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Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

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Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#21

Post by AnthonBerg »

As much screen area as possible. High refresh rate, good color. Yes, for programming. I have a 55” LG CX 120Hz 4K OLED TV as my monitor now. Space for everything: Code, more code, documentation, filesystem, browser, notes.

Tweak everything for low latency. Example: Switch IntelliJ to the ZGC garbage collector. Give it extra RAM. Have a fast GPU. Yes, just for throwing windows around.

Fast CPU with lots of cores. Tuned low-latency high-bandwidth RAM. One big SSD RAID for everything.

Get the computer up to the speed of thought.

Automatic tiling window managers. Amethyst is good on macOS.

Organization: Workflowy, notes on paper.

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#22

Post by bentobean »

jbirer wrote: post #17

My stack is: TomatoTimer Dual monitors with one monitor playing YouTube Travel/ASMR/whatever is interesting radio.garden (playing radio with vocals seems to keep me focused for some reason) Rewarding myself with foods, drinks, spoiling myself And lastly, something I recently discovered, edging. When I edge to porn without release I feel much more energetic and focused. Something to do with dopamine apparently. I imag…

It’s OK to not share everything.

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#23

Post by djcannabiz »

abrookewood wrote: post #19
jbirer wrote: post #17

My stack is: TomatoTimer Dual monitors with one monitor playing YouTube Travel/ASMR/whatever is interesting radio.garden (playing radio with vocals seems to keep me focused for some reason) Rewarding myself with foods, drinks, spoiling myself And lastly, something I recently discovered, edging. When I edge to porn without release I feel much more energetic and focused. Something to do with dopamine apparently. I imag…

I imagine the latter may cause issues as people transition back to working in the office ...

this made my day lol

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#25

Post by renewedrebecca »

AnthonBerg wrote: post #21

As much screen area as possible. High refresh rate, good color. Yes, for programming. I have a 55” LG CX 120Hz 4K OLED TV as my monitor now. Space for everything: Code, more code, documentation, filesystem, browser, notes. Tweak everything for low latency. Example: Switch IntelliJ to the ZGC garbage collector. Give it extra RAM. Have a fast GPU. Yes, just for throwing windows around. Fast CPU with lots of cores. Tune…

This is really good advice. Latency kills me. I used to have to code over remote desktop, and I could have 500 thoughts between the time I pressed a key and saw it reflected on the screen.

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#26

Post by dadoomer »

sph wrote: post #12

You don't need more tools, you need fewer. And get rid of notifications, sounds, distractions, bouncy icons in the Dock. Mute #general on Slack or Discord. Go minimalist, in work and in life. I use Todoist. I try to add almost everything I have to do in a day in it, because I enjoy the small release of dopamine when I cross things out, however small they are. I hate the modern trend of rainbow vomit colour themes in…

> You don't need more tools, you need fewer.

Fully agree with this.

For me, it has also been important to keep the workflow and tools that I do use as streamlined as possible (KISS), so as to stay "in the zone" as long as possible.

For instance, if I will write some code, I don't need bells and whistles, I only need LSP support, split screen and the ability to change files in a split second with a few keypresses. Likewise, to version-control code I need a tool that let's me do that and just that.

And so on.

So I find myself most productive when living in the terminal using things like tmux and vim.

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#27

Post by graypegg »

Omnifocus for me. It’s been the only thing I’ve stuck with. I’m pretty sure that’s because it’s the only task system I’ve used that lets you hide things based on properties; I don’t get anything done facing a giant list, but a small focused list of things I can do right now, is possible.

It also fills a need for organization meta-work, but that’s not really a positive hah

Best thing I can recommend is pick ONLY ONE thing to hold onto tasks (notes app, a todo app, a sticky note pad, etc.) and actually commit to it. Force yourself to log a task the second you know about it.

Even make an effort to tell people “I’m adding that to my list” so people start reminding you. Whatever gets things you need to do out of your head asap.

It’s aggravatingly difficult for a while until it’s a habit, but having the stuff you need to do somewhere that ISNT your memory is going to be a massive boost.

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#28

Post by nicbou »

I use Calendar Alarm to make calendar appointment ring like an alarn instead of a subtle vibration.

Todoist is where I store all my lists: todo, packing list, meals (for cooking ideas).

I install uBlock Origin and uBlacklist in all my browsers. I don't use the web without them.

I'll occasionally use SelfControl if I cycle through time killer websites too much.

I keep my technology as quiet and self-effacing as possible.

Removing the distractions does a great job. I fought those aggressively and now I can't imagine unfiltered technology. I list a few other things I did here: https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#29

Post by lioeters »

I use this Firefox feature for floating video, always playing in the corner of one of the monitors.

> The Picture-in-Picture feature allows you to pop videos out of their webpages into floating, always on top, windows, so you can watch while continuing to work in other tabs.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-picture-picture-f...

When I'm working, I only watch in my peripherals, if at all. Mostly I like listening to the film soundtrack, effects, and more or less indistinct human voices.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, I focus better this way, compared to having "silence" - because I have sensitive hearing, any slight or distant sound in the real world environment distracts my attention. I wear noise-cancelling headphones, whether any audio/video is playing or not.

---

I have a little shell script for taking notes from the terminal command line. I use it throughout the day to to chronicle the endless number of ideas that flow through the brain. The notes go into a plain-text/Markdown journal file.

Before I started this practice a few years ago, I used to feel anxious that so many good ideas and thoughts were getting lost. Now, I just dump everything into notes as fast as I can type them in. Then I can set them aside, forget them and move on with my brainstorming.

Occasionally I review the journal, and copy the best parts into project or subject-based Markdown files.

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Emails only - checking once a day, or 2~3 times a week. No telephone, text or video chat.

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Edit: I haven't been diagnosed with ADHD, but I can relate to other comments in this thread - so might be leaning in that direction. Might also be a bit of an autist.

Re: Ask HN: Devs with ADHD do you use specialized tooling?

#30

Post by ttcmuni »

Github copilot has actually been incredibly useful for me.

Writing boilerplate and starting new files was always so slow/boring, but copilot kinda helps me continue my flow (even when its suggestions are completely wrong).

Fair warning that sometimes its suggestions are subtlety wrong so you still need to read it over - but since it’s there my mind immediately jumps to verifying it as opposed to the risk of distraction when having to type things from scratch with limited autocomplete.

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