I think I might have ADD?

Question:
I have really bad concentration and always procrastinate. I lose things often and have a very hard time finishing off projects. Maybe it is just my personality? I have never been able to concentrate in school. I always day dream. Even though this is the case I have always done well in school by teaching myself at the last minute. I achieved 2 A's and a B in the first year of my A levels (AS) in difficult subjects (Bio, chem and Eng). I have just finished my second year and I think I have failed all my exams because the workload was too much and it was too difficult to do in 2/3 weeks.

My teachers say I'm lazy but I really don't think I am. As far as I can remember I have been extremely messy, disorganized and I don't think I've ever done my homework. I'm good at getting the ideas for homework/projects and enjoy starting them but I have a hard time finishing them off. A while ago I received funding to start my own project with some primary school kids. I started the project and my friend had to finish it off.

Please help. Thanks in advance.


Answer:
It does not matter what name you give it but the symptoms imply that medication for ADD would certainly help. I agree, you are not lazy all you need is a motivating direction to maintain your focus and then you can accomplish anything you want. In addition to medication there are organizational skills that you can learn that will help you very much. Just to give you a start; the main thing that seems to cause the problem is the feeling of being overwhelmed. The feeling of being overwhelmed can be circumvented by making lists of what you have to do. the list can be infinitely long it does not matter and everyday you will look at the list and you will take a few things and break them down into chunks, I'm talking really small details that are easy to do, and you will do as many of those small details as you can during the day and it does not matter if you finish or not. The only thing that matters is that you start to do them. the rule for picking the few things every day is to choose the few things that when completed will give you the biggest sense of accomplishment and that seem to you to be the most important and necessary for achieving a certain goal which is whatever you decide it to be.