Whooo man it’s been a minute since I last added an article here. Mostly that’s because I had an interruption to my routine, which affected my ability to draw pictures, and without the pictures, I was unable to post the articles… Oh – also – I did finally go to a psychologist and get diagnosed with ADHD.
Which actually leads me to the purpose of this article.
I devised a new tool. And I’m calling it PACE.
What is PACE?
I get distracted. Easily, and often by the most mundane things. Here’s a relevant example – I’m updating translation data on a website. An object that I am working with lacks an English translation, so I go off to ChatGPT to get a temporary translation until the client can update the text more accurately.
While there, I see a conversation in the history that reminds me of a product I wanted to look up, so – without actually thinking about it – I newtab and bing (Google is dead to me) that product. I start scrolling and … wait.
What happened? Distraction hit and in a moment of clarity, instead of ducking back into the distraction rabbit trail (brace yourself for one heck of an 80s sounding acronym) I remembered my new mantra:
P.A.C.E. yourself.
Pause.
Take a moment to stop and breathe. Break the current cycle of distraction
Assess.
Evaluate your current activity versus what you need or want to accomplish
Choose.
Decide on the task that is most important or urgent
Engage.
Commit to the chosen task with renewed focus and energy
I asked DallE to make me an image about this, and this is what it came up with:
It is magnificent.
How the PACE method could work for you
If you are anything like me, when you find yourself distracted, you know it. And you can’t really do anything about it. And it feels terrible. I’m sitting there thinking to myself “How did I end up on Wikipedia reading about the great Toilet Paper Orientation Debate when all I wanted to do was search for a basic PHP function” while simultaneously willing myself to get back on task and failing. It’s like Monkey Fog. It’s like moving through a 1-foot wide trough of molasses that you could easily get out of if you would just step half a foot to the left or right. It’s wholly unfair and massively discouraging.
But the important part is that you are aware of what is happening. And this gives you an opportunity to remember a cheese, 80s-motivation-poster-sounding backronym that the DARE folks only wish they could have come up with.
It’s time to P.A.C.E. yourself.
Pause. Assess. Choose. Engage.
TL;DR
TL;DR: Diagnosed with ADHD, I created a simple tool called PACE to help stay focused. It stands for Pause, Assess, Choose, Engage. It’s a quick way to break the cycle of distraction and get back on track. Try it out next time you’re sidetracked!
