Tips from ADHDers that will boost your productivity | Hacker News Reader

Tips from ADHDers that will boost your productivity

productivegrowth.substack.com

28 pointspgcm17 comments

As an ADHD dev, the adoption of WFH at most companies has been a godsend. I cannot work in an office environment, and usually work in small 'bursts' of productivity over a day, where I do a day's worth of coding.

Not being watched takes the stress off of me to look like I'm doing something important.

(Writing this on a throwaway not for any stigma, I just prefer not to broadcast on my professional account that I have ADHD)

Truthfully, just to give a perspective, since while I trust you, this has been the total opposite for me. Case in point of writing this comment; were I at work, the stress and fear of being watched kept me honest and FAR more focused, and helped give good reinforcement cycles to the patterns of behavior I wanted to maintain.

What you say about distractions/focus was absolutely present, to be clear, and required conscious balance to where I sat/had my field of view to have "the right sort of interruptions" but without too many such that I lost flow every time someone walked behind me

WFH and removal of office culture has been absolutely brutal for my mental health, ability to focus and work velocity, not to mention oddly orthogonal things like sleep cycle (I'm EXTREMELY routine driven, and having no differentiation in my day obliterates that. Have tried going for runs etc but it's not the same, coworking spaces as well but they're a bit of a double edged sword without many of the benefits of a true team environment.) and overall happiness.

The really funny thing is, I was, and continue to be, one of the most vocal supporters of wfh/allowing wfh, but this other extreme has been so much harder than I ever thought it was going to be at the start.

Highly recommend watching Russle Barkley's videos about ADHD. A solution that works wonders for me, after watching Barkley and inspired by "Pact of Punishment" in the game Hades, is to set a penalty for myself. E.g. for everyday that I don't do a leetcode problem I will pay my partner 50 bucks. Thats a painful enough amount for me. I must add that this doesn't work for things in future, meaning in 3 months if I don't lose 5lbs I will pay 200 dollars; ADHD brain does not understand time well. Instead it should be planned out and executed in short time periods, daily or shorter. For instance: for every meal that I overindulge I will pay X. For everyday I don't go for a walk I will pay. This requires integrity and a partner who likes their money ;)

That's a great trick. How much money have you actually paid doing this so far I'm curious though?

Reportedly, 400 dollars so far. But also made significant progress, my life is shaken up.

This article is well written. The part about fulfillment of needs/ putting needs such as bathroom visit, eating etc. on hold for long stretches of time when being deeply focused really reminds me of the behaviour I observed around some very smart people.

Multiple people with diagnosed ADHD told us, OrgPad (where I am the co-founder) helps them splitting up tasks into manageable pieces that they can more easily focus on and see the progress when they colour them green. You can get an impression of how that can look like when managing IT/ DevOps here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvw2uRQ64xE

I'm not sure the article tied up their advice to ADHD. It seems like an awareness submarine at first but doesn't get everything right or go deep enough to be useful.

Odd case of "don't judge a book by its cover, but wait you should have exactly judged this book by its cover".

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