Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

- once the LED has slowed down to 60 bpm, do you keep it at that tempo for the rest of the day? for a few hours? do you ever go back to 120 bpm and then go back down?

- generally speaking, how did you come up with the idea?

- do you think that a software version (i.e. some blinking pixels in the top right corner of a monitor) would work, or is the intensity of the LED (i.e. the fact that it's not part of the monitor) part of the reason why it works?

- could you also talk about the heart-rate sensor - how do you use it / how does it affect the bpm algorithm?

Thanks!

Isn't this the part that actually does the heavy lifting to get stuff done?

The biggest distraction for me, when working/focusing, is movement at the edge of my vision. You know, like most websites with their moving ads, or fly-out videos that no one asked for, etc.

I'm glad you found your silverbullet, but that specific approach would wreck my productivity.

Started out with this one and hacked a bit on it, never published my version though: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.binauralbeat...

Now i'm pretty content with this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.project.rb...

And this tune, it now is on my phone and every PC thanks to NewPipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WNB9JN_2o

Do share for the benefit of the masses.

> I just hammered a solution like any Ape with the shakes would need!

This is an underrated approach. Following hunches and suspicions often leads to solutions that a pure evidence-based approach might miss or delay; especially if your suspicion goes against the prevaling wisdom.

I think the inability to task switch is a big part of ADHD and this thing you’re describing really sounds similar to what Huberman was discussing.

Now, I’m not a doctor and I have no idea what I’m talking about here. Every time I start talking about this stuff I imagine my doctor friend sitting in the corner of the room shaking his head (maybe some of you saying it’s placebo should do the same).

I find minor irritations like this very distracting so I'm not really sure what the theory is

But I used to reproduce a similar behaviour with music (repetitive)

i am trying this now with a chrome-shortcut, window size 50x50, stay on top, js with blinking background on the bottom rigth corner of the screen.

If it helps, i will use a esp32. thanks.

Here's the script: https://gist.github.com/dpinney/a3c0b1f333ef89748fa12d057a55...

Create a simple web page with a red blinking LED in the top-left corner. The LED should start blinking at 150 BPM and gradually slow down to 60 BPM. The initial size of the LED should be 40px, and it should completely disappear during the "off" phase. Additionally, include a red box shadow during the "on" phase of the blink. Please use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the implementation. Adjust the code as needed for clarity and readability.

Where it really burns me is not being able to dedicate brainpower for more than a few minutes at a time, unless I'm in one of my "focus" modes. Similarly, my brain constantly has multiple tasks/"conversations" going on and I'm always thinking of something else. Additionally, I'm always chasing something novel to satisfy some dopamine hit.

I've honestly worked around a lot of the issues I deal with prior to being diagnosed, knowing when I'm not in a "focus" mode and trying to (gently) steer back to being productive. I joke about my "gaming ADHD" where I don't sit with a game for more than a half hour or so before moving on to something else. Internal dialogues are just something I work with.

Not saying you're right or wrong, but it's difficult to compare someone else's problems with your own (potential) issues.

e: Also note that there are non-stimulants on the market. I'm currently trialing one while I wait for a cardiologist to review some records for possible stimulant conflicts.

I have been diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder. I "worry too much", in general, and have the odd panic attack or two per year. Some people have it bad enough they get these attacks daily.

That does not mean I don't have it or that it does not affect me, it just means it's mild in comparison to them, but my anxiety is still high compared to the average person when untreated. It does not have to be crippling to affect you.

1. Self-diagnosis is not a diagnosis.

2. Things exist on a spectrum. The definition of it becoming a "disorder" is when it negatively affects your life enough.

During diagnosis a psychotherapist will be tasked with identifying traits of ADHD (IE; Markers), you will not have all markers. Everyone will have some.

Then those markers are investigated to discover how much they impact your quality of life. If it is above a certain threshold in aggregate then you are then diagnosed clinically as having "ADHD" and can be medicated.

What I mean is, for example: You can still have autism even if someone has significantly more severe autistic traits than you have.

I had a friend growing up who was diagnosed with ADHD quite young whose experience was similar to your story–he had major issues with school that ultimately led to him being expelled, not going to college, having trouble with work and family etc. I thought of him a lot as so many of my classmates in a hyper-competitive school environment discussed how they could get a diagnosis and medication to have an edge on college admissions or whatever.

High school you can get away with it because the course content is easier - college is much more challenging...

I'm likely ADHD, and the majority of my siblings have it. There's a night and day difference though between me, who in a questionnaire scored high on both, and me who scored high only in one[1].

[1] Well, borderline in one and not the other. Immediately after taking the questionnaire I attended a work meeting and realized that there were at least a half dozen questions that I answered optimistically through rose-tinted glasses.

With all that said, I'm working to address my sleep apnea before getting a diagnosis because I've heard that sleep deprivation can manifest similar to ADHD.

>Self diagnoses (and diagnoses over the internet) are pretty harmful

Self-diagnoses can be legitimate or not - depends on the person doing them. They are often a necessity, in an environment where a professional diagnosis takes thousands of dollars or years in waiting (and is often done badly, by ill-informed professionals, like the many-decades prevailing myth that women/girls "can't be autistic", or that "ADD and autism can't coincide").

As (in this case) they are also based not on bloodwork or some physical indicators, but on a subjective assessment of a person's way of thinking, the person having the actual experience is often more qualified than the professional. Same to how you don't really need a doctor to tell you you're gay.

>One might even argue that the labeling aspect of a certain disorder (particularly a mental one) by a "professional" to not be particularly helpful too in addressing ones problems

One might argue that the false dichotomy between professionals and laymen, where the former is supposed to hold all the keys to knowledge and the latter to passively consult and follow the advice of the former, is a problem in itself.

And a little outdated in modern societies where the "laymen" are not some mud dwelling peasants who never went to school and only know farm work, but univercity-educated (even over-educated) in their own right, and libraries are not confined to the rich or the scholars, but every book ever written is a click away.

In any case, a self-diagnosis doesn't give you the required paperwork to get drugs, or to get benefits, or specific accomondations, or anything like that. So it's not like it hurts society by taking resources from "legitimate" diagnoses.

Last, but not least, pointing that X symptoms is "quite common to ADD/ADHD" is not self-diagnosis, it's not even diagnosing. It's a suggestion hinting to a possible condition. It could very well be used for seeking a professional diagnosis.

Or do you think people with ADD/ADHD just go to the doctor to get diagnosed out of the blue, and not because of some similar suspicion, spotting some unexplained symptoms or themselves, or identification with some symptoms they've read about?

I’ve had multiple people suggest to me I might have ADHD, it’s nonsense, I remember everything and don’t miss any deadlines. They observe me working simultaneously on many projects and since that is impossible for them, and frankly their memory is horrible, they don’t even remember correctly about the one project they are currently focused on, so suddenly they think this person is abnormal and hyper, ok they have ADHD.

I've met "people with ADHD" who seem to not have the condition at all, though pretty much always medicated. On the other hand, I've met people with far more clearcut symptoms, and I felt like I had way more in common with them. It sounded like they were living the exact same life.

You're right, but unfortunately, when your company uses it and teams are distributed, you don't have the choice, and you have to find some tricks to accommodate.

For me, while the distractions of Slack can be a problem, just as often my issue is less distraction than just needing an external motivator to get started. In that case, a sudden DM asking for an update or a request for help in a public channel may be the only way I ever get started actually working. (Obviously, this works best if your job is more about helping others in general than about getting specific tasks done.)

And devs will just set up a Slack bot to send an automated ping each time a task status changes in those tools.

Every tool that is built for async communication will have the problems you listed.

Is there a causal relation between ADHD and chronic fatigue ?

When people ask if I'm frustrated/angry that it took until I was mid-30s to get diagnosed, I respond by saying how I'm proud of myself for achieving what I have so far unmedicated/undiagnosed - and excited about what the future might hold.

My partner reports massive improvements (no fidgetting, calmness, less impulsive) but I still feel .... the same and sometimes worse when it comes to fatigue and work, even though I sleep well.

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

Have you tried meditation and breathing exercises?

I used to take medication and it helped me a lot. Now however I have come off of them completely. The side effects can be devastating. In my case, I developed strong insomnia as amphetamines are much stronger than caffeine. Sleeplessness over a longer period can be very mentally deteriorating.

The advice I can give is to actively seek interaction with others suffering from the same, actively accept and ask for all accommodations and help, give yourself enough time for what you need to do and don't compare your experience to the neurotypical one. It is different and it's a matter of coping and accepting oneself and ones disadvantages as a normal part of life.

Another thing I often say to people in my therapy group is that they should also be politically proactive about their condition. Things like healthcare covered medication, ensured accommodations etc and the fight against stigmatization are political by nature.

Sports can be an important piece of the puzzle in the ADHD lifestyle. Especially high-intensity, game-like, engaging ones that you can identify with and be good at. I swear my executive self-control and discipline have improved since I started training tennis several years ago.

I am also on the "Highly Likely", and currently on the waitlist for a clinic. The best thing I did was being open and honest with my partner, as my ADD behaviors would sometimes exasperate her. I did the same with my manager at work, and it can usually get you some degree of accommodation which can help you cope.

I suffer for the 3-for-1 Triple A special: Autism, Anxiety and ADD. Seems to be a fairly common combination. Physical exercise helps greatly with anxiety, and helps to some degree to ADD as it does generate a certain sense of "reward" in my brain.

I've never told a new pysch who my previous psych was so I'm sure they're not getting my medical records from them unless there's some sharing system I'm unaware of.

I wonder if I come off as strongly ADHD. I've been called "intense" before, whatever that means. I'm definitely fidgety and a horrible leg bouncer.

After 1h talk and some tests where I refilled everything so oft that it was a mess they didn’t have any doubt.

I missed 3 consultations, got lost, was late and then waited a year till acting upon the diagnosis :)

While it discusses multi-year treatment, the paper says "After several weeks of such treatment the pattern of behavior in ADHD patients is normalized." which feels like something that could be easily tried out. Since it was published in 2013 I'd expect some follow-up? (checking for citations now)

Edit: Sadly, "No Tryptophan, Tyrosine and Phenylalanine Abnormalities in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777504/ 2016, larger study. (although they measure the amounts rather than ratios, so not exactly the same idea)

Nutrition is very important indeed, but it has always been a problem for me. I wanted to focus on things I tried and worked on me. Of course, it's not perfect, but at least the points I listed made the things better for me. Everybody's different, so it's not a silver bullet, just my personal journey.

I don't think people want to hear this but I believe so many people think they have ADHD because of a lack of discipline. Even people with ADHD will understand what I'm talking about. Some days you can take your medication and still get nothing done with endless distractions.

We live in a world full of distractions and our attention spans are being whittled down with every new dopamine slot machine on our phones. What's rare today is someone stopping themselves from reaching for the digital crack and embracing the less stimulating but more rewarding long term goal slog. Treating every focus problem you have as a medical issue or a fleeting lack of motivation gives you an easier out. What you really need to accept is that sometimes you just avoid discomfort and the only thing missing is forcing yourself to get shit done and being content with it.

As a child, I had nicknames related to "crazy." Today, the one thing I take pride in related to ADHD is my ability to think outside the box.

> stolen art

It looked AI-generated to me.

But it gets you to the HN front page!

Thanks for pointing to body doubling and anti planner. They seem like interesting concepts. Do you have any others that are worth checking?

Thanks for your comment ! I have the chance to be able to choose when I’m going at the office or not, it’s a great chance and even if it’s planned to go to the office and it’s one of these down days, I can choose not to go and work from home at my rhythm. Regarding to what to watch/listen to to be in the "zone", I really think it’s personal. Personally, if there’s some moving images, I’m unable to focus, but with some music (especially repeating electronic music), I can be in my own bubble for hours

OneNote with it's "paste anything, anywhere on the page" and fairly minimal organisational options make it the closest thing to a notebook/scrapbook I've ever used on a computer. It's not perfect, and I've come to accept that :-)

I do know that therapy and medication made it night and day for her. She immediately dropped all caffeine. Her sleep and general mood was so much better and she wad way less flakey. She doesn't dismiss therapy although I know she hasn't gone every week for a while not and mostly goes when she's feeling like she needs it. Medication was a trip and error, but she's much happier with this steady state.

It felt like a really strong coffee. It did not really help as I could just focus intensely on the wrong things for hours then crash. The comedown was not fun. The side effects were not fun. The benefits were questionable.

Above all, my lifestyle is built around ADHD. My work is structured to accomodate my quirks. I was happier riding the waves as there were almost no consequences for doing so.

Perhaps another type of medication would have worked better, but no medication at all is good enough.

One thing I appreciated is that they titrated the medication safely. I hear that American doctors start people with a much stronger dose. German doctors seem more moderate, and more willing to try therapy first.

Your mileage may vary.

In the UK, for me, diagnosis wasn't too hard via BUPA - my phsychiatrist seeing me for my other mental health problems recommended me and it was relatively quick to get an ADHD diagnosis; now, however, I am stuck - there's a UK shorage of medication so my psychiatrist is unwilling to proscribe for a new patient whilst existing ones aren't getting what they need. Until that gets unblocked I'm in limbo; additionally BUPA do not cover any ADHD costs (except the diagnosis) - after that you're on your own and you either need to self-fund or go via the NHS; the NHS won't "just" prescibe; for me they want that to come from the psychiatrist and they'll then pick up the medication part of it - but see above about BUPA not funding ADHD costs.

If you go NHS all the way then you'll be on long waiting lists and, presumably, some sort of post-code lottery as to your experience.

I'm willing to self-fund to get to the point where the NHS will take over (and apparently that's a dice-roll too; my GP says he will prescribe once the shrink gets me on a stable dose, but not before - apparently some GPs refuse and require that you go via the NHS for everything, so you're on long waiting lists again); but am currently unable to progress due to the shortage of medication, as mentioned. I am also expecting relatively large bills as I will need to self fund both the psychiatrist and the initial medication prior to the NHS picking it up.

Anecdotally (reading ADHD forums on reddit) experiences in the US sound much more random.

I think in America you should still be able to get access to meds fast. But trying to chase local doctors means all the slowness that comes from a local economy (you really want an ADHD specialist because of stigma.) I would be trying to find telehealth options if they're there. I do agree with you about the behavioral approaches. The best option IMO is pharmaceutical. Stimulants are ~70-80% effective for people with ADHD.

You should _really_ consider therapy in addition to any medication. The meds will be amazing for a month and then useful for a year. After that you're going to have to make a decision about how you want to continue treatment. Keep bumping the dose and adjust to the side effects or 'typical therapy'. By then, that therapy is going to be much harder to apply to your life than it would have been in the first few months when you started the meds.

Sure, I'm using Agile Task Note (https://github.com/BoxThatBeat/obsidian-agile-task-notes) for the Jira sync and for Google Calendar, I'm using obsidian-google-lookup (https://github.com/ntawileh/obsidian-google-lookup) and obsidian-google-calendar (https://github.com/YukiGasai/obsidian-google-calendar)

Spoken like a bona fide "bro" with no professional qualifications on the matter, not familiar with the research (except perhaps cherry-picked outlier stuff to reincorce their preconceived notion), and no personal experience of the devastating effects it has on the individual on all aspects of life (the very opposite of "getting away with it": professional and academic failure, social isolation, and other such outcomes, from the kindergadern -e.g. the "weird" stimming kid everybody bullies- to the grave).

But they sure do know some people claim to have it on TikTok when they don't, so the condition surely must not exist.

https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_c...

ADHD: Essential Ideas for Parents - Dr. Russell Barkley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY

What evidence do you have to support this claim? I have plenty of anecdotes of little value that would conflict with your claims. I find your claims hard to believe without evidence. Addictions are highly circumstantial and complex disorders.

The highlights of their suggestions are:

* Break down complex tasks into smaller bits.

* Avoid multitasking.

* Create your own reminders, like setting alarms and reminders. Leave Post-It notes on areas you frequently look at.

* Habit stacking. If you constantly forget chores, you can stack them on top of something you regularly do. For example, you may put a load of laundry in while brewing your usual cup of coffee.

This video has a lot of useful information. The straightforward answer is to externalize your memory and take notes.

This is a long comment. If you just want a strategy for dealing with working memory inside your head, skip to the end and read 3.

For me increasing working memory was a dead end and I found it far more effective to optimize how do use what I have. The vast majority of my advice and strategies revolve around mental health. Mental and physical health alone can add one or two slots of working memory because your brain is working better.

Some advice:

- Do not limit yourself to doing daily things the normal or accepted way. Do not let yourself or other people tell you that you need to do things a certain way. If you can find a way to not lose your keys, it doesn't matter how crazy or stupid that way is because the end result is you don't lose your keys. (Please be considerate of other people.)

- Half measures are okay.

- Half done is usually better than not done. If you're stuck, walk away and get something else done. The feeling of accomplishment on a small task can recharge you. Then you can go back and finish the other task.

- Failing doesn't mean you need to fail completely. For example, if you're on diet and start annihilating a large number of small high-calorie snacks, that's not an excuse to finish the bag. :)

Strategies

1. Reduce your baseline cognitive load. That's basically what my advice is trying to do. The less you are fighting your own expectations and limitations, the more you can focus on getting things done. (Cognitive behavioral therapy is solution here.)

2. Remove stress or distractions. This is the same strategy as cognitive load, only applied to your environment. For me sometimes I just have to clean before I can get work done.

3. Map and reduce. This is involved and difficult to explain. I recommend using paper until you get good at this.

The goal is you need to do is take complex ideas that use multiple slots of working memory and make them take one or zero slots. There are several ways to do this.

Paper is the easiest method to explain. Write out what is in your memory and then rewrite it so that it compacts into one thing you understand. What you should be able to do is look at the paper and immediately understand what is going on without having to think about it. This frees up all your working memory to make connections to other things.

This can also be done with short term memory. You think about the problem and reduce it to a single idea or process. When you understand something well enough, you can hold a pointer to it in a slot of working memory.

Long-term memory is just regular learning. Programming languages and that embarrassing thing you said eight years ago are stored in long-term memory.

I either use a sticky note (I keep a few loose ones in my wallet), or I activate onenote with win+n and can type on that immediately. Anything higher friction than that isn't gonna work, which is why I don't use a phone app. Getting to the writing screen in any notes app is too much.

I also like to take meeting minutes because I otherwise cannot focus on meetings at all.

It's basically pomodoro, but with different way to visualize about it, and it somehow feels...better? At least for my ADHD brain. The author wrote blogs for years, and just diagnosed with ADHD a couple years ago, and somehow his lifelong struggle suddenly explainable(you know, like many of us ADHDer did) That aside, his blog is usually a joy to read.

For me, my sleep is very good, my mental health is perfect, do exercise, eat healthy. But I have ADHD.

> This is great! So many people in the ADHD community don't dig in enough into the 'superpower' side of it, so I'm super glad you covered that here. We can't get rid of the bad parts so I think it's extra important to lean into the good parts too.

Thanks for your comment, that's what I wanted to express. We can't run away from the bad parts, so let's try to deal with it and find some stuff to help us.

> I feel sure that I did not have ADHD symptoms during childhood

Both are hard requirements for the indication though. (at least in my country where they use the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

* Symptoms must not be attributable to other issues.

* ADHD must have been there all your life, so before a certain age (in my country 12yo) symptoms must have been there, and they must be acknowledged. Not necessarily that they were then attributed to ADHD, but they must have been present.

Source: i'm in the diagnosis currently. I'm 45 years old. I'm not a shrink. I'm currently actually supposed to finish my bookkeeping, hence I'm on HN.

> I feel sure that I did not have ADHD symptoms during childhood.

That would be an instant disqualification of an ADHD diagnosis.

> I believe have come extreme and unusual mental stresses I have been subjected for several years

I am not a clinician nor do I know the full extent/magnitude of your stresses, but have you ever investigated (C)PTSD? If can mimic many ADHD symptoms.

> However, there's not enough literature on ADHD coming during adulthood. . . Most, like the OP, say that it would have gone undetected during childhood. Some say that ADHD can develop during adulthood too. I have also read that Adult ADHD seemingly has a different mechanism than ADHD that develops during childhood.

Based on what is commonly understood about the condition, it cannot come on in Adulthood. Similar to how there is no Adult-onset Autism. You're born with it or without it. Also, just because symptoms were not "detected in childhood" does not mean the symptoms did not exist in childhood. My symptoms were not detected in childhood, but oh boy, were the signs and symptoms there. I just grew up in the South East, US where stuff like ADHD just didn't exist, and I and plenty others were punished and ridiculed for our "daydreaming," "restlessness," "laziness," and "inappropriate behavior."

Personally, I am not sure if I buy the research on this topic though. Then again, I also think the label "ADHD" is just like "Cancer" -- a massive blanket-term for multiple similar conditions. So, who knows? It's not like there is a single biomarker that has ever been discovered that can be used to diagnosis the condition. It's all just professional opinions based on agreed upon patterns and heuristics.

Anyway, I hope you figure out something that works for you.

I am at the point in my life, a decade later, where I couldn't care less if there are longterm harmful effects.

1. I'm sure my unmedicated life would have continued to be equally unhealthy in different ways.

2. It's not like old age is sunshine in rainbows. I rather die in my 60s or 70s from a heart attack, with dignity, than live long enough to slowly watch everything and everyone I ever experienced dissipate from my mind until I am husk of a human being due Alzheimer's or Dementia.

Brown noise is probably the only sound I can tolerate for a long periods of time without lyrics, even better than this is ANC headphones with nothing playing.

I didn’t want to talk about medication because I know a lot of people with ADHD aren’t (or don’t want to be) medicated. But, I fully agree, my whole life changed since I’m on Ritalin

Maybe we'll find out later that all of this is just some big mass hallucination we all try to believe in order to cope with today's horrible work life. Though, for me, the symptoms described are so accurate it's scary, and they explain my lifelong struggles — it's a revelation, really. It provides a glimpse of the signposts I can look for when I need help.

I'll also keep in mind that any concept we have about ADHD now can also change when we have more evidence (or not), but I'm subscribed to it for now.

It said that calendars and to-do lists help cope with ADHD, not that everyone who uses them has ADHD.

For a few year stretch I worked with a team project manager who wasn't technical at all. She'd setup the meetings that I needed to have, diligently take notes in those meetings and then we'd get together to recap everything figure out dates and all that. Then I'd get back to nerding out but with a ordered punch list that I knew Donna needed me to get done. It was the best.

But the pmo wanted to do things a different way so their engagement model moved from embedded PMs focused on team deliverables to individual project focus. Now instead of Donna there to assist with correspondence, keep records, make appointments, and carry out similar tasks I had an army of fragmented Donnas each focused on their one thing and each needing oversight to understand my involvement and external dependencies. The move probably gave the pmo a more modern feel and better reporting but it killed productivity for ADDs like me since a large portion of my time each day became correspondence, keeping records and making appointments instead of cranking out nerd units.

There's a commonly used diagnosis survey you can check. It should give you a better idea than this.

> ADHD developer and a regular developer

To give you one example (but this won't cover all cases / everyone's experience), if you're in the bathroom and think you need to change the toilet roll, then proceed to forget and remember it again 6 times before leaving the room, then head for the toilet roll stash, forget about it and go make yourself a sandwich instead... and that applies to almost everything you do throughout the day, you're probably in category 1 not 2.

For medication, another example would be when you take stimulants and get relaxed, less nervous and feel like you could finally go for a nap...

What I'm saying is, some people may be experiencing smaller issues for the same reason, or they may just not be satisfied with their environment and are able to act on it, but there's some threshold where it's not even the same category. If you don't know what ADHD actually is, maybe check the experiences written by people who do struggle with basic things daily while seemingly highly functioning otherwise? There's a number of subreddits where you can find them.

Diagnostically speaking? The number of symptoms and the severity of those symptoms is basically it. Everyone will likely experience some of the symptoms of ADHD during their life. The co-occurence of those symptoms and the amount they affect your ability to function day-to-day is what makes the difference.

Some people will debate over how "real" ADHD is, where real means people with ADHD are a disjoint group and not just people on the very low end of the "ability to focus" bell curve. From my research I do believe it is "real", but that whether ADHD is "real" like sickle cell anemia is real or its just part of a normal bell curve doesn't really matter because society isn't going to adapt around you. If medication is what make the difference to maintain a normal life for some then that's probably a good thing that its available. If people who don't "really" have ADHD can learn strategies for focus and time management that's also a good thing.

> Dealing with those specific problems did much more than throwing my hands in the air and yelling "ADHD".

For a lot of people, dealing with their specific problems starts with recognizing what those problems are and identifying strategies to help. Diagnosing it gives validation that its something concrete you can work on, gives access to mental health professionals who can help you develop solutions, and creates a community of people all trying to solve similar problems.

ADHD != dumb.

    an opinion on Andrew Huberman. I'm always skeptical 
    about anyone on social media these days. Doesn't 
    seem like he's trying to sell us anything

One thing I'd note though is that he is absolutely trying to sell something - he runs a supplement business that has attracted some controversy because IIRC he may be overstating the research behind some of his concoctions. (That said, I think they're just formulations of various common generally-recognized-as-safe supplements, and I don't think he's pushing anything fringe-y? not sure)

FWIW - selling something does not immediately disqualify him from credibility IMO. For better or worse this is capitalism. It's actually even worse when we expect to be ascetic monks with no worldly financial interests. Instead let's be realistic and transparent.

It looks like we face plenty of common things. I have the same feeling as you regarding my daughter, too. On one hand, it freaks me out, but, as you said, on the other hand, I will be able to help her.

If you find some tool to interact with the phone vocally as a main entry point, I would be genuinely interested. :)

Being able to think about nothing is a skill/habit/muscle that needs to be learned and practiced. My mind still can churn but at least now I have the tools and some ability to tell it “not now” and quiet it some. It’s been pretty dramatic, especially in being able to fall asleep quicker.

uh, perhaps by not using all of those things? sounds like you're uber distracted

The piece was a good read but its so personal to me that it doesn't really help sadly.

This sounds oddly specific. How consistent is this time? If you start working an hour earlier does it impact the timing of your productivity boost?

You ask us to perform unreasonably tops, then hate us for inventing doordash and shit because: we were smart labor, not cheap.

Huh? ADHD is a debilitating and disabling disorder... I don't think you're talking about ADHD.

I have trouble focusing, I don't think quite to the level of ADHD, but it would be so much worse if I had 4 or 5 apps on each screen.

During my part-time studies (I had a 70-80% employment at that time) the time I really started studying productively was after 9-10pm when everyone around me went to finish their day and the world around me started to go silent and night is coming in. Thinking of it today, I don't know how I would have survived that time without the huge support from my wife back then. So all the credits of me being able to complete my studies go to her!

Nowadays, I would not know how I would get through the day-to-day work without medication most days. That often worries me a little.

Just reading that made me feel the presence of 'bliss' :)

I think the pop-culture definition of ADHD has shifted a lot. In the past, being able to focus well (as you described in a different environment) would have been a sign that the issue was more environmental in nature, not a sign of clinical ADHD. Patients with ADHD struggled everywhere, even in distraction-free environments like a quiet library or quiet test taking environment.

Now, the pop-culture understanding of ADHD has shifted so far that we don’t bat an eye at declaring ADHD even when someone is operating under a constant barrage of environmental distractions. To be clear, someone with ADHD will have an even harder time resisting impulses to seek out distractions, but the fact that someone can focus just fine when their environment is minimally structured to keep distractions at a reasonable level would suggest that person doesn’t have classic ADHD.

> I think ADHD is the new norm.

I think this is my problem with the current pop-culture definition of ADHD: When the definition shifts so much that it becomes the “norm”, we’ve lost the plot. Something isn’t really a disorder if it’s “the norm”.

There’s a secondary problem I’ve been noticing in a subset of the young people I’ve worked with: Some of them self-diagnose with ADHD or get a doctor’s diagnosis, then mistakenly think that their ADHD diagnosis is an excuse for everything. I’ve had far too many conversations where I had to gently explain to juniors (via a volunteer mentor program, not as their boss) that having an ADHD diagnosis doesn’t mean that deadlines don’t apply them, or that they get a free pass for being late to meetings, or that they’re still obligated to perform at the level of their peers at work. Some of them have grown up in an environment where ADHD students get extra time to take tests, which some of them assume should translate to more forgiving expectations at work. It’s difficult to get some of them to accept that having ADHD means they need more accountability and oversight, not less.

I think we’re making a huge mistake by normalizing ADHD to the point that people think it’s the norm or that everyone has it because they surround themselves with distractions. Anecdotally, I’ve seen too many young people self-diagnose with ADHD and then actually spend less effort to curtail distractions, train their focus, and work on self-improvement. There’s something about becoming convinced that your behaviors are a medical condition that is out of your control (many erroneously declare they have a “dopamine deficiency” or similar misunderstandings of the science) that can give people a false sense that they either can’t improve their situation or that they shouldn’t be held responsible because it’s a labeled medical condition.

I don’t know where we go from here, but I can say it’s been an uphill battle to get recent mentoring cohorts to accept that attention is something they can improve with practice or even that they need to do things like silence phone notifications while they work.

I’m often stunned when I screen share with someone who has a non-stop stream of unimportant notifications in the top right corner, who later laments that they just can’t focus on anything for someone.

Maybe selection bias, but a significant number of my friends are diagnosed.

The most important ADHD accommodation for me has been a private office (in my case working from home).

I'm insanely distractible—the slightest noise can throw me off, and even the threat of an impending interruption is enough to make me lose focus thinking about how I'll respond if it comes. In an open office, I had very little control over my environment, and so it was impossible for me to keep focused for any length of time. If it wasn't a coworker interrupting me personally, it was a conversation happening behind me, or even just someone walking by and me wondering if they're going to interrupt.

At home, I have a private office with a locked door, and I put on hearing protection over earbuds, which blocks essentially all sounds from the house. I can control my notifications, so if I'm in flow I'm completely uninterruptible.

The other big benefit from privacy is that I don't have to feel guilty when I do get distracted with something. There's no one to see me and judge me for not "looking like I'm working", so when I do lose focus for hours and then get the whole day's work done in a single hour of hyperfocus, no one knows or cares that I couldn't stay focused that day—all they see is that I finished what I said I would. Privacy allows me to use my strengths (working well under pressure) without fear of judgement.

I have learned at least two things about myself and a few about other people from all of this. For myself, I know I am overly acclimated to blowing past my limits into my reserves. I am used to constantly monitoring my mental state and pushing for breaks.

For others, I know that adrenaline and cortisol reduce everyone’s cognitive abilities. It’s why we do fire drills. It’s why NASA launch facilities ritualize everything. Save your brain cells and improvisational skills for things we can’t predict, not for things we can.

In the first hours of an emergency, everyone else’s brain turns to mush while mine gets just a little squishy. What for them is their worst work day in months is to me just a bad Tuesday. And self monitoring is one of the first things to go. They’re operating at 80% while I’m at 95%, and they absolutely won’t call for breathers without prompting.

On projects where I am at the periphery, we all struggle together. On projects where I get to influence the agenda, or even father chunks of it, people often walk back out of that room feeling like they braced for a collision that never came, because I’ve routed around all of the foot guns and created low cognitive load ways to answer the important questions. If anyone has been complaining about me spending “too much time” on this, about half of them are convinced after one or two non-event events. If the majority of the people didn’t agree with my methods before, they do now.

I used to say I spend my A-game days protecting myself from my C-game days, but these days I’m more likely to cite Kernighan’s aphorism about not being smart enough to debug your own code. Write all of your code like you’re going to have to wrestle with it on an off day, because you certainly will at some point.

And putting high functioning ADHD people in charge of process and tooling is not a terrible idea. If you can figure out who those people are, that is. To be high functioning means constantly masking, because in this world it’s better to be rude and aloof than to be seen as broken.

On my current project our hot fix process is so bullet proof that I could do a hot fix in the middle of our sprint demo. And I have, three times. Once while I was the MC. All of that was me, and the automation tools I wrote for myself are the official process now. And instead of a bus number of 3 it’s somewhere north of 6. Important, especially this time of year.

Of all the optimizations I've done, moving to one screen/monitor ~10 years ago has been the biggest positive impact on my work, anxiety, and overall focus.

When I was younger, I was way too naive in the memetic desire when seeing other more senior folks with multiple screens, or even seeing "hacker" representations in the media with many screens with different orientations (silly, I know...everyone is dumb when they're young.) When you're 22 and insecure about whether or not you're actually "good" or belong, then you try to mimic the "best."

I certainly agree with calendars/alarms but todo lists for me are a place to put things instead of doing them and then they become a separate problem all of their own

I am now in a low, with no active strategy, and without the mental strength to start working on a new one. Hopefully though I will recover my mojo soon and organise myself again. And I'm sure this time it will stick...

[0] I still try to develop coping strategies, but I used to too.