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Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

This method requires a significant amount of executive function.

My body doesn't feel the passage of time consistently. So my mind is never prepared to switch activities when it needs to.

And there are times my brain stops working on a particular task and nothing can get it started again. It's like a leg going out, you just can't stand on it.

This isn't occasionally where habit could be picked back up. This has been a problem every day of my life.

In my experience, this has been the death of every bit advice I've gotten from a neurotypical person. A lot of them keep circling back to discipline or trying harder as a solution to a problem they can't make sense of. Lack of understanding isn't their fault, this is so far outside their frame of reference they can't make sense of it in a single conversation. Fortunately understanding isn't required, only the acceptance that other people have limits they don't have themselves.

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Do you ever feel unmotivated to go to the toilet despite needing to? Has this lack of motivation ever stopped you from getting from your chair?

What modern people usually lack is not time, but lack of energy. Usually this is thought as the energy to do stuff (like coding a side hussle in the evening). But often it manifests in a lack of energy:

1. to make a decision (to do something)

2. to slow down, to stop the current activity and to think with the rational mind.

So you need to recognize these things and do certain decisions beforehand to solve the problem. Stuff like:

1. Go to the gym in the morning, when you still have the decision energy.

2. Create a habit, linking a new habit with the old ones, in order to decrease the energy expenditure

3. Increase the stakes, like getting a gym buddy

4. Decide stuff beforehand. Pack the bag, set up the alarm clock (to go to gym, to go to sleep)

5. When you are tired, actually rest. Don't turn the tv on, don't scroll social media, stop touching yourself via phone. If you are tired, eat, go to gym or a walk, go to sleep or simply sit in your chair or lay on the sofa looking at the walls. I guarantee, watching at the wall for 30 minutes straight will give you great motivation to do something else more productive. Don't let the monkey in you convince you to do the unproductive things I mentioned. Stay strong and make a rational decision what to do instead of looking at the wall. Do the right thing, not the thing that may feel nice in the midst of it.

6. Take care of the nutrition/sleep in order to increase the energy reserves

I hope that helps.

I really don’t like being snarky here but this is an absolutely perfect example of what I was talking about in my last paragraph.

I didn’t mention energy because energy has no relevance.

I’ve literally broken down crying because I really wanted to work but my brain refused to move. I was having such a great day and was really motivated. I spend hours and absolutely exhausted every bit of energy I had trying every advice that I’ve spent my entire life hearing. I could not get a single word out of my brain.

Nothing worked. I spent my entire childhood trying harder and got nowhere. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I get quite pissed off when people tell me to try hard harder.

You aren't the only one. For me it was diagnosed as ADHD.

Way too many people treat ADHD as an excuse of not following proper task-management rules. They are so special that no rules could possible apply to them. To all hundreds of millions of them...

This is backwards. In practice, it should be the exact opposite. ADHD people should be MORE vigilant regarding the correct behavior, rules, habits. It is neurotypical people who have some leeway to be lazy with what and how they do stuff, but ADHD have way smaller margin of error!

Sometimes there are things (noise in the room, other distractions, mess in tasks, etc.) that neurotypical can safely ignore, but that will make an ADHD person not able to work at all.

The fact that life is harder to organize and manage for ADHD people only means that they should pay EXTRA attention to doing right things the correct way.

Sure, ADHD people have their own peculiarities (as does any other neurotypical person), but in my experience this is a drop in a bucket of issues that are actually solvable with typical means without reinventing the wheel.

I keep being told this stuff by normies who couldn't do my job.

ADHD doesn't manifest the same way for everyone.

> pay EXTRA attention to doing right things the correct way

I do wrong things a different way all the time. I'm a maverick. I'm known to have creative solutions other people can't find. Not little ones either, 'we have been trying this for 20 years' ones. $multi-million strategic ones. I can't do the boring task list work you normies can do, but I have super powers you don't.

The breakthrough started and my recovery began when I stopped listening to people like you and focused on what I am good at.

But last night, I wanted to get to bed at 10pm, but I got some music stuck in my head. I had some music on to chill out, but something gripped me and I picked up my guitar. It felt like a moment of time but I look up and it is 1am. If I had gone to bed I would have lain awake all night. Meditation would have had this music dominating it and dragging me out of it. I'm in bed late on Saturday morning typing this, which will upset my whole weekend, but I wouldn't have slept, which would have been worse. So, I just went with it.

I envy people who can keep a routine, but I now pity people who don't have extraordinary moments of inspiration. I embrace my super powers and accept my life won't be normal. It will be exceptional.

>ADHD people should be MORE vigilant regarding the correct behavior, rules, habits.

Yes, but that doesn't make the ADHD fully go away.

>actually solvable with typical means without reinventing the wheel.

Yes, and they are defined by medical science, not your "think deeper".

>The fact that life is harder to organize and manage for ADHD people only means that they should pay EXTRA attention to doing right things the correct way.

Wow great insight, a bit hillarious with the part of asking adhd people pay extra attention. Should the guy with a neurological problem just pay extra attention to moving his leg, and he will soon run as fast as the rest?

> Yes, but that doesn't make the ADHD fully go away.

Not an argument.

> Wow great insight, a bit hillarious with the part of asking adhd people pay extra attention. Should the guy with a neurological problem just pay extra attention to moving his leg, and he will soon run as fast as the rest?

Yes, if you have problems with inattentiveness, then you can't just eyeball the size of the fabric and cut. You actually need to measure. In worst case, you should measure and remeasure several times, as well as use the pen to draw a straight line with a ruler, instead of just keeping the finger and trusting that you can make the line straight during cutting.

If have no trouble concentrating, you can just work in a cafe or an open office. If you have problems, then take extra steps to get rid of distractions (quiet office, noise cancelling headphones, work-inducing music, etc).

If you have more difficulties getting into the zone, make extra effort organizing yourself: blocking working uninterrupted time on the calendar, disabling notifications, using airplane mode etc.

Have trouble concentrating and the mind wandering? Even more important to keep a proper task/idea/knowledge management system to offload the brain.

This is still not enough to get rid of adhd symptoms for many.

Keeping a knowledge management system is uttainable, I bet many with adhd have tried them all (and constantly try new ones instead of doing work)

you can only block so much. Some people suffer so much that days can get lost by doing virtuelly nothing. Its not like its so easy to sit around being unable to work, and still not check the web or whatever. Also even though you block, many people experience that they get contacted regardless, and loose the flow.

What you propose are great ideas for someone having a hard time concentrating, but that is something completely else from those suffering under a diagnosis.

> This is still not enough to get rid of adhd symptoms for many.

Once again, this isn't the point. And I also didn't suggest it.

A normal adhd should be considered as a personal quirk, not an unescapable death sentence, like many seem to do.

> Its not like its so easy to sit around being unable to work, and still not check the web or whatever

Being still without distractions is hard for most people. Adhd people may have it harder, but fundamentally they don't differ from others.

That's the whole point of slowing down, concentrating on relaxing, not running away from the anxiety and to understand what your mind and body tell you.

> Some people suffer so much that days can get lost by doing virtuelly nothing.

"Virtually" - exactly my point. Most people have not been doing the actual nothing. If they were, they would actually see how much energy and motivation this type of rest gives.

The assumption that there is one set of rules for "correct behavior, rules, habits" that somehow applies equally to all brains is so spectacularly ignorant it's staggering.

I can obtain the same results as almost anybody at the vast majority of things. But if I am required to follow the same process, I simply cannot. I can't tell you how destructive the well-meaning people were who tried to tie me down to the way that works for their brain rather than saying, "OK, fine. Don't do it my way. Do it your way. Just get it done."

It's like saying to someone with dyslexia, "You just have to be MORE vigilant regarding looking at the letters, putting them together, and saying the words! There's no excuse for not following proper reading rules!"

It's just asinine. It's wonderful that you have figured out a set of "proper task-management rules" that work for your brain. I'm even happier for you if it was easier for you. That sounds nice.

But why on EARTH would the billions of living brains on this planet all function like yours? Does anything else in all those billions of bodies function exactly like yours? Of course not. And it would be ridiculous to expect them to.

> But why on EARTH would the billions of living brains on this planet all function like yours? Does anything else in all those billions of bodies function exactly like yours?

Yes, literally everything in our bodies function exactly the wayvit function in other people. Never heard of anyone's heart working like another person's kidney.

If the organ is not working properly, it is considered a problem and stuff is done to fix it. The stuff that is from the same list as for any other person with a similar problem. Never heard of knee problems being fixed with dyalisis.

It's impossible to me that you're dumb enough to be saying these things in good faith, so maybe I'm guilty of the same assumption, that anyone who can form sentences must have a brain at least as much like mine that they can connect two thoughts.

Nobody's talking about a heart functioning like a kidney. We're talking about the range of functions among people's hearts, or people's kidneys, or people's brains.

You're acting like everyone's heart is the exact same shape and has the same blood pressure and the same resting heart rate and the same outflow volumes, which is just stupid. There is a HUGE range of function among hearts. There is a HUGE range of "healthy enough to work" among hearts.

JUST LIKE THERE IS WITH BRAINS.

There's also a huge range of "not healthy enough to function under normal circumstances, but not bad enough to kill the person."

I don't believe anybody with the brainpower to create an email address, register for an HN account, and sign into it is actually somehow as ignorant of basic human biology as this, so stop trolling and go away.

You arent the only human whos had a issue with not getting things done, its normal, and its hackable. Brains are hackable.

I dont mean to say you implied it, but its easy to dig a larger hole when you believe you are special, or you have tried "all" the advice.

Every problem has a solution, and I beg you to search deeper to what you do even in task-paralysis states. That might be where your mission comes from.

It helped me to have a life goal that was bigger than life, ego, or energy. Maybe you havent found it yet. If you have, I apologize if I sound cocky!

You sound like you are just repeating the same mistake in telling a nuerodiverse person to 'just do this brain hack, it worked for me.' It will never work for them. Never. It will just make them feel worse about themselves.

I am brilliant at certain aspects of my job. I have read the books, had coaching etc. And yet today I still miss important meeting because I don't realise it is time to go...with a watch on my arm, outlook reminders popping up etc. I just hold attention so deep that I am never going to notice. It is what makes me great at my work. So now I am a manager I have developed some solutions. I hire people who compliment me, and I am open about my problem. It is normal for my team to walk in my office and say, 'are you coming to this meeting?'

You’re cocky. :)

Some people are special. The preferred term is neurodivergent. ;)

There are times you just can’t fix a broken brain by trying harder or finding an alternative.

It can be really difficult to understand if you’ve never experienced it yourself. For you there’s, always been a way to get something done.

What do you do when you try to throw something with your arm and your entire body doesn’t move? No matter what you try to do. You can’t get your body to move. I got some advice on how you should move your arm. :)

I am neurodivergent, I have experienced exactly what your saying myself for my entire life..

I know the feeling, and to assume I dont/have "always had a way" because I found a way out, iss a very victim way of living.

My advice still stands, look deeper. If you want to sit in a hole and repeat how there's no hope, you can, but it wont do anything.

You arent different or special. You have hope. I didnt have it easier, I fought harder

>I didnt have it easier, I fought harder

No you didn't. Try to build yourself up without putting others down, how is that challenge?

Truth hurts

So does the fall that tends to follow pride.

Not prideful, Just trying to help.

"Everybody wants to rule the world with tears for fare"

>t helped me to have a life goal that was bigger than life, ego, or energy. Maybe you havent found it yet. If you have, I apologize if I sound cocky!

You are incredibly cocky, and naive and have very little insight on other peoples situation. You are reducing peoples various illnesses to something that can be solved if they just tried a bit harder not to be sick. If only it was so easy.

Its funny, because thats exactly how it works...

I've had severe mental illness and I suffer from it daily.

You still arent special. Im not lacking some unique viewpoint just because you are mentally ill. Try harder. Stop being weak.

Unless its schizophrenia/bipolar, then take ur meds

The fact that you say "stop being weak" without having any insight tells me that you have much growing to do.

Whatever happened to Gary Cooper, the strong, silent type?

They keep all their feelings inside, carrying the worries of the world, constantly sacrificing themselves at every opportunity without a hint of reciprocity, and then die of a heart attack in their 60s or earlier.

Oh well. At least ill go out with some dignity doin it the old school way.

Your advice is the equivalent of telling someone who has dyslexia, "Reading isn't hard. You just look at the letters, and then you say the words out loud. Or if that doesn't work, you have to come up with some other way to make it so when you see the letters, you know what the words say, and then you say them out loud. Just hack it."

Some people really do just have to figure out a way to get through life missing a skill that "typical" brains have. It's not "hack it until you make your brain do the typical thing." It's "choose a field where you can get away with not doing the thing, or hire someone to do the thing, because you're not going to be able to do the thing, and all the advice in the world isn't going to change that."

You read, but did not actually listen to my explanation of energy. I gave it for a damn good reason; because most people misunderstand it and my explanations light the bulbs in people's heads.

You also totally missed the point of suggestions entirely. I assume that happened because you were out of brain/willpower energy.

My suggestions were not to try harder. They were the exact opposite, they were about:

1. constraining your energy output

2. being careful where and how you spend your energy

3. do a better targeting with your energy

4. hacks to do the same (or more) with less energy

5. restoring energy

Please reread my previous message after you sleep and with a good mood. Assume that I actually know what I am talking about (because I truly do) and my goodwill. Assume that I did not spend my time writing a long comment in order to anger or troll you, but because I wanted to help; I saw clear indicators of certain problems, to which I am able to provide solutions that work in practice.

I did reread and I wish I had been more polite. Sorry about that. :(

I really do understand. These are all really great things, I'm bipolar and already use all of them. I have to. But they don't apply here.

I'm discussing a problem that willpower cannot fix.

Here's an analogy:

- Think of willpower as fuel you put into a train.

- You control how far the train goes by changing the throttle or amount of fuel.

- You have a bunch of freight cars behind you and you're ready to get out of the yard.

- Your engine doesn't have any wheels. Someone removed them last night. (This is an analogy, you can't get a different engine.)

- How much fuel do you need to get to your destination?

Bonus Round:

- Your boss starts asking why you haven't moved yet and won't believe you if you say the wheels were removed. Stop being lazy and get to work.

You are not allowed to disagree with this analogy. :) This is exactly what my life is like.

I wasn't suggesting using willpower to power through the problems. I was suggesting setting up a system, that would fit you and would enable you to live a better and more efficient life. Willpower is useful in setting up the system, to learn it. Not to operate it.

Please watch this fundamental video: https://youtu.be/bcKthx5LTbI

On a surface it is about dieting, but the lessons can be applied to the rest of the life.

Cheers! :-)

Let me try again. I shouldn't have mentioned willpower. Let me restate the problem.

I try to do something and I have the physical sensation of hitting a wall that shouldn't be there. Thoughts never stop at that part of the brain.

I'm talking about a fundamentally different mechanism than thinking something is too hard. It's a hardware interruption that I have no control over.

I've spent my entire life working around this and it's difficult. Especially when everyone thinks I'm just being lazy or I just need to do this one thing. I'm still trying to figure out how to explain it better.

Let't imagine that you have a task, that you started doing, but then hit the hardware wall. How physically/emotionally/intellectually tired are you at that point?

What will happen if you just rest? Sleep, eat, exercise/go on a walk, lay down. No phone, no social media, no doom scrolling, no tv, no netflix, no gaming. Just 100% effort of resting and recovering, without any distractions.

Would you not get bored at some point and will decide that it's better to complete the task rather than continue this boredom while fully rested

> Just 100% effort of resting and recovering, without any distractions.

You say that like the distractions are exclusively outside. I'm not the person you're replying to, but if I close all my blackout curtains, turn off all the lights, and turn off all but the white noise, but I'm not sleepy, my mind will go in a thousand directions at once.

How do I or anyone else explain that to you? The challenge is in the brain. It's not an outside force. There is no boredom.

You are saying it as if that't uncommon (for non-adhd people) or a bad thing.

Yeah, and it is fine that the mind goes somewhere. This is called meditation and it is good for you. You get valuable insights, figure out important issues, get energy and motivation.

No no. Not "somewhere." A thousand places. At once. Not in sequence. Not from one to another. At the exact same time. And then they each fractal off in their own directions.

Take away the external reminders and my reality fragments into thousands of tiny pieces, all of which are just as real to me as the rest, just as pressing, just as important, or just as unimportant, because they all get lost in each other.

We are not describing the same thing. It's confusing that this is somehow not obvious from your side, because it's SCREAMING obvious from this side.

It's confusing because true multitasking in thinking does not exist. Sure, you can walk, eat and think at the same time, but you can't think several thoughts at the same time, only sequentially (with rapid change).

Can you give me research which shows that true multithinking is possible.

"Thinking" is directed and intentional. That may very well not be something people can do. I don't know. That's not what I'm talking about. And it very well might be practically impossible to find enough people whose brains can go multiple directions at the same time that it could be studied.

So no, I'm not going to follow you down a tangent that isn't actually related to what I'm saying.

I truly believe you're sincere but I can't get my point across. :/ Please read carefully.

Stop thinking about how to fix the problem. You might find this interesting if you look at it scientifically.

When it comes to things like ADHD and bipolar, executive function is compromised at the biological level. Put it simply, the baseline is broken.

You're talking about are inputs to this baseline. To use an analogy, explaining how to make macOS apps to someone who's making a Windows application. There are a lot of principles in common, but the implementations are very different.

The default state for this brain is restless, looking for things to focus on. The recovery methods you're talking about are sensory depth deprivation, the worst possible solution. For myself, the best thing I can do is feed the bastard carefully until it calms down. Think of using calm words to get a screaming toddler who just woke up to stop running around and go back to bed. That's not happening.

Sometimes I can't wrestle this thing into control and focus on what I want to. And you want me to relax? That's a bit optimistic. :)

With ADHD, there are a lot of individuals who are able to find a way to work with this and some use it to their advantage, masking the real cause. For those who have it worse, the underlying problem becomes visible, and they get asked why they can't be like other ADHD people who manage. It's like asking why a two year old can't act like a six year old.

How can diet replace the wheels? Think bipolar disorder is curable through diet change? Think harder.

We were talking about healthy people with adhd, not about bipolar people (who need serious medical help) or people with 60iq. No amount of running technique is going to help a legless person.

>You also totally missed the point of suggestions entirely. I assume that happened because you were out of brain/willpower energy.

No, you are pretty bad at communicating. You should try a bit harder, because this is obviously at 10% tops.

You wouldn't handle my 100%, seeing how you consistently misunderstand my 10%.

10%: There's were I a Proving It's

100%: There's no way you could ever understand me if I were trying to say something complicated. I'm much too intelligent. I have way more mental firepower than you do. I'm a very complex thinker, and you just can't keep up. Proving it to you would be a waste of time. It's just hopeless anyway. -- If communication isn't working, sure, it might be a comprehension error. But...it's rarely only a comprehension error.

>Do you ever feel unmotivated to go to the toilet despite needing to? Has this lack of motivation ever stopped you from getting from your chair?

A lot of people with depression and adhd will nod "yes" here. Sorry but you have no idea. Great it works for you.

When I am healthy I can work out 4-5 times a week (l<fting weights, climbing, running up to half marathon distances in training) have a full job and be a dad.

When I am ill all I can is to try my best to be a dad. You have no idea.

Doesn't seem like you understood.

Has your lack of motivation ever stopped you from getting from your chair, and go to the toilet; instead you decided to pee and crap in your pants? How has it worked for you? Well enough that you have been repeating the behavior?

No, you don't understand. On about a weekly basis, my need to go to the bathroom does not make itself pressing enough to get me there without leakage. It is not more than 15 steps from my desk chair to the toilet. Sometimes I roll the chair over because if I stand up, I won't make it.

Is it really impossible for you to believe that someone else's brain might be this different from yours? Presumably you have no trouble believing someone's eyes might be completely different from yours (i.e., might exist but not see a damn thing), or their legs might be completely different from yours. Why should brains be any different? What possible reason could there be for that?

Why, when there are full-blown medical specialties dealing with these sorts of differences, do you maintain the sort of willful ignorance that denies other people's brains might be completely different from yours in a way that makes things that work for your brain not work at all for their brains?

I struggle daily to urge myself to eat after years of habitual starvation. The process of storing and making food through-out the week is extremely difficult for me to say the least... I also don't have room in my finances to out-source this completely. To combat this, I have been successfully meal prepping on the weekends; however, I still often struggle with the basic task of eating the food, prepped and served. It is a common experience for me to get part-way into eating a dish, move on to another task, and neglect the food until it's spoiled only to realize so when I pack up for the day. Sometimes I will even notice the food, deep into a task, but the thought to address it is hardly formed.

In this regard neurotypical advice _did_ actually help me I suppose. However, when applied to a habit not immediately linked to your existence, it is quite alienating to receive.

I should make an exception for suggestions on how to change my environment to better suit me.

Those don’t bother me because they don’t fundamentally misunderstand the problem.

I would imagine you'd get this advice from other non-neurotypical people too. My son is neurodivergant, and strict routine like what is being described is about the only thing that keeps him able to handle most daily life tasks regularly. But plenty of other advice he constantly gets frustrates him similarly to the frustration you seem to be describing. We call it "you've just never had it cooked right" advice. So I feel your exasperation.

I call it the “loadbearing just”. :) “if you’ve just did this”

Most neurodivergent people I’ve met accept my limitations and don’t expect what works for them to work for me. It might take a little explanation but they didn’t seem to get upset about it.

The few that have expected me to be like them, expected other people to be like them as well. So it wasn’t specific to me.

Just a shout out here for medication. ADHD meds are rated effective in the 70-90% range, which is just incredibly good compared to medication effectiveness for just about anything else.

I have ADHD, and hate the feeling of being a victim. "I have this, so I can't do that. It's just the way it is." No! Not for this. Not when there are so many treatment options.

I accept that things may be harder for me than a typical person, that I may have to put in more work than other people to get the same results, that this is something that's very real that I have to deal with and manage at all times. That there will be times when I will fail and my stupid monkey brain will win the moment. But I won't let it define me, I won't let it dictate who I am and what I can and cannot do.

EDIT: Also, I mean to agree with you here: there's a point where no amount of discipline will work, and the advice to "just try harder" sounds like an alien telling you to just grow wings and fly. If you find yourself at that point, medicine can and will help. It also helps you be able to get in a routine of actually doing exercise, which in turn helps even more, and it becomes a sweet positive feedback loop.

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