I've never heard of Gretchen. I'll check her out.

Paperwork has been a problem for me for 16 years. What I have discovered is that I get visually overwhelmed by the page. Fill in the blank forms are the worst. All of the blank spaces make it near impossible to focus on just one blank space.

I have learned to use a blank sheet of paper to cover the blank spaces below the line I am working on.

Now that I think back, I think this is why I was a horrible test taker in high school and college. At the time, all I knew was that my brain would freeze during tests that had blanks to fill in.

I have this same problem with forms at the doctor's office.

Try using a blank sheet below and even above the line you are working on. It could make a world of difference.

When I am filling forms on the computer, it the cursor is faint, I have more struggles. It it is bold, I do much better. My guess is the blinking cursor grabs my visual attention. In some applications, the cursor can be made bolder. Adobe Acrobat Reader tends to have faint cursors when filling out forms.

On a slightly different note, I used to create reams of pages using Microsoft Word. Then, MS changed the toolbar for MSWord 2007 with ribbons. All of the visual clutter has stopped me in my tracks. I use UBit to get the old toolbar when I must but it reverts back to ribbons once you finish editing and start typing again.

I've used WPS Office/Kingsoft, an affordable Chinese clone of MS Word. It has the old toolbar but is not quite the same.