Help me deal with my ADD/disorganization/goal setting problems.

Particularly over the last year since I became unemployed, I would obsess over small details in my appearance, and constantly beat myself up over the past - to the point in which I would waste hours of my day ruminating over my previous mistakes. Basically, dwelling over wasted time in my past made me waste time in the present, which got me even more down. This jumped out at me. I was unemployed last year for about 8 months and was having trouble getting motivated to apply for jobs, especially when I would get interviews and then not get the job. Not to mention I wasn't terribly excited about the jobs I was qualified to do. I was sitting around all day doing basically nothing because I couldn't get myself to focus on applying for jobs, so I didn't do anything else because my intention was to focus 100% on finding a job. I even started waking up in a cold sweat worrying about how I wasn't making progress. I think I should have made sure that I got out and did stuff whether it was just going to the gym/exercising or volunteering or something else. I also started obsessing about every detail of stuff, ruminating on where I went wrong in my life, etc. I think you need to build some distractions into your life. Finding some activities to structure your days and also to give you less time to think yourself to death. Then you also can't say "oh I have all the time in the world so I don't need to do this right now" Make sure you're taking care of yourself - since you've got all this unstructured time you could do a lot of cooking for yourself. I did that while I was unemployed - I had plenty of time to caramelize onions or make stews that take hours, etc. In theory I could have been working on job applications while the onions were cooking or whatever. Also, luckily, I enjoy cooking. Find a way to get in exercise. Since you say you're financially okay for now, try to accept some invitations to go out with friends or even just grab dinner out every now and then. Even if you have to force yourself to go - you don't have to stay the entire time. Another thing I have to do for things like keeping my apartment clean is to just decide to do them. Close the laptop and start doing it. For example I made a rule that I never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. I had to force myself to do it even when I was really tired and just wanted to go to bed. Now it bothers me enough if I leave dirty dishes in the sink that I will lose sleep if I leave them in the sink so I always do it. Also after you've cleaned and tidied up, take a minute to admire what you did and appreciate how much nicer it is to live in a clean place rather than a dirty one. That way these things become habits rather than things you have to force yourself to do every time. If you are like me you will find that a lot of the time you just have to force yourself to do something a couple of times. Sometimes I would tell myself that I would close my laptop, do a couple of yoga poses or make a cup of coffee, and then I would do x/y/z. If what I wanted to do was job search-related and I needed to do it on the computer, I would close all my internet windows before closing the laptop. Basically I needed a system reboot. Also to-do lists are okay, as long as you don't beat yourself up if you don't complete them everyday. I write everything down just because I am also inattentive and tend to forget things.

Exercise and meditation are supposed to help a lot with ADD. Exercise works best when it's something intense and focused, like running/jogging. There is another medication out there called strattera that is a non-stimulant that can help people with ADD. It works for some people, and some people not so much.

My craziness credentials and a little background. 27 years old. Dropped out of theatre school after 2 years. Diagnosed with bipolar II, ADD, and an auditory processing disorder. Lots of anxiety and depression accompanying the above three. Totally sober after developing a nasty binge-drinking habit a couple years back. There's lots of positive stuff about my life too, but I'm quite familiar with the "'wtf am I doing with my life?' *continues to play Minecraft*" kind of thought process. A few short notes: Separate the job search from the career/life quest. A job is not synonymous with a career or self-actualization. Hopelessness is comforting. A horrible kind of comfort, but it allows you to remain passive. Don't do the same thing twice and expect a different result. If a certain organizational strategy fails, don't keep repeating it. Figure out why it failed first. And don't let the reason why be "I didn't try hard enough." If you try the same thing the same way and say "I'll try harder", you'll fail again. It's not like you've been lazy all this time. There's a reason for your failures. "I didn't try hard enough" isn't going to help you figure things out. Don't underestimate the toll mental illness will take on you. Deal with it however you must. It is real. It is awful. I think this is the most important thing to remember, and has helped me tremendously is: While you work to better yourself, just remember that you will be dealing with constant failure. It's going to be three steps forward, two steps back all the way. In fact, it's going to be 30 steps forward and 29 steps back. You will find yourself failing every day. By the time you reach whatever goal you have, you probably won't feel terribly accomplished or amazing given how damn long it took and how many ways you messed up along the way. But, you will have peace of mind once you develop good habits (and almost all of your goals seem to be habit-related) and you will be able to devote your brainpower to more exciting things. You will be surprised at just how much brainpower you have. Do. not. be. afraid. of. failure.

I have ADD and moderate depression. I find it very difficult to get what I need out of books. I'm a more active/talky/doing kind of person... despite being extraordinarily lazy when it comes to these sorts of things! So I can relate. You need to figure out what will make a difference for YOU. If you've heard of the Five Love Languages, or the Theories of Multiple Intelligences or whatever it's called, this is along the same lines. What motivates you the most: feeling like you've done something? being able to check something off of a list or give yourself another gold star? seeing the results? hearing compliments from other people? Start small. Make a list of things you could do to make your life a little better. ANYTHING could be on this list, but you should break it down into small, doable tasks. Not even "clean my room" but "make my bed" or "pick my clothes up and put them in a basket." My new best friend is http://unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/ They don't care where you start, how bad it is, whatever. You'll do something for a short period of time, you'll step back, and you'll have something done. They are mostly focused on cleaning, but they have tips on timing and organization and a lot of other stuff that can be useful to people like us :) They also have an awesome app (look for it under Unfilth Your Habitat). You could also try something like Joe's Goals if you're a don't-break-the-chain or gold star kind of person. Here is one of the most difficult lessons I've learned: it is ohhhh so very easy to complete one of these tasks and feel so fantastic that you let the elation carry you over everything else, thus losing the great momentum or daily advantage that you've gained in the first place. Let yourself have a little mini-celebration, because you need that feeling. But recognize that this could be a trigger moment, and see if you can move through it to do just one more thing (or, you know, to NOT not do something else). And on the flip side: I know this can be scary and there are a lot of barriers and reasons why NOT to do something. Do it anyway. Do it BECAUSE you're scared. Acknowledge it, tell that feeling it can go fuck itself (for, you know, the next five minutes at least) and do it anyway.

I agree with others on starting a routine. I've experienced a prolonged period of unemployment too, but I keep sane by keeping a routine, being social, and having obligations outside of myself. I was dealing with health problems and a major depressive episode, and I was at a point in my life where I couldn't even get out of bed. But I motivated myself with small things (my favourite tea in the morning) and rewarded myself for doing my job search work regardless of result. I picked up a routine slowly... (get dressed by this hour after waking up, go grocery shopping on Wednesdays, do the trash on Tuesday, don't schedule chores on Friday nights cuz you might have plans...)... add one thing to your day, and build it from there. It's all about forming habits. When the habit is there, it's one less thing you have to think about and you can focus on the more important things in life, like job searching, self-actualization, and all that other stuff. Yeah, separate dream job from job. Just get something on your resume. I don't know about you, but I figure out the stuff I'm good at and/or enjoy by pure accident, so it doesn't make sense to plan too much for a grand master plan when really you just need to hop on to a point B. Me, I'm just trying to find work that I'm qualified for and vaguely enjoy. I leave my not-marketable interests and skills outside of the job search and keep it to side projects. It's okay to be "happy" or feel okay even if you're not in the best place in life, every minute you're not okay/content/happy is another minute of potential happiness that you can't have back! Don't feel guilty about enjoying life, life is to be enjoyed for a reason regardless of the specific temporary circumstances you happen to be in. Feel free to memail me. I'm pretty much under the same circumstances, I've gotten out of the inertia and have been picking up the momentum again.

Exercise is very helpful, but I also think that you just need to do the boring, distasteful stuff that you've been avoiding for most of your life. Make a list of what needs to be done, and every day, do one of those tasks--you can break the task up into smaller tasks, set a timer and work for 15-20 minutes or so. Take a little break, get back to it, and then when it's done, cross it off the list. On to the next. Since you haven't learned how to develop this sort of discipline, you need to practice it, and then, when you've done these tasks, you develop self-esteem. You look at your newly de-cluttered space and realize that you did it.http://books.google.com/books/about/Constructive_Living.html?id=CbDTfYFCUNkC helped me a great deal in learning how to do what needs to be done, no matter how I "feel" about it. The other big truth to this is that no, you're not going to just magically wake up and be organized. It will be boring, not fun, and you might not like doing it. Part of becoming an adult is doing things that you don't like.

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Finally, I am not sure what I want to do with my life, and agonize about choosing a concrete career direction. I like writing and composing music, but I can't commit myself to one singular path. I also tend to start short stories/compositions and quit halfway through (story of my life, haha), so I worry that I would not be able to finish anything longer than a page or two if I was to begin a writing career in the first place. I am very jealous of people who have known from their childhoods what they wanted to do when they grow up. At this point in ones life, success is about showing up to something. Things I've done in similar situations include: get a holiday job in food or retail; volunteer (in my case, usually for literacy); take a class or join a writing group or book group.

I initially missed the part about your being out of the country where you permanently reside. (Have I got that right?) If you are in an interesting place, and you won't be there forever, write a journal about it, one hour a day. Suppose you were to write a book about this place after you have left, what would be good information to get down now? You may not be able to market a book like this but it would be really good practice for writing.