Judging by the up-votes this post got, I'd say it probably is normal.
Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
141–150 of 382 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#142Test your self for vitamin D and B12 deficiency. Also try avoiding gluten and dairy products. I support and agree with most other comments here as well, but fix the diet first!
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#143I'm in my mid 30s and I think I'm in the middle of the pack as far as productivity/focus/procrastination go. From that perspective and from your own description of yourself, I would put you below average, and much more importantly - your performance is making you unhappy. I think this calls for a self-diagnostic. I would definitely see a therapist and maybe a doctor to make sure there aren't any subtle undiagnosed is…
I had a long period of time where I couldn't get motivated to do anything after a business partner screwed me out of millions of dollars from an acquisition. I would try and try, but I just couldn't get started on things, or I would start and never finish. I later learned that after this incident, I was suffering from "learned helplessness" [1]. This is a phenomenon where after experiencing a trauma that you were pow…
Whoa, thank you so much for sharing this. I never heard of this concept before, it's an unknown unknown for me. This explains a lot of my personality.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#144I can relate a lot. I'm still burning through self-motivation hacks at 35, some of which are helping while most don't. Eventually, the hack with by far the largest impact (which brought me to currently being cofounder and CTO of one of the more successful German startups) was realizing that while I simply suck at self-motivating, I never had a problem getting stuff done when working for others. I effortlessly produce…
Have you ever tried medication? For me personally it's even worse when working for others. Even went to the therapist, but she said they don't prescribe stuff like Adderall (don't even have it), and solution is just therapy in form of talking, which had zero effect (she asked questions I asked myself when I was 15). Really curious about Adderall.
Your therapist should be able to refer you to an MD for meds, if she thinks that would help.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#145I can relate a lot. I'm still burning through self-motivation hacks at 35, some of which are helping while most don't. Eventually, the hack with by far the largest impact (which brought me to currently being cofounder and CTO of one of the more successful German startups) was realizing that while I simply suck at self-motivating, I never had a problem getting stuff done when working for others. I effortlessly produce…
Have you ever tried medication? For me personally it's even worse when working for others. Even went to the therapist, but she said they don't prescribe stuff like Adderall (don't even have it), and solution is just therapy in form of talking, which had zero effect (she asked questions I asked myself when I was 15). Really curious about Adderall.
Went through Ritalin (normal & XR), amphetamine, SSRI and tricyclic antidepressants, but in hindsight none of those gave me much leverage... just left me with holes in my short term memory I'm still regularly annoyed by. YMMV of course, I'm not a doctor and results in this space vary wildly.
The really large improvements came from external structure and therapy. BTW I experienced pretty much the same as you did in the beginning, it was only the third therapist who asked the really uncomfortable questions and went in deep. The others were just a waste of time. The difference between good and bad therapists is several orders of magnitude and a personal connection matters. Don't give up and try to get recommendations.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#146I've always suffered from ADD at school, my grades were really bad. I understood everything the teacher was saying but when it came to exams it was a different story. I couldn't study, and I failed them miserably. The worst part was that 20 years ago I didn't know about ADD nor did my parents, so the problem went unnoticed and there was no one but myself to blame. I never managed to finish reading a story for example.
I was never hyper and could always focus on coding and was always self motivated.
Even though I could focus on programming tasks, I realized at some point that I never finished a side project and always jumped from one side project to another.
At 30 (I am 34 now), ADD hit me hard and I lost my ability to focus when coding.
I decided to visit the dr about this issue and was prescribed adderral at first but I didn't like it as it made me feel euphoric for couple hours and ended up on vyvanse (30 mg) few months later.
Vyvanse changed my life. And that might me an understatement. The amount of knowledge I was able to attain after getting on vyvanse is probably more than everything I've learnt. I am now able to complete my projects, read plenty of research papers and absorb what's being said and code for 8 hours straight without an issue. I am considered one of the top engineers at my job (and previous ones) and I attribute a significant part of my knowledge to vyvanse.
My working memory improved significantly and I can focus and finish the most mundane tasks.
I've read that many people that has ADD or signs of it get hit hard by 30 or so.
I highly recommend visiting the dr and see which adhd med works best for you.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#147I can relate to this and AFAIK there's no magic/quick solution. Even if you find some job/project that motivates you a lot, that motivation won't last forever and eventually the lack of focus/procrastination will come back. I work a full time as a remote software developer, and what helped me in recent years was to focus on developing self-discipline, which is what pushes you forward in the long term. And yes, self-d…
Cold shower after waking up early sounds like a great way to start the morning and improve discipline. I think I'll attempt starting this plus adding a short run after the shower. I'm sure I'll be able to conquer the day easier after breaking through that early resistance. I agree that my self-discipline trainable and improving it is the best solution in the long run. There are a lot of things that I need to do but d…
Self-discipline will help you acquire good habits and drop bad ones, but it also helps to track progress with an app. I use habithub for this.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% this. Break down the tasks into smaller and smaller chunks, use an app like Todoist to track it. So create a project for each major task, and have all the todo's inside that project. You'll feel achievement as you complete each small task, and within no time you'll find you have completed the project, AKA, one big task.
Any recommendations for something like this that's local-only or self-hosted? I've been on the lookout for such a thing for a while but they all seem to be SaaS web app type things.
I just keep a text file around that I sync using NextCloud. From what I've seen self-hosted TODO list solutions are generally pretty bad.
I tried OpenTasks[1] on Android using NextCloud's DAV backend, but the app doesn't support proper sub-tasks (subtasks are handled as Markdown text in task's notes). And there doesn't seem to be any good Desktop app that that I found that works well (or is cross-platform) either.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.tasks...
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#149I can relate a lot. I'm still burning through self-motivation hacks at 35, some of which are helping while most don't. Eventually, the hack with by far the largest impact (which brought me to currently being cofounder and CTO of one of the more successful German startups) was realizing that while I simply suck at self-motivating, I never had a problem getting stuff done when working for others. I effortlessly produce…
Have you ever tried medication? For me personally it's even worse when working for others. Even went to the therapist, but she said they don't prescribe stuff like Adderall (don't even have it), and solution is just therapy in form of talking, which had zero effect (she asked questions I asked myself when I was 15). Really curious about Adderall.
I certainly don't mind being an average 1x programmer, if I don't have to take drugs to better my performance.
I don't like coffee, nor alcohol, and I never put any smoke in my mouth. When my diet is OK and my body gets the required exercise, the mind works best.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever tried medication? For me personally it's even worse when working for others. Even went to the therapist, but she said they don't prescribe stuff like Adderall (don't even have it), and solution is just therapy in form of talking, which had zero effect (she asked questions I asked myself when I was 15). Really curious about Adderall.
Went through Ritalin (normal & XR), amphetamine, SSRI and tricyclic antidepressants, but in hindsight none of those gave me much leverage... just left me with holes in my short term memory I'm still regularly annoyed by. YMMV of course, I'm not a doctor and results in this space vary wildly. The really large improvements came from external structure and therapy. BTW I experienced pretty much the same as you did in th…
Ritalin and amphetamine did not improve your focus/motivation? Not even the first couple of times you tried them?