I grew up in Newton. One of the best school systems in the state. I got a tremendous, well rounded liberal arts education in high school. As I look back, one of the few failings of the Newton School System was that no one ever encouraged me to really think about what I wanted to do for a career or have me reflect on how my passions and my talents might converge to allow me to make a living.  We were solidly middle class. My Dad was a high school english teacher and administrator. My mom took a bunch of years of but was a graphic designer. My Dad went to Brown and my mom went to RISD. (That’s where they met.) All my friends parents were doctors, lawyers, therapists, engineers, professors, judges, or the like. All very traditional career paths that involved college and mostly grad school. But I never really thought about how one gets there. I just put my head down and tried to make the best of my high school education, all the while hoping things would get more interesting and relevant in college. They didn’t.  I don’t necessarily have any regrets. I’m happy with my life. But it was a grind to get here. I wonder what life would have been like if I’d done culinary right out of high school. What if I’d learned to be a carpenter and owned my own contracting business. What if I’d been exposed to other white collar jobs that were more specialized. I have a friend in logistics. His job is to get stuff from one place to another all over the county. I think I’d be great at that. But who knew that was a thing?  I don’t expect a high school sophomore to know what they want to do for…

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So, you are wondering why I’m writing a blog post about a ballot question. Fair enough. Here’s why: As an advocate for mental health care and affordable healthcare and medication, this ballot question is extreme important. I would ask that you please read this and consider my points.  First, I come by this information because of my involvement in the Mass General Hospital Patient and Family Advisory Council. I would not have know enough about this question and now that I do, I’m desperate to spread the word. I will attempt to be concise but thorough.  What the deal with Question No. 1? This is a piece of legislation that the MA Nurses Association has been trying to push through the legislature for 20 years. But has had so little support that it has never even gotten out of committee or been sponsored as a bill.  So the went the ballot question route.  Who are the MA Nurses Association? The are the nurses union in MA. Unfortunately the represent less than 1/3 of all nurses. And many of their members are against the ballot question anyway.  Why is this an issue? There are some hospitals, mostly rural hospitals, that are asking their nurses to to too much. In a small number of locations, there is a problem with understaffing of nurses. However, this is not a pervasive problem in MA.  What are some of the details of this bill that make it a problem? These staffing regulations do not take into account day of the week, time of day, needs of a particular floor, the experience level of nurses, or any other real world considerations of staffing.  This law would require implementation over the course of just 37 business days. In some cases MGH spends 6 months “onboarding” new nursing staff.  There is already a…

The topic of what to tell one’s boss about one’s ADHD, if anything at all has come up for me a few times recently. Here’s my two cents. I think it is important to keep colleagues and superiors in the loop. However, I would never suggest doing that as an excuse.  Most of us work in results based professions. Nobody wants to hear excuses about why we can’t do the work, get there on time, produce a mistake free product, or deliver on expectations. That said, I think most of us may deliver in a non-traditional way. I would never excuse lack of results by referring to ones ADHD. But I’m more than happy to explain my methods, needs, and quicks in that same framework.  It is important to be in an organization that isn’t so rigid that there is no room for individuality. As ADHDers we may need to approach our work day differently. We may need to come in early or stay late. We may need to borrow a conference room when the main office area gets to distracting. We may need to stand up in longer meeting to stay focused. We may need to utilize any number of strategies to produce the expected product. A good boss will recognize that we are all individuals and let us get there however is best as long as we get there. Standard Disclaimer:  In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts much… if at all. Please and typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. An imperfect post completed is better than a perfect post that goes unposted.

My wife is a total rule follower. She is very uncomfortable “coloring outside the lines.” I firmly believe that the rules are, at best, suggestions. I have always felt like a square peg in round hole. Or more accurately, a square peg standing angrily next to a round hole that looks so easy and enticing that I know I will never fit into. Well, I guess I should say that I was at one time angry. Then I decided that I was going to have to buy some tools and make some square holes. (How’s that for taking an analogy too far?) My point is that as ADHDers we don’t fit the mold. But THAT’S OKAY. Give yourself the freedom to experiment, try new things, question assumptions, challenge the conventional wisdom, and break the mold. Not only is that how many of the great innovations of our time have been achieved, but it’s the only way for us to tap into our true potential.  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not encouraging anarchy. But when your environment doesn’t fit you, think about changing your environment. As a small, crazy, and totally irrelevant example… I have been much happier since I decided to own the fact that I don’t like breakfast foods (at least not for breakfast.) I ate this delicious salad for breakfast. Works for me. My biggest challenge is that my son got my ADHD and his mother’s rule following anxiety. I’m trying to teach him how to not follow all the rules… without saying that exact phrase out loud. Parenting is hard. Standard Disclaimer:  In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts much… if at all. Please and typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. An imperfect…

Quick tip today: I know that I’ve written about using alarms to remember to take pills. The follow up to that is to use the snooze button. Set up an alarm that you can set to go off every day at the same time with a custom tone that will get your attention but not annoy you. And make sure the app has a snooze button. I can tell you from personal experience, if I’m in my office and I turn off my alarm and head to the front hall where my pills are in my bag… random thought, squirrel, butterfly, what am I cooking for dinner, am I picking up my daughter today, what’s next on my To Do List?… a thousand things can distract me before those pills are in my mouth. So, I either let the alarms continue to go off or snooze it for 7 minutes until they are literally in my mouth. Try it!

So, I’ve always seen folks at the gym with their notebooks and pens taking what look like painstakingly detailed notes about their reps and the weight, and God knows what else. I had an complimentary intro session with a trainer at a gym a long, long time ago and he gave me some sort of chart to keep when working out. I hated it.  Recently, a client of mine (who’s a former trainer) expressed to me that she’s really challenged by working out theses days because she doesn’t feel like she has enough of a plan and because it seems overwhelming to create one and stick with it. Thus, she’s been avoiding working out. Total ADHD (& anxiety) response.  I’m sure I do not represent the thoughts and feelings of every ADHDer who works out. I am not a fan of the detailed workout log and hers’s why: I consider my workout part of my mindfulness practice. Particularly when lifting, I like to go into “the zone” and do my routine. I find that enjoyable, believe it or not. Since I have ADHD, transitioning my attention is not my strongest point. Nor is tediously logging details. So, to have to transition after every set or every exercise would break my flow and be considerably less enjoyable.  Plateauing is a real thing. And, we like instant gratification. So seeing that  you haven’t progressed (or, God forbid, have a bad day and regressed a bit,) can be demoralizing. When in actuality, maybe it was mostly a great work out. Sometimes doing what you did last time is a great work out.  It seems unnecessary to me. Lift what you can lift. Do the sets that you can do. And, get what you want to get out of it. I do track my workouts…

One of the major side effects of stimulant therapy is loss of appetite. As an almost 40-year-old, I wish my meds still took away my appetite the way they did when I was a kid. No such luck. But now I’m dealing with the same issue with my nine-year-old. Well, not the exact same issue. He actually eats a lot more than I did at his age. I had to supplement with old-school Ensure protein shakes. The graphic on the bottle makes it look fantastic. I can assure you that in the late eighties it was not. Super disgusting! My guy eats a good breakfast, claims to eat a decent lunch, and eats an enormous dinner. But he’s holding steady in the third percentile of height and weight. So it’s more of a concern with his overall growth. As background, both my wife, my brother-in-law, and myself all grew super late. In my case, I appear to have gotten the short genes in the family. My point is that the pediatrician had us go see the nutritionist about my son’s eating. She was great and gave up lots of options based on our food values. In other words, as a former chef I know a lot about food and we are pretty serious about eating low sugar, healthy, non-processed diets. So the nutritionist gave us lots of options to give him high impact, high energy foods that are also healthy. We’ve added in a cup of 2% milk with dinner and are experimenting with different nut butters and dried fruits so he doesn’t get sick of PB and craisins (which are usually pretty high in refined sugar anyway.) My biggest area of emphasis is his breakfast. He is very much all about white flour and sugar for breakfast. I can…

This has no bearing on ADHD but… I finally figured out a solution to a problem that has annoyed me for years and I feel the need to share. Whenever I take my propane tank to exchange at Curry Hardware it becomes a unpleasantly rolly-polly missile in my my car. I’ve tried packing stuff around it, putting it on the floor in the front seat, floor in the back seat, sitting it up, putting it on it’s side and wedging stuff under it. It always got loose. But I finally figured it out. See the picture. The ADHD life hack part is that I own two tanks. So I never run out in the middle of a BBQ. When on tank runs dry, I switch it out and IMMEDIATELY put refilling the first tank on my list of things to do. Then I don’t forget and have at least a few weeks to get it exchanged. 

So, I’ve always wanted to play an instrument. I tried the guitar around culinary school and the beginning of my career as a chef. It wasn’t the right time for me and it wasn’t the right instrument. But that was 15 years ago. For a while now I’ve been thinking that the drums are the right answer for me. But, I don’t want to be the guy who gets them, takes a few lessons and doesn’t practice. So, I’ve waited a long time to make sure that I’m ready to commit. I started three weeks ago and and practicing a few times a week and getting better… and having fun. One of the ways that I’m doing that is by keeping a super basic practice chart It give me positive momentum. I’ve talked about using this sort of thing for working out in the past. But it works really well for anything that you want to be consistent about. Check out the pic. Doesn’t have to be fancy.

I think I need to establish some givens in order to make this post as relevant to ADHD as I know it to be.  1st given: Exercise positively effect ATTENTION as well as mood and lessens anxiety. It helps manage hyperactivity and internal restlessness.  2nd given: Most ADHDers have a hard time setting up any routine, especially one that, by definition, requires consistency and intensity.  3rd given: I get demonstrable benefits from working out everyday. And, I’d say about 80% of my clients struggle to get the exercise I would argue that they need.  4th (not quite) given: There is plenty of emerging research that there is such a thing as an ADHD friendly diet. Lots of veggies, higher in lean protein, lower carbs, very low sugar, plenty of good fats, etc. Pretty much what’s good for humans, but it’s extra good for us.  So, that’s why I’m reviewing fitness apps. I’ve always said that keeping track of success is a great way to establish routine and make lasting life change. I alway suggest my clients use a blank calendar to keep track of days exercised. I do is as a seperate calendar in my digital calendar world. But I mark all my work outs and it feels sooooo good at the end of the month to see all those gold bars representing my work out “events.” But I also like to keep track of what I do. Specifically when running, I want to know how far and how fast. Which leads me to: App no. 1: Map My Run (Might be Map My Fitness now…)  Apps Website  I’m sure many of you have already heard of it. I’m also sure that there are many equally good competing apps. This is just the one I use. It is overall great. You can…

When I’m organizing with folks there is often a lot of anxiety about getting rid of stuff that the client is somehow invested in, whether it’s monetarily, emotionally, in terms of time, etc. I get that. It’s harder to let go of things that seem like they have come at a cost. Plus, we don’t want to create more waste than is necessary. But, the expression, “throwing good money after bad” comes to mind here. Here are a few examples, including one from my life. That dress that you spent a fortune on and only wore once before having your first child… that you’ll never fit into again. The supplies that you bought to do a specific art project (that you really think that you want to do) that have been languishing in the spare bedroom for three years. That sweet pair of shoes that are exactly what you always wanted and have never been able to find again… that are a half size too small and well never be comfortable.  The half finished woodworking project that you decided two years ago (on some level) wasn’t worth finishing. Yes, these things have all come at a cost of some kind or another. But now they are costing you in an entirely different way. They are causing your space and your life to negatively effect you. Ultimately, they aren’t worth anything to you, except pain and anxiety. I suggest moving on. Let that dress have a new life while it’s still fashionable. Let someone with slightly smaller feet dig those shoes as much as you do. Move on to an art project that you are really invested in. Create a new you while you create meaningful art. Clear out that project so you have the room in your workshop to make…