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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

#81

Post by spit2wind »

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…

Rather than stream noise over the network, I've generated it locally with either Sox or Chuck. I've since lost the Chuck script, but this is one for Sox:

sox --no-show-progress -c 2 --null synth 3600 brownnoise band -n 1500 499 tremolo 0.05 43 reverb 19 bass -11 treble -1 vol 14dB fade q .01 repeat 9999

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

#82

Post by suzzer99 »

I don't necessarily need someone there all the time. But talking it out really helps when I need get over that hump and get going on some annoying problem.

I've also found it helps sometimes to have the TV on in the other room, on some mindless sports pundit show that I can half-listen to.

When I have some task I don't want to do, especially if it's something no one is expecting me to do right away but I still need to get it done, I go to Starbucks and don't leave until it's finished.

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

#83

Post by lionkor »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #69
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.

Everybody is different. When I visit the office sometimes, I do it to socialize and talk about things not related to work mainly. And then I get back to do the actual work. If I need to communicate with someone, I simply ask them for their time - they can get back to me whenever they are free. This system serves me and my coworkers well but it's obvious there are many people who prefer synchronous in-person communica…

I don't prefer the in-person communication personally, but I know it's more productive for me, so I do it and end up preferring it. The same way I prefer clean code; it makes my and the companies life easier. Makes more money. I'm German, and it's painfully obvious.

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

#84

Post by lionkor »

kristianp wrote: post #65
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…

What do you do about notifications from Slack/Emails/Teams messages?

Not OP, but it's good to turn them off for sessions of focus. They can, almost always, wait.

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

#86

Post by dcminter »

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…

Not ADHD (as far as I know), but I'm terribly prone to procrastination. I too find white noise helpful - I use and would recommemd an Android app called "A Soft Murmer" which lets you have rain noise and throws in a rumble of thunder etc. from time to time.

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

#87

Post by INTPenis »

This is super interesting. I can only speak anecdotally but my older brother has ADD and he has already spent 4-5 weeks writing a powershell script to automate a trivial task at work.

But whenever I visit he makes huge breakthroughs and I notice that he really wants me to come visit, and he asks me more and more questions on IM and shares his thoughts and progress.

He has a hard time coming out and saying what he feels but I'm observing that he works better with me present.

What's funny though is that I'm the absolute opposite. When someone is present and only slightly focused on what I'm doing, I act as if I have ADD.

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

#88

Post by szszrk »

suzzer99 wrote: post #76
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…

Working in an open office on cool stuff with legitimate friends was the best work experience I've ever had by far. Most days it didn't even feel like work. Now I wfh full time with people who are just coworkers and I'm miserable.

I feel a bit like that, when we in the team started to introduce agile practices. Corporate agile practices, of course.

And while some of those aspects are important and we sucked at it, we are also stripping away any relation we had with each other. Insight into what we really struggle with, releasing tension...

Twist is that it's driven by youngest team members and they love it, because that's what they did in past jobs. So we cut some meetings time, but now we have no idea what we are doing and need more meetings ;) Incentive to actually be on the same page dropped, we are becoming strangers.

I still struggle if I should keep trying to fix that or if it's just "going upstream" and will make me seen as problem maker.

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

#89

Post by asar »

Really interesting method. I've been calling a similar strategy the library effect. Whenever I work in an environment where other people are productive (or at least look productive) I can focus much better and get in the zone. It's now gotten to a point where I'm actively seeking desks with my screen exposed to the room, so people would be able to see me procrastinate, guilt tripping me to limit this sort of behavior.

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

#90

Post by deadbabe »

asar wrote: post #89

Really interesting method. I've been calling a similar strategy the library effect. Whenever I work in an environment where other people are productive (or at least look productive) I can focus much better and get in the zone. It's now gotten to a point where I'm actively seeking desks with my screen exposed to the room, so people would be able to see me procrastinate, guilt tripping me to limit this sort of behavior…

This used to work for me, but not anymore. The less I care about what other people think the more I don’t care about procrastinating even when they’re right next to me.
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