Blog

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    ADHD and Productivity: Do You Know What Action to Take?

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Time Management, Blog

      How many different tools and strategies have you used to help you become more productive? You did the research. Read about how other people used it successfully. And said to yourself, “this tool is the ticket.” In my last post, ADHD and Getting Things Done: Is It a Match?, I shared with you that I thought most readymade systems, like David Allen’s GTD, are not made for “out of the box” use by Adults with ADHD. I also explored how you can work with your ADHD and use GTD in the article, The First Step in Taking Control of Your Tasks. The Second Step is to sort your tasks so you can decide what action to take with each one. Weekly Review The best…

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    ADHD and Getting Things Done: Is It a Match?

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Time Management, ADHD Tools & Strategies, Blog

    “Marla, what do you think of David Allen’s Getting Things Done?” I’ve been getting this question enough lately from my clients that I thought I would answer it here, as you might also be curious about GTD. I like GTD, and think the concepts could be very useful. But would they be useful for adults with ADHD? Maybe. As I was rereading the introduction to GTD, I came across the following that gave me reason to pause. …everything I propose is easy to do. It involves no new skills at all. You already know how to focus, how write things down, how to decide on outcomes and actions, and how to review options and make choices. Hmm… What if this is not true for you?…

  • Here is The First Step in Taking Control of Your Tasks

    ByMarla Cummins Blog

    How are you going to decide what you need to do today? When you have ADHD, this process can be challenging. If you sat down at your desk right now, could you see all of your tasks? If you are like most of us, your answer is likely, “not really.” But you would probably like to be more confident that you have a structure for locating your important tasks without trying to rely on your memory, right? I often hear some variation of one of the statements below when talking to my clients about To Do Lists. I have too much to do. A list would be too overwhelming. I just do what I need to do. I’ve tried using a list, but I can…

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    Managing Your ADHD At Work

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD in the Workplace, Blog

      Of course, everyone has challenges at work. However, as an adult with ADHD, you may have greater struggles than your colleagues with issues, like: details and instructions communication follow-through getting places on time stopping and starting tasks There are steps I have outlined below that you can take to address these challenges and create a better work environment for yourself. To cover the widest range of applicable topics, this article is a mix of new writing and links to a few of my old articles.   Getting To Work On Time: Getting to work on time sets the stage for the rest of your day. So, if this is one of your challenges, check out Are You Tired of Being Late.   Motivation Maybe…

  • ADHD, Mindfulness and Making Decisions

    ByMarla Cummins Blog

    “How do I respond to this situation?” “How can I feel less overwhelmed?” “Where do I want to focus my mental energy/thoughts?” These are some of the questions that Adults with ADHD ask themselves on a regular basis. Having strategies that will allow you to slow down and center yourself are helpful in answering these and similar questions. ADHD and The Wandering Mind As an adult with ADHD you know that your challenge is not inattention.  If anything you have a surplus of attention. The challenge when you have ADHD is being able to regulate your attention, as well as your  actions, thoughts and emotions. That is, being able to make a decision about what to do in any given moment. Without a system for…

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    ADHD and Failing: It Is All Part of Succeeding

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Emotional Regulation, Blog

    We have all failed at some point in our lives. For Adults with ADHD, failure may be all too familiar. Especially if your ADHD was undiagnosed or misdiagnosed until adulthood. If this is the case for you, you may fear failure to the point that it is holding you back from setting or reaching your goals or making the changes that will help you manage your ADHD better. I get it. At some point, after trying and trying, you get tired of falling short of the mark.While it took me a longggg time to really step into this perspective, I have come to think of failing as part of the process of succeeding. That wasn’t always the case. I used to be terrified of failure….

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    Do You Know When To Put Away Your Toolbox?

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Symptoms & Diagnosis, Blog

      As I wrote about last week in The Power of Putting On The Brakes, sometimes I find myself so focused on what is in front of me, I forget to slow down.  One of the downsides of going too fast is not being efficient and effective. But another downside is that I forget to live intentionally, in the moment. Yes, adults with ADHD have a tendency to live in the moment. There is now and not now. Often when this happens, though,  it is unintentional. There is no planning or awareness of the consequences of living in the moment. True, if this is our primary way of being, we may not do the necessary planning to reach our goals. But if we are always…

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    The Power of Putting On The Brakes

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Tools & Strategies, Blog

    I know it when I feel it. It usually begins with this odd ringing noise in my head. If it continues, it might build into this energy in my body that makes me feel like I might combust at any moment! When I get this feeling now, I recognize that I am entering the territory of overwhelm; a territory that many with ADHD visit with some regularity. In the past, I might have spent a fair amount of time trying to get something done or, alternatively, trying to decide what that something should be. Usually, I just ended up wasting time. And the pressure just kept building – I could not think coherently. It took me a long time. But I have figured out that…

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    ADD Coaching and Medication: Making The Path Easier

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Treatment Options, Blog

    The  decision to take medication to treat ADHD is certainly not black and white. You may have questions, which require that you spend a fair amount of time seeking out satisfactory answers before you can make the right decision for yourself. I addressed some of these questions in my article, Putting the Pieces Together: Treating Your ADHD.

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    ADHD and Decision Making: Stopping The Fire Drills

    ByMarla Cummins ADHD Tools & Strategies, Blog

    Some rights reserved by Freakazoid! As adults with ADHD many of us think fast and have too many thoughts at once. So, it is no wonder that making decisions can feel overwhelming. Consequently, when we feel overwhelmed, we may delay making decisions. Some decisions may even remain on the back burner indefinitely because we do not have a strategy. Other times we are forced to make a decision at the last minute, compromising our ability to arrive at an optimal solution. True, the stimuli we get from having to complete tasks at the last minute may help us to get things done. This leads some of us to believe that we operate best this way. After all, we completed the paper, report, yard work, etc….