As I mentioned earlier, I've been feeling like I've been losing the "big picture" of what I am doing. It is less "not knowing what to do", more like lacking the will to remember to even look at it and pick up.
Losing the Big Picture vs Forgetting My Motivation
This feeling has happened before. When freelance projects don't have enough client communication. I like to be engaged with people who are excited about making something cool, and excitedly to talk about ideas. I tend to wither away when this energy is not present, and staying focused becomes much more difficult.
After watching the Russell A. Barkley video What Science Tells Us About ADHD, it occurred to me that the feeling is perhaps ADHDHe considers ADHD to be a deficit of one of his executive function model's "8 developmental capacities", specifically the fourth capacity inhibitory behavior. Paraphrasing, this is the duration one inhibit responses, restrain, and subordinate immediate interests for the sake of the goal. This capacity depends on other ones; further notes here. trait, not unique to me. One of the premises of the video is that those of us with ADHD need external motivation because we do not have the wiring to generate it ourselves, no matter how much we want to do a thing, even if we know how to do it. A suggestion he has is to provide more immediate rewards, but I'm not responsive to this kind of thing. I am, however, highly sensitive to immediate reward and my brain seeks it when my energy is depleted; perhaps this is due to low dopamine or something?.
I've been thinking how to make the best use of the energy I have each day, which is pretty small. I can only track two purposeful things a day for about a week. This ability to focus is also heavily depleted by any interaction in the real world, even if it's something like going to the grocery store.
Notes for the Sri of Tomorrow
I'd like to write more about this, but it's 6:45 and I've already had an exhausting day at the dentist. Before I knock this off, I'll jot down some notes here and on a physical index card:
- remember the strategic sketch I made in Good Notes
- instead of putting strategic goals into the Slot Model, define some operational daily goals that are in context of the strategic horizon goals and see where that gets us
- remember the desired outcome is to produce stuff that will eventually generate attention or revenue
- also remember that I can assign benefits to activities, but not to expect I will be motivated by them