Hyperfocus and Beginning (tm)

It has been a while since I made a post. This is partly due to a lack of inspiration and partly because I am busy with other things than writing. Today it is time for me to write a post again. I want to talk about my hyper-focus and starting projects.

Hyper-focus

When I am working on something, I can immerse myself completely in the subject I am working on. This is a well-known thing in autism, the so-called hyper-focus. Being completely absorbed by a subject or activity. With me I notice the hyper-focus especially in my surroundings. People who try to get my attention and who really have to make an effort to get it. I can even frighten people, not that they frighten me, but I haven’t noticed them until they make physical contact or “suddenly” come into my field of vision.

This hyper-focus is not a bad thing. It allows me to concentrate on what I am doing. I often do this through music. Because I am very focused, I may seem lost to the world around me. Ever since I was a child I have had this, when I was playing I could completely disappear into my play and fantasy. Hours and hours I could be busy with my own game or fantasy. In later years I was able to focus on other tasks, as long as the tasks interested me. If a task or subject did not interest me, it was a lot more difficult. I was quickly distracted by events around me, for example music or other people’s conversations. Nowadays I am better able to focus on what I am doing. Partly by listening to music, but also by taking distance; sitting somewhere else, for example.

Starting (tm)

I have become very good at starting somewhere. I’m starting on many things that seem interesting to me. I often see this in the games I play; always starting a new game, and after a while “forgetting” it again. Not that I have really forgotten the game, but I haven’t played it for some time now. Sometimes it has become boring when I have played it too much, but most of the time it is because I have found a new game to play.

Starting this is not limited to games, but to almost everything in my life. I start a lot of projects and then I have trouble getting on with it. Where exactly this lies is not quite clear to me, unfortunately. Nowadays, I try to persevere with the projects I approach. This blog is one of those projects. Sometimes it’s necessary to distance myself from a project, to get inspired again, but it’s important to persevere. In order to persevere, incentives are needed. Fortunately, I get tired of writing. A lot of feedback from people who read or have read my blog and have learned something from it or find recognition in my words. That’s one of the most important things to get, then I know what I’m doing all this for.

Finish

As I said, I often start with all sorts of things and then drop them. When it comes to gaming, this is not bad in my opinion, but for other projects it is quite disturbing. So what I am now doing more and more is not only starting, but also finishing. I know that some projects are never ‘finished’ and always go on, but that is not bad either. However, I always have to motivate myself to continue projects.

How I get that motivation varies per project. One project is more of a temporary obsession, something new that I find very interesting at the moment and that I lose myself in for a week or two, after which I forget about it and don’t do anything with it any-more. While the other project becomes some kind of core of my life, like writing my blog and trying to take a place in the autistic community.

A personal goal of mine is to ‘finish’ projects. Whether I should “finish” the projects better or “just” continue, I leave a little in the middle The fact remains that writing about autism is one of the things I like to do. Today I therefore write all these thoughts on “paper” in the hope that other people will recognise themselves, or perhaps a close relative, in this story.

Planning the future

The fact that I have not written here for a while does not mean that I have sat still. As mentioned here, I gave a webinar, which was well attended. For the people who missed it; the video is on its way to be watched. However, this will take some time. The podcast will soon continue as well, I also need the necessary inspiration for that. In the meantime, however, I am networking and attending various meetings and the like. Fortunately, I am not standing still!

We are going to tackle it cheerfully again this autumn. I hope to be able to take you all on this journey and together make it a happy ending to this year, despite all the misery in the world.