Difficulty sustaining attention over nine hour work day

Post Reply New Topic

Anyone have known difficulty sustaining normal attention / having a reliable energy level over a nine hour business work day, Monday - Friday?

Insights? Experiences? Possible partial remedies?

Yes, but I have ADHD and I am not an Aspie. Outside of Adderall or Ritalin, nothing worked reliably, but the following helped:

1. Get enough sleep.
2. Exercise regularly.
3. Eat a light lunch. A smoothie or a salad instead of a normal lunch eliminated my afternoon doldrums.
4. If it is possible, go outside to eat lunch and get some sunshine. Have your doctor check your vitamin D levels while you're at it.
5. Leave your personal iPhone, Kindle, or other media-rich device in your desk drawer and do not log on to any personal websites from your work computer. Have set times throughout the day to check your personal email or do other personal business. If you need music, take a classic iPod or similar MP3 player.
6. Extend your workday if possible. I've known many people who would work out for an hour at roughly 6:00 PM (after nine or ten hours on the job) and return to work several more hours. Others use their lunch break for this purpose.
7. Take a power nap of 15 minutes, even if it means merely closing your eyes with earplugs or headphones at your desk.
8. Get a polysomnogram (sleep study) to see if you have sleep apnea.

Get more than one task to work on, that way you can "take a rest" from one job for a while. Just don't let the quality of your work suffer.