Do you have office A.D.D.??? Attention Deficit Disorder is the productivity killer affecting most office workers today….!!!

Do you have office A.D.D.??? (Attention Deficit Disorder )

Mail box cluttered with last year’s spam. Juggling three phones at once. Getting frazzled looking at the number of messages that need a reply. If that’s your usual day, you may be heading for, or have already caught, that deadly workplace disease: attention deficient disorder.

Things slipping out of the mind moments after you filed them in the brain had become common occurrence, difficulty in focusing, inability to complete a project, irritability, anxiety. Very short attention spans have been traditionally associated with children. Surprise…!!! It is now accepted by the medical community that childhood A.D.D. can continue well into the adulthood.

The biggest prey group consists of young professional men, not equipped with multitasking skills that evolution has given women. Two of biggest tools of multitasking – the cell phone and email are also two of biggest enemies of the concentration. These first came to India just over decade ago, changing the way we work. Every mobile phone interruption, every email message popping up on the corner of your computer screen hindrance to your concentration. Because, much as the modern young professional loves to believe that he is an efficient juggler at work, study after study shows that the grey matter is not equipped to handle two complex tasks at once – at least not without slowing you down or screwing you up. In a 2006 study published in Neuron, MRI technology is used to show that an actual neural bottleneck occurs in the frontal lobes when you attempt to do two tasks at once. And when you are interrupted doing something, your brain can’t go back seamlessly to the job it was doing before the interruption. Modern methods of 24x7 communications are the building blocks of A.D.D. you often feel overwhelmed by the number of phone calls or emails you have to deal with daily.

There is no question that A.D.D. can disrupt lives and reduces the productivity.”It can be mild, moderate or severe and symptoms vary from person to person- but they have some combination of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. “For most of people with A.D.D. their lives are filled with overwhelming chaos- piles of stuff, never ending tasks and out of control clutter. They are contently behind the schedule and frazzled.”

THE ROAD AHEAD:-

Office A.D.D. can be controlled by training your mind and forcing yourself to stick to new work flow plan until habit becomes second nature. Clinical A.D.D., like any other clinical condition, needs diagnosis and treatment. “the diagnosis can be  liberating, particularly for people who have been stuck with labels like ‘lazy’, ‘stubborn’, ‘willful’, ‘disruptive’, ‘impossible’, ‘tyramical’,’brain-damaged’, ‘stupid’, or just plain ‘bad’. It’s not unusual for A.D.D. sufferers to taste success in a enterprise if they manage to focus their energies, but A.D.D. prevents them from becoming well-adjusted individuals.

That’s the thing about this disorder. It takes a lot of adapting to get on in life living with A.D.D. “But”, “it certainly can be done, and be done very well.

KNOW THYSELF: - How can you tell if A.D.D. lurks inside you??? Check for these symptoms. You may have the disorder.

·        If you are forever irritable.

·        If you have difficulty falling asleep, and difficulty waking up all the time.

·        If you have trouble completing projects and tends to jump from one activity to another.

·        If you get bored easily, like within 5 minutes of starting to do something, or within a couple of months of starting of job.

·        If you regularly lose things like keys, important papers, phone numbers etc.

·        If you frequently have troubled remembering tasks.

·        If you find yourself overcommitted and often late.

·        If you keep making impulsive purchases and hasty decisions.

·        If you feel overwhelmed and disorganized in your daily life.

·        If you go off on a tangent in conversations, usually interrupt others or even reply before the other person has finished asking question.

·        If you have trouble balancing your cheque book, or have difficulty with paper work.

·        If you fidget or squirm when seated for long periods.

·        If you have difficulty engaging in leisure activities quietly.

STEPS THAT HELP:-

·        Work in small spurts rather than long hauls. Break all tasks down into smaller tasks.

·        Get help where you need it, whether it’s having secretary or an accountant.

·        Use tools to keep life organized, such as personal digital assistants, “to-do” lists and outlook reminders.

·        Be realistic when making to-do lists. Pick 2 or 3 things every day to concentrate on, not 8 or 9.

·        Before you start a job, fix a goal. If you don’t know where you are going, how you will get there?

·        Remember people with A.D.D. will forget the things. When that happens, don’t get frantic. Just pick up where you left off and restart in the right direction.

·        Get enough exercise to work off some of the noise inside.

Modern-day maladies: - These are the evils that make your life a misery.

·        Packing in too much: Some call it work overload; others call it multitasking. Imagine: you are working on Excel, surfing on net, listening music, answering email, and chatting on phone about cricket. Being able to juggle so much may seem impressive, but our brains have billions of neurons….yet the truth is we can really focus on only one thing at a time.

·        All those missed meals: Short attention span could result from low levels of blood sugar, too. Since the brain needs glucose to function, lack of it keeps you from focusing. But this does not license you to gobble chocolate. A fruit juice is a much better substitute, so are energy dense snacks, as nuts.

·        An attic full of junk: you know ell that diet rich in junk food is poor in vitamins and minerals. Lack of iron is especially bad for concentration. If your symptoms point to A.D.D., add more cereals and beans to your diet for better iron intake.

Attention Deficit Disorder is the productivity killer affecting most office workers today….!!!