A Clock For Your Desktop

Tara McGillicuddy pointed out in a recent blog post that the most important time management tool for an A.D.D.er is an analog clock. Unlike digital clocks which simply tell time, an analog clock offers a concrete visual conception of the passage of time. For those of you who are tied to your computer, you may like the analog clock illustrated below. This clock lives on your Windows desktop. You can set alarms, which can come in quite handy when you have an appointment to keep, it can start up software applications, and it can even shut down your computer (I haven’t tried this yet but it sounds like a wonderful feature for those who have the “gift” of Internet Addiction).¹ You can download a clock for your computer (Windows, only) from this website.

1. The irony, here, is you find out about Internet Addiction, through…er…um…the Internet. If you look at the online test for addiction provided by this website, so many of the questions seem to apply to A.D.D.ers and in so many other contexts than the use of the Internet. While there can be some endless debate (on the Internet, of course) as to whether Internet Addiction actually exists, a larger problem is one of terminology, as pointed out here.  Pathological Computer Use, defined as “excessive computer use, withdrawal, [...] serious negative repercussions due to excessive computer use” is something that, I’m sure, a number of you reading this (on the Internet, of course) may be able to relate to. But what is difficult to wrap our heads around is the terminology. Words such as “pathological” or “addiction” carry so many layers of meaning and associations that their juxtaposition with the words “computer” or “internet” seems, well, laughable. (I can certainly imagine a time when someone will tell us that our Internet Addiction is really a gift waiting to be unwrapped.) Imagine if someone said you had PAU – Pathological Automobile Use – defined as excessive driving time, excessive speeding, excessive attention to your automobile to the exclusion of others (wait…I’ve heard of that last one…it’s called “The Auto Show”!!!). You would, of course, laugh. Yet some of us may know people that live and breath cars (they may go by the name of NASCAR fan, automobile restorer, etc.). We don’t see this as a pathology. However, none of this should be interpreted as minimizing the effects of this “Internet addiction” because we know people who have such an addiction (in fact…it may be you). However, someone better come up with some better terminology.↩