ADHD is the second most common mental health disorder in adults, second to depressive disorders. ADHD can be a very powerful gift but it is also something that needs to be managed. If you are supporting an ADHD diagnosis in your life, here are five quick ideas to help you find some balance from clutter and balance in life, in general!
Carry a small portable notebook, and when one of your brilliant ideas or an action item interrupts you, write it down and then get back to what you were doing.- Use timers to help you focus on the completion of a task. Where a watch with a timer to help you keep track of the passing of time. Check out the TimeTimer; you will love it! (see photo, right)
- Label stuff with big, bright labels: Bills, Project X, Taxes, Reciepts, etc.
- Simplify a task by breaking it down into smaller parts.
- Know your power and don’t let people get you down (or your own inner voice), because you are remarkable!
And, oh by the way, here is a short list of the many remarkable people diagnosed with ADHD, or where written history suggests they might have had ADHD:
Anne Bancroft – Actress
Ansel Adams — Photographer
Beethoven — Composer
George Burns — Actor
Andrew Carnegie – American Industialist
Cher — Actress/Singer
Sir Winston Churchill — English Statesman (Failed the sixth grade)
Bill Cosby — American Actor, Comedian
Leonardo da Vinci — Italian Inventor, Artist
Walt Disney — American Cartoonist, Film Producer, Theme Park Innovator (A newspaper editor fired him because he had “No good ideas”.)
Kirk Douglas — American Actor
Thomas Edison — Inventor (His teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything)
Albert Einstein — Physicist (Einstein was four years old before he could speak,and seven before he could read)
Malcolm Forbes —Forbes Magazine Founder & Publisher
Benjamin Franklin —American Colonial Politician, Elder Statesman, Inventor
Galileo (Galilei) — Italian Mathematician, Astronomer
Ernest Hemingway — Author
“Magic” Johnson — American Basketball Player, Film Personality, Business Man
John F. Kennedy — U. S. President
John Lennon —Musician
Greg Louganis — Olympic Athelete (Diving)
Steve McQueen — American Actor
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — German Child Prodigy Composer, Violinist, Pianist
Louis Pasteur — Scientist, developed “Pasturization” (Rated as mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College)
John D. Rockefeller —Founder, Standard Oil Company
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt — American First Lady
Suzanne Somers — Actress, Pinup Girl
Steven Spielberg — American Filmmaker
Lindsay Wagner — American Actress (Bionic Woman), Spokesperson
Stevie Wonder — American Musician
You are in good company!