Getting Things Done

 I owe you an apology. I've been having a little trouble focusing over the last couple of weeks so I haven't been posting much. I do have 3 or 4 drafts hanging around that I will eventually clean up and post. I promise.

My lack of focus has me thinking about attention and hyperactivity. My 15 year old nephew visited for a week and had to do homework while he was here. He has ADHD and has chosen not to take medication. I told him one afternoon that he had to do 1 hour of schoolwork. I sat reading a book in the next room. First, I heard the chair shaking, the table shaking and the sound of him petting a cat on the table. Seven minutes later, he was calling his dad on the phone. Twenty minutes after he started, he was back to work. Then he got himself a snack and went back to work. I read my book for a bit, looked up and saw that he was lying on the floor playing with another cat. I told him (for probably the 30th time) to get back to work. He said, "hey, I only have 5 minutes until I'm done". I told him that no, he had to get an hour of work done. He went back to his homework. It ultimately took him 2.5 hours to do one hour's worth of work. It was clear that he can't really help it and I'm impressed by his tenacity. I tried very hard not to laugh but I have to admit that it was entertaining to see what would catch his attention next.

Some people with dyspraxia also have ADHD. It has been suggested before that I may have ADHD but after watching Finn for a week, I'm pretty sure that I don't. I can sit still and concentrate for hours at a time. I wrote my undergraduate thesis in a 12 hour marathon because I was able to focus when it was required. When we received our first novel in second grade, I ran home, found a quiet place and read the whole thing. My problem is a wandering mind, it's internal distraction rather than external. I can drift off in the middle of a conversation and find myself thinking about things totally unrelated to the conversation. The other person will make a noise or something and I will realize that I have no idea of what I was going to say or even what the conversation was about. This can be a problem during interviews, meetings or other conversations. People who know me well recognize when I've mentally drifted away. I'm more subtle now then when I was a kid but I'm sure that my expression makes it obvious. I have to work hard to stay engaged in conversations or at least to appear engaged.

There is a plus side though.Waiting in line or waiting for other things doesn't really bother me. I happily spend time daydreaming and letting my mind go where it wants. I watch other people getting frustrated and irritated but not me - I have dyspraxia.