Divided Attention Disorder? Log off and read a book

[app103]

If you work in an office it's quite possible that you suffer from a condition called DAD. Now don't panic it's not serious and nothing a good book or a long walk won't cure.
 
 My Internet browser has 24 tabs open. Among them are three separate attempts to reply to the same e-mail. My online banking session has timed out, and in the corner of my screen a Twitter feed is a never-ending scroll of news and links. Which I click. And click.
 
 What's wrong with me?
 
 What's wrong, is that I may have Divided Attention Disorder, or DAD. DAD encapsulates the growing phenomenon whereby the constant stream of online information could actually be changing the way our brains work.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12406677

[40hz]

I have six tabs open on my browser right now - and I'm also reading a (paper) book.

Does that mean there's no longer any hope for me Doc? 

[timns]

I actually like working like that. I do quite a bit of support, and during the day one of my activities is triage.

When a request comes in it's either:

Do it now! (do it now)
Do today (so I hit reply, minimize and leave the email window on my taskbar)
Do tomorrow or later (so it goes into the CRM queue)

So I get quite a hefty build-up of email tabs and various browser tabs etc. for research. As I complete each one, I close everything related to it, which is very satisfying.

At the end of the day, I know that I'm all done when my taskbar is empty again.

[f0dder]

Oh, how I long for FF4 with Panorama. Yeah, 100 tabs open - but only 5 of them visible.

[40hz]

At the end of the day, I know that I'm all done when my taskbar is empty again.

-timns (February 09, 2011, 04:26 PM)

That's a pretty cool way to look at it actually...

Like it!

[timns]

At the end of the day, I know that I'm all done when my taskbar is empty again.

-timns (February 09, 2011, 04:26 PM)

That's a pretty cool way to look at it actually...

Like it!

-40hz (February 09, 2011, 05:41 PM)

Thank you!

I guess I'm like a lot of folks here on DC, looking for ways to be more productive and organized. It's such a subjective, personal thing, but I must say I've picked up a few nice tips (and some nice software) from this site that have really helped.

And Divided a lot of Attention on here too

[Paul Keith]

Umm... didn't read the article but why are people trying to rename ADD?

[timns]

Umm... didn't read the article but why are people trying to rename ADD?

-Paul Keith (February 09, 2011, 07:19 PM)

Because the guy who wrote the article was on a deadline and had no original ideas 

[KynloStephen66515]

I think I may have this DAD thing down to a fine art...what I have open on my taskbar right now:

• 26 Browser Tabs (Opera)
  
• 2 Instances of Visual C#
  
• Skype
  
• MSN (2 Conversations)
  
• XCHAT (IRC)
  
• Windows Media Player
  
• TeamViewer
  
• Calculator
  
• 48 Open Folders
  
• 16 Notepad Files
  
• 21 Tabs in Notepad++
  
• MSPaint
  
• GIMP
  
• Photoshop CS3 Extended
  
• MAXON Cinema 4D
  
• iClone 4

And in my System Tray

• Dropbox
  
• Wakoopa
  
• Ares
  
• Steam
  
• Pidgin IM
  
• Llama Tray
  
• Treat Yourself Nicely
  
• DoCo Quick Links

[Renegade]

I think I may have this DAD thing down to a fine art...what I have open on my taskbar right now:

• 26 Browser Tabs (Opera)
  
• 2 Instances of Visual C#
  
• Skype
  
• MSN (2 Conversations)
  
• XCHAT (IRC)
  
• Windows Media Player
  
• TeamViewer
  
• Calculator
  
• 48 Open Folders
  
• 16 Notepad Files
  
• 21 Tabs in Notepad++
  
• MSPaint
  
• GIMP
  
• Photoshop CS3 Extended
  
• MAXON Cinema 4D
  
• iClone 4

And in my System Tray

• Dropbox
  
• Wakoopa
  
• Ares
  
• Steam
  
• Pidgin IM
  
• Llama Tray
  
• Treat Yourself Nicely
  
• DoCo Quick Links

-Stephen66515 (February 09, 2011, 07:48 PM)

Hahaha~! I'm sure our desktops look very similar.

By Group:
Internet Explorer (3)
Visual Studio (5)
Remote Desktop (1)
Outlook
Folders (16)
EditPlus (11 instances -- Too many tabs to count... in each one...)
Free Commander (3 folders open)
Skype (3 chats)
InnoIDE (1)
VLC (1)
Filezilla (2 sites open)
Task Manager (1)
VMware Workstation (1 OS open)
SQL Server Configuration Manager (1)
Photoshop (2 images open)
Chrome (3 instances - 11, 4, 2 tabs)
Topstyle (1)
Firefox (1 instance - 98 tabs)
Control Panel applets (3 open)
IrfanView (1)
IIS Manager (1)
Computer Manager (1)
Word (4)
Excel (1)
Photo Resizer (1)
Bulk Rename Utility (1)
Calc (1)
Dreamweaver (1)

Then there's the tray, but I'm getting distracted, so I'm not going to bother listing that stuff.

All in all, that's not too bad for me. I generally have more going on. That only covers 1 and a bit rows of my task bar. I've been trying to keep the number of open applications and tabs limited lately, and trying to close things I don't need (hence the only 16 folders open).

I've been managing Firefox better by closing usually 30~50 tabs at a time few times a day. That and it always crashes on me, which helps to start fresh. Tab #1 is always DC~!

A doctor diagnosed me with ADHD. I asked how badly, and he said that I went off the charts. Meh... Whatever. I suppose DAD will just help a few people to figure out a bit what it's like to be me~!

[Paul Keith]

Umm... didn't read the article but why are people trying to rename ADD?

-Paul Keith (February 09, 2011, 07:19 PM)

Because the guy who wrote the article was on a deadline and had no original ideas  

-timns (February 09, 2011, 07:26 PM)

Man...this article takes the cake for unoriginal ideas then. ADD = serious issue; lots of false victims; does not need extra propaganda to exclude people from insanity.

Plus the whole story is: Log off and read a book then Log on, search Google for tidbits about the book, join one or two discussion forums and say hello to extra hell.

Edit: On the flipside, the applications you guys are listing here are a lot better than the ones you guy say you are often using in one of the other DonationCoder software listing threads. Focus groups...err...forum threads truly don't work.

[Renegade]

Edit: On the flipside, the applications you guys are listing here are a lot better than the ones you guy say you are often using in one of the other DonationCoder software listing threads. Focus groups...err...forum threads truly don't work.

-Paul Keith (February 09, 2011, 09:04 PM)

It all really depends on what you want to get done. Editplus, Visual Studio, and Photoshop are my main workhorses. I just opened up an Illustrator instance as I need to do some basic logo design, or attempt it anyways. A lot of things you simply can't reasonably do in some software. MS Paint is much better than it used to be, but it's painful to work in. It's also about what you're used to. I suppose if I were used to the GIMP, I'd use it, but I'm used to Photoshop.

I generally just try to use whatever tool will let me get the job done easiest/best.

[KynloStephen66515]

Edit: On the flipside, the applications you guys are listing here are a lot better than the ones you guy say you are often using in one of the other DonationCoder software listing threads. Focus groups...err...forum threads truly don't work.

-Paul Keith (February 09, 2011, 09:04 PM)

It all really depends on what you want to get done. Editplus, Visual Studio, and Photoshop are my main workhorses. I just opened up an Illustrator instance as I need to do some basic logo design, or attempt it anyways. A lot of things you simply can't reasonably do in some software. MS Paint is much better than it used to be, but it's painful to work in. It's also about what you're used to. I suppose if I were used to the GIMP, I'd use it, but I'm used to Photoshop.

I generally just try to use whatever tool will let me get the job done easiest/best.

-Renegade (February 09, 2011, 09:24 PM)

Most of my open software has been open for >1week - I generally forget to close stuff, and open more and more and more and more, im sure by tomorrow ill have a crap load more...IE...you can add the following to my above list that I have opened since and not closed.

• WinRAR (4 RAR, 2 ZIP)
  
• Windows Photo Viewer (4 Photos)
  
• Control Panel
  
• Task Manager

I guess it doesnt help that everything gets that cluttered that instead of trying to find it on my taskbar, I just open up a new instance of it.  If I looked, as an example, I would probably find 3-4 of the same text document open.

More CPU cores and RAM just make us lazy, Its no ADHD, or this "DAD" - Its just plain and simple 'Bone Idleness' - Because our machines can handle more and more and more each and every day, we simply dont have to close anything to give something else enough memory to run.

Just added SAM Broadcaster to the list of open items! - I should probs close some of these, but now its come to my attention that all this is open...I'm gonna go ahead and see how long it takes for my PC to simply die...