Call it Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. Or CPAS (for Continuous Partial Attention Syndrome; coined by Linda Stone here). It’s the same.

It’s the description for basically wanting to write the background story of a new RPG character while listening to music, but then searching in forums for news about this character generator that has a bug when calculating the hindrance value, downloading pics and then deleting them again, saving something to del.icio.us, therefore stumbling about the aforementioned article and writing this blog post, because it describes exactly what I’m doing right now.

I’m making NADD sound like a rosy affliction. There are several downsides.

First, it’s a lot of work to figure out your personal program of digesting the world and, sorry, you are going to miss things. This will annoy you, but it will also drive you to incessantly look for the NEXT COOL THING.

Second, you’re going to sound like a know-it-all. Try not to.

Third, and lastly, you’re not going to have much patience with those who have not chosen a NADD-like life. Ocassionally, you’ll attempt to impart your fractured wisdom only to throw your hands up four minutes later when it’s clear, “Jesus, they just don’t get it.” Chances are, they might’ve gotten it, you’re just afflicted with a disease where your attention span is that of a second grader. Oh well, embrace your handicap.

That article is really old. But it explains why there is a need for ‘tools’ like GTD – because otherwise, things get lost. I guess that’s why all nerds love GTD: it is a new tool, that, in whatever form used, is just another thing that floats on your desktop to catch a fraction of your attention from time to time. Exactly what you need, right?