inconsistent with emails and forum posts, bad at phone calls

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Just wondering if this happens with anyone else. If I start a post on a forum one day I might lose interest in it (or be distracted by other interests) for a few days before I read and reply to it again, or might just read it but never reply again. With emails I could have a lot of email traffic with someone if they respond instantly and I'm still on the track I was on when I last emailed them but if they take a while to reply or email me out of the blue it becomes a huge task to reply so I put it at the bottom of my to do list.

Phone calls are another thing again - they also go to the bottom of my to do list but I can attempt, struggle with and put it off for a week even if its urgent. I've always felt like I had a phobia of phones....

Anyway - others have suggested all of this is laziness... just wondering if that's so or its an aspie thing?

I'll reply to this later. I don't feel like it right now.

Sometimes I do a hit and run post on accident. I will make a thread and then forget about it and then I remember it and go back to it finally.

I have gone to forums and then not going to them. Sometimes I don't even come here because I am too busy with other things so I don't come here as much. Plus I feel I am repeating myself so I don't reply much these days. I get too lazy to even respond.

I also tend to forget to make phone calls. I keep forgetting to call CareOregon to have them change my son's gender to male because for some reason they have him as female. I just hate dealing with all the being put on hold, someone not being there and they rarely return my phone call if I do leave a message. I feel it disrupts my routine so that is probably why I put it on hold and I keep forgetting.

I normally put this stuff on hold while I think about what to say. Phones more of anxiety & also what to say, £5 on my mobile lasted nearly 5 years :/, I prefer msn, mail, email, fax, beeper, text message, flag signals, smoke signals, Morse code.

I've a terrible reputation with any form of communication at work. It really doesn't help that so many people do need to communicate with me. I'm ranked #1 in my organisation for received e-mails (most can be ignored though) and in the top 50 for sent.

A great tip from my ADHD coach (which I fail to follow most of the time) is OHIO (only handle it once), so when you get the message, respond or handle it immediately (delegate or bin it). Don't create piles of things to follow up on, because you won't and these piles will just add to your stress levels.

Sometimes with forums I find I go a bit overboard on a thread, then feel embarassed about it. I've done that a few times here, I guess before I would disengage entirely, but now I just leave the thread alone and don't feel so guilty.

I hate texts, ims, pms and so on. They interrupt me and people tend to want to keep a conversation running, I'm as lost here as I am face to face. I'm fine responding to a question, but other things I find difficult. Most of the time I want to say too much, can't shrink it down to a sentence or two and then just avoid responding entirely.

I'm slightly better at paperwork now I have an executive secretary (wife), I also have someone great in the office who helps with some of the ordering and accounting paperwork. I do keep trying to get it across to my boss, that leaving paperwork in my hands is a bad idea, but that doesn't seem to stop him.

Jason

This exactly how I feel about phone calls and if there is an alternative (non-verbal) way, i will choose that instead.
Emails are preferable to phone calls but often when I get the reply I will read it and not reply for a long time. This is because although I might know what to say in my reply in my head, I struggle with the process of converting it into an understandable sentence on the screen. I have tried to explain this before by saying its almost like I need to translate everything into a foreign language. I find this so difficult and time consuming it usually gets put off for a long time too. Sometimes I don't even open the email right away because I dread the effort that is going to be involved in replying. I have the same difficulties with forum posts, text, letters (although these are not used much nowadays) too.

Interesting you should say that. I am horrible with social networking sites like Facebook, and its Dutch pendant Hyves, because I'm always posting huge paragraphs while the person I'm talking to types concise, one-sentence messages. I just can't resist the urge of over-elaborating, it's in my system. This is also the reason Twitter doesn't do anything for me.

And yeah, I also still get embarassed sometimes after posting something of which I afterwards think "Wow, that really wasn't a smart thing to say" or "Maybe I've offended this or that poster", and I just never return to the thread. Here on WP, that's rare though.

But in reply to invisibubble, no I don't have those problems of inconsistency in replying to mails and or forum posts per se... I used to have some trouble with preparing myself for phone calls, because the real-time of a phone conversation was a bit daunting for me. But now, I'm fine with that, for the most part.

I should add I sometimes do take an hour to post a single post. It's ludicrous. I want to reply to a thread, but I keep editing and double-checking over and over.

I mentally respond to everything I read, sometimes I start replies and throw them away. I spend hours sometimes on a couple of paragraphs and still get dont them right. My drafts folder in work is full of these. Sometimes I get confused as to wether I did actually hit send/submit or even wrote a reply. This can be a problem at work.

I only post photos and things on Facebook, except when ive had a beer or two. I find that pretty odd really. I do keep family and friends off my back by just posting photos of what I've been up to, I can read what they have been doing. I suppose it's an improvement in that you never really lose track of acquaintances any more.

Jason

That's exactly my creative writing process of the last four years. I do that with many other things, too.

Anything that involves authorities and writing official letters weirds me out. I fail at most that. Ironically, other people perceive my letters to an official institution as kind of... over-the-top. But I always feel I have to fake my writing in order to fit the official "code".

I'm good with emails but when I got to call someone official, I tend to make excuses.

That is why I back away from advertised jobs what give a telephone number. I immediately apply for all jobs what are given an email address.

And no, it's not entirely an Aspie thing - I've often sent friends messages on Facebook, and although they're online a lot, they don't always bother getting back to me 'til a few days later.

Wow, that is exactly what I do. You are not alone in this .

Sometimes, I view a thread or post and feel an immediate urge to respond in an almost knee-jerk fashion. If I wait and re-read the post/thread at a later time; I will get another perspective about the subject/opinion and respond differently at that point. Gawd, I am doing it now .