar with each other by using the organization's Facebook page and friending each other.  They are becoming more like the beloved communities they were intended to be.  Through the smartphone, the walls of these groups can extend even farther out into real life.

I am beginning to see elders buying smartphones, which can help with the above problems (difficulties with memory and attention and social isolation being until recently much more common among the elderly.)  Many, of course, don't hear well, and writing is a more effective form of communication.  Making writing mobile, and using Mobile Me or Google Calendars can assist the whole family in working with each other to coordinate care.  Until someone with Alzheimer's forgets how to operate the phone, they can carry one themselves.

There is a learning curve to using this mode of communication. Often we must face fears of loss of autonomy and privacy in a realistic manner. For example, don't 'friend' anyone you don't want following you in some way. Also, always check the default privacy settings on each individual social networking app and reset them if necessary so that you are sharing your whereabouts intentionally.  

This trend toward mobile information-sharing is not going to cease.  According to Craig Silverstein--Google's first hire--and whom I recently heard speak to his hometown audience here in Gainesville, if you are not carrying a smartphone now, you will have some sort of PDA by five years from now.  People are seeking information on-the-go more and more.  So how can this technology best help each of us? As was always the case, we must seek to understand our own individual needs and, perhaps, be bold in trying new ways to meet them.  

Organization for Parents with ADD

A little flighty, are we?  

Embarrassed around other parents who obviously have it together?

ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life (2002, Routledge) is a great handbook for those of us who can't even count the many ways inattention has interfered with the smooth functioning of our households and cost us precious time and energy.  This book was presented to me by a client staying home with several children. She boasted a graduate degree and the associated dreams, but the usual ADD medications had done little for her.  This book, however, had made a difference.

The authors of ADD-Friendly Ways did several things right.  

First, they narrowed down the problems to tackle to just the most common areas of concern for ADD parents: for example, how to make to-do lists, making school lunches efficiently, and letting go of unrealistic housekeeping ambitions when you work outside the home (and most parents do work outside the home now.)  

Second, they remind you not to try to change too many things too quickly, lest you burn out.  Every single new habit takes two to three weeks to take root, after all. 

And third, they recommend working with your inattentiveness rather than against it.  For example, if there's something you forgot to put on your to-do list, stop and put it on right then while you are thinking of it, even if it isn't convenient.  You are less likely to lose track of it, and won't spend unnecessary mental energy trying to remember what you wanted to write down later.

Finally, three other problem areas are covered very pragmatically, while identifying the ADD ways of thinking that create and sustain them:  packratting, overcommitment, and paperwork avoidance.  When to get friend(s) or family to help, versus hiring a professional organizer, is also usefully covered.

Co-authors Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D. are, respectively, a professional organizer and a psychologist.  They have written a guide to sustainable lifestyle changes for adults with ADD that can not only make the parenting era of life easier, but increase confidence for midlife functioning and beyond.

I would like to say at this point that as a therapist, I am currently rather ambivalent about the phenomena associated with ADD being classified together as a medical disorder, per se.  I see more and more in my practice that a certain temperament and personality style tends to be associated with these phenomena, generally speaking (my favorite anthropologist, Helen Fisher, refers to such people as Negotiators.) Inattentive people have a lot of positive experiences/qualities associated with them (imagination, multitasking capacity and generosity are just a few examples.) Nonetheless, inattention can certainly impair someone in a given context, and many individuals do benefit from the medications designed to treat it. 

When Housework Takes Flight

These days, household management is one of the most common areas of conflict and disappointment brought into my office by either individuals or couples seeking therapy.  While there are a number of books available on decluttering and home organization (and if you're flush, you can always hire a professional organizer), the way we care for our homes has complex roots in our histories and it can take more than reading a good book on the subject to really transform lifelong habits.

This is not to make excuses for pack-ratting.  On the contrary, poor housekeeping is--for the vast majority--one of those imminently 'solvable problems' we have a lot of power over, unlike sexual incompatibility or a longstanding character problem.

Becoming a better housekeeper is a dynamic commitment that can benefit from guidelines, coaching and support over time that are available at little or not cost.  This is why I often recommend the website FlyLady.net. This website is piloted by Marla Cilley, who has a history of recurrent depression and the accompanying difficulty with taking care of her home.  She has taken all she learned in her therapy and beyond and shared it with the world via her website, books, and a set of housekeeping tools that are for sale to cover costs. 

Subscribe to FlyLady.net, and you will receive daily e-mails in small or large numbers (your choice) that will reorient you to the space in which you live, truly a how-to for those who either never learned to keep house, or need a serious re-boot.  For therapists: this may be particularly helpful to those clients with Attention Deficit Disorder.  

I have seen it said that FlyLady writes for 'a certain audience.'  Presumably this means Christian stay-at-home-moms.  It has been my experience, however, that she emphasizes adapting her principles to your own lifestyle and needs, and makes no judgments about cultural differences.  

FlyLady's 'system' takes time to build and incorporate fully into your life, but it is indeed adaptable (write down your routines in pencil--it's likely you'll revise them at some point.) It's a great tool in fighting the destructiveness of perfectionism (I won't do it until I can get it just right, and I'll never get it right, so...)

There are, of course, extreme cases of hoarding that need professional mental health consultation right away.  These would include the compulsive saving of unsanitary items, and the creation of dangerous conditions through overcrowding the home that is accompanied by resistance to change.

At the other end of the spectrum, you may wonder after you peruse her website, should you really "shine your sink?"  I think of this as a symbol of the willingness to fully clean up after yourself, rather than a compulsory part of the system.  But that's just me trying not to be a perfectionist, so try it anyway and see what you think.