There are so many things I want to write about, but alas there are only so many hours in the day and many of those are dedicated to being a mom, an adult, or squeezing in some sleep.
I just did a quick skim through some draft blog posts. Looking at them with fresh eyes, I honestly can’t understand why many are still in draft format and were never published.
No wait, that’s not completely true. I can guess WHY they were never published. Because something likely happened in the creative process where I felt like more detail or a photo was needed. I may have then become distracted and thought “I’ll finish this later” and then life happened.
I suspect there are a few different reasons why this happens and I won’t just try to blame it on a chronic case of procrastination.
Since taking Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz, I’m now realizing that I am very much a Questioner. Anyone who knows me well or has worked with me will know that I’m usually not short on words. There’s a lot of over thinking going on in my head and internally, I’m constantly asking questions and looking at situations from many different views. If we start talking about a project or a topic I’m familiar with, I’ve likely convinced myself that I have already examined all the different facts about the why and the how. But that doesn’t mean I’m right, but in my head I am, and being questioned doesn’t really jive with Questioners (oh the ultimate irony!).
I’ve always given some credit to my extra thinking because at the age of six, I was diagnosed with a mild case of Tourette’s Syndrome (TS).
My brain is wired a little differently.
Someone with TS often has some common comorbidities like ADHD and OCD, which I just see as part of the whole package deal of who I am. I usually have a lot of energy (hello ADHD), can usually switch gears and jump from topic to topic (hello again ADHD) and am a pro at getting side tracked when discussing something (that’s 3 for 3 ADHD).
And I have lots of OCD related examples from going into too much detail (because God forbid I not tell you EVERYTHING about a very specific thing), to getting “stuck” and needing to think or talk about something over and over and over to the point where I unintentionally get on someone’s nerves. If this has happened to you, I apologize.
But it’s not all bad. I promise. It’s amazing what tricks you can pick up along the way when you’re busy trying to pay attention to everything around you and what’s inside your head.
Because that’s really the concept of ADHD – it’s not that a person cannot concentrate on something, the challenge is that they’re overwhelmed with trying to pay attention to ALL THE THINGS. So what about when I switch from topic to topic? That’s basically my brain interrupting… well, my brain, to push out a thought that just desperately wants to get out. Why? Because of a lack of impulse control (hat tip to TS) and as a questioner, I’ve already thought through the details about something to verify my internal expectations and buy in.
OCD behaviours can help ensure certain projects receive the highest level of attention to detail. Or maybe I’ll never leave the house unlocked because I’ve already check it twice. I have more examples, but I’m starting to lose my steam here and we need to wrap things up soon.
And when you get to know your own little quirks, you find ways to get yourself “unstuck” and start to recognize when someone else may be stuck about something and they may not even realize it. You start to notice what meetings are more productive when you have a formal agenda and what meetings can be more of an open season to see where things go.
Oh and with their powers combined (ADHD and OCD), let me tell you, if you want to hear the most extensive details about something that happened to me in kindergarten? Well, then go get a coffee, pull up a chair and get settled in for a long story. Again, I apologize to everyone who has experienced this on what has been a daily basis…
I’m sort of talking in circles here and it’s time to let you move on to something else. But guess what? This blog post, which will not end up dying as a draft post, came to me randomly when I was planning on writing about something completely different. Ha!