This first post on the site was intended to be full of insights and tips. A promise made to oneself is something anyone with ADHD can relate to. Promises made to others however generate the worst kind of pain. When you fail on a promise to yourself, you may lose a bit of money, or you may put on a few extra pounds, but when you let others down its has negative social and pofessional effects that reverberate beyond your own head.

I regularily wake up to approaching a hundred mails in my inbox. Maybe I should count myself lucky that my company hasn't gone full collaboration platform yet and still relies on the tried and trusted Outlook client. This is perhaps saving me from the the pressure of requiring instant replies and an always on mentality but it presents its own challenges:

Emails are the ultimate in "I'll get to it later"

Oh, a mail from <person>. Sneak a peek at the subject line to see what they wanted - but don't open it. Damn, nothing in the subject gives it away, I'll open it and skim the first few sentences. Now, I'm beginning to understand the request but this one is from someone who likes to hit the max character count in email messages and the request is worded in such an esoteric and non-descript way that I'll have to pull in others to validate what I think this person wants.

Repeat this process ad nauseum and sprinkle in the tendency to get distracted, this spells a recipe for deferral and procrastination. Deferring a reply to something leads to replying late with out of date information or fergetting to reply at all. People are disappointed in you, you miss opportunities to bring value to the team and at worst, your manager has to give you constructive feedback on the matter.

So how do you avoid this?