I swear to God, I spent at least a decade racing off to Homegoods, or somewhere else, to get throw pillows, or a coffee table, a shoe rack, overhead lamp, bookcase, filing cabinet, or something else. I thought I had to get these things before I could get down to work.
Once my friend Jane said to me, ‘You know, we’re never going to get it all done. It’s never going to be finished and all tied up neatly in a bow.’
She meant life. All of it: the feelings, desires, dust, missing buttons, dreams. And I know she’s right.
I know that a lot of the time when I think I need the perfect thing before I can stay focused on work, it’s an illusion: It’s not true. It’s some kind of anxiety that sends me on a detour as a way to avoid work. It’s resistance.
But, it’s a bit confusing because it’s not only that.
I’m hyper-aware of my environment, like a lot of people with ADHD.
Somebody else could walk into a room and not notice half of the things that I see in an instant. My mind is like that: My focus is all over the place fast. And, on top of that, I often feel like I have to do something about what I see, like straighten a picture, help someone having trouble with something, or start thinking about how I can fix some obvious problem that’s really none of my business.
In other words, it’s not just that I’m aware of so much, it’s that my focus gets highjacked. (Forget about me in a big department store or Target or somewhere. It’s like I’m in a fog.)
I remember this little kid I knew who went to elementary school where classes weren’t divided by walls. He was a brilliant little boy, but was getting in trouble for answering questions that were being asked of other students, far across the open space, in another classes. Eventually, his parents put him on medication, and he was so relieved because he’d been tortured by his inability to keep his focus on his own teacher and classmates. And the medicine helped him do that. (As I’ve said before, medicine doesn’t work for me, but I’ve seen it work for others, like this kid.) Get it? My attention can be like this boy’s.
All of which is to say that I can stay focused on work best in a room if it’s orderly because it offers me fewer distractions. Like I can’t really sit down at my desk to write if it’s topped with of piles of paper. A big mess on my desk makes me feel all icky and clogged up. I have to get those piles out of my sight, even if I just put them in a crate and put that in the closet to deal with later. (Which is what I did recently.)
So, I’ve learned not to listen to the part of me that wants to run out and buy some desktop organizers (when my desk is a mess) before I can get to work. But I do need to clear off the desk.
