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Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

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Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#411

Post by TheRealHB »

voisin wrote: post #78
TheRealHB wrote: post #54

The Blinking LED, A simple Hack that still works for me after years: 1. Place a tiny LED (red or yellow) by the side of your monitor or virtually on the screen corner. Basically anywhere almost bordering your field of view. 2. Make it blink like a fast heartbeat (120-150 bpm) and gradually slowdown to around 60 bpm (or your slow heartbeat base). Make the slope approx 20 to 60 minutes (you can adjust the best rate by…

Have you considered building this as a product and selling it? I could see this with a kickstarter or even Shark Tank!

Hi thanks for complement,

I guess you would be a client ; )

No, I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.

For this personal issue, I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like what it does for me. Also I'm not based on anything other than experimental data.

I'm happy to share it here and FREE.

I run a tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#412

Post by gosub100 »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #406
gosub100 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

during covid I was "overemployed" at first 2 jobs, then 3 (which I sustained for over 8 months). Some of it was luck, like not having conflicting meetings, having jobs in different timezones, and the leniency given due to the chaos of the times, but I actually did get work done. But during the average day, I was only there to respond to slack and participate in meetings. I wouldn't really "work" as in write code, unt…

Was it worth it to have multiple jobs?

For me personally, yes. I had gone into debt from gambling and bad financial discipline. OE allowed me to pay off all my debt and put a down payment on a house. Watching "number go down" in rapid fashion was very rewarding, and I wasn't a very active person to begin with so I didn't miss out on as much as a regular person would, being holed up in an apartment for virtually the whole year. But towards the end it had an effect on me, it definitely wasn't sustainable.

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#413

Post by TheRealHB »

cmplxconjugate wrote: post #69
TheRealHB wrote: post #54

The Blinking LED, A simple Hack that still works for me after years: 1. Place a tiny LED (red or yellow) by the side of your monitor or virtually on the screen corner. Basically anywhere almost bordering your field of view. 2. Make it blink like a fast heartbeat (120-150 bpm) and gradually slowdown to around 60 bpm (or your slow heartbeat base). Make the slope approx 20 to 60 minutes (you can adjust the best rate by…

This should be a product.

Thanks for the complement,

I guess you would be a client (few comments)

I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.

Not my view for this one as it is a personal issue. I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like it does for me. Also I'm not basing it on anything scientific other than raw experimental data from 1.

I'm happy to share it here and FREE for everyone.

I run a tiny tiny tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#414

Post by TheRealHB »

ark4579 wrote: post #240
TheRealHB wrote: post #54

The Blinking LED, A simple Hack that still works for me after years: 1. Place a tiny LED (red or yellow) by the side of your monitor or virtually on the screen corner. Basically anywhere almost bordering your field of view. 2. Make it blink like a fast heartbeat (120-150 bpm) and gradually slowdown to around 60 bpm (or your slow heartbeat base). Make the slope approx 20 to 60 minutes (you can adjust the best rate by…

oh sh*t. here we go again. another IoT that I would love to start and then abandon for some reason knowing full well how fix it but not find the "time" to do it.

I Did't get this one...

It is not broken, it works, I just don't feel it should be a commercial product as I'm not comfortable in claiming it can do what it does for me.

Happy to share FREE here,

; )

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#415

Post by tstrimple »

gosub100 wrote: post #269
slipperlobster wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that ADHD can manifest physically, mentally, or a combination of the two. I've been recently diagnosed with ADHD in my late 30s after finally seeing a psychiatrist, and at most my physical manifestation of it is minor fidgeting. Where it really burns me is not being able to dedicate brainpower for more than a few minutes at a time, unless I'm in one of my "focus" modes. Similarly, my brain constantly has multipl…

Did you have the inability to read books? I notice that I simply cannot focus on reading a book to save my life. I can read internet comments and articles all day though. If I try to read a book I get annoyed that they're "not making their point" fast enough, especially with fiction and visual descriptions of people and places. I used to just complain about it, but now I wonder if thats actually pinpointing something…

I can read novels I'm interested in. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, but DNF a LOT of books that I cannot get into. My wife cannot not finish a book. Doesn't matter how bad it is, if she starts it she will eventually make her way through the book. She may put it down for a while and read something else in between but she persists. Regardless, we both average a little over a book a week. The game changer for me was shifting from reading at night (often well into the morning) to switching to audiobooks that I can listen to while hauling kids around, working in the garage or doing chores. Now I can DNF audiobooks because the narrator pronounces a word weird.

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#416

Post by footy »

collegeburner wrote: post #336
atcalan wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately genuine ADHD is a physiological problem that requires stimulant therapy _and_ cognitive behavior therapy in conjunction. Your dopamine and/or acetylcholine receptors are out of whack. This is why coffee and cigarettes/vapes are so prevalent. Methylphenidate or dexamphetamine work best but you pay a price. Yes, I have real world executive function research lab experience, so I know a bit of what I'm talk…

Maybe you can provide some perspective here: it seems almost universal that people who start these medications never find a dose that provides durable benefit over the long term. Makes sense; we acclimate to a new dopamine baseline, right? Almost everyone I know ends up on a significantly higher dose than they started with. And the stories of feeling like a zombie when off meds are very real and pretty freaky.

I've been on meds for about four years now and I'm now on a (slightly) lower dose than I was for the first few months after I started.

The higher dose was better for my emotional regulation and my focus, but it made my body feel wired all the time.

The dose I am on now does provide significant benefits compared to not taking it, especially when combined with daily vigorous exercise (likely at least partially due to improved sleep).

But I've never been on Adderall and I've never been on an IR med and I'm a woman diagnosed in childhood and again in adulthood, so I'm an ADHD unicorn really.

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#418

Post by swozey »

greenie_beans wrote: post #344
swozey wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand it. My company is fully remote but they are absolutely horrendous at async comms. I was trying to walk someone through adding a docker build process to their CI and.... he just couldn't communicate/understand it through slack and he wanted to schedule a meeting. Great, now instead of being able to respond while working on other things I have to cut out an entire hour of my day just for you. Thanks.…

that's unfortunate, you have 20 years of experience but don't want to pair program or help out other developers.

I'm a Staff SRE. I literally mentor an entire SRE team every single day.

I didn't say a single thing about paired programming. Christ. Did I say that the dev wanted to pair program? No, I didn't. I would have happily hopped in a huddle with him as OPPOSED to scheduling a meeting 3 days later.

I am sick of meetings and people who are incapable of working async, especially when we're in different timezones, which is exactly what this thread I'm responding to is about.

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#419

Post by 93po »

Difwif wrote: post #323
93po wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike this post because medication is only a (meaningfully large part) of managing adhd. It’s not a magic pill that solves it and if the patient doesn’t have a holistic approach that includes mindfulness, exercise, diet, managing other mental health issues, and structure - then they’re still likely to fail. I’d encourage you to read more about adhd because a huge symptom of it is lack of long term perspective in…

I think you missed my point. I'm mostly talking about the litany of people on social media that believe they have ADHD without brain scans or any formal diagnosis. Almost everyone suffers from some lack of discipline and some mistake it for being neurodivergent. People with ADHD can also lack it. Your point of taking a holistic approach is correct and I wasn't trying to single out medication. People with ADHD don't g…

I'm not sure I like the word disciplined but I'm being pedantic. It takes tremendous effort, finding the right resources, and setting up structure to be successful. Which maybe is discipline? Idk

Re: Hacking ADHD: Strategies for the modern developer

#420

Post by TheRealHB »

gregsadetsky wrote: post #402
TheRealHB wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Here is what I did to my current v.3+ - Once it reaches the lowest rate, the LED goes off after a 30min timer set, it fades the light over that time under the same blinking rate. So I won't notice. - The Idea comes from desperation really, mostly curiosity on why sound beats from upbeat music had a effect to improve mood, i.e. work more at gym. Also the idea that your brain will take patterns and try to synch w…

Thanks, super interesting! There was research some time ago (jeez, 10 years ago...) [0] [1] that used video and... computer vision algorithms to detect a person's heart rate without any devices. Wondering if it could be used here i.e. use your webcam instead of an external hardware sensor? Other thing - would you be open to publishing/sharing your algorithm / esp32 code (on Github or as a blog article)? [0] https://n…

We use this approach of video heartbeat detection on a real product (recruiting tool) but not for my hack ADHD device,

You can't really do video detection it in real time and properly, without overheating the cheap device. On the SaaS we did we use a recorded segment of video so we can analyse it afterwards, check the colour changes in the face of the subject and try estimate heartbeat with loose accuracy. More like high, Normal, Low after taking a few seconds as base.

The idea of the ADHD device was just a cheap hack done in a day for myself.

Not a product or commercial as I don't feel claiming it can do to others what I looks like does to me.

Happy to share here FREE ; )

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