Your Life Can Be Better Quotes

“Our lack of focus is our primary problem and the source of many of our difficulties, like procrastination, trouble setting priorities, trouble dealing with time, trouble finishing projects, perfectionism, and the inevitable demoralization.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Do it now, Do it right, Do the hard part first.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Every choice made involves giving up some other options, and we have trouble doing that. We want it all. And that is part of our problem with time.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“In a way, this is part of structure and that’s good.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Time is an important and difficult issue for us ADDers. It causes us a lot of trouble. An appointment book and lots of calendars are examples of strategies that can help us cope.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Because we have ADD, we need to simplify our lives. The basic approach is identify a problem, develop a strategy, make the strategy a rule, make the rule a habit.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“All of these rules and habits and checking may sound kind of compulsive. They are. This may sound like a restrictive or constricting way to live, or that it takes a lot of time. It isn’t and it doesn’t. Once it becomes habit it really takes no time at all. It beats the heck out of not doing it, even when the mistakes don’t occur too often. Talk about time consuming - have you ever lost your credit card? Or driven off with the gas nozzle? Or backed into another car? Now there’s time consuming for you. I suspect that this rule, strategy, habit and checking approach won’t sound so restrictive or time consuming to someone with ADD; you know what it’s like if you’re not using these tools.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Some degree of compulsiveness is not a bad thing if we have ADD.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“When my wife offers some unrequested advice for example, I can either say to myself, “There she goes, nagging and criticizing again. Does she think I can’t do anything?” or I can say to myself, “She’s trying to help me. It’s one of the ways she expresses her love for me. She has a lot of good ideas.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“used to use lots of “should”s, and clearly they made it harder to get started on something, and the “should have”s were demoralizing. And remember, something being “important”, or a “should”, does not turn on our focus center.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Important means there is a big consequence if you don’t do it or a big reward if you do it. Urgent means that it is not only important but also has to be done right away; tomorrow will be too late.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Part of feeling overwhelmed comes from regarding everything as important and urgent.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“I’m doing this now because it’s recreation and I need recreation and it’s good for me.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“to-do - the list of five things that are top priority now, on the red card, always with me. I won’t necessarily get all five things done today. 2. the orange and yellow cards - for the things to do next (orange) and things that aren’t so important or urgent (yellow). Always with me.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Delivered From Distraction,”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“De Mello, the Buddhist Jesuit, says that most of us are sleepwalking most of the time; we’re not paying attention to what is really going on, we are not aware.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Inertia: an object in motion tends to remain in motion; an object at rest tends to remain at rest. Newton’s First Law of Motion As an extreme example of procrastinating and avoiding, and often as a direct consequence of it, we can sometimes become totally stuck. We can be stuck, demoralized and paralyzed.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“ADD is mainly a condition of boredom; you”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“ADD does cause impulsiveness, and our tendency to mess up, and we’re often also clumsy, but that’s not because we’re stupid.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“cognitive therapy, states that there are three fundamental thinking errors, which are said to be the basis of many of our problems: 1. “Unless everybody likes me, I’m no good.” 2. “Things should be the way I want them to be.” 3. “Life should not be hard.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Once recognized as A Problem, problems can be solved. Problems can be large or small. Small frustrations take their toll on us and we can figure out strategies to deal with them. Life will be better.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“I have trouble with time in many ways: * I can’t judge time -How much time will this take? How much time has passed? * I can’t grasp time - “That’s next month? Oh, I have plenty of time.” * I waste time - “Gee, why did I spend all that time on that when I have all these other important things to do?” * I feel short of time - I’m always concerned that I don’t have enough time and it’s racing away from me. I have to do all these to-do’s and I have more to do than I can possibly get done. *I can’t locate myself in time - This is hard to describe, but if you have ADD, you might know what I mean: “This is December; Christmas must be coming? How far off is it? Is there something after that? What’s happening next year? Is there anything I need to be doing to prepare for it?” * I can’t remember time - My brain records whatever is happening but doesn’t attach the date to it. Was that last year, or three years ago? Was it in 1984 or 1994? Maybe because I’m not located in the time, as above?”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“But our focus center does get turned on at times. It gets turned on by : 1. Things that happen to be of personal interest to us. I have no interest in taxes and bookkeeping. It’s very hard for me to get the taxes done. But I’m interested in writing, and I can do that, at least once I can get started. 2. Something that is novel to us. So I get excited when someone takes me bowling for the first time and shows me how to do it. I want to go out and buy a ball and some good bowling shoes, and I’m bowling every night for a month, and then I’m done. The expensive ball and shoes go in the back of the closet, and I’m off on some other new obsessive interest, probably also temporary, because nothing can stay new, novel, for very long. 3. Something that is a challenge. When I take something as personally challenging, I want to master it, or I want to show that I can do it better than someone else. And of course, once I’ve mastered it, it not only is no longer novel but it’s no longer a challenge. So then I lose interest, and the focus is gone. 4. Something with an immediate deadline, with heavy consequences. That’s why we can finally get around to doing the assignment the night before it’s due. We stay up all night and very likely we even do a good job. And if it doesn’t go so well, still we can protect our self esteem by saying, “Well, I only got to it at the last moment.”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

“Real-World Office Management of ADHD in Adults”, Psychiatric Times, Nov. 2006,”
― Douglas A. Puryear, Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD