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Living with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) / Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - Coping Tips

Here are some tips that can really help you in your day-to-day life. You can print them out and spread out the word about them so a whole lot of people around you can be benefited with your efforts, which is a real reward for you too.

Daily Living ADD Tips

1. The best way to prevent any confusion or being anxious at work or at school, it is good to ask your teacher or boss to repeat instructions rather than guessing as to what needs to be done.

2. To achieve day to day tasks, it is best for you to make a list of the things that need to be done in an organized way. It is best to plan everything in a chronological order and then schedule them one by one by placing them in appropriate time slots.

3. The best working environment for the people going through ADD is to work in a quiet and a peaceful area. It is best to do one thing at a time and it is best to do it in short breaks.

4. Write things that you need to remember in a notebook with dividers. Write different kinds of information like assignments, appointments, and phone numbers in different sections. Keep the book with you all of the time.

5. Be a part of a network where you have an opportunity to meet with the ones going through the disorder, as well as the people who are working with all as a team. You will find new people, new ways that people are adopting in their lives to make it better and the gains that they are getting from them. Let this be a great learning process for you and the people who belong to the network, so that everyone benefits from it.

6. It is of great importance that you identify the money matters really well and know as to how you are going to handle your bank account and to learn all the basic things that are needed to maintain your account and ask the manager of the bank to assist you in helping you learn as to how to balance your checkbook, reduce your credit card debt, create a monthly budget and save a little. You should also know as to how to manage the money with time change. Savings accounts sure earn a lot less interest, for example. So there may be alternative methods offering better benefits for you. Do not have multiple credit cards cause they can put you under a lot of debt, so it is better to have one credit card. Paying bills online may help you set up automated, regular payments so that your bills get paid on time every month from now on. You can gather all this information from your bank manager or an agent managing your account at the bank.

7. Post notes to yourself to help remind yourself of things you need to do. Tape notes on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator, in your school locker, or dashboard of your car -- wherever you're likely to need the reminder.

8. Create a routine. Get yourself ready for school or work at the same time, in the same way, every day.

9. Exercise, eat a balanced diet and get enough sleep.

Coping With Holiday & Seasonal Stress

These are some tips, which you can adopt to prevent stress during holiday seasons and this will keep you from being anxious.

1. You just need to know your needs and your game plan regarding spending the vacations and should not follow and trying to fit other people’s lifestyles, traditions, celebration planning, etc. and your entire focus should be you and your family and your plans as to how you all want to spend your vacations. You just need to focus on the thing that makes you comfortable and what pleases you and your family the best.

2. Lights play a pretty important role in the lives of people going through ADD, as the sun goes down early and this leads to depression, which could cause a pulling down feeling, so it is best that before the fall and winter seasons that you buy out bulbs and can have adequate lights in your home. It would be good if you keep some extra bulbs under your hand.

3. Keep an emergency “healthcare” list ready. During the times when you are going on a vacation trip you just need to keep a list of all the emergency numbers like your health care provider, your counselor, psychiatrist etc. so that if you need their services at any point in time that you can just call them and confirm as to how you can come over the problems that you are facing.

4. Let your spouse know all the feelings that you have been going through in the past weeks so she can better understand your feelings and you both work together and come up with the plans as to how to deal with them during the times when you are on the vacation.

5. Make a detailed list of all the things that needs to be done before going on a vacation like making check lists, seeing which bills need to be paid before, closing down the gas, checking all the electrical appliances are closed down, all the packing is being done and everything is double checked before you leave for the trip.

How To Setup and Use Organizer & Filing Systems

Organizing and planning is an essential part of life, so you will be needing organizational techniques to manage every single day, and these can help you:

• So you don’t have to look for things and you waste a lot of time on that, and keeping things organized will keep you focused on the tasks at hand.
• So you would not be feeling anxious and overwhelmed when you can’t find something.
• So you can get more accomplished and earn more money.
• So you can have less stress levels resulting from wasted “searching” for things, from being late, unprepared, bothered and angry. And instead get benefits from improved relationships at home, at work, at social function.

The normal cognitive functions control learning and behavioral activities; the major three of these functions are working memory that saves the information that is being seen or heard, sense of time and organization. The people who have ADD often have a hard time dealing with these three functions. The effects of impairment in these functions are lack of solid planning and time management skills, which often results in having adverse effects on their job, home and social responsibilities.

In order to get things in a chronological system, they are being advised to use planners, organizers and filing systems, which can help them spend their time in an organized way. These are general guidelines and can be attuned to suit an individual’s needs. You can always seek help from a trusted friend, a family member who already has an experience to use planners so you can learn things on a fast pace, or you can also seek help from professional organizational companies.

Planners – There are many kinds of planners that are available that will help you to jot down and organize your day, week and year, and this will help you to spend your time in the most efficient way and manage day to day activities in the best possible way. The things that you need to check are the price ranges and you can find them at planning departments and stores like Day-Timers and Franklin Covey, and online. For your computers, you can find planner software and handheld computers. There are also conventional planners that you can just make a journal where you write the month and day and list down the things in the order you plan your day.

Most of the planners have the instructions on them so as to how to use them and this serves as a guide that tells you so as how to use the planner. The best planner to begin with is a very simple day by day planner because if you choose the planner that is monthly, it would not have enough space to write the detailed plan for the day so it would be wastage of time fitting in the information in small boxes as well as money, so in my opinion the best thing would be to give a try to the daily planners, which are usually sectioned off in hourly segments to log your meetings, classes, work and other functions. You can also fill out a contact information page in case you misplace your planner, then fill in any resource contacts you’d like in the back (like phone numbers for relatives, clients, doctors, etc.).

To-Do Lists – These are very simple lists that only bears the tasks that you need to perform in a day and you can get the basic understanding of making the to do lists and all the help that you require from your ADD coach, who can help you guide through the process of making the lists. You can transfer the information from your to do lists to your daily planner as well as you can mark the very important things in red and less important things in yellow so as to define the priorities accordingly.

Alarm Systems – It is really pretty important that the plans are followed cause planning is just one side of the coin, converting those plans to action is the basic thing that needs to be done, and this can only be achieved if you start your day at the right time. If you have problems getting up in the morning then you can always set an alarm to wake you up at the time when you want to be up and ready to start your day. For meetings, appointments and other timed functions that are lined up for through the day, learn as to how you can set your wrist watch alarm or cell alarm or you can set your alarm to a vibrate mode so as not to disrupt a class or your work environment.

Organizational Management Strategy – Whatever you plan for your day, just keep them in one place, that is the main planner and don’t keep them separate that you are looking for different pages and thinking as to where you have placed the documents, which were to keep you aligned throughout the day. Plan all your activities a day before and make sure that you have jot them down all and aligned them so as to prevent any havoc the next day as to how you are going to organize your day or thinking hard on things so as what you had at what time, so all this will really help you to keep all aligned and focuses.

Check off the tasks that are being completed each day. Reward yourself for spending such a wonderful day by listening to the music of your choice, having a dinner at some good place outside or you can even cook something really good at home and can enjoy and having a wonderful time with your family so as to just making the day really smooth and complete.

If anything goes wrong during the day, don’t get panic on that, just remember that you are not perfect and no one else is and just remember to forgive yourself and don’t be hard on yourself and let go any bad feelings that are overcoming you and making you feel down, so just feel relaxed and smooth and go on with the day and learn that how can that be prevented the next time and that doesn’t get repeated.

Another thing that really helps is carrying blank pages so as to just jot down different things or ideas that comes in the mind or anything that is just bothering, you can always write that and come back and read it in your relaxing time and you can find as to what were your thoughts at that time and can determine the cause of them, which will definitely help you learn a lot about yourself.

Related Disorders

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

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Insomnia

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Tourette’s Syndrome Disorder

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Disruptive Behavior Disorders

Paranoia

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Pick’s Disease

Adjustment Disorder

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