The first thing is Neurodiverse (ND) versus neurotypical (NT).
ND is not one monolithic group, it in fact includes a wide range of persons and the differences within this group means it is best to deal with people as individuals.  I am specifically talking about ADD/ADHD at this time.

The world is geared for the majority and thus the NT far out populate the minority ND population, so it is very easy for the majority to label and pathologize the minority.
 It is as the ND person looking around (receiving feedback) and watching NT people do things and come to believe that they also "I should be able to do X, Y or Z, as well".
ND brains develop at a  different rate and sometimes the ND person is labeled or judged immature, and can be bullied or otherwise rejected by NT peers.
This leads to internalization of "something wrong with me" and negative core beliefs...as well as decreased opportunities to develop social, relational and communication skills.

Examples of the way things are geared in the educational system
Homework is a great example of this the expectation that the student will engage and be ok with the level of frustration that is built into the exercise, and then the repetitive nature of problems that add no benefit other than repetition...

The other one is questioning "why?"  most of these involve things that are expected to be memorized, multiplication tables, geography (where does one acquire a map that must be labeled before being used?).  This is when labels such as "lazy", "stubborn" getto be added in....

So the categorization falls into what is labeled as "executive dysfunction" which implies that there is a "problem" with the person's executive functioning.

Self-management often called the "bad receptionist who lets either everything or nothing in to work on.

Working memory is another thing that is often restricted in  size, to the point that the standard tact of a question and 4 answers is hard for the person to hold in mind, thus blurting out an answer or forgetting the question before all the answers are given...


You can also watch a couple of Ted Talks on YouTube
Tim Urban, Inside the mind of the Master Procrastinator
Jessica McCabe, Failing at normal an AHDH success story.
The Future is Neurodivergent | Jennifer Poyntz | TEDxAungierSt

Not a Ted Talk:
Neurodivergent Doctor "ADHD and Autism: Can you tell the difference?"

Mom on the Spectrum "Autistic relationships: 10 tips for neurotypical partners in neurodiverse relationships"

*******
I read a non-technical book called "Dirty Laundry, Why adults with ADHD are so ashamed and what we can do to help."
by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery.  Apparently it comes from their social media @ADHD_LOVE
So far it points to the real life issues and the perspective from both the Neurodiverse and Neurotypical partners perspective.  I enjoyed it as a quick and fun read.
*******

The 2016 movie "The Accountant" has some interesting things to consider in terms of ND people fitting into a NT world....
The neurologist says "Your son is different"
Young Chris's father "Sooner or later, different scares people."

Neurologist also gives us another bit of information:
"Neuro-typicals.  The rest of us.  What if we're wrong? What if we have been using the wrong test to quantify intelligence in children with autism?  Your son is not less-than.  He's different. Now, your expectations for your son may change over time, they might include marriage, children, self-sufficiency.  They might not.  But I guarantee you, if we let the world set expectations for our children, they'll start low, and they'll stay there.  And maybe...just maybe...he doesn't understand how to tell us.  Or...we haven't yet learned how to listen."

********
Personal Motto
"Over prepared or forever behind"
Is useful for school, for example I went ahead and taught myself "calculus I" before I signed up for the class. In my experience it is better to go into the classes already knowing enough of the material to both never fall behind and to pass the class without any additional efforts beyond just showing up. The reason is that my working memory does not have the bandwidth to learn the material at the speed it is presented.......

I hope this is a helpful idea, one that means you can start learning right away as you discover more about what the list of required courses are...
*********
There is an entire thing that I call the  "memory black hole".  It goes something like this; I have an entire conversation with my wife about something we are doing this evening, and what I need to do to be ready or get ready for the event.  We text back and forth about it in the morning.  I get home and the whole thing is "gone" sucked into the memory time space continuum, and then she sees I have done nothing and not moved in any way towards the thing....she says something and suddenly the whole conversation comes back into my awareness.  Where did it go?  Why can it return instantly?  what do I do about things going into it?  How do I explain myself?
I have disappointed her? Perhaps?
Perhaps that makes sense to you?

*********
I came across a youtube video that talks about many of the same things that I talk about, though he has not yet discovered my 2 minute rule, but he explains a lot of the parts of it..."Avoiding toxic  productivity advice for ADHD: find what actually works"  figured out that the assumptions in most programs are based on Nuerotypical.
********
Time blindness/collapse

I do say that for lots of people the thing I refer to as "time collapse" is real. Where when things take longer than they should or the time is extended (not in the good video game way) but in the thinking it would be over way. Time collapse also happens from the other side, the future. Knowing I have an appointment at say 10 am and being ready and then someone requests time or assistance, the time collapse happens, or just not starting a thing b/c it is too close to the next thing.
How does that sound?
*******the other collapse
Exactly. I have found that most people pile up a bunch of if/then scenarios, and then they stack these jenga pieces into a tower, then try to balance on top of it, on one leg, and then as soon as one thing "goes wrong" they find the entire thing in collapse. Some people do it the other way, the if/then pit they dig all the way to hell and as soon as one small thing goes wrong, they feel they are collapsing into hell......
Kind regards,

******Time tracker
You are right of course that the two limited resources are time and money. It may be that you are having the same trouble that a lot of people have, the first one is that there are 24 hours in a day and if 8 Plus commute goes to work, and 8 goes to sleep, then all the family responsibilities get crammed into that space between arriving home, and going to bed. The average person has about 3.5 hours in that space, when we were younger (in high school, ect) the average person had 7 hours between arriving home and going to bed. So then everything gets pushed onto Saturday, then Sunday become the day of recovery when no one wants to do anything, and they start to dread the coming of Monday.
So if they want to do something important, where is that time? Either the front end time to figure out the diet and exercise plans or the actual time to do the things?
How does this sound to you?

*****
I usually talk about the role of the prefrontal cortex in the brain as the thing that would normally help block out external stimuli and help one to focus, in a very real way the harder one with ADD/ADHD tries to focus the worse their actual focus is.  One reason that many choose a single distraction they can control, such as listening to music while doing homework.
That is why I say that the thing to help the hyper-focus kick in is to remove the pressure, and set up the situation as the best possible for success, and to always ensure success, and no failures.

2 minute rule
I generally find this thing I call the two minute rule to be helpful in the situation.  The idea is that starting a thing is very much harder than just doing it, and the slope to overcome to start has infinite regression (all the things I need to do before starting the thing) and the I do not have time, I can do it later, later, later or tomorrow.
Instead I tell myself I am going to do at least two minutes, that way no matter what I get a success instead of setting a higher number, like 30 minutes, because my brain will count 29 minutes and 59 seconds as a fail.   I also remove the pressure to get it done or to do a certain amount of time.  If that makes sense to you?
******
Aside from that it seems like part of the problem is at least "practical" to some degree.  I often recommend that one of the best things that a man can do to help around the  house, is to set aside a time in the evening for a routine (not a list) that really helps to set both people up for success in the morning.  I often call it the 7 pm routine, it is about going into say the bathroom, making sure there is soap, taking out the trash and checking the toilet paper; then going to the kitchen, making sure there is paper towels, setting coffee cups by the machine, separating the filters, filling the water, loading, unloading or starting the dishwasher, making ice, taking out that trash too, putting the lunch box with non-perishibles on the counter in front of the fridge.  Getting out your clothes for the next day, putting your bag in the car and seat belting it into the passenger seat, etc, etc, etc,
How does that sound to you, taking as much of the crunch out of the morning rush as possible for both people?
*********
"I'm sorry." is a phrase that I do not think has any upside at all in fact I would say that overusing it, I am just apologizing for existing.

99% of the time instead of saying that I could say "Thank you" instead
So instead of "I'm sorry I am late"
I can thank the other  person for  their patience, understanding, for waiting, etc....

The other 1% of the time when I do need to give  an apology....
"I owe you an apology."  If I can specify what the apology is for that is even better.

********Eat the frog?
One thing a day?  What is wrong with the idea of one main thing a day?  What is the problem with just a list of 5 things and a place to mark each one on one day of the week?  It is like that idea of eating the frog, but instead of eating the frog first, the idea is all we are doing today is eating the frog.

It is important not to save the biggest frog for Friday....

So if the frog seems too large, then the first step is important and focus on the now of this one part....skin the frog, seperate the legs, sautee in butter, etc, etc

For example my boss or accountant sends me an e-mail looking for 4 or five things....
So I print the email, then using highlighters and post it flags, I can mark the first thing blue, tag it blue, then move onto the next color..until the stack contains everything.

Once I have it all I just send it along with asking to let me know if I missed any details....Imperfect action beats imperfect inaction!...
It is ok for my boss or accountant to tell me something is not right
Why should I spend so much time reviewing it over and over?  I am no accountant, and not a mind reader....
*******
Motivation
Let us approach this another way. There seems to be a relationship between motivation and discipline, meaning if my motivation is high I may not need to rely on discipline. But not being motivated most people take to opportunity to beat themselves up concerning the motivation type they have and it not being the "driven" motivation style. Instead of accepting they have another style of motivation like dynamic or resilent.
So discipline is the basic stick/carrot idea. So the stick is not punishment but more avoiding pain.
So let us say that rather than you speaking to yourself about doing a thing, you are likely to give them a pep talk and likely to give yourself a verbal beating.
Why would you say something different to someone else than you say to yourself? Since you already "know" the script for someone else use that instead of the script you already have for you.

********
I am guessing that in a new job you may be learning new things, and when anyone gets into something new it is the perfect storm of high anxiety, low (or no confidence) in addition to that is the frustration of trying to shove that fire hose of information through the small funnel of my working memory, which is the perfect opportunity to beat myself up, and not remember I am the worst judge of how I am doing.
So the idea is to take notes, and take your time and allow yourself to be "ok with the not getting it right away".  Draw it out, or find other ways it is presented to you and see what makes sense and helps you move forward.
The metaphor I like to use is that no one goes to the first day of boxing/karate/BBJ class and challenges the instructor to a fight...

******


Oh yes those certainly add up. The other part is when you get the information that you need to get into your brain. It is a difficult task for a variety of reasons, the main one, is the size of the working memory...that means if I am trying to learn something difficult, the real obstacle is my own frustration, and the fact I am firing a high pressure hose of water into a funnel (working memory) to try and learn things.......

Right, so in writing things down, you give it time to get into your long term memory, b/c you go back and look at those pages over and over and over again, and eventually it gets into your head, (where it needs to be).
Take math for example, tons of really smart ND people come to math, get frustrated, and decide they suck at math, rather than move into learning it. Or they say those dang teachers do not want to teach, they are so lazy. See NT people will worth through frustration to do home work....ND people will typically not do that....

Yes at one point I decided that if I remove the teachers and just suck up the fact I have to teach myself on my own time frame, then that became easier to actually do.....

Right, I also decided that finding a different book to learn from was a good idea, because the book I had sucked. Fortunately the library had other options. I wish the for dummies books were out back then......
frustration.......Right the world in based on NT assumptions. Like the teacher asks a question (or the test) and offers you 4 possible answers..... some kids blurt out the answer, others wait for the end, but due to the size of the working memory, they both will likely not remember the question by the end.....same with written tests....message sent by you
"Which of the following is not true" Circle the word not a bunch of times, then put a T or F by each of the 4 answers, and then go back to read the question, then answer with the one you wrote the "F" by...... a pain in the ass to take tests


Yes you have to be open to trial and error and figuring things out. I do warn people that all the self-help books, 7 habits, atomic habits, and all of those assume and are written for NT people, with all sorts of wrong assumptions. For example if you type into google the 2 minute rule, you will find a business guy and his rule is "If it takes less than 2 minutes, just do it"......that is horrible advice for ND people. First of all estimating time is impossible to do, so what takes more or less than 2 minutes, then second is I can find an infinite number of small tasks to distract me from doing anything productive trying to follow that rule across my entire life.......

Exactly. coddling my brain to feelgood
Well it is either going easy on yourself to get difficult things done or being hard on yourself and beating yourself into an oblivion of failure..... Maybe that is a false dicotomy but I do not want to find out for sure. The rule is for getting important things done, although it works on picking up or dishes or anything else, you do want to get important things done as well....
********
The brain studies have shown the prefrontal cortext, in ADD/ADHD people the harder we try to focus, the worse our ability to focus becomes, the higher the pressure the worse we actually do..
Which I suppose is why the generic advice of "just try harder" fails so spectacularly


Yes. That is indeed true. If I am on a job and the people think I am doing well and they decide to put me on a "performance improvement plan" first I am going to think they hate me/are against me are setting me up to fail, and second if I care about the job I am going to try so hard,....and my performance is going to get worse, and then they are going to accuse me of doing it on purpose....and then termination for "willful misconduct" or some other nasty label.


The PIP "might" help a neurotypical person, but it is game over for the ND person.....Not sure if you have ever went through that one....lots of ADD/ADHD people have went through that ringer multiple times.

I have a hard time understand how someone can be trying to help you improve without being mean to you

Not the way I would "help" someone improve. At all, I would let them watch me, and then assist me, and then let them take lead, and finally let them do it themselves and they can get me if they get stuck......walk the person through it, and invest yourself into the person you want to help succeed do not hand them a piece of paper about how they need to improve!

I often say I would have to take notes to work at starbucks and that I would have to learn how to make all the drinks, and I would have to refer to my notes....and every person there will think I am the dumbest person in the world, unless they understand the size of my working memory, it is just too small to hold it all....but once I learn it and know it, I will be just fine.

Exactly. I can not make my working memory any larger than it is, I have to accept it and myself and explain it to someone when I am trying to do or learn something new. The information is coming at me like a fire hose, and my working memory is a funnel, and only that trickle is going to make it into my brain, but that slow trickle eventually fills the tub,,,

**********

Gifted kid complex is resistant to change.
→ Over usage of IQ to get ahead in life leads to under development in other areas (emotional, interpersonal, …) .
→ Emotion and intellect are the greatest contributors to change.
→ It leads to avoidance of experiences with failure and effortful success.
→ Much harder to control cognitive bias.
→ They are help seeking and help rejecting.
→ There is no perfect formula for most scenarios in life.
→ Hardest part to do is giving up your identity of who you are.
→ Challenge your assumptions.
→ Don’t use theory as a substitute for experience.


The Neuroanatomy of ADHD and thus how to treat ADHD - CADDAC - Dr Russel Barkley part 3ALL
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:08, Sun 21 Jan.