White Noise and Field of Vision

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a child, and took medicine until I was a Junior in college. For some reason the military doesn't want recruits on speed. I'm glad to be off drugs, but the diagnosis was legitimate.

We moved into a new office in March and since then I've been struggling with my focus. I see people moving, I hear noise, and I become distracted. At home even music or (my favorite) audio books turn my attention to other things. The result is that I'm unsatisfied with what I've accomplished. I haven't made enough progress on my projects, or I have absorbed the material from educational media that I should.

Sound

Music is generally better than nothing. I've tried to listen to music without lyrics, as I find the human voice and poetry most engaging, and therefore distracting. But going first through Post-Rock, Classical European, World Music, and finally electronic didn't have an optimal affect. I would either become emotional: melancholy, aggressive, or especially frustrated. Also, looking for new music was taking up too much time, and provided an additional distraction. So I'm going to try something new.

White Noise.

Well, more precisely ambient noise. The hum of an Airplane engine, crickets, rain, that kind of stuff. Not sure how it'll work out in the long run, but after a couple hours of writing with this in the background, it seems to be working.

Vision

I don't know if you know this, but a lot of software is frustration, a constant minor problems. And seeing my friends and co-workers frustrated stresses me out. I end up breaking my concentration to see what is holding them up, even when I know they'll ask for help if they really need it. So a simple solution I'm going to try is adding another monitor and blocking off my field of vision.

Conclusion

In summary these steps are simply to encourage me to think about fewer things at any one time. Limiting distractions while soothing my fraying nerves. Hopefully it works well.