Is ADD Contagious?!

Our culture is making it increasingly difficult to not be overwhelmed by all of the information. Hell, I get inundated daily by electronic communications of all forms and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with this problem. Seriously, daily, I want to strangle people because they do not read before they act.  Just at work alone, one of my coworkers and I are baffled at people being lazy and doing exactly the opposite of what we asked them to do.  At first, I thought it was the way I worded my emails and that they could be more clear, but when I read them and have other people near me read them, I realize that is not the case at all. Can people NOT read?! everyone illiterate? Nope - I rationalize that the old 80/20 rule applies to everything including behaviors.There is always going to be 20% of the responses that take up 80% of my time! So, should I just accept it? Should I accept that the world is this way and I just need to learn how to deal with the inefficiency? I don't want to live with it. I want people to change their behaviors and slow down and read instructions more thoroughly....But wait, I just rattled off an email to someone that had half of the information in it that I meant to send. I got distracted in the middle of writing it and it was wrong. I did realize it and replied to everyone to make sure that they knew I realized it, but still.....  I am just as bad as everyone else.


So, do I have ADD like Josh? Is it contagious? I swear it is, but I don't think it's Josh's fault - at least not entirely. He and I are guilty of the same things, but I blame our culture. I think our culture is making us more and more ADD by the minute. I don't know about you, but I have about 3 chat conversations going on right now, a fourth one started and reading my emails and saving files all the while I am writing this and  have an Access Database open updating records in it . The radio is on and I have my phone with Facebook open by my laptop waiting on it to ding as well.  When I get any type of information, my preferred method of getting it is bullet points because I don't want to read all the words in a sentence. Seriously! Oh - that makes me want to write this entire blog in bullet points, so you can read it and aren't afflicted with the same impatience that I have when I read something.... But where's the growth in that?



Fine! I'll do it..... Hmmmmph! With bullet points and everything.


I'm going to try to commit to these 7 steps in the next 30 days. Hopefully it will become a habit.

• Slow Down and eliminate "noise." Currently that means shutting off my radio at work and closing a few windows. I will commit to shut off my chat features when I need to focus more on a task as well.
  
• Read and re-read things before acting. 
• Keep my emotions in check. If they are heightened when I am taking action, then I want to attempt to sit on the action at least 24 hours before doing whatever it is (sending an email, etc).
• Actually read instructions more closely - people do not read mine closely and like I said before, I want to strangle them. I need to do what I want them to do though and not act hastily.   
• Whatever I am doing, I want to be present while doing it. PRESENT means that my mind is not wondering off waiting on the next shiny object to appear and take my attention away from my task. 
• Yoga, yoga, yoga. 
• I'm going to take Josh's advice and tap into my inner artist more, but it's going to take quieting the mind to do that first and that's where my heaven on earth comes into play. How can you not tap into the inner artist when looking at these type of views? I am so looking forward to seeing this live in just one week!

Can't you just hear all of the wildlife buzzing? When I look at this pic, I hear birds chirping, frogs croaking, some flying insects rubbing their wings together and the oysters flushing their shells as the tide goes back to sea.

A little piece of Josh's artistic eye......   These are tiny little clam shells that covered an entire boat ramp.

   

Off for now to find my inner artist - Jen.