Overcoming Task Anxiety

I spent all of yesterday at a really great course on Productive Dialogues and influence. It was excellent, but I came home at the end of the day pretty tired.
I saw the pile of emails in my personal/university inbox and my very long task list in my outlook from work and just didn't want to do much.

I had prepared with my materials for two tasks I've been putting off, an expense report and a luggage damage report to the airlines. Often I find that being prepared really helps me get things done, but not this time. I was tired. Instead I hemmed and hawed and did nothing. 

When in that situation I think I'd rather just make a decision to take the evening off of work, give myself permission to just relax, or to get on those tasks.

I arrive at work this morning feeling like I have too many things to do. Notice though that this is a feeling, something I'd blown up and imagined in my head. At that time though it was all too real and felt kind of paralyzing, especially since I was supposed to take my laptop in for service and possible replacement this morning an hour after I arrived.
--edit--
I realized that I failed to mention that having "too many tasks" to do feels like I'm being pulled in many directions at once, it's almost physically painful. Many or all of the tasks seem to be equally pressing and need to be done now. This is about executive function. Some people seem to be able to handle this rather well. Others, not so much. This is made much easier when I do client work, because it's always easy to see what needs to be done next, and I can just prioritize that instead of the myriad of other things pressing for attention. When I'm running my own PhD project supervising two students, and have all these IT issues in the mix, not so much.
--end--

I realized that the amount of data I needed to move and/or back up before taking my laptop in was very significant and would take hours. Often I would just let that kind of change in plans and perceived delay get to me. Inflexibility in thinking or plans is something that helps me choose anxiety and I'd like to work on that. I decided though that clearly the tech would not wait for me, he'd move on to his next thing, especially since when I set the appointment he didn't seem to care when I would come. I started copying and backing up let it run in the background.

What next then? My email was backed up because I of being at a course all day on Wednesday and not being able to deal with that, plus some from Tuesday that came in late after had checked it. I just started working the inbox, doing all the small stuff and putting the bigger stuff into my to-do list. Before I knew it, I had my inboxes cleared out and my to-do list wasn't that much longer for all of the work. My computer was still backing up things so I started in on a writing task, using my 10 minute timer. Thinking "I'll just do it for 10 minutes" is a thing that can really help me get going on tasks and I was able to get some things written.
Soon all my files were backed up and my tasks worked on and my email boxes at zero. Sure I had plenty to do later that day but it was ok.

Lessons learned

Letting things build up can make it seem worse than it really is. When it can't be avoided, I think if I just plan on working on it for 10 minutes will deflate some of the anxiety about that.
When things go wrong, look for something you can do. If I just take some time to think about what I can do instead instead of stressing out about the things I though I was going to do then it turns out to be ok.  I was able to take care of small things that had been needing done on my list. When I went to take the laptop in I packed some paper-based work I could do with me.

Oh and in the end the tech was able to simply swap out my hard drive into a nearly identical computer without any difficulties and no data lost and relatively little time used in the effort.

ADD and grad school

So most of you know that I'm a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology here in the Netherlands. Grad school is intense. I have to admit I've found it difficult to keep up sometimes.
At one point late last year I knew that things really weren't going very well for me. I realized that paper deadlines were slowly sapping any joy I had in life out of me. I had a hard time getting anything done. I was choosing an experience for myself that was very stressful and difficult. I was depressed, very depressed and having a hard time even getting out of bed in the morning. I did get out of bed though.
When I was talking about the experience with a fellow PhD candidate the other day she said, "how did you do it?" She knew another friend of hers who was in a similar situation and had taken a 6 month leave in order to deal with her depression and ADD diagnosis. What got me through was my family.
My incredible wife Vanessa has been my mainstay and support. I have to give a lot of the credit to God, because he was there helping me and her too. He also gave us the gift of our children. Now you all who have kids (and many others I'm sure) know how challenging parenting can be. Throw in some special needs and it can be an explosive mix sometimes. Despite all of that though, my kids inspire me to be a better person. They love so much and unconditionally. We get to share so many hugs and kisses each day, and special times where I can really see what love is all about and why we're really here.
It is because of them that I kept going, and I'll give myself a little credit too, I'm tenacious. Even when I'm barely hanging on, barely making it through, had very little hope or faith, I still held on.
So I was on Skype with one of my supervisors (I have two and two other advisors) and she asked me how I was doing and it all poured out. She knew something was off. We had a long talk about everything and she was so supportive and loving... it was a blessing. I asked her about talking to my other supervisor and advisors and she encouraged me. I did that. My advisor at Philips Research said that given how things were going in terms of my health I should at least mention it to my manager. I had that discussion too.
It was all very positive. I felt somewhat ashamed but none of them did anything to engender that... it was an experience I chose for myself. In telling them what was happening with me it also spurred me to action. I had a plan to see a psychiatrist and get evaluated. They all agreed it was a good plan and added a few little tidbits here and there. All good advice.

Get these great T-shirts from PhD comics

Soon thereafter I went and did all of that diagnosis stuff, I did it while attending a conference. I did a number of questionnaires and bunch of the history before arriving, and then scheduled various things during the lunch breaks including some SPECT brain scans. I got some very pretty pictures of my brain activity and that helped pinpoint exactly what was happening with with me. ADD, depression (well duh!), anxiety disorder, and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) among others.
I even shared a cab from the venue to the clinic with a fellow attendee (they dropped me off as it was on the way to where he was going) and he was respectful of the whole thing.
What I'm trying to say is that grad school and ADD, and an academic career can be successfully mixed. I think that in some ways it can be helpful. Sure conference deadlines are fixed, and grading has to be done by certain times, but with some external structures to help, good teaching assistants, and being open and honest with people things can be pretty good. Not that I've decided to do the fully academic thing, but I think it can be done.
The hardest thing for me by far about grad school is the reading. I love reading in general, but conference papers, and especially journal articles are written in a special way that, in some ways, seems to be a kind of gauntlet that is placed between the authors and their peers and the rest of the world. They use complicated words and dense sentence structures. They go on endlessly about the minutia and theory. It's worse than philosophy much of the time (I know my BA is in Philosophy, at least philosophy tries to really deal with the world as it is and so much of academic work is so reductionist.). So getting through reading and then remembering any of it or being able to really engage with the material is difficult for me.
Since getting some treatment (anti-depressants, stimulants are recommended for someone with anxiety) it's a little better, but reading just 5 or 10 minutes at a time is what works best for me. I set a timer (use timer-tab.com) and just read for that period of time. No matter what else happens I stick to it. I need to pee, get a drink whatever.. that can wait until the 10 minutes is up. I remember something really important I need to do, I have a post-it not on my desk and write it down, stick it on my monitor and get right back to reading. I typically have my noise cancelling headphones and some kind of lyric-free music on. Often when the time is up I'll do another block of 10 minutes again because I finally got into it a bit. If I didn't I can also take 2 minutes to do something else like facebook or get a drink etc. This strategy works for writing as well and has been really, really helpful for me.

Hello world, I have ADD

I was trying to find the best way to creatively say what I've known for sure now for going on 4 months.
I have ADHD, primarily Inatentive type. I.e. I'm not hyperactive, but I think that anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not hyperactive, instead I tend towards being low energy in general.

My son has ADHD, others in my family do. A large part of it is heritable. If a family member of yours has been diagnosed and you want to support them, or you perhaps even suspect it yourself, read (or listen to as I did) this book: Delivered From Distraction by Dr. Hallowell. The approach in the book is relentlessly positive, because there are certainly upsides to have ADD (the official name is now ADHD, but ADD is somewhat better. In the book they make the point that everyone else may as well have Attention Surplus Syndrome and that psychiatry and western medicine is really into pathologizing everything because that's what it's good at). It's like having a racing car brain, but sometimes we need to get better brakes and learn how to use them.

This book opened up my eyes and I went and had a full psychiatric evaluation. The whole works. Let me say all those tests they have you take and the history... wow, it take a lot of time. In the end though the history is the key part and that part is good in a way because it helps you consider your life systematically and thoroughly more than one would otherwise.

So living with diagnosed ADD (as opposed to undiagnosed ADD) is good, as it reveals lots of key insights. I've dealt with depression in my life as well as feelings of addiction with pornography and anxiety (particularly social anxiety, and every time I tell people that they are surprised because "I seem so social and good at networking" no really people, unless I know people at a gathering I'm almost always uncomfortable, sometimes painfully so and I just have to get out). It's easy to see a more clearly though how ADD is the primary issue and the others are secondary, caused by going undiagnosed for so long and the negative feedback I keep on getting from others and myself.

I had to have some conversations with those I work with about what I've been going through. I felt embarrassed about it. All my advisers have been supportive, some extremely so. My manager at work has been understanding and helpful. I found it difficult to do, but it got to the point that the pain of not talking about it was worse. In fact when I read this article about a baseball player who was suspended because he tested positive for amphetamines (i.e. adderall a legal prescription drug, but he failed to properly notify he team and have his Dr. sign the proper forms). He was suspended. He didn't want to talk about it because he thought it would be hard, he didn't know how to do it.

For years we've been telling people with different kinds of so-called mental illnesses that they are bad people, that they must be lazy, or not willing to work or just stupid. They could never be much in this world. Some of us buy into that and keep on repeating it to ourselves (I know I have). So often early intervention can help with many things. People (like me before) don't want to take medication because there this vague notion that if you have to take a medication for a mental illness it means you're a bad person, or weak, or should just be more organized, shape up, be a (wo)man, do your work, and pay attention. Yet statistics and many scientific studies show that for ADD medication will significantly improve the lives of about 80% of people. Of course medication is only one part of a good program, one cannot ignore the rest, but if it works why not do it. In addition some things don't have medications that work well, like Autism, though there are other approaches that can do amazing things.

So this post is not poetic, or very funny, or have a lot of good stories and examples in it, but it's how I'm feeling. Let's stop stigmatizing people because they have a disease, or are a certain way, or love a certain kind of person, or believe in a different god or gods, or don't believe in god, or used to believe in god and got fed up with "organized religion," or are more/less educated that you, or have what you think is a better/worse job.

In short, let's stop judging others.
One of my favorite quotes in the last several months is this one heard quoted over the pulpit from a bumper sticker:

Don't Judge Me Because I Sin Different Than You

Not that I'm implying that ADD is a sin, or any of those other things I said either, but it's easy to interpret them as sloth, greed, lust etc etc. So stop your judging (if indeed you were) and start loving and supporting people.

He who loves the most wins

OK enough truisms and seeming clichés. 

Just a second.... how was I going to end this?