addadultstrategies. amazon smashwords Category:  Self-Help ISBN-10:  1937600432 Pages: 365 Copyright: dec, 2011 ISBN-13: 9781937600433 Price: $1.99 (eBook) like the title says, it's about using strategies. I think Your Life Can Be Better, can be useful to anyone even tho it's written specifically for people with ADD or ADHD.  It adresses issues of organizing your life, self esteem, and many others, like the common problems of procrastination, being late, not finishing things for example..  It mainly discusses way that I, my patients and friends cope with ADD. I am a psychiatrist who discovered that he has ADD at age 64. Then I wrote about how I and my patients and my friends cope with ADD or ADHD.  It's about strategies.   Excerpt Chapter 25 Time and calendars In addition to the appointment book in my pocket I’m surrounded by calendars. I have a small calendar of the month on my desk top. The large three months at a glance calendar is hanging on the wall. I can see it from anywhere in the room. A calendar hangs on the side of the bookcase next to my therapy chair. Next to my phone is a large monthly calendar, where I note my open appointment spaces and my out of office appointments, kind of as a supplement to my appointment book. Under that is the one sheet calendar for the next month. I print these one month calendars free from the internet. I am not good at time, in many ways. I need to keep track of my appointments, both for my practice and out of the office. I need to keep track of where I am in the week and in the year and in time - hence the three months at a glance calendar. (You likely will not really grasp what I’m talking about here, unless perhaps you have ADD, too.) The three month calendar has the current month on the left, next month in the middle, and the next month on the right. So if something is planned for next month, or the month after, I can really see where it is, and how many days are between now and then. Telling me that something is two months away does not convey useful information to me. I have to see it.

It All ADDS Up
It all ADDs up., March 3, 2012
By Linda Gray
This review is from: Your Life Can Be Better, Using strategies for adult ADD/ADHD (Paperback)
I'd read only a few pages of Dr. Puryear's book before I unexpectedly began to recognize myself. It wasn't the idea of making lists on colored index cards (although one of the first things I did after starting the book was buy a pack of colored cards). I've always kept lists, not to help me remember things (well, now that I'm 62, yes, to help me remember things) but to help me feel less overwhelmed by all the stuff running through my head. Keeping notes on backs of old envelopes? Yes, I do that too. Probably picked it up from my mother, who even cut up old tissue boxes for something to write on. When I realized, however, that the drawer in the side table next to where I usually sit was so crammed with old envelopes and scraps of paper that I could barely open it, I began to wonder. Then there is the clutter in my office, so much that I can't make myself work there and I can't make myself clear it away, obviously because I'm lazy and sloppy. Always being late for things (one therapist said it was because it was so hard for me to leave home). Procrastination (I call it "inspiration by deadline"). Feeling my life is too big for me and I can't keep up with it all. Being irritated by interruptions when I'm concentrating on something. Not getting along with bosses (I work for myself now--and I still don't get along with boss!). Addiction to computer games. No longer starting projects that excite me because I know I'll never finish them. Blurting out (Why did I say that?). It all began to ADD up.

Dr. Puryear's book is chock-full of stories about and strategies for living with ADD--ideas that can be useful to anyone, with or without ADD. But as I continued reading, something else began to make a difference for me: I felt understood, and I began to understand myself in a new way. I found myself being less judgmental and more gentle and reasonable, checking myself (there's a chapter on that) instead of berating myself. I began to feel hope that my life can be better; that my problems are problems, not lack of good moral character; that I don't have to be stuck in the mire of it all; that the "too bigness" of my life can be broken into smaller and smaller and even smaller chunks--orderly chunks that I feel I can handle instead of always feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and demoralized by "never doing anything right." Maybe the book will do the same for you or a loved one. Or maybe Dr. Puryear's approach--identify a problem, come up with a strategy, make a rule--will help you get your office in shape, prioritize your commitments, find more time for the things you want to do instead of what you have to do. Whatever the case, I highly recommend reading this book and making use of the many strategies it offers.

It is already better!
It is already better!, January 26, 2012
By William Schaller - See all my reviews
This review is from: Your Life Can Be Better, Using strategies for adult ADD/ADHD (Paperback)
For years since I was diagnosed, I felt like I needed some sort of instruction manual for dealing with my mind's peculiarities. Where other books, Driven to Distraction included, offer anecdotes and general strategies, Your Life Can Be Better is the manual I've been looking for.

The author, Dr. Puryear, has ADHD himself, and has treated the subject matter in a personal account of the many strategies he has developed in the course of his life for coping with ADHD. The book is laid out well, and each chapter is short and concise.

I was riveted when I read it, and immediately started using a number of the tools in the book. This is definitely my missing manual, and I'd recommend it to anyone with ADHD, and even people without ADHD.

It answers the questions I'm asking
Answers to the Questions I'm Asking, December 16, 2011
By Thomas B. Woodward (Santa Fe, New Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Your Life Can Be Better, Using strategies for adult ADD/ADHD (Paperback)
In my attempts to deal with my ADHD I have bought several books - and have been disappointed each time. The problem has been that each book seems to go over the same ground (what is ADHD, symptoms, how to tell if you have ADHD, medicate or not, general approaches to living with ADHD -- and then a few strategies that are pretty much the same as in the last book!

What Dr. Puryear has done in Your Life Can Be Better is, first, to take you inside his own struggles and successes in dealing with his own ADD in a way that takes you inside your own or that of a loved one. Second, the book is strategies for dealing with your own ADD or ADHD - and the strategies are doable and, in my experience, of tremendous help. That's why this is the one book to buy!

What you get for your $16.95 is a sensitive and often funny look into the life of a very bright and insightful professional dealing with his own ADD, a guidebook into adopting and creating strategies for your own, and a book to share with those who live their lives trying their best to cope you! At that price - or any price - it's a steal.