Ask HN: How do you tackle fear of missing out(FOMO) as a nerd with ADHD? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you tackle fear of missing out(FOMO) as a nerd with ADHD?

3 pointsnerdyadventurer8 comments

Generally in media, FOMO refers to person missing important information about important incidents, occasions related to friends and relatives(ex: parties, firstborn of your sister). I am okay with that, I do not like Facebook culture much.

But I am interested about scientific, technical, dev related news like new libraries / products / research articles. I have FOMO for those things. I want to stay updated about those things, since those new things(libraries, products) can help me to save time in my work. I mostly use HN, Reddit to get news, updates. But I cannot keep watching those platforms for every day since my ADHD loves stimulating things and I keep running into rabbit holes where I do nothing for the rest of the day. I was thinking about only visiting those platforms once month, but a lot of content have gathered during the month and I may have a lot of missing things too.

I know new libraries / products / research may get outdated, discontinued, invalidated quickly, but there can be things that last a while which I may be interested. Furthermore, I know with information is exploding on the platforms I mentioned and no one will be able to keep update about every thing and most info are of poor quality. What I want is to keep up to date about the domains I am interested on those platforms.

Currently, I use RSS feeds to keep up-to-date with things I am interested, but I have no solution for platform like HN, Reddit (I know there is RSS for those platforms, but they are not smart enough to recommend what I am interested) Is there any solution for this?

Or are there any practical tips to tackle this FOMO issue?

Or should I accept that I will miss things, it is okay, check those platforms when I can?

Any advice highly appreciated!

Tackle it by embracing the oppositional part of ADHD. Say fuck the FOMO. Fuck popular things. Get into rabbit holes where you just do. Do more. Become the news. Become the "experts" that you read online or watch online. There will always be more new. You aren't missing out on keeping up, you are missing out on applying knowledge daily. Do you wanna be an armchair expert? Or do you wanna be the guy that knows because they spent all day and all night doing this one complicated thing and you forgot to eat too and maybe shower but you figured it out as the sun was rising... And because of that you realize what you thought you knew from reading it online was wrong and everyone is wrong and from now on I'm just going to keep my mouth shut cuz I swear no one does anything right they just read and copy paste each other's opinions and no one does anything original anymore walks away but keeps going on and on about this because I've lost control of my life

Yeah I have ADHD too... Just do what I'm doing. It's great!

Its more coffee break entertainment to me. Its not well designed for anything else. You can get some decent feedback on what you have built or something you are thinking about from the tech crowd here. Beyond that not much.

No one goes to the library and worries about not reading all the books on every shelf. Why? Cuz the library isnt broadcasting random psuedo signals of what's important, that change randomly from hour to hour like HN or reddit do. These sites are designed to draw a crowd. Sort of like a fair ground with all its sounds and lights. Take a stroll. Have a chuckle and get back to work.

If you are working on a specific problem the news and banter around here matters even less, cause you will have specific needs, and are going to get better and more specific info to satisfy those needs just googling.

It's when people don't have anything to do, is when these attention capture sites swallow them up.

YOLO and dgf. I apply this to more than tech. Yes the latest and greatest is just around the corner. But homie I'm only garunteed I'm here now so imma just make do with what we got (YOLO) and not worry about missing out on tomorrow's trend (dgf). YOLO n dgf.

I used to be like this, rooted in a subconscious desire to take control of my life in whatever way that seems to make sense, eg being "up to date on XYZ because it'll be useful/important" etc.

While there may be some practical solutions to your issue, I think it'll help to examine the roots, see whether you have unmet needs in other areas. Maybe not enough excitement in life, maybe having a close friend or two, etc.

I have lots to say about these things but will keep it brief in case it doesn't apply.

Best of luck!

> I think it'll help to examine the roots, see whether you have unmet needs in other areas. Maybe not enough excitement in life, maybe having a close friend or two, etc.

Can you please elaborate this a little more?

It can be a bit of a complex process. But basically, what can happen often when we seem to struggle in a particular aspect of life, the "solution" can be somewhere else.

What's important to do often is to assess the various aspects of your life to see whether things are going well. Many things can seem "fine" on the surface, but maybe they are not really giving you what you need. Depending on what kind of person you are, you may need something meaningful to invest in, or maybe you benefit greatly from having supportive relationships, or maybe your job is draining you, or all of the above, etc etc.

Once you got some of those important things sorted, you can evaluate your FOMO tendency more "objectively". For me, eventually I realized I didn't really care much for the stuff I was collecting as compared to other aspects of life. At least, it wasn't worth the effort and the time/attention it took away from the other things.

Always ready to talk more about this and other related things. My email's in my profile if you're interested. Good luck!

Reframe FOMO as JOMO (Joy of missing out). You don’t always have to be on top of everything. Control is an illusion.

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