I think that I might be borderline ADD. I present many of the behaviors. I have been very lucky to have professionally partnered with people who have balanced my mile-a-minute idea factory with their more structured (read SANER) approaches. This combo has allowed projects to be successfully completed. Completed! Us borderline ADD’s don’t really care about the completion part, but my boss sure does.

For those who know the Myers-Briggs or the Kiersey temperament Sorter, I am ENTP, and when you look at the traits, you can see why I am borderline ADD. My personality type is clever, but bores easily and has more fun coming up with the solution than actually implementing it. I hate work in cycles–once I have been through the cycle I don’t need to do it again! So it’s on to the next idea, next project, next fun. Oh, and I love a good debate and don’t mean to hurt your feelings as I shred your argument. I might even agree with you, but the fight’s the thing.

Oddly, the popular coping mechanism for ADD folks is to create a grid, label it with chunks of time, then fill in the chunks with tasks. They call it time management [Warning, this link is a PDF]. Then all I have to do is complete the work as presented in the grid. Now WHO THE HELL THINKS I CAN DO THAT? Here is what really happens.

1. I am VERY excited researching and learning about this technique
2. Day one, I create the grid
3. Day one, I follow the model and complete many tasks
4. Day two, I make the grid, but don’t fill it all the way in
5. Day two, I do some of the items, but also a few things not on the list
6. Day three, I am so bored with this technique. I did this damn thing already.
7. I toss this process aside and go back to my normal scramble.

What are those psychologists thinking? The whole point is I don’t like (hate!) doing rote things, so the solution is to do rote things? Sigh. What was it Einstein said about insanity?

I think that the best “job” for us ADD folks is to be parents. Being a parent means being in constant flux. As soon as you think you know what your kid is up to, they enter a new “phase” and all bets are off. New things to figure out for the ADD-addled. Then you go really crazy and add a second child to the mix. You find out that this one is wired totally differently. You can jump back and forth between the friends, problems, activities, joys of two (or more?) of your homegrown issue-generators.

Like my kids are far from opposites, but they perceive and react to the world according to their own personalities. It’s just like they were people! [uh, don’t take that wrong kids. It was a little funny, wasn’t it? Was I being insensitive again?]