Writing and researching politics and social issues
Author:Kim Siever
I live in Lethbridge with my spouse and 5 of our 6 children. I’m a writer, focusing on social issues and the occasional poem. My politics are radically left. I recently finished writing a book debunking several capitalism myths. My newest book writing project is on the labour history of Lethbridge.
I’m also dichotomally Mormon. And I’m a functional vegetarian: I have a blog post about that somewhere around here. My pronouns are he/him.
At city council meeting last week, City Councillor Blaine Hyggen suggested that a third party independently audit the numbers claimed by Arches in their report to city council.
Except Hyggen doesn’t actually care whether Arches gets audited. Hyggen operates on confirmation bias: he seeks out frontline cops and paramedics whose claims support his ideological stance on harm reduction; he seeks out a statistician friend who agrees with his assessment that the numbers can’t be true; he accepts bunk documentaries, like “Seattle Is Dying”, as fact.
See, if the data Arches released to city council matched his perceptions, Hyggen wouldn’t be calling for an audit. Because it’s not about how Arches operates; it’s about facts disagreeing with his feelings.
To him, the only possible explanation for the discrepancy between the facts and his feelings is that Arches must be lying. To him, there’s no possibility that he might be wrong.
A few months ago, I was discussing the concept of “a little bit racist” with a friend on Facebook. Before long, the conversation turned to Indigenous people, and his discussion points started to incorporate common myths white people believe about Indigenous people.
You’ve probably heard conservatives talk about the economy, how important the economy is as an election issue, how important jobs are, or business investment is, or the GDP is.
Except conservatives don’t actually care about the economy.
Lethbridge residents sure have had a lot to say regarding drugs, crime, and violence recently, Even though the drug crisis has been in this city for nearly 5 years, no one was discussing it until the supervised consumption site opened a year and a half ago.
Even though crime was increasing and public drug usage was on the rise, it wasn’t until the SCS was announced that people started rallying around how terrible the city had become.
I’ve read hundreds—if not thousands— of comments from people who are opposed to the SCS. That opposition varies by degrees, but it often comes down to common points.
Here are the 9 myths people often use when opposing the supervised consumption site and why exactly they’re just myths.
One thing about having ADHD is that you always have something in your head. The problem is that it’s not always the same thing; there’s always something new popping up.
This is why people with ADHD have such poor working memory. Ideas or tasks quickly get pushed out by other thoughts. So they forget.
The key to managing forgetfulness is to take the ideas you want to keep and get them out of your head.
Staying focused when you have ADHD can be a challenge.
Technically, people with ADHD have no problems focusing, it’s just that they focus on things other than what they should be focusing on. When you’re young, it means you have a hard time focusing in school. When you’re an adult, it means you have a hard time focusing at work.
Luckily, there are things you can do to make it a bit easier. I have four main tools I use to stay focused at work.
For the last 6 years, I’ve been self-employed. That means I get to choose what I work on, which makes it easier for me to manage my tasks, keeping me focused.
I manage a marketing company, focusing on writing, editing, and social media management. Every day, I manage projects for multiple clients. One day, I might manage a Twitter account for one client, Facebook for another, and Instagram for another, while also editing a couple pages for another client, and writing a blog post for fifth client.
The great thing about this set up is that I’m not stuck doing the same thing every day. Every day brings new experiences. I might, for example, write website copy for a jeweller, manage the Facebook page for a massage therapist, and edit a thesis for a graduate student all in the same day.
This allows me to break my workday into chunks. For example, the day I wrote this blog post, I managed 4 Facebook pages, 2 Twitter accounts, and 3 Instagram profiles. On average, I spend about 20–30 minutes on each. Because those 4.5 hours are split into smaller bits, I’m less likely to get distracted by something else.
I’ve built distraction into my job, focusing on multiple projects for multiple clients. This forces me to shift my mindset several times a day, reducing my temptation to give into distractions.
Another thing that keeps me focused is drinking lots of water. It focuses me to get up regularly from my desk, both to refill my water bottle and to urinate a bit later. I work from home, which also allows me to incorporate household tasks into my work day, such as switching laundry. Taking short 3–5 minute breaks resets my brain. You don’t need to work from home to take short breaks either: you could walk to a coworker’s office, for example, to follow up on an assignment.
Something else I must do to keep focused is reduce distractions. This past September, I moved my office out of a corner of our family room and into one of the bedrooms. Having a door makes a huge difference in reducing noise and interruptions from family members.
I also listen to podcasts through headphones. That further reduces the ambient noise in the home that reaches my ears. I can’t listen to podcasts when I’m editing or writing though, since it makes it difficult to concentrate on the writing. It doesn’t interfere with my social media management though.
Speaking of social media, I also have to close Facebook when I’m working. I have no browser tabs open with Facebook. I get no Facebook notifications on my phone or in my email. Facebook is such a time killer, that I can’t risk getting sucked in when I’m working. Even when I do need to open it for a client, I use Facebook Business Manager, which hides notifications from my personal account. And once I log into Business Manager once, I can stay in it when switching between client pages.
Finally, I have a set schedule I follow every day. I have created a project schedule in my work Google Calendar, allocating tasks to specific time slots. I do most of my social media management in the mornings, and each morning is divided into 15–30 minute slots. I get an email and popup notification for each one as a reminder. Knowing that I have a new social media account coming up at 10:00 keeps me on task. Also, I know that if I don’t stay on track, I won’t be finished by noon, and I’ll end up having to use my afternoon for client social media instead of editing or writing for clients or my own content curation/creation. Having a set schedule with reminders keeps me motivated, and it has the added benefit of reducing the risk of forgetting a project.
So, those are the 4 tricks I use to stay focused at work. How do you stay focused at work? Let me know in the comments.
One of the pillars of ADHD is impulsivity. And while in children that may manifest as being loud, disruptive, and annoying, for adults, it can affect finances.
