Reddit reviews Deskmate - Office Desk Accessories, Desk Signs, Funny Office Gifts

I’m in an open office with a few hundred people. When we moved into the new office we all got one of these on our desks. They are fun but most people don’t bother to change the pages so visitor just ignore them anyways. I mainly use mine to indicate if I am working or out of office.

As someone who's been a manager, and has ADHD, here's my 2 cents.

Your manager sounds like he's a reasonable person, meaning he doesn't expect perfection from his reports, but needs to be able to rely on his reports to deliver on the work they've committed to with infrequent mistakes. If your boss really is reasonable, then all he wants is for this mistake, and ones like it, to not happen again.

Before your meeting with your boss, assemble a list of all the issues your boss has with your work performance.

• You aren't approachable because you listen to music with headphones on, this makes it harder for junior employees to reach out to you.
  
  
• Your work space is cluttered because you have post-its all over your desk. This either makes the work environment look unprofessional (which is an issue if clients come by), or makes it hard for your coworkers to quickly assess what you're working on when you're away.
  
  
• You make simple mistakes on forms and outgoing communication, which requires that your boss reviews your work, or that clients get an unpleasant and unprofessional impression of your company.
  
  Feel free to add any other issues I didn't capture, or correct them if I've misstated them.
  
  Now, you need to come up with specific plans to address the issues caused by these behaviors. You'll also need to communicate what the behavior helps you with, if you want to keep doing the behavior in a modified way.
  
  
• You need headphones with music to be able to concentrate, but you don't mind being interrupted. You could buy a desktop status sign like this one, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0182S7MWU/, to tell people that they can interrupt you and you're there to help. (I use these)
  
  
• You need some way of keeping track of the work others ask you to do. There are many list keeping applications you can use, Wunderlist, Habitica, Evernote, Trello, Outlook todo things. Try to find one that you really like and stick with it. Put everything in there. If someone catches you in a place where you can't add the item to the list, ask them to send you an email because you will forget the request by the time you get back to your desk. (I tell people that verbatim).
  
  
• Mistakes. For simple tasks, make checklists that you review after you've filled out a form or an email, but before you send it (I usually fill out the To field last when writing an email for this reason). Anytime you make a low-impact mistake more than once, or make a high-impact mistake ever, add a new item to the checklist for that task to make sure you haven't made that mistake. Make a checklist for each task if you can, and make the individual items things you can check in 1-2 seconds.
  
  Okay, so now you've done your homework. Bring both lists to your meeting with your boss. Let him say whatever he needs to say to you without interrupting. If he offers any specific actions he wants you to take, write them down in a list so you can put it on your todo list when you get back to your desk. Then, if he asks you to respond (he may start with such a request, which is fine), or if it looks like he's done with the meeting, tell him you have specific, personal changes that you are planning to make to improve your performance in these areas. Then read your list of solutions to him and ask him for his feedback.
  
  Bad bosses will want you to just do things the way they want, and are inflexible. If that is your boss, then agree with him, go back to your desk, put in earplugs or something and implement as many of your solutions as you can while faking compliance with his suggestions. If your boss is good, he'll probably be very pleased with your initiative and self improvement.