Active Thinking: The Practice of Active Thinking

I have ADD. I have been a successful Fortune 100 National Sales Manager. I have received years of corporate training including productivity and organizing techniques. The programs I learned and taught were developed by very strong sales companies. They included Bristol Myers, Revlon and Unilever. I have also spent years as an entrepreneur. I had undiagnosed ADD. I was the student who got the lecture about living up to my potential after teachers saw my SAT scores. I was finally diagnosed with ADD when I was forty. I had what turns out to be a common reaction, “Thank God there is an explanation for all this chaos in my life”. Nevertheless, a diagnosis is not a cure. The usual medications helped but like all mind affecting substances they had a negative side. My doctors went from one medication to another. I did plenty of research. I redoubled my efforts at organization. In the end, I was defeated. I am convinced that those who think ADD is a defect in the brain were right. No matter what I did, I found it almost impossible to avoid problems with tasks I did not like. How can a medication or a calendar get into your thoughts and take control right in that second when you switch to distraction or avoidance? What could prevent it? What do you do when nothing helps you consistently? The idea of what has become Active Thinking started to take form in my mind. I needed something, a thought, so small that it could fit inside my mind and prevent distraction from starting and taking hold. I needed a Mantra. However, a true Mantra is to shut out thought. I needed something that was selective about what thoughts it shut out or let in. I looked at a concept of a mind that has a specific defect. That defect is that it does not see that a task has an end. That mind subconsciously feels that it is stuck in an endless situation. What solution does the mind then have? Find something else to do. Pick up a guitar. Have a cup of coffee. Go for a walk. Go to the bathroom. Go! I am not sure this is a true mental process that happens but it does describe a real event, Attention Deficit.