You know when you’ve just wasted an hour and then you look back and suddenly stop and think, wait a second, what the HECK am I actually doing? This happens a lot to me. And, to be honest, losing only an hour of my day isn't actually that bad. It's been worse, particularly in my "pre-Concerta days".

About an hour ago, I sat down at my laptop refreshed after a walk to the beach, on a mission to find the research paper I have to read today. Now that I’ve started studying for a PhD, I’m back to using a paper diary again and I LOVE it. If I have to do something, I write it down in there. I’m that organised.

I started by searching for the paper I needed. I remembered seeing a link to the paper on Twitter a few weeks ago, so I searched and found it pretty quickly.

Well, that was easy. Success!

However, the link for the paper led me to ResearchGate.net. I logged into my account where I was met by a message telling me that I should really add more job details to my account.

Good idea, I thought. I’m an organised person now, I have to do these things. I added the job title and dates but then needed to check my LinkedIn page for the description. So I made that rookie mistake that all of us with ADHD (probably) make on an hourly basis. The mistake that leads us to the black hole of googling, social media, and time-wasting. I opened a new tab. 

Hello, LinkedIn!

I decided it was about time to change my LinkedIn profile picture. I took a selfie a few days ago and thought it looked pretty good (once I changed it to be black and white, cropped it, and made it look nothing much like the original).

Beth, you genius. Updating your LinkedIn profile picture is exactly what you should be doing right now. It’ll show the world how awesome and organised I am!

Hey, and you know what? I'll change my Twitter picture too! That will take just... a few... seconds. 

I logged into Twitter and updated my profile picture.

Upon my arrival into the land of Twitter, I realised something. I’ve been so busy with work and studying over the last few weeks that I haven’t actually had time to tweet on the @SmartGirlsADHD account. 

So I logged in.

Ah. 30 new notifications.

I read through a few of them. There’s too many - this will take time and, in case you haven't realised, I'm in a hurry! There's a linguistics article waiting for me, darnit! 

Okay... but first I should tweet a thing or two. I need to stay up to date after all. 

I settled on a generic “Hello to all my new followers!” tweet (that's right - I like to give people the personal touch) and decided to tweet a link to my old post, ADHD & My Master’s Degree Study Secrets.

But, hold on there just a minute. I can't possibly use that old Pinterest graphic for Twitter. It will look all misshapen and cut off at the middle. I need to give my Twitter followers the best. I'll just go to Canva and get the right dimensions for Twitter. (Plus, I’ve got a free trial of Canva for Work right now and it’s amazing. I really should make more use of it.)

I resized the blog graphic title to be the right size for Twitter and was good to go.

I'm having such a productive day. I'm so organized and productive, you know.

I tweeted the post. Done.

I decided to check out how many people have visited this site recently. A lot was the answer, so that's awesome (thank you, thank you, thank you, by the way!) It’s also great to have over 800 likes on our Facebook page and 200 people in our Facebook group. You guys really are the best. 

Thinking about how amazing everyone is reminded me to actually go check the Facebook group.

I can’t quite tell you how much I love it. There are just so many wonderful smart girls with ADHD sharing their advice, venting about the lack of understanding, posting just the right articles and pictures at just the right time, and telling ridiculously funny stories about the possessions they’ve lost or the time they’ve wasted. 

Speaking of which...

I suddenly remember, hey! That paper! 

So, I began to write a short post to share with the group about my hyperactive brain when it managed to turn itself into a full blog post which I’ve now wasted a further hour writing and formatting.

So there you have it. An hour (or two) in the life of Beth’s ADHD brain. 

But seriously, I'm going to read that research paper. Right... now...

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