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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?

#231

Post by z3c0 »

ryloric wrote: post #220
z3c0 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a very puritanical viewpoint. So much so, that it's a little peculiar and almost feels like a caricature. A life of avoidance does not help an ADHD brain, and the idea that your brain wants stuff to do is not the case at all. You will burn out very quickly going down that path. You'll get much further just taking a few times a day to slow your thoughts via meditation or engaging in a passive activity…

Unless you have it you don't know what it feels like. This sort of generic advice is useless when you're awake in bed at 8:30 AM, still trying to sleep from last night but you can't because you can't physically stop yourself from doom scrolling on your phone. The only thing that really works is an unbreakable commitment device, make it so that the only thing you can do in any given situation is the right thing.

I do have it, so the rest of your highly presumptive comment became moot after the first sentence.

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

#232

Post by ryloric »

z3c0 wrote: post #231
ryloric wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have it you don't know what it feels like. This sort of generic advice is useless when you're awake in bed at 8:30 AM, still trying to sleep from last night but you can't because you can't physically stop yourself from doom scrolling on your phone. The only thing that really works is an unbreakable commitment device, make it so that the only thing you can do in any given situation is the right thing.

I do have it, so the rest of your highly presumptive comment became moot after the first sentence.

Everyone who doesn't have it talks about it more or less like the way you did, "oh... why don't they just learn to control it like me instead of having all these rules".

My comment is highly presumptive because your comment was extremely stereotypical of people who make light of it, maybe stop using words like 'puritanical' when describing what works for other people. Your impairments might be light to non-existent, doesn't mean mine are.

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

#233

Post by ap77 »

Here's what works for me.

1. Start the day by mentally going over goals, and figuring out what I need to do.

2. Use _simple_ project management SW (like Trello, Notepad, Kanban boards) to keep track of what's going on and what's coming. The dopamine hit marking tasks "Done" is usually enough to keep me motivated.

3. Allocate time for off-task activities, like reading random interesting articles, YouTube, etc. This can be 10-15 min breaks throughout the day, and only after completing the current task. After that, actually shut down distracting apps/pages.

That's enough most of the time. If it's not...

4. Switch to a different (work-related) task for a while.

5. If really stuck, ask for help in chat. (I work remotely, so the ability to self-motivate is really important) The process of talking through a problem usually helps me focus on it.

6. If I catch myself procrastinating too much, I invoke a "boss personality". You know how we act differently around different people/situations? Those are mini personalities. I have one that tells me: "Dude, get your s--t together! People are counting on you."

7. The fear of having to look for a different job! :)

I find that developing good habits and schedules really helps me.

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

#234

Post by cja »

Medication to make your brain less dysfunctional and psychoeducation to learn how ADHD affects you and about tools and techniques to manage yourself better.

There's tonnes to learn and to discover about yourself. The more you know, the better you can focus your actions to achieve your goals.

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

#235

Post by ap77 »

paulkrush wrote: post #165
vallassy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>allow you to do one thing at a time Yep, this is why I chose truck driving as a job. I am looking to change out of it now after 12 years, but there's no short list of 'one thing at a time'jobs, and the ADHD has prevented me from learning programming so far. Regarding OP's question, when the tab counter on Firefox turns to infinity, I check the last ten tabs for anything really important, then take a deep breath and…

Can you elaborate on this: "ADHD has prevented me from learning programming"?

Yeah... I thought ADHD is a almost a requirement for programmers.

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

#236

Post by Birkeholm »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #182
vallassy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>allow you to do one thing at a time Yep, this is why I chose truck driving as a job. I am looking to change out of it now after 12 years, but there's no short list of 'one thing at a time'jobs, and the ADHD has prevented me from learning programming so far. Regarding OP's question, when the tab counter on Firefox turns to infinity, I check the last ten tabs for anything really important, then take a deep breath and…

May I interest you the most potent dopamine kick for us with adhd? Build it, run it. For iOS development, that means rubbing the ink off of Cmd+R, Python in PyCharm is Ctrl+R, bash is uparrow+enter… The feeling of extreme frustration when things don’t compile and run, met quickly behind a rush of “hell yeah!” dopamine when things work - is an adhd brain’s white powder. However, keep in mind that over time, business s…

Can confirm.

I was the typical “well-functioning, kinda smart” ADHD-kid, who got trash grades, to many of my peers surprise.

I was too busy tinkering with electronic music production, which I guess has a similar profile to coding, in regards to instant feedback dopamine hits.

Then I got into javascript at some point.

Last year I actively chose to go back to school to study web development. Top grades now and I am super excited to go to school every day.

Highly recommendable.

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

#237

Post by hirvi74 »

marmetio wrote: post #161
zhenyakovalyov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you considering any long term effects of meds? or are you using them topically? how are your cognitive effects while on meds?

There's no real long-term dependence. Going off the meds just returns me to my natural, dysfunctional self. I don't usually do that because it's disruptive without benefit. The first type I tried happened to be right for me, so I didn't experience any negative effects. I did experiment with dose, though. Getting it right just feels like being more awake, which is how I describe the ability to choose where I hold my f…

> There's no real long-term dependence.

I think this varies highly from person to person. As someone who takes one to two days off a week, when possible, I must say I get some pretty brutal withdrawal side-effects.

None of the side-effects are really dangerous or life-threatening by any means, but they are still somewhat disabling. I've been taking my medication for about 8 years now, and I am starting to feel like the medication:

1. Has drastically diminished it positive returns

2. Is starting to take more away from me than it's giving back

Not sure, what other option I'll move to, but I do not have many of them left since I have tried almost all the various stimulant formulations multiple times minus Desoxyn.

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

#238

Post by z3c0 »

ryloric wrote: post #232
z3c0 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have it, so the rest of your highly presumptive comment became moot after the first sentence.

Everyone who doesn't have it talks about it more or less like the way you did, "oh... why don't they just learn to control it like me instead of having all these rules". My comment is highly presumptive because your comment was extremely stereotypical of people who make light of it, maybe stop using words like 'puritanical' when describing what works for other people. Your impairments might be light to non-existent,…

Once again, you're being presumptive. I have a rather severe case of ADHD co-morbid with PTSD, and nothing that I've stated as a solution is easy. If anything, it requires more discipline than simply cutting out temptations. You will need to learn to recognize when "it's time" and step away to re-calibrate. This requires knowing oneself and being transparent about your problems with others.

The routes described prior are extremely puritanical, and if you don't see that, I am sorry that you are stuck wielding such repressive methods. They will be more of a detriment in the long run, as you realize that they do nothing to address your thought patterns. I am speaking from experience, as that doesn't seem to have been made clear.

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

#239

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

elektrontamer wrote: post #227
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It might also be my mind naturally fitting in with the crowd when I see everyone focused on their task. The anxiety is odd though. Do you hate crowds?

I actually love crowds, and work just fine in coffee shops, but don't enjoy the perception of being watched as I work.

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

#240

Post by crucialfelix »

varispeed wrote: post #72
mattmanser wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is definitely how I ended up dealing with it too. I just replaced my computer as the motherboard failed and hadn't setup sync on chrome. I have 1000s of links I no longer have access to and haven't missed them once in 3 months. File and forget is incredibly effective when you have ADHD. There are just too many things that are "interesting" that you'll never have time to do anything about. Just write it dow…

> You'll find in a few weeks time the things that didn't actually matter are gone. What gets me mad sometimes is that when I work on something and hit a road block, then I remember I found an article about it a year or so ago and I definitely saved it. I just have no idea how to find it. I have not looked, but I wonder if there is an indexing tool that would also do an OCR on screenshots, PDFs etc. in the local files…

I run a script daily that fetches my chrome history and creates a daily web log file in my Obsidian.

Daily, all links are fetched (as part of a larger web search product I'm working on). I can search this, but mostly i don't bother.

I will soon add semantic search and see if there's any magic to be found in my data exhaust.

Truth is I'm forced to spend my days googling dull problems and reading vaguely interesting articles.

No deep work for me at the moment

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