71–80 of 167 posts
I have found that when someone (someone else, not me) asks for help in the work slack and noone replies, the best way to get people engaged is to send a simple "hm..". This seems to trigger colleagues that are actually busy into being "the first to help". Like they don't want me to be the hero.
Us nerds cannot stand a good nerd bait. Have you tried just answering something obviously wrong so someone can jump in and correct you?
I feel like this seemed a plausible strategy when I first read it as a serial procrastinator struggling through university 17 years ago. Now, after many years of applying stuff like this successfully for a couple months only to immediately regress at the first sign of life disruption, after an ADHD diagnosis & a bunch of therapy, this all seems like a fairly immature avoidant coping strategy in retrospect. I'm now fa…
This is gold, I will read it fully later .
> Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. This is also true from my observations but what this writing misses is another much more crucial aspect:…
I've read enough nuanced takes on ADHD medication that I'm very reluctant to even seek a diagnosis because I'm very sure I don't want to depend on them, for a variety of reasons. It's made me feel like it's not even worth getting a diagnosis because the only clear path forward is medication or eternal struggle with various much-less effective coping strategies. Anyone who can weigh in with their perspective on this i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relying on medication to mask the symptoms of ADHD is effective until you have been taking that medication for years and end up depending on it to function at all. ADHD medication is usually just a stimulant, which your brain adapts to rather quickly, and the sense of "needing it to function" is just your body trying to reach a state of equilibrium.
That's true for any medication that treats symptoms (majority of all meds) and where there is no known cure for the underlying issue - in this case a neurochemical imbalance. The medication helps you to get a more neurotypical balance and will often have adverse effects on people without this imbalance (e.g. neurotypical students abusing such meds). There should be no shame attached to taking stimulants to treat a di…
I'm doing the same, or at least trying to do it. Worst periods for me were when I had one clear, important goal, not particularly hard but hairy, and nothing else to do, sometimes because I myself cleared it up. I could spend months doing nothing useful , and end up very, very tired and burnt up. I also several times had a conversation with managers, whom I told that I'd rather work on something very urgent, or other…
This way of working really requires a small company, (and is one of the reasons I think small places have a chance of outsized impact). But at bigger places, either a manager is being judged on a team outcome -> where an individual not on topic is budget not going towards what they get paid to achieve. Or you need seniority enough to work directly with a project director (but most structures expect people at that lev…
One thing slightly bothering me is that I have zero problem managing people both like me, and ordered stable focused guys, because I try to use people's strengths and put them on tasks which suit them the best. I've been CTO twice and can speak from experience. The only requirement for me is wanting to be useful in some form, we'll find a task, occupation, or feature lifecycle stage.
And managers who tried to put on me some kind of "personal improvement plan" clearly can work productively only with people exactly like them. Maybe they shouldn't be managers, a lot of good devs have some degree of ADHD, cutting them out or putting them in the box can't be good for business.
Over the years I have become more or less convinced that I have adult ADHD. The overlap in symptoms are too difficult to leave unacknowledged. But, at the same time I have been procrastinating on getting myself diagnosed. Oh, well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the systems in the world break down eventually. Todo lists, GSD, tickets, notes, accountability plans, mental trickery, and so on. It all seems like a panacea at first, until it doesn't. What really helps the ADHD mind is diagnosis and meds, and these days LLMs. Turns out they make for exceptional personal assistants that can be used to automate all the boring and unexciting stuff that is nevertheless needed, and…
Can you elaborate on LLMs as assistants for ADHD? What are you automating with them?
e.g. I would never do something that’s challenging, not mandatory, yet potentially beneficial like disputing a charge, requesting renumeration etc.
But I can put the docs in a folder, ask AI about the next step, ask it to take it or at least write the copy.
That seems to be a lot of reduced mental load and gets me do things I otherwise could postpone for months or never do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Next time I'll see such a response, I probably will quit on the spot; this is unbelievably cruel. Let me guess: you’d quit but your résumé’s out of date because you, like me, procrastinate updating it? (Sounds like a manager trying to manage you out; make things miserable enough for you that you’ll quit without having to go through the redundancy process…)
> Sounds like a manager trying to manage you out; make things miserable enough for you that you’ll quit without having to go through the redundancy process… Dammit, now I have to live the rest of my life thinking about that this might be a thing that's actually happening.
> Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. This is also true from my observations but what this writing misses is another much more crucial aspect:…
I've read enough nuanced takes on ADHD medication that I'm very reluctant to even seek a diagnosis because I'm very sure I don't want to depend on them, for a variety of reasons. It's made me feel like it's not even worth getting a diagnosis because the only clear path forward is medication or eternal struggle with various much-less effective coping strategies. Anyone who can weigh in with their perspective on this i…
I still don't want to go this route, I had my ups and that was glorious. Also I hope to get a pilot license one day.