Dyspraxic Adults

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Skyebison, I feel your pain.

I might not be the best person to help, because I recognize myself in a lot of what you've said and have come to this forum in part to seek support with similar things.

"basically my problem is that I have so much to get done I end up getting very little done because I never know where to start" - I totally know that feeling - it's overwhelming and you wonder where to start & are getting stressed and end up being less productive because of it.

Like yourself I also get sidetracked. I'll be dealing with one task, and then an email will come in, and I'll switch to dealing with that, which ultimately is probably not a very efficient way of doing things. I think I probably end up swapping back and forth between things quite a bit.

Can I suggest a few things for you to look at? I'm not saying they will or will not work but they might be of interest to you. You may already know of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_mana ... wer_Method

https://lifehacker.com/productivity-101 ... 1551880955 (pretty big disclaimer: I haven't read this article, but have read about this method before on a separate article (not sure where) and have a copy of the book (although I haven't read it).

EDIT: after rereading my own post I noticed a lot of me saying I hadn't read much of this. To clarify I have read a distilled version of the technique, and quickly skimmed the bullet points in the article to make sure they matched up to what I was expecting to see. The book itself is quite thick, but I would like to read it at some point to see what else it offers.

Essentially to boil down some of the bottom two links, you could consider something like:

- starting a checklist of all your tasks.
- if you are told or realise there is something you need to do, immediately write it on the checklist and you can forget about it while you focus on the task at hand (unless it's super urgent).
- You could also consider categorizing the tasks as:

Urgent and important - priority
Not urgent but important
Urgent but not important
Not urgent and not important - not a priority

(it depends on the task how much of a priority the middle two are).

I apologise if you do not find this advice helpful. Perhaps take a look and see what you think.

MrLiquorish

Hi Mr Liquorish and welcome and I admire your having a go at trying to answer this.

Not forgetting the other variable demanding customers with competing demands.(aaargghh!) Sometimes another person's urgent is not as urgent as the urgent thing you were already looking at!

Think we ought to add

important but within one ones own area of responsibility and can be resolved quickly and simply right now

Important but more complex and needing close attention to unravel and brea kdown into discrete steps.

Important but requiring onward referral for action or decision

We all struggle with competing demands and often there are a variety of different options for correct response depending on any given situation.

Apologies if I have 'trodden on your toes' and in a typicallyv dyspraxic way too!

Hi Tom,

Thanks very much for the welcome, and no you did not tread on my toes at all!

I think that was very good clarification, I'm sure that technique can be further honed as you have done there.

You're absolutely right, some customers and other members of staff will think that their issue is the most urgent, often because that's their only issue, and they don't see the potential plethora that you already have!

MrLiquorish

. . .some customers and other members of staff will think that their issue is the most urgent, often because that's their only issue, and they don't see the potential plethora that you already have!

Thank you. That's a really good point since customers and (perhaps to a lesser extent, depending on ones colleagues) fellow staff members will be approaching with a single minded intention to seek prompt resolution of what they were seeking. It often falls to us to 'juggle' (eek!) other peoples' competing priorities and despite being flustered, politely explain when things may not be possible immediately, or at all, and to politely and professionally manage their expectations or if appropriate escalate the issue upwards.

It is imperative that we have managers who have our backs and who will support us and give us the opportunity to build and have confidence in ourselves.

I also have a big problem with time management but after putting a lot of effort into improving my skills in this area I found some very great solutions, for example set goals correctly, prioritize wisely, set a time limit to complete a task, take a break between tasks, organize yourself, remove non-essential tasks/activities, plan ahead. If you don't manage your time well, it's going to have consequences, time is a very big and important part of the equation of life, and I advise you to take care of it.

Well, there are tons of techniques which you can implement for time management at workplaces! Some basic and quick tips include:

• Write it on a paper about your TOD ( Task of the Day)

• Think about being productive

• Speed up your work

• Go for time tracking software to help you witness the time taken by you to finish any single task/project!