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Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

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Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#201

Post by duffyjp »

collyw wrote: post #179
duffyjp wrote: post #167

Are you medicated? One of my boys has ADHD and it was life changing. When I was a kid ADD as they called it then was highly stigmatized because the meds turned you into a zombie, it's not the case anymore. Basically zero side effects other than appetite loss during lunch.

Isn't ADHD medication basically amphetamine? I experimented when I was younger and it wasn't nice stuff. Couldn't sleep properly afterwards, and loos of appetite (I am already pretty skinny).

There are I think three classes of meds now. I don't recall the specifics but they try you on the non-stimulant one first which for us didn't do anything.

My son takes Concerta which is an extended release drug that basically gives you the minimum viable amount over the course of about 8 hours. By late afternoon it's gone, but it gets him through school just fine. He eats a huge breakfast and dinner so his mostly ignored lunches aren't an issue. No problems with sleep and he's definitely not "high" while taking it. It just balances him out to where he should be.

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#202

Post by 71a54xd »

Badly, I've had some trouble maintaining employment in the past because at times it's just hard for me to start something. It's bad. I've been able to break some parts of the pattern, for instance I can manage to exercise daily now - but there are times where I wonder if I'll ever be able to cram enough productivity into a given day to really measurably improve as an engineer.

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#203

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

elektrontamer wrote: post #197

I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but I've been trying to reduce distractions for a long time and the one thing that was extremely effective for me was going to the office and taking a desk in a busy region with my back against interior rather than the windows, this made my monitors visible to everyone. The constant feeling of being judged made it impossible to get distracted and I was extremely productive when I w…

Huh, interesting. Whenever I tried this I just felt anxious and retreated into my phone.

I suppose it depends on the type of work though. I could see this working well for the more mindless, grindier tasks, but this seems kind of awful for a task that requires some concentrated thought and creativity.

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#204

Post by febin »

Somethings that helped me.

1. I realised the hard way that you can't focus on too many things at the same time.

2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive results.

3. Focus on areas you have circle of competence in.

4. I struggle with abstract ideas, and jump to projects without thinking the details, scoping abstract ideas and writing down concrete POA helps in completing things.

5. Working hard on staying loyal to my resolutions. I took a resolution last month to write a book on rust for beginners. I constantly hold this thought every day in my head. It helps a lot in making progress and saying no to distractions.

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#205

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

cardanome wrote: post #152
hidelooktropic wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree about caffeine. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-does-caffeine-affect-people... "if you don't learn to focus it." this is nonsensical and harmful

Is the long term consumption of caffeine really a good idea? I would expect the tolerance build up to negate the positive effects fairly quickly. Most people that need to have their coffee in the morning are NOT more awake than a non-coffee drinker but need the coffee to just reach their normal baseline. So you would need higher and higher dosages to see any positive effects and at that point you get nasty side-effec…

Caffeine isn't heroin: tolerance plateaus after a few weeks of drinking coffee daily.

> nasty side-effects like heart racing and insomnia

I've been drinking coffee daily for two decades now and haven't ever experienced heart racing, nor insomnia if I limit my consumption to the A.M.

People do process caffeine wildly differently through. I apparently have genes that make me not very sensitive to caffeine at all, but I know this isn't true for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#206

Post by fipar »

osigurdson wrote: post #194
fipar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda like WFH, this varies a lot from people to people. Well, I don't know about the damage part, but definitely, for some of us, intense multitasking leads to cognitive decline (it was reversed for me hence why I said "I don't know about the damage part") I spent a few years working on a Support team, at least a couple of those years managing that team, and part of my job involved being interruptible with a very sh…

Is your friend in support engineering truly being interrupted however? I think it has a lot to do with stack depth. Working on task A, then being interrupted to work on task B only to be interrupted again to work on task C is the source of brain damage - particularly for those who care about being productive.

Yeah, he's working in an intense context-switching environment. Also, since he's a very senior team member he gets interrupted frequently for escalations or just for short help requests.

The context-switching is what killed me when I did that, and he actually does enjoy it, as crazy as it sounds!

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#207

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

febin wrote: post #204

Somethings that helped me. 1. I realised the hard way that you can't focus on too many things at the same time. 2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive results. 3. Focus on areas you have circle of competence in. 4. I struggle with abstract ideas, and jump to projects without thinking the details, scoping abstract ideas and writing down concrete POA helps in completing things. 5. Working hard on…

> 2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive results.

This worked really well for me until I actually settled in with a long term partner, who was rightfully frustrated when I'd try to cut out some of the daily responsibilities that are required to be a good roommate and partner.

When you're single you have a lot more freedom to squirrel away for a while on a problem, but it's a tremendously selfish thing to do when your life is intertwined with another person who depends on you to juggle your daily obligations like everyone else.

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#208

Post by zackmorris »

stared wrote: post #15

> There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark. One of the key features of ADHD is a never-ending list of things to do. Edward M. Hallowell (who wrote "Driven to Distraction") remarks that perhaps it is the most characteristic feature of ADHD. Previously, browser crashes saved my sanity— killing dozens of open tabs with fascinating articles. Now I try to let it go . In a Zen/stoic way, knowing that nothing will…

I'll second this. Zen and stoicism saved my sanity towards the end of the 2010s and through the pandemic.

For me it's not so much about the infinite list, because I've always had many thousands of tabs open and surf so much that there's no way I could ever bookmark everything (since the mid-90s).

It's actually about the opportunity cost of distraction and finally work itself. Beyond a certain level of experience and mastery (perhaps 10 years), no job has enough variety to satisfy the ADHD mind. We all become Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad: manning a parking booth that could be fully automated while we secretly plot ways to escape and "get real work done". Which is the central theme of movies like The Matrix.

The only thing that finally brought me out of burnout back to living was to realize that life is both a pointless game and the most sacred thing there is. Meaning that once I turned off my inner monologue completely and finally just observed, I found gratitude for all of creation through non-attachment.

Applied to HN specifically, it might help to step back from the rational and look at it holistically. You and I might be missing out, but the whole world is learning and growing together. We're part of a higher consciousness now, a virtual mind overlaid on us that will transcend us before 20 years is out and we enter the New Age. These are the memoirs of Gaia (insert deity of choice here).

Re: Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?

#210

Post by munbun »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #199
munbun wrote: post #185

With ADHD, a single HN post could have me following source material and child nodes up to 5-6 layers deep. Once the time-blindness wears off, the anxiety sets in you realize hours have passed and outstanding work is due soon. What sort of worked: - Blocking web sites during work hours (SelfControl for MacOS and NextDNS for devices) What did work: - Consistent sleep schedule (10PM) - Mindfulness meditation in the morn…

> Working in a different environment By this, do you mean working in a different physical environment from where you relax? Or continuously changing your work environment? Or something else?

semi-public spaces where you aren't isolated, like co-working offices.

if that's not feasible, a service like FocusMate in your home office.

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