For better and worse, we’ve got the magic ADD. One moment we’re right here, and the next we’re hey, check out this new online tool for Jim, would you double check the figures on the KRX proposal?The ADDexecutive is here to serve us (and our colleagues) who believe that ADD is something to be taken advantage of where it’s an asset, and managed where it isn’t.Here’s what’s coming to the ADDexecutive:

Advice columns — detailed and specific! — on the things that really get us, like: how to deal with the “tempation of many ideas”, how to manage our excitement when we’re pitching a new client, or how to make the most of having a secretary or assistant (who we hire for their organizational skills, and drive nuts because we have none of our own).

Reader comments — a place to share your own feedback (c’mon, you know you want to say something!) and your own stories that might be helpful to someone else who’s “living the dream” of executive authority coupled with a head that has a mind of its own.

A nationwide directory of ADD clinicians and coaches — the ones who specialize in working with executives, professionals, and business owners.

Drug forums — How’s Strattera working for you? Better than Provigil? Oddly at certain doses? Not if we ever want to have sex again? You are one big science experiment — why not share? We’ll do the same.

Book reviews — We’ll skim the books so you don’t have to.

Product reviews — datebooks, desk organizers, you name it. And heck yes we want you to tell us which miracle products have worked for you (and why), and which ones weren’t worth the time it took to download you to remember to pick them up.

Software reviews — Who among us hasn’t believed at least once that a $129.95 piece of time management (or money management or project management) software wasn’t going to change our lives forever? We’ll review.

Clinical publications — from our friends with MDs, PhDs, MAs, and MSWs: their thoughts and research on the things that make us tick.

Links — of course. To other useful sites and people.

And more — Of course more. I mean, how could not say “more”?!

The ADDexecutive: a Resource Community with the best of info from our editors, clinicians, and you.

Drop us a line. We’ll be glad to hear from you.

– Phil Marsosudiro, editor

Ideas and mental notes show up when they want — they don’t wait until we’re sitting at a desk with a pen and paper to write them down.* Some ADDexecs carry a small voice recorder to capture their flyabout thoughts.** But before you go shopping, did you know you probably have one in your pocket, already?

Most new cell phones have a voice-recording feature that will work fine for notes up to several minutes long - plenty of time for most ideas that hit us while we’re wandering around town. Some cell phones don’t have a dedicated voice-recording function but do have a small video camera with audio. As long as your chin doesn’t mind being on camera, this function works fine as a short voice recorder.

For convenience, figure out how to get the fastest access to your phone’s voice recorder. My modest Samsung D-807 has a programmable “hot key” function that let’s me get to the voice recorder with one click. The convenience makes it more likely I’ll use the thing (and to start recording before I forget what I’m planning to remember), and also makes it less dangerous for using while driving.

As long as I can remember to check my recordings every evening, the voice recorder is a great way for keeping my brain free for other tasks, instead of occupied with remembering the little and big things that I need to track each day.

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*”Reminder — set alarm clock for early tomorrow: breakfast meeting with John.”

**”Hey, here’s a brilliant idea: wouldn’t it be great if we partnered with the Jenson PR Agency and Cassilly Design to make a small marketing cooperative for joint-referrals and occasional team projects? I should call them to see if they want to meet next week before the Venture Capital conference.”

Equally important for me, I found that leaving headquarters got me away from the mundane, daily grind that left no space for insight, inspiration, or innovation. Instead of “chief executive,” I preferred the title of “chief wanderer.” While constant motion suited my constitution, it also fueled my creativity, which never seemed to flow in the office.

Kinko’s Founder Paul Orfalea in Copy That!, Fortune Small Business, September 2005

From Orfalea’s bio at the Library of Congress:

Orfalea’s success is especially impressive, in that he suffers from attention deficit disorder and dyslexia, and had struggled through school, failing two grades. In “Copy This!” Orfalea details how he used these potential disabilities to develop unorthodox approaches and create a culture at Kinko’s that made the company, according to Fortune, Forbes and Working Mother magazines, one of the best places to work in America.

For more on Orfalea, check out PaulOrfalea.com and his book tour webcast at the Library of Congress.

If I’m not at my computer when I make a commitment to do something or be somewhere, I usually ask the other party to “please email a confirmation so I’ll have it at my computer and can plug it into my calendar. Otherwise, I might forget.”

Because this has the tinge of “asking somebody to do my work for me,” it’s easier to do with peers or people who feel beholden to me (i.e., subcontractors, people I’m doing a favor for, etc.). But I find that clients are willing to do this, too — especially when I make it clear that they’re doing both of us a favor when they help me remember.

Naturally, this technique works particularly well when I’ve been asked (or have volunteered) to do a favor for someone else. If they forget (or don’t get around) to emailing a reminder to me, I’m 100% off the hook for doing the favor. And for an ADD-people-pleaser who volunteers too often, this workload reduction by attrition can be a real joy.

Adult ADHD? You’re not alone, and you’re not without hope. According to Harvard Health Publications:

Probably the most important recent change in the understanding of ADHD is the growing recognition that people don’t always grow out of it. The number of adults receiving drug treatment for ADHD more than doubled from 2001 to 2005 alone. The symptoms may even interfere with daily life more in adults than in children because adults have to exercise more self-control and do more planning.

In 2003, adult ADHD was included in a national survey for the first time; 4.4% of adults age 18–44 received the diagnosis…

It’s been said that identifying ADHD in adults can be like finding a missing jigsaw piece that solves the puzzle of behavior that looked like laziness, a character flaw, or a learning disability. Medications, group social skills training, individual psychotherapy, vocational counseling, and coaching may be helpful for adults with ADHD. The first controlled study of cognitive behavioral therapy for adult ADHD, published in 2005, found improvements in anxiety, depression, and attention.

from Attention deficit disorder: Old questions, New answers by Harvard Health Publications, February 2006, posted at MSN Health & Fitness.

What was most startling, says [Microsoft executive Michael] Neal, was that Microsoft’s e-mail-centric culture extended into meetings. People would come into meetings with their laptops and would be reading and responding to e-mails while others were speaking or presenting. Neal says he was taken aback at first. His his initial reaction, understandably, was that such behavior was impolite. But then, he says, he realized that reading e-mails during meetings was a necessity due to the sheer volume of messages coming in. It’s nothing personal. It’s a survival strategy.

This is the phenomenon that once lead Microsoft executive Linda Stone to coin the term continuous partial attention.

Robert Mitchell in his Computerworld blog E-mail and Corporate attention Deficit Disorder, April 5, 2006

“I am inspired.
You are inconsistent.
He is flighty.”

How do you label yourself and your ADD?

And how do you label attention deficit disorder in others? Is your method fair? Is it useful?

Names and labels have power. Fortunately, we have the power to decide what we call things.

For naming and labeling our ADD actions, I think it’s more important to be constructive than it is to be consistent. Use the name or label that’s helpful at the moment — whether that label is praiseworthy or critical.

And take a tip from parenting books and relationship books — label the action and not the person (if you need to label, at all).