The idea that anyone should be able to sit down and focus for four hours on command is a dangerous myth. Any brain requires glucose to keep your br...
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Such an awesome post (and series)! While I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, I certainly can relate to a lot of this.
The lack of schedule is definitely one that I can get bent out of shape about. I try to form a schedule but really really find it hard to keep up with it. Just hearing you talk through your methods for embracing made me feel a bit better about it — I'm not alone, haha! 😅
I also have to be pretty careful about my music choice and frequently find myself tuning into lofi beats or more recently experimental ambient music/beats... I really like stuff without lyrics and that doesn't have a distracting pattern about it. I also find that the ambient music helps to relieve some of my anxiety.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading more entries in your series! Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
Great series Abbey! I also have been diagnosed with ADHD recently and while on therapy one thing that was clear was that I'm always putting way too much pressure on myself to do things I want to do, while not celebrating what I do accomplish. So your point about celebrating things we've done hit right home.
To help me with this I've built TinyWins so that I have somewhere to input anything I want to celebrate whenever I do that thing. It's a fairly simple app but I've found it to really help me give my brain some positive feedback like you said.
I'm planning on building more apps like that in my free time to help our neurodivergent brains with more positivity. I feel like the vast majority of the apps, specially productivity apps, were built for neurotypical brains and they're often too overwhelming at least for me personally. Whenever I build something I feel that is helping me, I'll be putting it out there in hopes it might also help some of our fellow neurodivergent folks with the same struggles.
Looking forward to reading more from you Abbey, keep it up.
I'm very similar and this app so great! Looking forward to seeing what else you build!
Hello Abbey,
I would like to thank you a lot for making this series.
I was diagnosed with ADHD a couple of weeks ago on a adult age and I felt it really helpful and even healing to read this information from the POV you are reaching it out.
I will definitely share this post with some of my friends that could be really helpful too.
Again thank you very much for writing this! ❤️
Good tips and advices Abbey!
I always pivot my attention when working on something 🥲 as I always think that, I have times to finish the task hahah
will try do as your advices. :)
Looking forward to reading more its so engrossing.
Amazing article
"I'm still trying to internalize that I do not need to be productive to earn rest."
This line definitely shook me. I didn't even realize I legit behave this way until I saw it in writing. Rather than seeing rest as a requirement to function…I've literally become conditioned that it's something I don't deserve because I haven't accomplished what I said I wanted or needed to do. An insane shame spiral manifests which has sometimes left me with little to no rest over the course of several days.
I gotta do better.
I had a mini hearth attack when I saw the title, I was thinking that you couldn't keep going with this series.
It's very encouraging and awesome see someone write about this that to many people couln't seem too much, but it is. Thank you very much!
Oh my god , this is it actually... obviously I'm late diagnosed as well.
obviously I've been trying to self improve during the 20year old to 30 year old with building habits... I should've realized way earlier just from brushing teeth and washing my face its a hit or miss.
.
It's funny because those habits building books tell me I should link one new habit to like after brushing my teeth.
.
(hobbyist coder but never built anything significant other than small tools for my non IT related job, but now at age 30 I'm will to dabble with real programming stuff for freelancing)
I like the series, but did you anyhow touched on how (personally for me) I can't seem to stick to one sub field, like i would go from gamedev,reverse engineering,hacking,webdev,mobile app dev etc then cycle all of them whenever I got distracted or I feel some concept is hard.
.
I just know like 10% of each of those field.
I just want to be able to be some what good in a field to do freelancing.
I'm still trying, currently I just want to force my self to learn webdev via building and understanding project. I really hate something like FreeCodeCamp, it doesn't seem to give me to dopamine somehow compared to if i just dive into a project then learn on the way. This is how I'm trying do it right now. and currently using ChatGPT to outline stuff I need to keep track of.
Any tips?
First of all this is a great article, being a developer and student I do not study such long things but this article grab my attention from the starting. So this is a article from my side is a great article.
Yes, you are right in the point of putting some background music for being productive from the task you are currently doing. As you said you use music, in my case I do the openings of my favourite TV show which is "The Office".
And yes, it is also true that the each person has its own productivity hours, as being a student, I have two kind of working zones, the first one is in the morning from 09:00 AM - 1:00 PM, which I use for the study purpose. And Late in the night around 10:00 PM - 1:00 AM for the coding or self learning things.
I will agree most of the points of this article as well. Thank you for writing such great and awesome content for helping persons like me and many others.
Interesting, I’m primarly inattentive but I’ve noticed that energetic music (heavy metal, electronic) helps me write code. Even vocals are file — it feels like they are on a different channel from coding.
I feel the same during meetings and online meetings are worse — I end up constantly switching between tabs and apps. This is probably one of the very few things that was somewhat better in the office than when working from home.
Another thing is that going for a walk was also much simpler when I was working in the office (well, anything to avoid actual work!)…
Abbey, thank you for your advice and tips!
I always shift my focus when working on something because I always believe that I have enough time to complete the task hahah will try to follow your advice.:)
drift-boss.io
Feel free to explore our tailored ADHD tools for adults at FocusBox.io — they might just be the ally you're looking for in your coding journey. #YouGotThis #FocusBoxSupport #ADHDandCoding
Thank you for posting this! It hit home with me 100x!!!
I can reate myself, I guess I have ADHD!