This week's ADHD Solution is: Avoid careless mistakes

Students with ADHD are often quite brilliant, but their grades don’t always reflect it because of “careless” mistakes. (I use quotes there because it’s not for lack of caring, it’s for lack of attention!) We experience more of the same when we become adults: We might put the wrong address on an envelope or enter the wrong amount on a check. Leave our keys in the front door. Skip a step in a detailed procedure. Miss an important question when responding to email. Everyone does it from time to time, but people with ADHD are especially prone to careless, or rather, attentionless, mistakes.

What to do? Here are some strategies to try:

• Observe your patterns. Be aware of the specific kinds of mistakes you tend to make. Math homework? Data entry? Bill paying? This will help you put extra effort where it is needed. “Okay, it’s time to pay bills. I need to be really careful with this because this is one of my problem areas.”
• Slow down. On tests, read the question twice, and make sure you answer what is says, not what you expect it to say.
• Treat every important task as if it were the most challenging thing ever. Don’t fall for the “it’s easy, I don’t have to give this much effort” trap. If it’s important, check your work every time.
• Take it one step at a time. Don’t think ahead to the next step while you’re working on the current one.
• Don’t try to do too many things at once. It’s tempting to multitask, but you have to admit, accuracy does suffer.
• Make sure you are fully focused on the task at hand. As soon as you realize that you’ve lost your focus, stop, take a few deep breaths, and return your attention to what you’re doing.
• Use a checklist. Your checklist might include each step of a process, or just the areas you need to focus extra hard on.
• Check your work. Always, always, always double check your work even if you're certain it's fine.
• See things with fresh eyes. Whenever possible, let your work sit for a day and proof it later. You’ll catch things your bleary eyes weren’t able to see when they were in the thick of it. Don’t have time? Ask someone else to give your work a quick scan.
• Eliminate distractions. Don’t try to talk and do detail work at the same time. Turn off the TV. Clear off your desk. Clear your mind.
• Identify things that have worked in the past. What tricks did you learn in the past that you can pull out of your sleeve? For example, maybe your high school algebra teacher had you circle the operators before solving the problem. Try that again and see if it still works.
• When you do make a mistake, learn from it. What can you put into place to avoid the same mistake next time? Remember that attention to detail is a learned skill. So go ahead and keep learning.
• Stay positive. Think of all the things you do really well. How smart you are, how creative. A positive mindset goes a long way to reducing the stress and overwhelm that exacerbate our tendency to make mistakes. Recognize that the tendency to make detail errors doesn’t reflect your overall knowledge, wisdom, or character.

Let your brilliance shine through by reducing the mistakes that can hide it.

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