Being a new developer and ADHD

Keep a list of tasks. I'm using Google Keep app for that, but a paper notepad and a pen will work as well.

It's not something groundbreaking, it will only help to keep your work organized, and you need to make a habit to look at your task list.

Came to your desk? Look at your task list, start working on rhe first item.

Phone call? Write it down into your task list and forget about whatever they wanted from you. Pick up the first task on your list, keep working on it.

Some coworker came to your desk and wants something done? Write it down to your task list as the second item from the top, show it to them that you will work on their request immediately after you finish your current task. Your direct manager gets the top spot in your list, everyone else will have to wait until you finish your current task, because working on two things in parallel will take you four times longer (if you finish it at all).

Need to replace the lightbulb in the room? After you finished that, you got the bright idea to buy brighter lightbulbs for every room. Stop. Write it down into your task list, somewhere near the end. Pick up the task on top of your list, and keep working on it.

That technique won't help with procrastination sadly.

I don't feel especially well poised to give advice here, because I'm still struggling with this, but maybe that's the point; increasingly, I think that my idea of what "coping well" means is false and unattainable, and that real progress involves a bit of self acceptance.

On that front, my advice would be that living with ADHD means learning what battles are worth fighting, and only you can figure out.

A friend of mine used to struggle with extended chunks of work of one kind, and she spent a long while trying to force herself to work with timers and stuff, but her actual productivity shot up when she gave herself a bunch of tasks to cycle between. She enjoyed breaking up work with household tasks like washing the pots, because it's simple, and has a defined end. Amusingly, sometimes she'd work at my place when we were students, and she'd tidy up for me and later say thank you for the opportunity.

One of my issues was I kept expecting myself to remember stuff when my short term memory is trash, even by ADHD standards. I got better at training myself to write stuff down, including sometimes asking for a break in the conversation to give me a chance to write it down so I don't forget. That was awkward at first, but it got easier, and most people were understanding - most people seemed to respond positively in fact, because it shows that you care about what's being discussed (certainly more positive than if I'd forgotten and incorrectly given them the impression that I didn't care)

I spent a long time trying out different apps and systems, because novelty seeking brain wanted a silver bullet to solve all the things. Sometimes I still fall into that trap, but nowadays I know that even the best todolist or calendar app in the world won't help if I don't use it. It's a me problem, and integration problem. Part of what helped me there was actually evaluating where my various systems kept going wrong. Like instead of calling myself lazy for not keeping things tidier, I made actual progress by buying a bunch of bins so that there's always one at hand. I stopped berating myself so much. Beating yourself up for not being able to do things is internalised ableism.

Medication helps a lot, but I found that there were a bunch of maladaptive coping measures I'd built up over the years that I had to unlearn once I had medication. And then when I had a period without medication, I found myself struggling more than ever. It's a combo approach, is what I'm saying. Don't expect yourself to function at the same level as you would if you were medicated.

What you describe reminds me a lot of about how untreated ADHD traps you on depression.

I think of my ADHD brain like a computer with three little cores (as opposed to one big core), shitloads of cache and barely any RAM.

Using three cores on the same thing is harder than using one core and the same is true for my brain. But if you do have something that works well with it, it works really well.

Lots of cache mean I can quickly pick up topics and do well with them as long as they fit the cache. If there's too much to fit in the cache, normal people can just put that into RAM and pick it back up later without problems.

But my lack of RAM means I can't keep a lot of tasks in my head that I'm not actively working on. And what does a computer do when it's out of RAM? That's right, it writes the RAM to a hard drive so it can pick it up later when it's needed. So I do the same thing. If there's a lot on my mind that isn't useful right now , I write it down and actively tell myself to forget it and trust the list.

If I don't do that, my RAM will get filled up very quickly and I get into this weird state of ADHD paralysis where I don't get anything done and feel stressed out about it.

Recognizing when that happens and using this simple tool has helped me a lot already. And it's important to take the 5 minutes to do this instead of trying to do your work if you see it isn't working.

Another thing that helps me a lot is tight deadlines. On stuff that should be be done yesterday, I usually have no trouble focusing. The same is true for prod being broken. I can drop everything and go full steam ahead for 4 hours straight when it happens. I used to just procrastinate until that happened and when I actually didn't have enough time to do it properly, I'd be able to focus.

Now that I found out about my ADHD, I'm trying to build myself a situation where this plays out to my favor instead of leading to super-stressed all-nighters. That means regularly (almost daily) talking to my boss about my tasks and having her set micro-deadlines. The important takeaway for me is that setting my own deadlines doesn't work. Like not at all. I need someone else to hold me accountable and it becomes easy.

One more thing that works well for me is pair programming. If I can explain what I'm doing to someone else or work on someone else's problem, time just flies. Even if it's just five minutes of walking around and helping people with little things, it gives me a lot of energy.

But I also don't work from home even though I could because having colleagues around me helps me focus, so I'm not sure if that would also help you.

I think I'm borderline ADD, but never felt the need to see a doctor. My personal workflow is to "assume I forget everything by tomorrow". Each day, assume that "tomorrow me" is a completely different person who has forgotten what I was doing today. This sounds debilitating, and probably is for normies who can rely upon their memory to keep them motivated on a daily basis. But ADD people cannot do this.

What's the solution?

You need to build and retain one key habit. Keep a notebook that contains the notes from yesterday (or even a few hours ago), that you can consult. While our memories / motivation suck, our habits are something you can reliably change.

It doesn't have to be a physical notebook, it might just be a notepad.txt file on your computer desktop. It might be a blog, it might be a word.doc file. Or in my case, it really is a physical notebook that I write into repeatedly and spend a decent bit of time rewriting important bits. (Note: tomorrow me isn't going to read more than 1 or 2 pages behind. This means I need to rewrite important data over-and-over again to where the bookmark is).

Yes, this means you effectively have a daily memory that consists of no more than 2 pages, maybe 3 pages (or whatever "tomorrow you" will reliably read). That's fine. Work with that. Build the habit and continuously reference the notebook. Write notes to yourself, future you, about what you were doing, where you've come from, words of encouragement. That's all you need, just one or two pages worth of "memory". Never shy away from rewriting important things. Always remember that you only have a 1 or 2 pages worth of attention at best, so rewriting is key to carrying memories / motivations over more than a day ago.

You still have to work on the habit though and you can fall off the habit if you get lazy. But habits are something easier to keep than actual memory or motivation in my experience.

I am not a developer by title but I do write a lot of code and the best thing I did for myself was learned to just work when my mind feels like it. I seem to get way more done when that is the case even with meds. I realize that is way easier to say than to do and it is even harder depending on your job but finding one that has this philosophy as well will make a world of difference.

That said, it hasn’t and still doesn’t doesn’t always work out that I get to work when my brain feels like it but I try to recognize the times it does and it and capitalize on those moments as much as I can and it has worked out pretty well. It was this video that really helped me learn to recognize when I had just built a wall of awful in my head and that has helped me find things that help get over those walls but there are definitely times when I just can’t work on a thing right now and I just do as much as I can, it’s still not fun.

I also cannot get actual work done in an office anymore, especially writing any code, and I don’t think I would take a job that required me to be in an office anymore so don’t feel like you are the odd one out there.

As for meds, they are definitely a game changer for me but I have always found that they give me the opportunity to focus and get to work on something but I still have to be the one that chooses what that is or my brain will randomly pick something and then I know how they make nuclear waste storage containers for some reason. My brain just loves interesting problems and refuses to do anything monotonous so I actively seek those problems out whenever I can to keep it entertained.

Hope that is useful, unfortunately there isn’t one silver bullet and you kind of have to reverse engineer your own brain so find what works for you.

Meds worked wonders for me, exercise also helps have a bit more energy.

The most important thing i wish i knew is that you’ll find something that works for you and it’ll be great, but it will eventually stop working for you. Thats ok, it’s a constant cycle where you’ll have to change your approach multiple times. Don’t get discouraged though, expect it and embrace it.

Meds made the difference for me. I would have liked a career as a dev, but wasn’t able to because I was undiagnosed and had no idea what was wrong. After my dx and starting meds (in my 40s), I’m finally able to sit down and read documentation and do the work. I hope that helps you.