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Being a new developer and ADHD
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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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ADHD
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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.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this video
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Thanks for your advice! I kind of recognize when I'm on the mood, just it isn't enough sometimes.
I will check that video, thanks!
Yeah! Her channel is great overall, watching it definitely made me more aware of my brain, definitely recommend.
You actually reminded me of something else I do, I make a conscious effort to not compare myself directly to my peers because then I always feel like I am not working as hard as they are. I finally started doing this after like the 5th manager told me to stop working so hard and I realized the times that I would consider myself 50% productive I get more done than the average coworker does at 100% productive.
Now, I definitely don’t say that as a brag in any way. I am not a classic overachiever I don’t think, I think it just speaks to the way my brain is wired (and lots of ND folks!). I am definitely my own worst critic and I definitely let perfect be the enemy of good when I am building things, I have to keep reminding myself to stop it and that done is not the same thing as matching the “perfect” vision I have in my head.
Anyway, enough rambling from me!
Not officially diagnosed with ADD (on a waitlist though) but autistic, and I second that. I constantly feel like I'm too lazy and yet I got my current job through an internship. It was supposed to last three months and I got an of#er three weeks in, because they were so impressed with my willingness to perform.
I was very bewildered. I still have to remind myself of that when I feel like I'm not getting shit done because my mind refuses to cooperate. What I can convince myself of by now is that those moments are the productivity normal for most people and that even when I'm like that my productivity is high enough - especially because that is usually the moment when I look into things that are not the absolute core of my job.
I'm a test automation engineer, but people explicitly want me to not just automate, but also care for quality topics as a whole, so reading relevant blogs and security news and feeding that back into the team is part of my job.
Still often feel guilty about that, but my boss repeatedly told me I'm absolutely overachieving and fulfilling the job more than he hoped for.
For me, there's two takeaways:
This is sage advice right here, very well said.
To your point, every job interview I have I tell them that I like money but 11 times out of 10 boredom or micromanaging will make me leave faster than they can blink. For what it’s worth I also write a lot of automation code, mostly Python and Terraform these days.
OP, one more thing, if you enjoy programming already but it’s not interesting enough I would definitely look into a SRE or “DevOps” style role. Working on automation definitely keeps me interested because there is always a new problem to solve or handy tool to write. It is also very fulfilling because your job is to make other people faster so it feeds my people pleaser brain well too. Also, Some of the best DevOps/SRE/platform/whatever engineers I know are also the laziest people I know as well, so being lazy can be a strength haha!