What are strategies for achieving consistent productivity with adhd?
Posted by wsrq@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 44 comments
I have fairly regular bouts of attention deficit filled with youtube, games, in-depth research of mostly useless things. These episodes could last a couple of weeks. After that I typically have a couple of weeks of productive work - working much longer hours that I should, researching useful things, pushing work project forward and over-delivering. For every two inattentive weeks I typically get a one week over attentive time. I work with smart people of challenging things but this hasn't impacted my career - I still get good reviews as my output during productive weeks (barely) compensates for the non-productive weeks. This isn't a question on how to survive my 9-5 but how to achieve top performance. I've been diagnosed with adhd and would like to try alternatives to drugs.
riksi@reddit
For alternative to drugs try keto diet for children with epilepsy (blood tests GKI 1-2). It helps me but not as much as Concerta, I do both.
OkWealth5939@reddit
amphetamines
but_why_n0t@reddit
Meds
NormalUserThirty@reddit
my 2c; try drugs if you havent. if you dont like them, stop taking them. they have a short half-life.
in my case, all the exercise, sleep and meditation in the world cant match the effect of my medication. imo, your choice is to see what your top performance looks like, or to live drug free. theres a reason why so many pro athletes are doping or pseudo doping, its because they want to be the best they can be.
life is too hard with adhd to have it all.
JuliusDelta@reddit
Same here. After years of struggling and being affected by a layoff… when I got new job, I got really worried about my ability to focus affecting my performance so I visited a psychologist and we talked it out first. Long story short I always thought drugs were a cop out and he helped me understand that’s not the case at all and explained to me how meds help. After a couple sessions he referred me to a psychiatrist, who agreed with the psychologist assessment of ADHD and prescribed me meds.
Changed. My. Life.
I became way more productive and as a result, more confident in my job. It gave me peace of mind AFTER work, allowing me to disconnect from work when I’m off and be more present with my wife and kids.
Definitely recommend seeing a professional and if you and them agree, taking meds.
I wish I had gotten diagnosed earlier in my life.
i_exaggerated@reddit
Looking at my gitlab profile at work, there are two remarkable jumps:
1) Starting wellbutrin as a stopgap until getting evaluated
2) Got evaluated, diagnosed, and started medication
It's honestly night and day.
FormatException@reddit
I used to take Adderall, and I am finding that I really need to get back on medication to do my job.
As a 36-year-old single father of two boys, I'm thinking that I might try Wellbutrin this time around, because I don't want the Adderall to affect my mood and behavior with my kids.
How is Wellbutrin?
doberdevil@reddit
A long time ago I used wellbutrin to quit smoking. Once I took it for that it became clear that I needed it for other reasons.
FormatException@reddit
Can you elaborate on the realization you had please?
Better executive functioning?
doberdevil@reddit
This was a loooong time ago, almost 20 years. And I was unaware of the other uses for welbutrin at that time. So details are murky.
Elevated mood, essentially it was an anti-depressant. I hadn't been diagnosed with anything at that time, and my focus was to quit smoking. So I didn't think too much about it. I likely attributed the better mood as a side effect of breaking an addiction.
So the realization about my elevated mood actually came a few years later when discussing it as an anti-depressant option with my doctor. That's when it clicked for me.
I did start taking it again, along with another medication for adhd. So unfortunately I cannot describe how it would be for adhd alone. If you have more questions, feel free to DM me.
i_exaggerated@reddit
It’s pretty subtle, definitely not like a stimulant. They prescribed it because there are few side effects and drug interactions, so it was a pretty safe bet. I don’t particularly notice a difference each day, but overall my mood stabilized. It takes a few weeks to take effect.
kareesi@reddit
+1 to this. Once I started taking medication I got a sudden influx of positive comments and compliments on my work performance, and got promoted soon after. It really does make all the difference in the world.
Acceptable_Durian868@reddit
Yeah I tried everything for years, then drugs worked.
Phobokin_Chicken@reddit
Yep, I tried for years to cope before I was diagnosed. I was actually abusing weed to help deal with the ADHD symptoms. Found out people who perform better on weed can have undiagnosed ADHD, talked to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed very quickly. Started a non-stimulant and my focus and productivity has been night and day. I don’t smoke weed at all anymore or even have the desire to (which is nuts to me compared to before) and I am also have improved dramatically for stuff outside of work. Point being, it’s worth exploring your options for meds because they really can help and they don’t need to be stims if you’re worried about that.
cervical_ribs@reddit
Yep, ADHD is basically the most treatable psychiatric condition because it responds so well to meds for most people. The top ADHD expert (Dr Russell Barkley) is a huge advocate for meds because they tend to have a greater therapeutic effect than all other treatments + enable the therapeutic effect of other treatments. Much easier to get your life in order to exercise regularly, benefit from therapy, break phone habits, etc once some of the chemical imbalance is ameliorated.
Synyster328@reddit
Same. There's a stigma but from who? Judgy boomers who were raised sniffing lead paint and chain-smoking in their living room?
Anyone who's had their life changed from medication will agree that it's something worth exploring with your doctor.
Sucks to find out as an adult that you've been playing on hard mode the whole time, I just see the meds as a way to bump it back to normal.
riplikash@reddit
So I have ADHD and autism and have had a lot of success in my career running teams and departments with an openly neurodivergent friendly culture. Lots of devs who survived based on having hyper focusing for a couple days making up for not being able to focus much for the past week or two.
I big thing that's helped as a department, which is tough to do as a single developer, is create an environment where people can be open about it. Which helps, but I think the big reasons it helps are because it empowers some of the other strategies (as well as keeping stress down). But some of these strategies definitely are aided by having a level of openness. I will say that I became a lot more successful as an IC when I became more open about my ADHD and autism, though I know not everyone feels that way. I just needed to present it as a potential weakness I had turned into a strength, and present the cons as linked to the pros. Because I'm a great dev and manager, and my ADHD is absolutely related to that.
Planning out the day is a big one. As a department we use daily standup not as a reporting meeting, but as a planning meeting for what we're going to do for the day. Not "I'm working on this story" but "I'm planning on working on these specific pieces, I've got these meetings, I had some executive dysfunction would like to pair, I am going to reach out to X to get some info". We go through the teams priorities first then go through individual plans at the end.
Pairing, body doubling, and swarming have all been very helpful, and is one reason openness was very important. Body doubling in particular is always a go to. 30m of programming on a shared call with someone is often enough to get peoples minds to engage with a problem, and then it's off to the races. I also use that tactic for home stuff, whether it be my kids doing homework, or my wife. We're shadowing this morning to get through some "backlog" items that we've been having a hard time forcing yourself to tackle (setting up some needed appointments, arranging repairs, submitting expense reports, submitting rebates, etc.)
Swapping tasks has been useful (again, both in personal life and professional). Just recognizing when a brain is rebelling and asking to swap with someone else.
Deadlines can be effective, as most people with ADHD find, but they also build stress. I try and set mini deadlines with people and am open about the big picture stresses about what's going on, and that seems to help. Context about why something is important seems to work better than just saying "this is due by X".
For me getting started on things first thing in the morning has always been big. If I have important programming tasks I NEED to get through (very rare these days, sadly) I often keep my work laptop right next to my bed, wake up, and just get started.
Surprisingly, as a team lead, engineering manager, and now director, my ADHD had been less of a concern. People constantly need my attention and help, and that naturally works with my ADHD. I always seem to hyperfocus when I'm helping others and actively discussing ideas.
It's turned out I have to make sure I'm actually running many meetings to pay attention, sadly. I still get distracted too easily if I'm not actively involved. But, again, I'm lucky that I can just be open about it.
I'll say again, I think you might be surprised at how open you can be about it. You have to judge your audience, of course. But LOTS of developers experience this. And lots of managers really do WANT to be supportive if they are given the chance.
Hope that's somewhat helpful.
kareesi@reddit
I’m not OP but wanted to say that I’ve seen you comment several times on ADHD related posts in this subreddit and I learn something from you every time — thank you for taking the time to write out such thoughtful responses!
riplikash@reddit
Thanks. Glad it's helpful to someone. :)
Nemosaurus@reddit
15 yoe as a software dev. Diagnosed 6 years before I started working. Here is my advice
Don’t burn yourself out.
You get stoked and go balls into something for weeks and burn yourself out and consume to recover.
You don’t notice until you’re burnt out and wonder why you can’t just [do thing]. The secret is having restraint when diving into something. Hold back and let it last longer. You can’t completely stop the cycles but you can decrease frequency and amplitude.
kareesi@reddit
I came to this thread to say this and I wish I could upvote this many times.
I have been burned by this over and over in my personal life, and I have had to take great care to curb it at work because there is a lot more risk and potential repercussions than there are for dropping a hobby at a whim.
I like the metaphor of driving: if I go from 0 to 80mph by flooring the gas, then it will feel much more jarring than a gentle acceleration. If I’m going 80mph, then slamming the break will feel much more jarring than gently applying pressure to the breaks over a longer distance to go from 80 to 0. In the short term, I might go a long distance quickly, but in the longer term, this isn’t good for my car.
A gentler acceleration and deceleration of interest makes transitions much easier and helps me avoid burnout, and results in more consistent work output. I do that by exercising restraint when I can tell I am strongly interested in a topic or project at work. I also build time into my estimates (when possible) to account for the longer transition time.
This is something I’ve worked on a lot in therapy over the years to moderate success. Medication makes taking the small day-to-day actions (like logging off at a reasonable time and not working late, or not taking on more work than I can handle bc of interest) possible.
Synyster328@reddit
Check out r/ADHD_Programmers, they'll have advice for you.
I was diagnosed last October and went on a non-stimulant medication. It completely leveled me out and gave me control over the thoughts popping into my head.
I feel like I've transcended in a way as a developer, because there's no more struggle to fend off those unproductive phases. I'm like a train on tracks, consistently now for over a year, just in a nearly flow state for at least 6 hours a day.
stuff2careabout@reddit
What were you prescribed? and was it your choice to go non-stimulant?
ValentineBlacker@reddit
Strattera also worked well for me.
Synyster328@reddit
Strattera. I was having some heart concerns at the time and the Dr. didn't want me to push that with stimulants unless I knew there was no issue there. It turned out to just be frequent severe panic attacks that the Strattera completely cleared as well. But since it helped so much with the ADHD and made me feel like a rockstar at my job, I never pursued stimulants.
NoOrdinaryBees@reddit
As Ned Hallowell put it (paraphrasing), trying to manage ADHD with skills alone before going on meds is like treating your shortsightedness by squinting for a couple years before you get glasses.
dnbxna@reddit
I was diagnosed as a kid and chose to come off medication because the dosage was so high. I'm older now where I just want things to be easier. Any kind of medication to treat adhd makes me feel like I'm autopilot, but it's the only way I can even function as a person some days. I've spent enough time to know that with proper sleep, eating and exercise I can beat adhd. I was able to sustain that fairly well in 2022, billed over 2k hours and had a great year. Eventually we fall off and it has been difficult to recapture it since, thinking long-term - just get on medication. I've been trying to for a while now, on top of other things...
Awric@reddit
Find ways to apply something you recently learned. Take advantage of recency bias while keeping it focused on relevant tasks.
Admirable-Opposite90@reddit
OP try https://github.com/Breus/json-masker
i_exaggerated@reddit
Is this a joke I'm not getting
pydry@reddit
Pairing
malln1nja@reddit
didn't work for me at all
pydry@reddit
What happened when you tried it?
Did you trust the person you were pairing with?
malln1nja@reddit
As the observer: it's like being forced to listen to a slow talker for long periods of time.
As the driver: the extra effort to explain what I'm doing while coding is exhausting.
In general: my brain needs to take mini breaks to think about the problem frequently.
SusheeMonster@reddit
My Bluetooth connection sucks 😔
Deleugpn@reddit
I like drugs. Very effective.
ventilazer@reddit
cold turkey blocker can block websites, it helps a lot
AntonGw1p@reddit
I think this is normal for a lot of developers, not just those with ADHD. Routine, sleep, exercise, those sorts of things help. In my experience, for many work environments, some intense weeks and some off weeks actually works out pretty well.
pure-o-hellmare@reddit
Good habits. Eat well. Sleep well. Get exercise.
What I can’t or shouldn’t do now goes onto the todo list. Everything from the dishes, to research that thing, to watch that funny video. I happily delete things from the todo list, but I check it at the end of my shift.
I like pair programming, but most of the time I use logseq to write my thoughts and what I did and what the result was as I go along. It keeps me engaged. It lets me put thoughts into the log to come back to so I can keep tugging on the thread I’m meant to.
Allow yourself breaks, but to get up and walk around, not to do youtube
EirikurErnir@reddit
"Productivity" is too broad, so the best recommendation I can give right away is to get a clearer picture of what success would look like. For example, the action points would be very different if you're zoning out while coding or in meetings, or if you have an issue with task and time management
This is a good topic for a mental health professional who can go into more detail than Reddit, this is not just some generic ADHD problem. And issues along the lines of "this is affecting my performance at work" are often directly addressable.
positivelymonkey@reddit
Consistent sleep.
Still working on it.
Glass_Party_9818@reddit
I highly recommend checking out Rian Doris’s channel, especially his video about Dopamine Detox. I know this topic has been covered in a lot of video essays, but his scientific approach to explain it makes it really interesting.
One change I made after watching him is blocking all social media apps in the morning and not picking up my phone during breaks. Instead, I just stare at the wall or close my eyes. This helps lower my mind’s need for constant excitement, which makes me more eager to get back to my tasks.
Before, I would usually scroll through TikTok or Twitter during breaks. I thought that is what I need to get some reward after doing a minuscule of effort, and coming back to my work felt really painful after that that I end up procrastinating the whole day.
trying-to-contribute@reddit
I spend a bit of time in the beginning of the day just mapping how the day is going to go, so I don't really have to think about what I have to do. I make a schedule and I follow it without thought.
I do mindfulness practices, especially meditation. I can now sometimes catch my mind wandering, so I can correct myself before I lose a few hours from a break that I never came back from.
My depression is correlated with my unproductive adhd episodes. The more 'purpose' I have in my day, the less likely I am to drift. I do drugs for my depression, and it has kept the worst parts of my depression in check. Now I don't spend nearly as much time delving into wanton escapism.
I had a full year of DBT to develop techniques that quelled some of my worst social tendencies. Some of those techniques have been helpful towards ADHD as well.
EatDirty@reddit
I’m also curious about this topic as I also got diagnosed with adhd recently 👀