Aspger's and ADD not each other's friend, especialy for work

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I would appear to be another ADHD-type aspie (though I had always thought the two conditions were total opposites until I found out that a lot of Aspies have Executive Dysfunction).

Basically I have two choices about how to live my life - either I have to live with my chaos, or go totally the other way & have rigid OCD-type routines.

I have learned the hard way that the former option actually makes my life less unmanageable - better to have a job & live in a complete mess than to have a tidy house & no job because I can't leave the house until all the chores are done in the right way & the right order!

I hate being this way, & hate not being able to organise my work properly (I have all these complicated lists & spend more time keeping them up-to-date than doing my work.)

I can never concentrate at work because it is just too noisy & busy, so I do end up on the internet a lot (funny how I can concentrate on that, but not on work....! Must be because I am not the least bit interested in my job!)

Last edited by shopaholic on 09 May 2008, 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Me too... when I found out about wrongplanet and heard how the two conditions can be interlinked, I was like "But those 2 conditions have nothing in common..." it appears I was wrong.

I believe myself to be a pretty darned ADHD type aspie in the working environment.

I try not to let it wreck my mind too much... I like the chaos, just not the discomfort. Or something... see I'm being chaotic right now.

I hope this aspie type will help for creative thinking and artistic values personally...

Meh! I can totally relate to you guys.

I use a book and I write down everything I need to do in the day, that gets me organised. Once I complete a task I go onto the next thing.

As for bad concertration, I just go with it, I can't make myself concertrate. If I'm working and go off on a day dream, I don't worry about it, once I'm I realise I'm in a day dream I just go back to working. I do get my work done in the end.

Yeah I'm really struggling with motivation at this stage in my life, been through a bit that has knocked me. Fighting also helps get you through things.

Also a problem I have is that I'm very impulsive.

I must be one of the ADHD type auties as well... I find it interesting because they say auties need a schedule and keep to it rigidly. Me I can't keep to a shedule... but I find I need to have some sort of scehdule otherwise I won't get anything done... I keep my place messy because I don't know where to put things.

I also lose things, which frustrates me. I can keep some things organized like my plants.

As far as thought processes goe, I tend to have the constant chatter, multiple trains of thoughts at once... Sometimes I write them down and sometimes I write none of them down. I go on tangents and my tangents have tangents. Can you get distracted from a distraction that distracted you from some other distraction? That must be my life... I guess I learn lots of things and remember them out of it.

As far as modivation goes, I have things I want to do but don't know how to get there unless someone can walk me through. Other things that I know how to do and don't involve going out somewhere or other people, I can get done rather easily if I focus enough.

Thorsten, you're very intelligent but very lazy too
(words og one of my teachers)
He was wrong of course, i just wasn't interested in the stuff. We had this teacher in IT and Bookkeeping ( accountancy? not sure about the right word, not native english). So he had to endure me in my best and my worst class

I became a programmer later on (yep, another one...), somehow managing to get around concentration problems and being easily bored by stupid stuff.
Anyway, making notes about everything helps a bit. And the daydreaming makes you creative, allows you to see more options.
I lose a lot of time, but can make up for it somehow by working fast or solving problems others can't solve.
I think that makes up a bit for the disadvantages.

Privat i fight against the mess in my room. Piles of clothes and books. Good luck i can't afford a larger room (expensive city i live), so i can't keep too much things and i don't like to have too much useless stuff anyway and throw away (or give to other people) whatever i didn't use for some time.

another small tip that helps: you can always jump between "important" things. So if my actual work gets boring I jump to something else, but still related to work, maybe finding or testing new programming tools, doing research and so on.