I have ADHD and feel very lucky to find programming so fun/interesting/engaging — if I didn’t love the job I wouldn’t be able to do it.
I have about equal problems with under focus in areas outside programming like project management compared to problems with hyper focus when programming. I often end up so focused when programming that I won’t notice people talking to me until they wave a hand in front of my face. I really like Tandem (free app) for a single feature: it will auto-join Zoom meetings on your calendar, and it pops up a BIG bar at the top of your screen about 2 minutes before that slowly counts down. It’s about the only thing I’ve found that gets me into a meeting on the dot instead of 1-2 minutes late.
To deal with project management shenanigans like tasking, backlog grooming, prioritization on projects I run, I find it really helpful to “force the issue” by doing a quick 15 minute collaborate re-prioritization session with my project group before any bigger whole team meetings. That’s been a lightweight way to “partner with more organized teammates” without someone turning into my perpetual minder. This is an area where medication helps me too; I really needed medication to get through most of college, but didn’t need it at all to advance from newgrad to senior at Airbnb. As the scope of my work continues to expand and project management becomes a larger part of my role, I’m resuming that part of my treatment.
The other killer tool for me has been Notion (disclaimer: I decided to work at Notion after realizing how much it helped me). I used to “lose” a lot more work items when I needed to track them in JIRA; often I gave up waiting for it to load or struggling with the IT department locking down things like bulk changing issues. Being able to write up issues, brainstorm them, and then make fine grained checklists all in one place works a lot better for me then juggling JIRA and Confluence. The same goes for personal life tasks like tracking a job search, shopping for furniture, or indexing home contractors.
I suspect I have adhd and am getting tested in late jan. One key thing I’ve noticed is that if I like something, I can stay attentive, with breaks, for 10+hours at a time. When I hate something, it’s difficult to even sit for an hour. Is this in line with your experiences?
The thing that really clicked for me and lead to me getting my own diagnosis was this: a lot of the way in which we talk about ADHD is from the perspective of those around the person, rather than the person itself. I never really identified with the typical way ADHD is talked about. Attention deficit? I don't have an attention deficit, I can pay way too much attention, and often am, at the wrong thing, and cannot redirect it to what is actually important. Same thing, but two different perspectives. It may seem like I can't focus to an outside observer, but that's not how I experience it at all.
> a lot of the way in which we talk about ADHD is from the perspective of those around the person, rather than the person itself.
This is something that I've been very frustrated with recently, because it's really spot on. A lot of that is because it's a neurodevelopmental disorder, so most people that identify it are parents/teachers/caretakers doing so in children. And so the material is targeted at them.
I feel like it's only been relatively recently that there's becoming more resources available aimed at the people that have it. The disconnect between the experience of those behaviors and how those behaviors may be perceived is...quite large.
re: attention deficit -- it's a horrible term because as you note, there's not always a deficit. The real issue behind it is that there's an inability to regulate attention...so if the brain wants to engage with something, that's what it's doing. likewise if the brain doesn't see any value in something...it'll go to great lengths to avoid it like the boring plague that it is.
Focusing on things you like and procrastinating or finding distractions from things you don't isn't itself adhd. It's that, taken to an extreme that impacts your ability to function socially and/or professionally, along with a full awareness of it and an inability to adjust. There are other behaviors, which all taken together are what determine a diagnosis.
Nail on the head for ADHD hyperfocus. Studying for exams in university I could easily go for 10 straight hours, forgetting to eat in the interim, if I found the course enjoyable.
I thought I'd love Notion at first in my new company after several years and several companies all using Confluence and Jira. But I miss Confluence, Jira less. I've encountered a common sentiment that Notion doesn't scale well because of it's lack of ridge structure and document/page hierarchy.
I have about equal problems with under focus in areas outside programming like project management compared to problems with hyper focus when programming. I often end up so focused when programming that I won’t notice people talking to me until they wave a hand in front of my face. I really like Tandem (free app) for a single feature: it will auto-join Zoom meetings on your calendar, and it pops up a BIG bar at the top of your screen about 2 minutes before that slowly counts down. It’s about the only thing I’ve found that gets me into a meeting on the dot instead of 1-2 minutes late.
To deal with project management shenanigans like tasking, backlog grooming, prioritization on projects I run, I find it really helpful to “force the issue” by doing a quick 15 minute collaborate re-prioritization session with my project group before any bigger whole team meetings. That’s been a lightweight way to “partner with more organized teammates” without someone turning into my perpetual minder. This is an area where medication helps me too; I really needed medication to get through most of college, but didn’t need it at all to advance from newgrad to senior at Airbnb. As the scope of my work continues to expand and project management becomes a larger part of my role, I’m resuming that part of my treatment.
The other killer tool for me has been Notion (disclaimer: I decided to work at Notion after realizing how much it helped me). I used to “lose” a lot more work items when I needed to track them in JIRA; often I gave up waiting for it to load or struggling with the IT department locking down things like bulk changing issues. Being able to write up issues, brainstorm them, and then make fine grained checklists all in one place works a lot better for me then juggling JIRA and Confluence. The same goes for personal life tasks like tracking a job search, shopping for furniture, or indexing home contractors.