For a lot of us, avoiding (or increasing the likelihood of avoiding) being perceived by our employers as "lazy, careless, unreliable, or defensive" is often worth the exhaustion of trying.
That doesn't make your job and your income any less important for other aspects of your life. My immigration status relied for almost 7 years on my employment. You can imagine how worried I was by the prospect of losing my job.
Thankfully, I never experienced proper burnouts; but I did experience multiple cycles of being really invested in my job and just barely pushing myself to pay the bills. I do think with time, and by experiencing more cycles, I am getting closer to striking a healthier balance.
>Regularly ask yourself: "Will worrying about this job matter two years from now?"
This is particular. I've never had a job that didn't matter to me.. why would i work if i did not have to?
On another note, your perspective of trying to avoid being unemployed 3-12 months during job seeking is a rather US-American centered perspective. I get that HN is from the USA, but this view doesn't apply to every other region of the world.
I got the impression that the author is advising for the latter too; considering the title and statements like
>You probably won't change their perceptions, so don't exhaust yourself trying to prove otherwise.
If you have ADHD, and you need to work for a living; in time, you come up with personal strategies. I found that I am able to focus on things better when I am under a lot of stress or pressure. So I actively try to put myself into these kind of situations. Or, I found that simply sitting down, removing all possible distractions, and consistently forcing myself to do a thing does work; although with severely reduced efficiency i.e. sit down 4 hours, get 1 hour of work done with ~20 internal interruptions. But it does get done.
These are rather exhausting things to be doing all the time. So you always work hard at working. But you don't get consistent results. If you work harder at working, you get less inconsistent results. My point was that its often worth it.