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Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

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Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#191
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting links, thanks! (in case it helps anyone else...) About half a year ago I discovered that a brutally low carb diet -- leading to being in ketosis -- drastically helped my ADHD as well as other mental health things I've struggled with for my entire life. I wish I knew earlier!

Two things that might also work, but be easier. Supplement MCT oil. This turns into keytones in the body. See The Complete Book of Ketones by Mary Newport for all the science. She's got into it for Alzheimers, but the applicability is wider than that. Go gluten-free and casein-free. That's eliminating wheat and dairy in your diet. Both of these turn into a form of morphine in the body. Look up glutomorphine and casom…

I had the impression that the gluten/casein morphin thesis has been debunked.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#193
It sounds Slack is being used wrong. You should not be in that many channels.

If there are tickets assigned to you and those tickets have Slack channels, you should be in those channels. You shouldn't be in other ticket channels.

Your entire team shouldn't be pulled into large numbers of channels.

Feel free to ignore channel messages for anything that isn't your area or assigned task, unless someone mentions you with @ directly. Respond only to DMs, and messages related to tasks you are working on. Don't even look at anything else unless you have spare cycles, other than maybe some general channel that is for your team only.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#194
I was in the same situation, I tried EVERYTHING, including supplements (mucuna pruriens help a bit), no slack (affects my work), full screen emacs only (same) and a long etcetera.

In addition to everything that was said... (no notifications, etc). The solution for me? : Medication. After trying not to be medicated for few years I talked to a psychiatrist and got a prescription for concerta.

Let's say I wish I did that 20 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#195
post #75
post #48

Not related to slack, but managing your ADHD symptoms. Look into a low oxalate diet, it really helped me and my children. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21911305/ https://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/articles-1/2015/11/13/... https://korunutrition.com/autism-low-oxalate-diet/ https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/vegetarianism-and...

All of these links are about autism, not ADHD. Am I missing something?

It's pretty common in discussions about Autism to talk about ADHD due to strong comorbidity in that direction.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#197
Our manager was recently talking about the importance of everyone being together in the office, for maximum real-time collaboration.

He would be delighted to hear about OPs Slack situation. "Look at all the collaboration!"

Anyway, similar in-person problems can also make it hard to focus. Even if you are not part of a conversation, you hear it nearby and tune in. (Yes, headphones can help.)

At least Slack is easier to mute.

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#198
As someone who has a similar issue with the MS teams/email divide...

Tldr: reduce reactivity and context switching. It will leave you exhausted and feeling like you are not making progress long term.

Chunk, at predetermined times for a set period. Scan information channels in a set order first, broadly sort into topics. Go through each topic and extract relevant detail/actions into a separate personal log on the topic.

Tl: One thing that is often overlooked is how this way of working puts you in to a hyper-reactive mode, taking you away from the things you had originally wanted to tackle at the beginning of the day. It is procrastination, it is your brain looking for an excuse to do something else. This will stoke the belief that, despite best intentions, you get distracted, can't work on the things you need/want to do and fail to make meaningful progress leaving you feeling tired and that you've fallen behind.

For me (read: maybe for you too, maybe not) what works is checking those channels at predefined intervals throughout the day (as you suggested) but having a prioritised list that you stick to in which ones you check, for how long, and follow that list each time. While going through, write a task oriented summary of the actions you need to take. If the information is more status/contextual/fyi on a particular thing, have a diary/log for that particular thing where you are updating you knowledge/understanding/the status of that particular thing.

For example: I'm working on a complex project right now where there are 10 separate countries all doing similar but different things across several technology stacks. Most of this is over email, so things easily get lost in a sea of email headers and signatures. Similar but different issues in different countries get mixed up. It's hard. Even without ADHD. First I generally sort all emails into folders or with labels by topic. Then I'll go through each topic separately and copy out the relevant detail and append it to a running document on that particular thing with details of who said what and when.

You can do this low tech, but I like to use obsidian to markup and further link info on things/concepts/people/dates so I can search across it later.

I hope this helps someone.

And for god's sake, turn off ALL the notifications you can!

Put a note in your status starting 'if it's urgent, call'. This is an entirely reasonable request.

Good luck

Re: Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?

#199
As a rule, I don’t use Slack for productive work, nor for productive relationships. The noise is high. The interface is poor. The incentive is to not get anything done.

Backing my own experience up, I don’t have a single high-performance friend/collaborator that is invested in the Slack experience. However, I am familiar with well-paid and tuned out managers who love Slack.

Your idea of separation (checking 2-3x per day) is the appealing solution in this case.

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