I’m a weird fellow, always have been. I chop this up to personality. But, I’ve got some strange issues that I’ve spent a long time trying to figure out, such as:
- I spend way to much time thinking about things I need to do and not enough time doing them. I’m not talking a couple minutes, I’m talking weeks. I’ve put off tasks for months because of FUD, when the task itself would only take a handful of hours to complete… worst of all, I was aware of that fact all along, and most of the thinking was about why I’m not doing it, not how to accomplish it.
- I can’t finish books. My minds drifts, badly. I’ll go half a page, drift on one idea or another and then 5 pages later realize I don’t know what I just read. This is why I can’t read non-tech, despite the fact that I love sci-fi and philosophy.
- I have a huge aversion to doing what I’m supposed to. If I have a list of tasks to complete ranked A, B, C in terms of importance, I will do C with great gusto and interest all the while loathing A and B tasks.
- I can’t complete tasks; this is hard to admit publically, but any reader of this blog shouldn’t be surprised, I want do just about everything, I think about it, but get started and drop it, pick it up weeks later, drop it, so on and so forth.
- I have trouble listening. I’m always composing my response while the other party is speaking. This becomes somewhat obvious when I listen to the Joyent Podcast… I’ve started to train myself, thanks to this new awareness of listening to myself in a conversation, to just repeat what the other person is saying back to myself in my head to stay focused.
- I constantly second guess myself. I love to argue and debate, but its not terribly hard to corner me because even something that I’ve done dozens of times can be uncertain… maybe the other guy really does know what they are talking about and I’m an idiot… I thus keep having to re-learn things I’ve already learned. This is why I write so much, quite honestly, its not for you that I write, its for me.
- I can’t seem to remember anything… this adds to the pain of the previous item, my memory is total crap. Again, hence I write.
- I transpose words in speech and writing. Again, readers of this blog probably have noticed this. Some of my typos aren’t really typos at all, I just write faster than I think, which is why I hate proofreading and tend to just scream chars onto the screen and submit it away.
An example of all these together is my Oracle book. I wrote the entire book, examples and all, in 4 days… the bulk of it in 2. It then took over a year to edit and it was an unbearably painful task, several times I wanted to send the check I was paid for it back to USENIX and call the whole thing off. Suddenly something I wanted to do became something I had to do, I can’t bear to even read my own writing, and I spent more time thinking about how much I hated editing the stupid book than actually doing it.
Now, before I continue let me say that I have always personally felt that ADD was a pile of crap.. its just the way some people are, they think differently, have different needs, different styles, etc. Most of that sentiment comes from a childhood of watching kids go from energetic and excited kids into Ritalin zombies. I saw plenty of kids who’s parents preferred their kid suicidal rather than give them some love and attention and just drugged the kids into a soulless kid with suddenly improved table manners. Give the kid a shovel and point ‘em toward a nice deep place to dig up some adventure, let ‘em chop some wood and build a fort, stop with the zombie drugs.
But, that said, there isn’t harm in at least have classifications for people and behavior. Better to know thyself and have a term to boot than be in the dark.. but that doesn’t mean the Rx pad has to obligatorily appear.
Tam started looking into ADD and ADHD just to better educate herself should similar symptoms ever come up with our kids. In discussing it I begrudgingly noted that what little I knew about the symptoms pissed me off because they matched me pretty well. Frankly, I think they fit a lot of people pretty well. The world is a place that we’re allowing to get faster and faster all the time without really much solid reason, but we keep stretching ourselves thinner and thinner. I tend to chop this up to American culture of harder, faster, more.
But, I do have issues, I know this. I just assume they are normal. Thus, my problem isn’t some hooty-tooty disorder, I’m just lazy and have screwed up priorities, etc. I noted before in my blog entry about Sysadmin Mentoring, that I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on my own behaviors, beliefs, and ideas. I’ve spent time reading a pile of great books that all fit into the dreaded “personal growth” category, most of which sent me back to reading more definative and foundational texts, namely Thoreau and Emerson. But, alas, I’ve sort of hit that ‘self help gulch’ in which you walk away with lots of questions, some answers, a couple new tips and tricks, but ultimately end up close to where you started, although perhaps a little wiser for the journey. Many of my issues listed above aren’t answered by any of the books regarding management, leadership, integrity and character that I’ve read. Perhaps the most useful was David Cloud’s Integrity, which emphasizes a firm handle on reality, that which is rather than that which may have, could have, would have been… this addressed the wandering mind issue to some extent and has been helpful to some degree.
Then the thought occurred to me that the symptoms of ADD not only fit me well, but many sysadmins. Lack of focus, desire to do large numbers of tasks at once and hopping constantly between them all the while unable to get any large tasks complete. That sounds like a lot of sysadmins out there. Is it possible that this job is a magnet to those who fit the ADD profile because it suits the symptoms so well? Can you sweep these symptoms away as “information overload” or is there something deeper?
And so, this is why I post this… I’m curious to hear what other sysadmins think. We know that some of the most gifted coders in the world have “disorders” which give them superior mental, mathematical, and focus abilities. Is it possible that sysadmins are, potentially, the converse? Are our abilities to juggle large numbers of tasks simultaneously, ability to not get too bogged down in any one thing, and ability to deal with disorder come from “disorders” themselves, may of which our ego driven minds stamp out as “bullshit excuses for losers” rather than accept that it might be something with an unfriendly stamp like ADD?
I’m still just researching, I’m not diagnosed, and frankly have no interest in ever being. If I were going to look into anything it’d probably be sleep apnea (I fit the profile and would explain my sucky memory), but I’m too lazy to get tested for that either… too much to do. But I will say that in my research thus far one book caught my attention: You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder.
But, seriously, how many of you, my fellow sysadmins, feel the same? Anyone actually gone down this road before? And, if there is any validity to it, wtf do you do with this new found knowledge?
Argh, when I was going through your checklist I felt like you were describing me. Even while reading this post my thoughts drifted in some other direction.
But seriously, if what you said is true, and these are the symptoms of ADD (and we don’t have a reason not believe you
), I don’t think it is a very bad “condition”. Yes, maybe we could be more productive if we had a better focus. But on the other hand, I find jumping from one thing to another and mostly doing things I like, a good way to decrease amount of stress. And we all know there is a plenty of it in this job.
Idea: move all ADD kids into a special school for Sys Admins.
Been down the road, read the books, skipped on the T shirt. There’s nothing to lose and much to gain here: knowing yourself means getting a grip where you hadn’t before. You KNOW you’re a lousy listener, so you’ll probably make sure you’ve got something to do while talking: lunch, a walk, whatever. You might skip those long meetings or send someone else instead. Or apologise when your thoughts are elsewhere. All we can do is be honest about our deficiencies and try and make the best of it
Regards, Hans
I think that list describes every sysadmin I know, including myself. It ain’t so bad!
I’m very disorganized, but I wouldn’t put a label on it.
I found the O’Reilly ‘time management for sysadmins’ book rang more bells than any self-help one.
This description fit me well also. But I think, it’s the sysadmin job that transform some people like this. Nevertheless, it looks it also makes the best sysadmins, being able to juggle with all different tasks, giving support to many people, answering emails and IMs, surfing the web and configuring software on 3 servers with 6 open terminals.
Being so much in a multitask mode, it is very hard to switch to a single long project mode without the temptation to switch to sometimes else for a few minutes.
The best thing I can suggest to accomplish those is to split them into small tasks and insert them through our daily workload.
Does correlation mean causation?
I’ve found that I have to be nit-picky about details, and yet hop from task to task. But, I’ve been doing this kind of work since I was a kit, because I enjoyed learing how computers work, and I enjoyed being the “computer wonderkid”. I certainly changed myself during my teenage years, in order to be good at the line of work that I’ve chosen.
Interesting that I’m not the only sysadmin with these sympthoms. Thanks for sharing this, I feel better now *g*
Is there any way that I can fix the typos in my post? Gah!
This might be of interest:
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2003/07/10/nadd.html
You do not and cannot “write faster than you think.”
Most of us are not even aware of our thoughts until we have had them. Then, if we are lucky, we are able to express thoughts through words. Thoughts are not words and words are not thoughts although obviously you can think about words.
I thought I’d comment here, since I started all this research. It was actually a side comment of Ben’s the other night, that he related with ADD traits…and I think he’s said this before, but for some reason I really heard it the other night. And it sure explains a lot…because I am pretty clear (not completely, but pretty) with our schedule, plus it is on a huge calendar in the kitchen, and 7 times out of 10 when I talk about plans, it’s like telling him for the first time; even if it’s the third time that day.
I am really encouraged that there are some answers out there that will help me understand how to function with Ben better; and likewise, possibly our kids. You never know. The worst part about this is having a label attached to you…and I know how sucky that is. I have a few myself (so it’s about time Ben started catching up). The best part is learning how you work so failures in the past are better understood so you can learn for the future. So this is really exciting for me, and I am really glad Ben is open to th idea…you know how easy denial is (that is my realm).
@matt: Its a figure of speech man…
@tamr: please be aware that ADD traits are easily understood, but very hard to change. Actually, you can’t change them at all. Instead, it’s all about developing habits that make sure there’s no problems because of them. Don’t worry about the label: no one needs to know and who cares when there are no (serious) problems? Life goes on and judging from the blog, you seem to get along just fine. Many AD(H)D types have great difficulties, keeping jobs and getting through their daily lives. Trust me when I say Ben is a very mild case at most.
As a coder that moved into SysAdmin, I think it’s the job. As a coder, I had an almost autistic ability to focus on a single task, to the exclusion of all others.
As a SysAdmin, I have the almost ADHD ability to focus on all tasks to the exclusion of any one.
I like the single-tasking focus better. It didn’t keep me awake at night, remembering things I’d forgotten to do during the day.
“An example of all these together is my Oracle book. I wrote the entire book, examples and all, in 4 days… the bulk of it in 2. It then took over a year to edit and it was an unbearably painful task, several times I wanted to send the check I was paid for it back to USENIX and call the whole thing off. Suddenly something I wanted to do became something I had to do, I can’t bear to even read my own writing, and I spent more time thinking about how much I hated editing the stupid book than actually doing it.”
I SOOOOO know that
My Website has been down for over a year, simply because it’s unbearable to enter another vhost and have the dns entry changed.
The ‘clustered bacula’ howto was mostly done in a week and there’s about another week of work to do on it. if I recall correctly that’s a week I’m waiting for since february.
Doing such simple tasks *really* feels as bad as being treated at a dentists.
Some points:
I did a test for ADD back in 2000 and scored around 98% probability, while hardly ever being that good on other tests, i decided to only take note of it and consider it my personality, which should not subject to any change. I like listening to four people, i even have one friend that can also talk while listening and it’s a very healthy thing to chat for a few hours like that.
About the job-related parts:
Yes, I’ve said to hardly ever finish anything when I started to work. From my own point of view I’ve really never, ever finished anything, but at times people think I’m already overdoing my tasks. So, I tend to plan for a more sophisticated, errorproof solution that noone even thinks off, start implementing the bulk within a few sleepless nights, stop when it gets complicated, but luckily the result is far better than anyone wanted, so they’re usually happy.
An annoying thing is, no matter what I do I’m totally unable to do it two times the same way. I can’t even label 4 DDS tapes with the same order of `hostname`, IGNITE, `date`, `task`. This isn’t just being distracted by about anything, even if I’m not thinking, not disctracted and focussing it just doesn’t work. Repeating things is unsupported period
The good side is that this means, opposing to my more reliable workmates, I’m not messing up when distracted. Distract them, and they’ll wipe the wrong disk, shut down the wrong box or simply sit and stare, unable to continue, while I get distracted anyways, so the nature of things doesn’t matter at all (you could say there’s limited timeslots for distractions). I’ve always been able to coordinate things during high pressure situations, because, well, my life is always like that.
)
Also I’m more open to noticing those little error messages some my workmates don’t even see. They seem to be simply unable to notice things that are out of the ordinary, 3 people will spend hours on trial and error (while they wait for me to finally show up at work, like 3 hours late), and I fix it in what is like 5 minutes, including repeating and debugging their command, simply with one moment of thinking straight. I’m not saying they haven’t been thinking about the problem at hand, but somehow their mind is just not messed up enough to solve it.
Out of curiosity:
How do you deal with coding for larger problems, coming up with algorithms?
i hate any problem that requires more than 1 seconds of full-speed thought. Most things I can resolve in that time, anything else gets scheduled to think over in the back of my head, and I’ll be done with it either a minute later or when its done[tm].
On more thing: if you have ADD, there’s a good chance your kids get to enjoy it, too. But I think as long as you’re aware of it, this is actually a good thing, maybe even my daughter will become a cautious sysadmin one day. Ok, I doubt that, but she’s a bright little girl with strong sense of morality. I can’t find anything bad about that.
Ok, that was long enough,
HTH
@hvm: This is really sweet of you, and trust me I am definitely benr’s greatest advocate
I have been dealing with panic attacks, and I have a book on anxiety…which I think is just a pain in the neck, because a few responses I’ve gotten are, “just change! Calm down! Read a book!” And it’s not that easy or straightforward. I’ve found the best way to understand the situation is to learn more about it; and it isn’t in order to rid the symptoms, but to learn how to work with them. If benr changed at all I would kill him. I like him just they way he is (aggressive, overworked, sassy, etc). And he is definitely a very mild case, I agree.
I think we’re on the same page, but thank you for pointing these things out!
First of all, those radio buttons on the comment form are…interesting
.
Second, I thought this was appropriate in a funny, semi-tangential sort of way:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/freaky-happenin.html
Although I’m not primarily a sysadmin (though I have been in the past), I can relate completely to pretty much everything you said, including the parts about reading tons of “self help” books and like Dr. Cloud’s book, Integrity.
I’ve long suspected that I suffer from some form of attention deficit, but have also not pursued medical intervention. It’s probably taboo on technology blogs to talk about spirituality, but I’ve found that the thing that most helps to keep me from feeling overwhelmed is to make sure to spend enough time praying and in quiet solitude.
(NOTE: flames should be sent to me directly; spare Ben’s blog the grief)
Hi Ben. While reading the issues at the top of your post, I felt they could describe me too. I’m surprised nobody mentioned procrastination in the comments. Reading the Wikipedia entry on this subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination) at least helped me understand why I usually behave this way. Parts of GTD helped me to some extend to sort this out. Anyway, thanks for your blog, it’s always an interesting reading!
It was SO easy to identify myself in this as well. As a programmer / sysadmin mixed job I’m doing like a million things at the same time. Thinking about others while in a meeting etc.
On days that I really need things to get done, I have to plan continuously and try very hard to stick to it…
Exactly the same happens when cleaning the house… I think about sweeping the floors longer than it probably takes to do it but still it doesn’t get done.
Ah well it’s just who I am, and lots of others so it seems
yeah ben, my whole life revolves around computers and my job. I just moved recently and found my self paying more attention to where outlets were and how I would network it all up then anything else. thats why people like you and me have good women
There’s also Asperger syndrome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s all seem to be gradients on the autism spectrum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autistic_spectrum
I just looked in the mirror
Looks like you are burnt out.
The fact that you did figure out “what was wrong” is an indicator that you aren’t really any of those things, but probably just burnt out, over-worked and stressed out.
May I recommend trying some mind-body methods such as Tai Chi or Yoga to normalize?
Hi,
When reading this, like most others that commented I though “sounds familiar” and I actually went through this thought process about 5 years ago. Since I first went through that process (and coming out with, I match some of the criteria and maybe I have, but who cares), my son (who is now 7) was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. This is (as one poster mentioned) a form of Autism, at least by some experts. Others believe this is just a convenient place to store it on the medical bookshelf.
As a young child we always thought he had AD(H)D but never guessed it was as serious as it was. Watching him grow up and the severe difficulties the poor guy has I realised that I was WAY off the mark thinking I was anywhere near the spectrum. Im not denying that I have traits, and they match pretty closely to what you have mentioned, but I am nowhere near what would qualify as a disorder.
My wife laughingly refers to my “odd” traits as “enhancements” and “features” in the same way the Windows has that “blue screen” feature. I know ehere she is coming from with that. people like me can be a real pain to understand, predict and live with. I understand a little with how my son feels but his world is totally different to mine. Im rambling I know (thats one of my “features”). He is incredibly intelligent apparently. He scored 141 on his last IQ test, but has absolutely NO social skills. This would also explain why people on this scale would make good sysadmins I guess. We lock ourselves in rooms with a keyboard and a screen and limited “wetware” interaction.
I find I chat, email and generally electronically communicate far better than I do in person. Do you also feel you are better like that?
Anyway, I rambled enough, my point in general was this:
1. Yes, I think alot of Sysadmins share those traits. They tend to be requirements to survive our world. If those traits are exagerated to the point where they interfere with us being able to function, they are a disorder. We simply think in a certain way. I wouldnt say a dentist has a disorder due to the fact they are able to spend most of their day with their fingers in someones mouth.
But if it started to limit their ability to cope with life, then it would be.
2. Disorders are something that negatively impacts your daily life but you are largely unaware of this fact. My son has no clue that he is seeing the world differently from everyone else and can get very frustrated when we dont see things his way. We are lucky that we can see the world in our skewed sysadmins way, but know that we are seeing it differently. Thats what makes us good. The fact we can bridge these two viewpoints.
A lot of that sounds like me. Part of it — the flitting from project to project — is the job…or at least the jobs I’ve had. I agree with Dick Davies that “Time Management for System Administrators” helped me hugely, but there’s still just a lot of back-and-forth that goes on in my head. Sometimes that’s good, like when I can work on two things at once (well, work on the second when the first is running in the background). Sometimes that’s bad, like when I get stressed, can’t let things go and can’t go to sleep; it’s like my mind is racing from problem to problem without getting anywhere. Or maybe that’s just garden variety stress…
Anyhow: that sounds like me. I can’t speak for other sysadmins, but I recognized myself in a lot of your post. Thanks for talking about it.
While I see myself in just about every point you offer in your list, I always wondered if it was simply a way of coping with the career Sysadmins choose, or the other way around. When underemployed for a couple of years, and having to do some work that required deep data analysis and compiling it into reports, I found I could get into that with a lot of enjoyment, too. It did take time to adapt, and I quickly ‘re-adapted’ to my sysadmin ways when I landed my current gig.
I have always found reading difficult and slow, primarily because my mind wandered, even when reading the most interesting (to me) things. I do feel I have traits of ADD, though, and Asperger’s seems to be at least present in my family, so that may be an issue, too. But I still am not certain that successful sysadmins have some form of ADD, or if a sysadmin’s job requires some ADD-like conditioning.
Good thoughts, though. Cheers.
Gene Beaird
Well you and i share a lot of similar problems.. I am offically tested as severe ADD, and your right alot of people exhibit what looks like ADD but when tested are borderline at best. And I have so many tasks to do that in alot of ways i never get anyone of them done 100%. Now i personally can sit for a while with a book if it captures me, but that is rare. I want to program in perl better, but i cant make it through a perl book if my life depended on it, even though it would really help me alot.
So to share something back with you, i was okay with being this way for a long time, but recently i have nose dived into a diagnosed clinical depression that is wreaking havoc on everyone i know. My ADD is causing my marriage to go down the drains, because just like all my other “things to do” i never 100% pay attention to any of them, wife included. So do the best you can to figure a way into getting it under control so that you can keep the important tasks important before you lose control like me.
Best wishes.
It’s a very interesting post. And I’m glad to see there are others out there. Your listed points really described me exactly. I’ve often wondered if there is something bizzare about me. The point about memory and second guessing particularily mean something to me. I’ve known other sysadmin’s and they didn’t appear to have these issues, so I thought I was alone, or too many dead brain cells after a hard night drinking. However, atleast for you, you have the family and wife thing sorted so perhaps have some grounding. As a single guy these traits really get me down and almost get in the way of my doing any productive. Can be rather depressing. Anyway, just wanted to say you ain’t alone, nice to know I’m not either …
Sounds like me! My workstation has 3 TFTs attached and every screen features 8 virtual screens and all of them are filled up with xterms… I have to admid I had problems to read the whole blog entry including the comments just from the beginning to the end. Distraction is everywhere. When working at a machine and a command does not return within a few seconds I switch over to another xterm to work there or just surf for some seconds and then continue my first task. Having keyboard-shortcuts to switch screens fastens and eases work
Most people look in a way to me that’s between admiration and a ‘wtf is this guy doing???’ style.
Apparently there is no hope for me… I just spent 15 minutes frantically and angrily trying to find my glasses… “I can’t work without my glasses, where are my glasses! Tam can you please help me find them…” We happen to have a friend over atm and she, after asking repeatedly if I was serious, pointed out that they were on my head (resting on my hair, not over my eyes thankfully). Damnit.
“Most people look in a way to me that’s between admiration and a ‘wtf is this guy doing???’ style.”
I know that feeling.
Wow Ben, You’ve pretty much described me and a lot of other SA/DBA/programmers I know. DBA’s though seem to be better organized, just a little.
One of the reasons I do lousy in the technical interview, is that I cannot remember things I can discuss in casual conversation with other techies. Was grilled on Solaris internals for a recent interview. I paniced and couldn’t remember. (though I passed, I was dissapointed w/ myself for not doing better, since I knew the material).
Like right now, I am supposed to put a technical presentation together for a Hitachi based SAN and instead I’m reading about ADD and SysAdmins and posting to your blog, even though right next to my is a pile of Hitachi whitepapers and manuals.
I found that Zazen (Seated Meditation) (Zen Buddhism) helps with keeping things together, organized and focused. I sit in Zazen for about 20-30 minutes a day. It’s not a staring at your navel kind of activity. And you don’t stop thinking, actually you just don’t focus on any thoughts, let them fly through you head, just sit with your self and your thoughts quietly. I recommend it and you don’t need to participate in the religious aspects of it. . Being mindful of your activities and what you are doing helps to keep yourself in focus. A few people I know who have tried it and kept with it, have found it helps quite bit
And as soon as I’m done here, I’m back to my storage proposal! Honestly, I won’t go digging through that other article, realy I won’t!
I’m a successful Sys Admin, and I’ve always felt this nagging feeling that the people around me are going to figure out that I’m some kind of fraud and fire me.
I’ve always feared that my employer would somehow discover that I’m a disorganized loser that forgets every meeting and rarely completes a task without some form of a reminder.
Meanwhile, I’m passionate about serving my users well, and that uptimes remain high, that I’m courteous when folks call.
My systems have been very productive with very little downtime, and when I decide to change jobs for various reasons, the users and management have the opposite reaction that I expect. Instead of “Finally! Good riddance!” I always get the red carpet with an always-valid invitation to return.
I think it’s pretty hard to find somebody with a good attitude that keeps everything running well, with that can-do spirit.
Sys Admins are required to do a lot of things at the same time and do them all pretty well, and I think that environment lends itself to creating or fostering some bad habits of jumping from project to project without focus. We cannot affort focus or the delicate house of cards will collapse.
Enjoy the ride.
Very interesting post, you give such a valid points.
Jesus! You’ve described classic A.D.D. Ok?
This is not just “American culture of harder, faster, more.”
Take this blog post to a medical professional – a neuropsychiatrist – and get some help. Every single symptom bothering you can be reduced or eliminated completely.
Trust me.
I was informed that I was ADHD at a pretty young age, and had spells of anger about it. However, as time went on I really started to see the benefits of it. As long as I keep my attention on a high level perspective, project planning (and connecting the dots) becomes VERY easy.
We’re often well balanced, in that we have many interests, as no one thing will hold our attention too long. But also look into the “hyper-attention” side of ADD, it’s quite a blessing (just don’t forget breaks for eating)
Also, ADD tends to make an individual excitable and thus when something seems like the perfect solution to you it becomes quite easy for you to convey that to others; as long as you don’t dive into the technical aspects and lose them. So what if we’re prone to typos and barely capable of proof reading our work (I probably won’t proof read this comment) and by the way it’s “too” not “to” in your first point
. Proof reading is actually a career path, editors need work too. Now if someone could just come up with an editor service for bloggers…. hmm… service idea?
Which brings me to my last point, to borrow a played-out cheesy marketing term, we’re the definition of “outside of the box” thinkers.
Oh one more thing, in response to Erin’s post, meds can be great for some people, yes. But personally for me, while they did alleviate the symptoms, they significantly hindered the benefits of ADD and after years of it (high school) I started to feel like I wasn’t myself anymore.
If you can adapt you life, time management, task planning, etc… with out meds, I highly recommend this approach.
I found I have the exact same problems. The worst thing I got was what I wanted, a new job w/ little responsibilities and the ability to move my career in any direction: Sysadmin, Storage, Database, programming. And yet, I still take all morning reading the news. I have bought $200 worth of Tech books and all I do is watch DVD’s.
I didn’t use to be this way. I got into the field buy studying books I couldn’t afford for three days straight in a Borders. I use to be able to remember what I was reading, who wrote it, the context, and what school the author was from… philosophy was great. But that was grad school. It was the environment I was in. I had nothing else but time to focus on the tasks at hand. It wasn’t until I started in the Tech industry that I started to flip my attention. I gradually turned reading man pages from an exercise of learning the system into searching for examples to get the job done.
I can switch back to my focused attention, to what I need to do. But it takes a little bit longer, more practice, and a lot more resolve. There have been a couple of projects where I needed to get away from a computer, read the manual, and take some serious notes. And that’s what I did… in a Starbucks.
It’s not ADD. It’s not ADHD. It’s just a programmed conditioned response Alt+Tab and the environment I work (and live) in. Another good example is my spelling. It’s directly proportional to what I read, what I type, and a viable spell check program. The more I rely on that program the looser my grasp on the English Language.
There are times I just have to shut everything off and breath, and take any task one step at a time. Do you know how often I have to remind myself that I have locked my apartment door, as I am doing it, just so I won’t have to walk back to double check the lock?!?!
It’s also kind of enjoyable turning things off. When I go to the gym I take my iPod. But when I turn it off my reps just feel better, they feel cleaner,… I feel like I am accomplishing more than if I had the music playing.
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