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Comment by simplyinfinity | Hacker News Reader

I'm not diagnosed with ADHD myself, in fact today is my first day of ADHD eval by a doctor. What you write is exactly how experience work.

One thing that came to mind is contract/freelance work. Go to a contracting agancy and tell them you want to work on 3-6 month contracts. I'm currently in the process of doing this. I hope few things come out of this.

1) my brain stays engaged

2) my happniess increases

3) my savings & free time grow ( as contractors get paid a bit more ) and can afford more time off between projects

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Related question: I think I’d really like to work part-time so I can properly multi task on my personal projects and for-money work, rather than have this all-or-nothing choice every 3+ months. Do you have any advice you could give me about that?

Ask around recruiters on LinkedIn they would know for sure. Freelancing is also an option for short term projects. I know a couple of local companies that offer 4-6 hour work contracts, but it's hard to find. Ask your current employer if they are willing to do this. Something in the line of "Hey X, I want to pursue my passion project, so I Am willing to take a paycut and work 4hrs/day (3 of 5 days is also an option), can we arrange that as I like working with you"

Without exposing myself too much that's what I'm doing right now. But while the contracting agency I work for is really great but it's also very massive and I feel very desolated, especially since my last contract was the "build me the forms" which drained the soul out of me.

Mind expanding on what you mean by 'desolated'?

Sure - I'm used to problems on my contract but usually when something went wrong I knew I could count on my agency to step in. Conflict resolution, 3rd person perspective needs analysis, project re-assessment and stuff like that (even to the point of body swap if needed). But as we grew unfortunately it become more of a "don't worry, we have insurance and lawyers". Project was heavily understaffed and neither me or client could get in contact with representatives to get additional help.

That sounds closer to “abandoned” or “neglected”.

I'm sorry, you scratched the itch, and I'm anonymous so I'll allow to indulge myself :)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desolate

TBH I had to check it though.

> 3) my savings & free time grow ( as contractors get paid a bit more ) and can afford more time off between projects

This is the part that didn't work so well in my experience. With each project I was at first in "working" mode, then in "time off" mode (which usually meant working on personal stuff for free), and then suddenly in "need to find a new paying project asap" panic mode when the savings were running out. With each next project my financial situation had to be worse in order to successfully trigger panic mode, so I quickly started to look for something longer-term instead.

This sounds like a pretty good strategy for me too. I'm completely ignorant about consulting agencies though - I assume there good ones, bad ones, etc? Can anyone recommend ones in the UK?

Look around on LinkedIn and ask your tech friends/(ex)colleagues. A friend of mine works at EPAM and is extremely happy there. That's the only recommendation I can make, based on their feedback, I'm even considering joining them.

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