Learning that you or your child has a new diagnosis can be scary.  Getting some background and tools empower you and your child.  Here is a short list of suggested resources for you to start your education. 

Websites

www.additudemag.com

www.chadd.org

www.adda-sr.org

http://letsgetfittofocus.com/

http://www.familieswithpurpose.com/

Blogs

http://www.additudemag.com/adhdblogs/

http://www.parenting.com/article/adhd-in-children

Books

Empowering Youth with ADD by Jodi Sleeper-Triplett

The Organized Student by Donna Goldberg

The Crumpled Paper that Was Due Last Week by Ana Homayoun 

 Journey Through ADDulthood by Sari Solden

Super Parenting for ADD: An Innovative Approach to Raising Your Distracted Child by Edward M. Hallowell M.D. and Peter S. Jensen

ADD and the College Student  or Understanding Girls with ADHD both by Patricia Quinn,MD

Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults by Thomas E. Brown

Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential by Ped Dawson, EdD

What are your best resources?  Please share!

Slow to start, hard to complete, lose interest, can’t get it perfect? These are some of the stresses of productivity and ADD.  Having some tools to work through these challenges can help. 

• Know your strengths and work from your strengths.  Have the best possible match for your work.  Creativity, being in the moment, and being a people person are often strengths for people with ADD.  Also an intense curiosity and love of information are common. Tedious, every day tasks are usually not.  Whatever your strengths, capitalize on them in your work. 
• Create partnerships that work for you.  It can include an administrative assistant, a colleague, or technology.   The interaction with your partner will help you get started and the accountability will help you finish.  Be sure to ask for help in addition if you need this from a professional organizer, an ADD coach or a productivity consultant.
• Set a timeline that is compelling. Your brain clicks, clicks, clicks with a deadline.  Set a series of baby steps with faux deadlines to get projects completed on time. 
• Use a planner that works for you.  For technology your smart phone is always with you and can remind you.  For paper think about the planner pad with its lists, week at a glance and month at a glance features.  Focus on using the week at a glance features to help you “see” what you are doing each day. 
• Capture tasks on paper or with technology.  Always have a way to have a brain dump, then prioritize your 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) for the day.   You can’t get it all done, but you can get the most important done!
• Establish routines in your day and your week.  Have a power period each morning and afternoon, with interruption and distraction free times.  Assign certain tasks to certain days, such a Money Monday or Financial Friday.  Routines ensure that you are on top of the most important tasks. 
• Delegate what you don’t do well.  Continuing to struggle can be demoralizing and distracting.
• Know what good enough is.  Perfectionism can strangle your work.  Reflect on what a minimum standard and a good enough standard are and come to a compromise.   

What is your best go to idea for struggling with productivity?

My clients with ADD are a blessing to me! They are the brightest, most creative and most fun people on the planet!  The gift of ADD is the natural flow of ideas, thoughts and scenarios generated by prolific thinking.  ADD people continually come up with new ideas that lead to solving problems, engaging people with new concepts, and starting new projects.   Working from these strengths is important for people with ADD.  However, when tasks are tedious, mundane and repetitive, it becomes a challenge.  People with ADD become disengaged and bored, unable to complete these tasks.  When the possibilities are endless and exuberant, people with ADD are at their best.

To catch and prioritize information is important for productivity for people with ADD.  In tackling this first step of containing information, there are an array of options such as low tech post it notes, spiral notebooks, the planner pad (www.plannerpad.com), Levenger CIRCA notebooks (www.levenger.com), and technology such as www.evernote.com.  Establishing your personal system and working it are important.   Keep practicing with your system for a minimum of 21 days for your system to become a habit. 

Once captured, prioritizing what is critical to success is important.  Making decisions can be one of the biggest challenges facing a person with ADD. First the decision is what is important and what is not.  Keeping everything on the list is a way of not deciding.  Decisions can be formulated by simple and consistent rules that synchronize with personal goals and mission.  With prioritizing as the key, it is important to go beyond making lists.  A list can start out as a “brain dump” and then it can be refined. After making the list, create a short, 3 task Most Important Things list.  This leads to accomplishment, working toward a goal and feel productive for the day.  If it is exceedingly difficult to define tasks, enlist the help of an accountability partner or coach to keep on track and be authentic in aligning your goals and tasks.