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The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

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Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#151

Post by stitched2gethr »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #64
lionkor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds awful. I go to the office to chat with everyone, it's incredible how much work gets done when you can just walk over to someone and debug or rubbery ducky in real time.

Yes. I got fired from that place for being too negative and now work somewhere much more sane. The CEO to his credit went on a campaign to improve the culture, but middle management obstinately refused to change a single thing. I recently heard he got fired by the board too, go figure.

Remote work did a number on middle management. When many of them realized that if they aren't the strategic brain at the top, and they aren't individual contributers, and they can supervise butts in chais, then they aren't actually providing that much value.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#152

Post by Qwertious »

dep_b wrote: post #131
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #59

This is where remote work goes off the rails, but then it’s wild how intentionally isolating the implementation of RTO that many large corporations are doing now. They line people up in rows, put headphones on their heads and wire them up to Teams and Jira to spend the whole day in isolation. Because taking a walk to another floor of building to talk to someone like a normal human being is too wasteful, but somehow f…

God yes. I’ve spent 8 years working remote before the pandemic hit. Only after that I started coming into offices again because my local freelance customers demanded it. Spent most days looking at a bunch of nerds with headphones, being ignored until lunch. I had to drag people out of their cocoons to have conversations. Nobody had any collaboration lined up the days I came in. I mean I see the collaboration thing, b…

You can take the tiger out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the tiger.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#153

Post by erikerikson »

saghm wrote: post #72
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #59

This is where remote work goes off the rails, but then it’s wild how intentionally isolating the implementation of RTO that many large corporations are doing now. They line people up in rows, put headphones on their heads and wire them up to Teams and Jira to spend the whole day in isolation. Because taking a walk to another floor of building to talk to someone like a normal human being is too wasteful, but somehow f…

> They line people up in rows, put headphones on their heads and wire them up to Teams and Jira to spend the whole day in isolation. Because taking a walk to another floor of building to talk to someone like a normal human being is too wasteful, but somehow forcing everyone to spend hours commuting isn’t. Sure, this is pretty much exactly what I'd expect from companies; wasting the employee's time doesn't matter, but…

Except we're largely talking about salaried employees who aren't paid by the hour.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#154

Post by kayodelycaon »

pydry wrote: post #56
lurkshark wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I read about pair programming as a standard technique (like XP) it sounds so great in theory but in practice I find it extremely draining whenever I’ve dabbled.

If you have psychological safety and develop a bond of trust with the person it is far less draining. Those things need to be developed and the working environment needs to make them possible, though. I find that the fact that I rarely get stuck for long and the mistakes I make tend to get caught more quickly makes pairing vastly more productive in practice. The productivity isnt directly in the speed of code output…

It also depends on the person and the problem and the problem. :)

My thinking isn’t logical and it doesn’t use language internally. It’s difficult to explain but, due to mental disability I’m using my visual memory to do all of my information processing.

Let’s say it is not easy to describe a picture in words if things get complex.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#155

Post by Teleoflexuous »

noahjk wrote: post #144
Teleoflexuous wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come to shill my webapp for background noise because it has a twist not appearing in anyone's recommendations. Whenever I'm switching between tasks (thinking vs reading vs writing) I'd either turn the sound off or on, given I needed more or less attention at the moment. Minor problem with that was that sometimes unexpectedly I'd stick with the new task longer than expected, start to get bored, but w/e background so…

For some reason I don't hear anything in Safari on macOS. I tried disabling all of my browser-based content blockers. I see the 'audio playing' icon but I don't hear anything.

Oh, I'll check what's going on in Safari. Thanks for the report, if you could forward me if there's any error in console, I'd greatly appreciate it.

It's especially surprising if the 'audio playing' icon is there, since that should be coming from the browser itself.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#156

Post by chubot »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #137
mr_toad wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty sure that Teams has tanked productivity in some offices. It used to be that arranging a meeting required finding a physical space. Now some people are spending their days in back-to-back teams meetings and never get any actual work done.

The counter to this is that you can actually have a 5 or 10 minute teams call which was all that was needed to resolve the issue / answer the question / or whatever the meeting was about. Whereas, if it was a physical meeting in a booked room then it would easily expand to fill 30 or 60min or whatever time the room was booked for. I see this myself. I get a teams call with a manager and a few others, get something so…

People used to have phone calls for this! It was on the way out even 15 years ago, but a simple telephone call can get people unblocked pretty efficiently

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#157

Post by jbaber »

onemoresoop wrote: post #32

I may have ADHD, I never went for a diagnosis and found body doubling useful at times, especially when I was in school some decades ago, back then I had no name for it. However, I find white noise very helpful with staying on the task and with increased focus. My company moved, about a year ago, into a very cramped office that is also extremely noisy. This exasperated me, I would get drained of energy in a couple of…

1. I hope you're saying your ears hurt from physically wearing headphones, not from volume. 2. Many responses in this thread self-diagnose with many disorders because of the need to wear headphones in an open office environment. Open office environments are like emergency rooms filled with crying babies -- they feel almost intended to distract. This is true of "baseline", "normal", "non-disordered", whatever the codeword of the day is for average humans.

Open offices save employers more money (they hope) in space than they lose in lowered productivity. There's no reason to think your average Joe or Jane can just carry on working in one as efficiently as in a private office.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#158

Post by deinonychus »

Teleoflexuous wrote: post #121
onemoresoop wrote: post #32

I may have ADHD, I never went for a diagnosis and found body doubling useful at times, especially when I was in school some decades ago, back then I had no name for it. However, I find white noise very helpful with staying on the task and with increased focus. My company moved, about a year ago, into a very cramped office that is also extremely noisy. This exasperated me, I would get drained of energy in a couple of…

I come to shill my webapp for background noise because it has a twist not appearing in anyone's recommendations. Whenever I'm switching between tasks (thinking vs reading vs writing) I'd either turn the sound off or on, given I needed more or less attention at the moment. Minor problem with that was that sometimes unexpectedly I'd stick with the new task longer than expected, start to get bored, but w/e background so…

Interesting. I'm surprised how much I enjoyed the Human playlist, especially the High setting with those percussive sounds that were quite grating at first. I could easily see myself getting in a productive trance to that. It reminded me of why I like techno, drone, and ambient music. I'm surprised how well BPM Forest worked too. Imo it could use some variety in kicks and longer forest/rain loops.

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#159

Post by drzaiusx11 »

onemoresoop wrote: post #32

I may have ADHD, I never went for a diagnosis and found body doubling useful at times, especially when I was in school some decades ago, back then I had no name for it. However, I find white noise very helpful with staying on the task and with increased focus. My company moved, about a year ago, into a very cramped office that is also extremely noisy. This exasperated me, I would get drained of energy in a couple of…

as an AuDHDer, noise cancellation and white noise are critical for my mental health (at work and elsewhere), but near constant _interruptions_ of my flow state by coworkers in the same physical space causes me almost visceral pain, and has only been amplified to unsustainable levels (for me) from forced RTO. I started fully remote at my current employer, so I communicate effectively and prolifically on async comm channels like slack, but even that can get to distractible levels for me. I recently implemented schedulable “office hours” for folks to access my time, so we’ll see if that helps in either case.

If my current mitigations don’t help, i’ll be forced to file for a wfh exception, but those tend to be denied where i work (fang). I’m already on medications to manage my stressors (of which there are many), so i feel like i’m almost out of options in an RTO world…

This issue is compounded by presenting as neurotypical, as i’m forced to mask when sharing physical space with neurotypicals. this is exhausting on its own, and i’ve found to be largely unavoidable in a large setting via trial and error spanning 20+ years in industry.

AuDHD is almost a full contradictions of needs. I excel with body doubles, but they can’t regularly interact with me without me loosing the current “thread”. I crave novelty, but require structure. It’s a difficult thing to understand, let alone live with…

Re: The ADHD body double: A unique tool for getting things done

#160

Post by keybored »

AbstractH24 wrote: post #133
roland35 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also had a fun experience in an open office, but the key element of it was that the office was only about 15-20 people and we were all on the same project and team. When I visited the Big Tech office (as a remote employee), it was an entire floor with rows of unrelated people all together. My team was together but it felt much different, more distracting, and hard to have a conversation without feeling like you are…

I’m part of the minority of folks who think the value of in office outweighs the cost. Particularly amongst those who aren’t in management. But only if you are working in close proximity to those working on the same projects and leadership going up at least two levels. (leadership, not management) Why large companies with globally distributed teams see value in having employees in office sitting side by side in isola…

That you say “two levels” suggests formal hierarchy, which is management.
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