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Being a new developer and ADHD
(lemmy.zip)
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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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ADHD
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A casual community for people with ADHD
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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 love the RAM analogy! I relate completely, and I've used that analogy in the past.
I have SO MUCH random bits of information in my "Hard Drive" but if we haven't been talking about it within the past ten minutes, you're going to have to wait for it to load. ๐
I'm reading these responses again and let me tell you that writing tthings down has helped me a ton!
Also, that computer analogy was really nice. Thanks to take time and help me (and anyone that arrives to this post!)
No problem. I was planning on giving one or two pieces of advice when I started writing that but half way through realized it was a nice way for me to organize my thoughts and I kept going and it turned into an essay.
And it's happening again, so I'll elaborate: Having conversations and actually wording things to other people instead of having unclear thoughts running through your head is great. I often see people saying stupid shit and start typing a reply, but then I start seeing their point or realize that their opinion is so far away from mine that I can't find any common ground to argue on and delete my half-written comment. I used to think I was just wasting time on the internet, but I'm starting to realize that the act of writing it down was putting order into the mess in my head.