[HN Gopher] Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with S...
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Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore -
advice?
10 months ago, I started to work at a company that uses Slack
heavily. They have 1000+ channels and my team is tagged in a lot of
stuff so I get a lot of notifications. I can't concentrate at all.
It's not like it's annoying, I simply cannot work. I have been
spending 10x more energy since I started to just keep above the
water but now, after 10 months, I'm simply drowning and my tickets
are all piling up. I don't want to be that person that's not
reachable but more and more, I'm thinking about closing Slack and
opening it 2-3x a day. Any advice?
Author : throwaway91021
Score : 65 points
Date : 2022-12-16 12:04 UTC (10 hours ago)
| nicolaslem wrote:
| > I don't want to be that person that's not reachable but more
| and more, I'm thinking about closing Slack and opening it 2-3x a
| day.
|
| Looks like you already know the way forward, tell your team that
| you will be checking slack regularly but on your own schedule. If
| they protest, tell them to grab a copy of Deep Work by Cal
| Newport.
| jimmywetnips wrote:
| Can you get used to just not checking things? disable the counter
| and notification icon on slack? I would have 20k unread emails
| just because the vast majority are not important at all. People
| lost their minds when they saw that and I reealized that it
| wasn't normal. I just did good work so I got away with a lot and
| my manager definitely gave me cover and reminded me of very
| important things. ofc that depends on having a solid manager
|
| Same with slack messages. If it's not super important I learned
| to just not pay attention to it or get to it when I have nothing
| going on.
|
| I know you already did this but I aggressively leave slack
| channels, especially the "fun" ones. I can see plenty of cats and
| boomer memes on the open internet, and showing up in the office
| once in a while pays way more social interaction dividends than
| the cheap virtual interactions on fun slack channels.
| Nihilartikel wrote:
| I'm not diagnosed with ADHD, but Slack's notification noises
| trigger a visceral fight-or-flight response in me. Not PTSD
| surely, but in that spectrum.
|
| This was from an early stage startup experience with 10 hour
| timezone deltas, and never-not being on call for some crucial
| infrastructure.
|
| The sounds still evoke the dread,annoyance, and simmering
| resentment that accompanied a 4AM slack ping with the CTO just
| saying "Hey"
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| >The sounds still evoke the dread,annoyance, and simmering
| resentment that accompanied a 4AM slack ping with the CTO just
| saying "Hey"
|
| You're such a good writer! Goddamn, you gave me the chills just
| with this line.
| trynewideas wrote:
| At a previous company I had a very similar problem, and
| eventually converted an old SIM-less phone into my Slack device
| and mounted it in a stand on my desk. (Slack was not deemed a
| sensitive company app that had to run on company devices, which
| considering the access to customer channels and prod-affecting
| chatops features seemed stupid, but I'm not IT.)
|
| I could physically turn Slack off by turning the phone off, and
| the only other way to get through to me was async, via email or
| in tickets.
|
| A coworker I trusted had my personal cell number and texted me
| when something was actually urgent, which happened twice in 6
| months.
| trynewideas wrote:
| Also I'd really strongly suggest that you push your company
| away from a team @ alias and toward a team channel. The only
| groups that should have an @ alias that punches through
| notification settings are on-call, and if your role IS on-call
| then no amount of Slack changes will reduce interrupts.
| throwaway91021 wrote:
| People create one @ alias per team and also many others for
| subteams or temporary project teams, etc. There is one for
| oncall too. Every time one of those aliases gets tagged, I
| get a notification, an orange counter or sometimes messages
| from Slackbot asks me to join the channels.
|
| *> punches through notification settings
|
| I'd like to specify which aliases should not be ignored but I
| can't in Slack, unless I'm missing something.
|
| Also, disabling the oragen counter is not possible (even for
| muted channels).
| capableweb wrote:
| It's a common problem, probably most common name for it is
| "information overload". There is a new skill needed today where
| you need to find ways of dealing with the "signal vs noise"
| problem. There is just so much information that if you try to
| take in everything, you'll be overloaded. Instead, you need to
| figure out some way of filtering incoming information so more
| "signal" than "noise" gets through to you. I'm sure having ADHD
| makes this a lot harder too.
|
| Rather than giving you some specific advice, best advice I have
| for you is to lookup existing resources that deal with
| "information overload", try searching for that on your favorite
| search engine.
|
| In the past, there been a lot of threads on HN as well with good
| advice that you can browse through, probably you'll find at least
| one idea that can help you a bit. Here is an example search for
| "Ask HN information overload" sorted by score:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| [deleted]
| danwee wrote:
| > I don't want to be that person that's not reachable but more
| and more, I'm thinking about closing Slack and opening it 2-3x a
| day.
|
| What's wrong with that? That's how many people work with Slack
| (myself included). I don't answer whenever someone asks me
| something; I answer in a specific allocated timeslot during the
| day (2 to be precise: the very first thing in the morning, and 2h
| before finishing my day)
| gRoberts84 wrote:
| I set my notifications to "Direct messages, mentioned &
| keywords".
|
| This way, you can keep it open and dip into whatever you need to
| but you'll not be swamped with millions of notifications.
|
| I'd also go through all channels etc and mute or leave channels
| you're not actually required in any more.
| throwaway91021 wrote:
| I have it set to "Nothing" but whenever I have the window open,
| I can see the orange notification conter popping up on several
| channels (even if I mute them).
|
| I tried leaving channels but I get invited back whenever people
| tag my team, so I gave up and muted all of them (but still get
| the notification counter, which makes muting useless for me).
|
| EDIT: Whenever someone tags my team, the little Slack icon on
| the tray bar goes red... and I don't know if that's a direct
| message (usually important) or someone tagging my team just
| "fyi". I have to check it always.
| mxvanzant wrote:
| I think your idea of limiting Slack is great. You can provide an
| alternative to be reachable for emergencies if needed.
|
| In addition in my reading, I've come across some helpful
| nutritional approaches and these were news to me:
|
| http://doctoryourself.com/hoffer_ABC.html
| http://doctoryourself.com/adhd.html
|
| (These articles are geared towards parents with ADHD kids, but
| applies to adults also.)
| hacknewslogin wrote:
| I'm getting a lot of red flags from this website. It reads like
| a marketing campaign to sell the writers books and vitamins.
| All of the "evidence" is anecdotal. As someone who struggled
| with ADHD their whole life, it's demeaning to read. "Your kid
| has ADHD? Oh he just needs some niacin."
| canadianfella wrote:
| > I'm thinking about closing Slack and opening it 2-3x a day.
|
| Do that.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Consider medication if you haven't already. You don't have to
| take amphetamines, there are drugs like guanfacine that isn't a
| stimulant at all, and bupropion that is a weak stimulant used for
| depression that also works for ADD/ADHD. Bupropion helped me a
| lot with concentration.
| dahdum wrote:
| I started using 4 virtual desktops to manage distractions many
| years ago and it's worked wonderfully for me.
|
| Desktop 1 is for chat, email, Spotify, and general web browsing.
|
| Desktop 2 is for software development only, nowadays VSCode. A
| separate browser profile is used here and only for development
| related browsing (docs, stack overflow, live testing).
|
| Desktop 3 is data and system administration. Remote terminals,
| Excel, database clients, and similar go here.
|
| Desktop 4 is a catch-all. I use it for infrequent activity, like
| the occasional Photoshop, Word or vendor tooling.
|
| I've used this same setup on Windows, OSX, and Linux for 15+
| years. I always setup Alt-1,2,3,4 to switch and tweak the OS to
| remove all animations so it switches instantly.
|
| I've found it much easier to stay in the zone this way.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Similar here. I've blocked all distractions in ublock on my dev
| and general browsers.
|
| Stage manager actually helps a lot
| NotPractical wrote:
| How do you remove the desktop-switching animation on macOS? I'd
| like to use the virtual desktops feature but the animation is
| unbearably slow, and I was unable to find a way to disable it
| online even after extensive searching.
| hartator wrote:
| > I don't want to be that person that's not reachable but more
| and more, I'm thinking about closing Slack and opening it 2-3x a
| day.
|
| This is fine.
|
| Quality answers every couple of hours are better appreciated then
| nonsense rapid spam.
| figeroll wrote:
| That sounds like an absolute nightmare.
|
| Is your management chain aware that you are diagnosed with ADHD?
| Staying off Slack should be considered a very reasonable
| accommodation for your condition. Perhaps go ahead and do it, but
| also tell them why, and how it will improve your productivity.
|
| Alternatively maybe it's time to look for a different job with a
| more appropriate working environment, one that doesn't lead to
| such stress. How have you found previous jobs, in terms of being
| able to focus?
| throwaway91021 wrote:
| _> Is your management chain aware that you are diagnosed with
| ADHD_
|
| No, and I don't think it will help, to be honest. They will
| just start paying even more attention to my work and decide
| it's not worth it.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| If you're in the US, I would request a formal reasonable
| accommodation from HR with your medical evidence. This
| establishes a paper trail in the event they attempt to
| terminate you due to your medical condition. My
| recommendation would be to codify the expectations around
| response time and Slack interactions in writing as the
| accommodation.
|
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-
| areas/employers/ac...
|
| https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/fact-sheet-disability-
| dis...
| nashashmi wrote:
| I would never do that. You get marked as someone who
| requires special accommodation. Adhd is one of those things
| that only come up every now and then.
| fragmede wrote:
| Yes, but then _you get special accommodation_.
| Accommodations that, y 'know, help you manage and deal
| with getting your work done.
| krageon wrote:
| Once you need to start worrying about paper trails, your
| life within the corporation will have become an utter
| nightmare. Sharing medical information with your employer
| should be an absolute last resort, which isn't where OP
| appears to find themselves (given that muting notifications
| and checking it every once in a while is on the table).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It sounds like OPs life is already an utter nightmare
| there. Can only go up after getting some relief.
|
| > I can't concentrate at all. It's not like it's
| annoying, I simply cannot work. I have been spending 10x
| more energy since I started to just keep above the water
| but now, after 10 months, I'm simply drowning and my
| tickets are all piling up.
|
| How depressing to think one shouldn't ask their employer
| for an accommodation for a legitimate medical condition
| after almost a year of suffering 8+ hours a day. More
| empathy please.
| fsociety wrote:
| Honest question, does this actually help? I avoid
| disclosing my ADHD now because others at work have either
| started to treat me like a drug addict, tried to help but
| have a ton of misconceptions about ADHD, or started to
| treat me like a child.
|
| The only positive responses have been from people who have
| it. But it doesn't help for workplace accommodations.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Yes, do exactly what you think you need to do. I've been staving
| off this from happening by making it very clear to my boss why my
| tickets are piling up, and why expecting me to check in on
| multiple threads for the possibility of me being needed on them
| is an incorrect expectation. I make it as clear as I can to
| people, that if they need my attention on something, tag me in a
| Jira comment or DM me. Communication is a part of my duties, but
| it should never require all of my energy.
|
| Now, of course, since my manager has shifted from being an
| engineer to climbing a management ladder, my needs make zero
| sense to him, and he thinks that since he can monitor 100s of
| channels concurrently and attend meetings literally all day every
| day, surely I should be able to do whatever his pet issue is that
| day. He also feels like checking in on the status of a ticket
| every fucking day is going to help me do it faster, but it's the
| way it is, the systems companies thoughtlessly adopt push us out.
| Ultimately, this is going to push and pull until I'll probably be
| underwater too long and either get fired or quit. So my advice is
| to figure out if you have any possibility of staying, and do what
| you feel you need to in protecting your sanity, until you leave.
|
| Do not try and fulfill this expectation. It's dumb and you're the
| wrong person for it. If it gets to a certain point, make it clear
| that they should hire someone else who's specifically good at
| that, if that's what they define the job to be.
| janosdebugs wrote:
| I work with a person who has ADHD and is also a fantastic
| colleague. After we first met the team structure changed in such
| a way that they were less confronted with most everybody in the
| department and more working in a more isolated environment. This
| person has flourished since, possibly as a result of this change.
|
| I don't know what size company you work in, but based on the
| super scientific sample size of 1, asking for a transfer to a
| more isolated team may help.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Slack has some pretty fine grained notification controls. You can
| set it up so only certain channels notify, or so that only direct
| mentions notify, or so that only dms notify.
|
| You can also just turn off notifications altogether. Explain to
| your colleagues that slack is keeping you from getting work done
| so you are going to turn off notifications. If you feel guilty
| give them a way to contact you if they truly need you
| immediately.
| Areading314 wrote:
| Pause notifications for 30 while you do pomodoros. Works well for
| me
| amelius wrote:
| I have the opposite problem. I concentrate so much that I forget
| to read my e-mails and other notifications, and people get angry
| with me.
| black_13 wrote:
| lynchdt wrote:
| I work mostly with Engineering teams, and consider slack inbound
| a pathology. Slack is great for collab in places, but it's not a
| strong way to manage inbound, IMO.
|
| The teams I'm responsible for make it easy for their stakeholder
| to raise issues, asks in a more deliberate, calmer way e.g. via
| GitHub issues or manager email. In exchange, we commit to
| mutually agreed response times on certain categories of business
| critical issues.
|
| Generally, I don't think it takes an ADHD diagnosis for slack
| inbound to completely kill your productivity, it's a general
| problem. I don't have ADHD but have strong empathy for how this
| must be a complete nightmare for you.
|
| Perhaps have a manager put some structure on your inbound on your
| behalf?
| Tagbert wrote:
| I'm curious about what you mean by "inbound". It sounds like
| messages from someone "outside" but not sure if that is
| probably a limited definition.
| devonbleak wrote:
| Inbound = something that requires a response/action. Could be
| an automated alert that creates a ticket, could be a slack
| message from someone asking for something.
|
| If you're not great with it every message can feel like an
| inbound and you're compelled to go cycle through all the
| channels and read everything whether it's immediately
| relevant or not.
| davzie wrote:
| I think the meaning of inbound here refers to work that is
| defined or asked of you or a team via Slack instead of via
| more thought-out and defined work.
| qup wrote:
| Check it a couple times per day.
|
| Don't check it in the morning. First check after lunch.
| biggedyb wrote:
| tl:dr; turn off the notifications and proritise your workload so
| you know that the stuff you are clearing is the important stuff
| first, tell the company you are doing this to focus on your
| backlog.
|
| This is going to come across as arrogant, and in a way it is, but
| in a healthy way.
|
| If your tickets are piling up then you /need/ to ignore
| distractions. Someone then tries to track you down so you lead
| with 'is it on fire?' and when it is, ok that does rank highly,
| but when it's not 'sorry, I've got so much backlog I need to
| focus on right now, email me and I'll look at it as soon as I
| can, but fair warning, it might take a while' is not only ok,
| it's absolutely critical. In a very strange turn of events you'll
| likely see that somehow these critical problems are being solved
| at the source.... ;)
|
| This also means that the workload you have and therefore the time
| you allocate to spending doing it has to be priority driven.
| Start with the flames and work back to the embers.
|
| Finally, just to reinforce the main point here, if the tooling
| you've been provided with isn't enabling you to do your job well,
| then find how it will and tell the company what you plan to do to
| ensure productivity.
|
| :) remember, they hired you to make them money, if you find a
| better way of making money faster and for longer only an idiot
| will find fault with that. This is how good ways of working
| evolve in environments.
| rqmedes wrote:
| Not related to slack, but managing your ADHD symptoms.
|
| Look into a low oxalate diet, it really helped me and my
| children.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21911305/
|
| https://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/articles-1/2015/11/13/...
|
| https://korunutrition.com/autism-low-oxalate-diet/
|
| https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/vegetarianism-and...
| badrabbit wrote:
| Damn it, they have tea on that list of oxalates. Adderal to the
| rescue!
| tdeck wrote:
| All of these links are about autism, not ADHD. Am I missing
| something?
| dchristian wrote:
| Autism is a wide spectrum. Some would consider ADHD part if
| it. If nothing else, there is lots of overlap.
| loxias wrote:
| Interesting links, thanks!
|
| (in case it helps anyone else...) About half a year ago I
| discovered that a brutally low carb diet -- leading to being in
| ketosis -- drastically helped my ADHD as well as other mental
| health things I've struggled with for my entire life. I wish I
| knew earlier!
| dchristian wrote:
| Two things that might also work, but be easier.
|
| Supplement MCT oil. This turns into keytones in the body. See
| The Complete Book of Ketones by Mary Newport for all the
| science. She's got into it for Alzheimers, but the
| applicability is wider than that.
|
| Go gluten-free and casein-free. That's eliminating wheat and
| dairy in your diet. Both of these turn into a form of
| morphine in the body. Look up glutomorphine and casomorphine.
| A slightly easier diet to stick to than keto. This cured my
| aspergers.
| loxias wrote:
| Cool. Thanks!
|
| Already using MCT oil in lots of cooking :) Had no idea
| about dairy... interesting, I eat a lot of high fat cheese.
|
| Thanks for the references, I'll certainly read more.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| Make checking your messages part of your routine, as opposed to
| an interruption of said routine. More concretely, set certain
| time windows of your day, be it hourly or every 4 hours, where
| you check Slack and reply to relevant messages, after which you
| drop it again until the next window.
|
| Turn off all Slack notifications (or close out of it all
| together) and set daily and repeating calendar events that say
| "check Slack" to pop up instead. That's how I've setup all kinds
| of reoccurring but otherwise distracting tasks and it works
| great.
| lordkrandel wrote:
| It's good! 2 times is good, 4 times is max. One as you arrive
| (put yourself as busy), one mid morning, one after lunch, one in
| the afternoon. A two to four hours delay is completely
| acceptable.
| sf4lifer wrote:
| I ran into this issue at a large corp. I was a subject matter
| expert on how a certain product worked so literally would get
| 500+ notifications daily from (mostly sales) people asking the
| same questions. I set an auto-reply to anyone that mentioned me
| that included a link to FAQ and directed them to SEs or CS folks
| who were responsible for answering these sort of questions. I
| also linked a recording to the last webinar where I went over
| what's new and answered questions and a link to the next upcoming
| one. In the auto-response I set the expectation that a response
| from could take up to 5 days. This more or less solved that
| issue.
|
| As for my own channel surfing to avoid working. That's a WIP.
| Best advice I can give is to maintain a task list. When you catch
| yourself surfing, go to the task list and see if there is
| something you can knock off.
| jimmywetnips wrote:
| That's an excellent solution. I think part of it is also being
| comfortable and firm and not teaching others that "Hey he's the
| go to guy and he answers questions immediately and is super
| helpful". Eventually the problem sorts itself out. And even if
| it doesn't, so what, you're one person. There are limits and
| real costs to being a human operating switchboard.
| j4nek wrote:
| having the same problem, also Slack/Teams UI is (visually) way
| too bloated. Using something cleaner like iMessage and IRC is
| helping me a lot, but this is unfortunately not possible all the
| time so i open up Teams only twice a day and pepole should call
| me if there is a urgent case.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Slack sometimes feels like a party app than internal messaging
| tbh. Always feels in a community and in the moment, than picking
| up tasks and handling it. Maybe that's what productivity means
| but just sometimes feels wrong.
| Ilasky wrote:
| Founder with ADHD here! I ran into this issue a bunch at my
| previous job as well. The notifications were always going off and
| detracting me from doing the actual work. There were two things I
| did, and do now, that have worked for me:
|
| 1. Similar to you, I muted my notifications and opened slack a
| few times a day.
|
| 2. I paired up with someone else to focus on the task at hand
| (like with Double[0]). I was able to ignore the pings, if they
| came through, because I felt more accountable to the person I was
| on the line with than the pings.
|
| Your mileage may vary on these, so I would definitely encourage a
| bit of experimentation!
|
| [0] https://doubleapp.xyz
| nashashmi wrote:
| Lol. Self plug without the disclaimer. Shame.
| fragmede wrote:
| Setup focus time "meetings" on your calendar where you schedule
| time to be off slack - people can call you during them if they
| have to - and close out slack entirely when you're in those
| blocks.
| orzig wrote:
| I don't know if it's enough, but the first thing I do when
| joining a new organization is aggressively cut down on
| notifications, both using the N app, preferences, and the
| operating system preferences. The next thing I do is set
| expectations with coworkers, the same tool can be used very
| differently across different organizations.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| I don't have ADHD and I hate this too. I vastly prefer mail, not
| only because people put more effort in formulating their
| questions, but also because asynchronous communication is more
| accepted here.
|
| Such tools can be quite a lot of distraction... I often ignore
| queries I think have lesser importance. If it really was
| important, they will probably contact me again.
|
| I have given up on my ambitions to have a "clean desk"...
| smileybarry wrote:
| I tweak my Slack pretty heavily to suit my ADHD but 90% of it is:
| _turn off (desktop) notifications entirely._ Not "sometimes",
| _all of it._ (I just set Windows to DND so I still get Slack 's
| red dot) I notice the red dot as soon as it appears anyway, but
| the lack of bigger visuals & audio means if I'm _actually_
| focused (and don 't notice the red dot) I don't get yanked out of
| it.
|
| The other 10% is:
|
| * Mute unnecessary channels
|
| * Turn off mentions entirely for channels where they don't mean
| much other than "@XYZ is looking at it"
|
| * Set mobile notifications to "only if away" (+ a work hours
| schedule; if it's important they can click the "notify anyway"
| link)
|
| * If you're on Android: change the notification sound to
| something custom that's a lot more "calm" and quieter, because
| you notice it anyway and it won't give off the "important! DM!
| check now!" feeling that all of Slack's do. (I miss this on iOS)
|
| * On really bad days (focus-wise): don't be afraid to hide or
| close Slack entirely to _just focus._ I usually just put it away
| in Windows ' extended notification tray, so I can occasionally
| check it without relaunching (or appearing offline/away).
| Kuinox wrote:
| How do you manage to not click on the slack icon despite having
| seen the red dot ? When I see the notification icon, I won't be
| able to focus on something else until I cleared the
| notification.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Turn off icon badging as well. No notifications really means
| _no_ notifications. This is the way.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| But then there's the anxiety of waiting like 4 hours,
| opening it, and seeing a bunch of critical messages you
| weren't around for. I need either a robot that will gently
| tap me on the shoulder and quietly tell me to check my
| notifications, or somehow relay the badge to a collar on my
| dog so he can bark at me. The badge is the worst. The
| sounds are the worst. At this point I rather just have a
| landline people can call me on with a voice machine.
| smileybarry wrote:
| I still click it, but I disabled mentions on some more public
| channels so it doesn't happen as often. If it appears a lot
| and I need to get stuff done, I just drag Slack into the
| expanded tray so I don't even see the dot. (the numberless
| dot, not the [1] badge)
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| I don't have ADHD and yet I still do all of this. Removing all
| notification dots/numbers, no previews, muting channels,
| suppressing mentions in some channels, separating channels into
| "infrequent"/"team"/"org" sections and keeping some collapsed
| (looking at them once a day). On mobile removing notification
| sound, preview and also removing notification from lock screen
| (only allowing in notification center).
|
| You can also set your status to permanent "responses will be
| delayed". No one has the right to my attention within a few
| seconds (except when oncall). I use slack the way it makes me
| productive.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I'm really sorry. As someone else diagnosed with ADHD it's been
| very hard for me to be positive about anything. Hang in there, I
| guess... life just seems impossible.
| josephd79 wrote:
| Same diagnosis and exp here. Welcome to notification hell.
| Problem is all of these bs communication apps are treated as
| synchronous instead of asynchronous and managers think it helps
| when in reality it causes distractions, extra stress and loss of
| productivity.
|
| 1000 slack channels. Lol wtf.
|
| Here's what i do and it's helped. I turned them ALL off. Banners,
| badges, bells. All of it. I check on my terms.
| yuppie_scum wrote:
| Mute the notifications. Or even just close slack. Break projects
| into tasks. Finish one task at a time, then check slack/email.
| taseedc wrote:
| tomxor wrote:
| Have you considered that you might just have a Slack problem?
| honestly.
|
| Labels can be dangerous and polarising - individual psychology
| and behaviour fall on a nuanced multidimensional spectrum, and I
| think these labels target such a large range and severity of
| behaviour that they have a high risk of conflating symptoms with
| completely different causes. Combined with misaligned intensives
| to sell drugs, I'm highly sceptical of the majority of diagnoses.
|
| I was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, but it turns out I
| was just a stubborn child who disliked accepting the seeming
| illogic of the written English language where other kids are
| usually less questioning and do what they are told, compared to
| truly? or "more" dyslexic people who genuinely struggle with
| placing letters in the correct order rather than merely bothering
| to remember them.
|
| It's completely possible to exhibit "ADHD" symptoms from an
| unhealthy work life... WFH and covid has caused instant messaging
| like Slack to take centre stage in all communication, and that
| has definitely messed with a lot of people's ability to focus on
| their work, myself included. I've had to take some quite extreme
| measures, making sure it's completely closed between certain
| times (not in away mode, but actually not loaded, unreachable).
| If there is an emergency, people have your phone number,
| sometimes you need time to yourself and that's when people can
| wait, unless it's an emergency.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > Combined with misaligned intensives to sell drugs, I'm highly
| sceptical of the majority of diagnoses.
|
| ADHD and executive disfunction are under-diagnosed rather than
| over-diagnosed (I have so many friends who have obvious
| undiagnosed adhd), mostly because of parents who think like
| you, or the classic "it does not exist, you're just a slacker,
| pharma is just trying to sell you some drugs". Most physicians
| who diagnose you don't make any significant additional money
| from selling you drugs.
|
| > It's completely possible to exhibit "ADHD" symptoms from an
| unhealthy work life
|
| Or maybe OP really has severe ADHD?
| tomxor wrote:
| > or the classic "it does not exist, you're just a slacker,
| pharma is just trying to sell you some drugs"
|
| I don't think it doesn't exist, I think it's not a useful
| label due to the way it's treated as a long term issue that
| can only be addressed with drug use.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| OP's post strongly implies that they were diagnosed with ADHD
| long before the issues with Slack.
| pacifika wrote:
| Set your slack notifications to email then you have async control
| to follow up in between work.
| josephd79 wrote:
| Just gotta make sure that email notification is turned off or
| you're gonna be back in notification hell.
| paulcole wrote:
| Are you located in the United States? If so, consider requesting
| an accommodation under the ADA.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| You should be that person who is not reachable. You need to set
| boundaries. Otherwise you are going to fall in the classic
| catch-22 of talking about the work and getting none of that work
| done. That's fine if you see your job as a paycheck. It's not so
| fine if you actually find meaning in your work and want to make
| forward progress.
| brundolf wrote:
| I often close Slack when I need to focus on something. And I'll
| spend hours of the day with my phone on do-not-disturb
|
| If you're needing to be urgently-reached multiple times a day,
| there's something seriously wrong at your company. Almost any
| message should be able to wait a few hours
|
| You mention "tickets piling up", which sounds like it goes beyond
| Slack. If these are actual tasks piling up faster than you can
| complete them, that's a whole separate problem with the company
| and has nothing to do with you or your adhd
|
| If the company does have systemic issues that are making it hard
| to function on the job, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Or at
| least talking about it with your manager
| paxys wrote:
| People here will share all sorts of productivity hacks, but your
| workplace is legally required to make reasonable concessions to
| accommodate disabilities. Talk to your manager and/or HR and
| figure something out.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I have had adhd and autism. Thought it was a birth trait. But
| adulthood happened and i had been getting away more and more from
| those symptoms.
|
| Now it's coming back. And I realized it has a lot to do with
| parenting incorrectly.
|
| Let's just say looking back, there is nothing you can do to
| adjust to a moving train with adhd. So start reducing your role.
| Shrink a bit. Be less manager. and be more managed if that helps.
| And start communicating loudly about what makes slack difficult.
| Very loudly. People will realize who you are without realizing
| you have adhd. And will adjust to how you work.
|
| So figure out how many things you can track at any one time. My
| max is five. So reduce your inputs to just those items. And
| designate one of them for colleagues.
| viburnum wrote:
| Parenting?
| s1k3 wrote:
| Step 1 - turn off all notifications, noise and badges. This will
| allow you to not be disturbed by interruptions.
|
| Step 2 - if step 1 doesn't work then shut slack down while
| working. Being reachable 100% of the time is insane. And the
| barrier for bugging is super low with Slack.
|
| Step 3 - if 2,3 don't work then use something like dispatch.do to
| prioritize all the junk and filter out all the noise.
|
| Step 4 - it's a you problem. Find a new job or seek professional
| help.
| callmeal wrote:
| I would add: delete the slack app, and use it from a browser.
| Then you'll only get notifications when the browser is in the
| foreground. (Of course assuming you've disabled browser
| notifications).
|
| This way you can leave slack running, you will show up as
| available, but will not be disturbed unless the slack tab is in
| the foreground. (Or someone makes a call).
| baal80spam wrote:
| Another big advantage of using Slack in a browser is being
| able to customize everything using addons like Stylus (I
| customize colours and fonts).
| jimmywetnips wrote:
| oh good point. someone should write an extension that only
| pings you based on critical rules, like if someone writes
| "bump", or "hey were you able to check on that?" or if 5 DMs
| have piled up, then it releases the notification. Honestly
| slack should do this themselves
| comprev wrote:
| That's a great tip for reducing notifications further. Alert
| fatigue is a bigger problem than organisations often realise.
| doodruggs wrote:
| chx wrote:
| I got diagnosed a year ago.
|
| Best resources I've found: https://adhdjesse.com/newsletter (this
| taught me about rejection sensitive dysphoria, _ouch_ ) and
| https://www.adhddd.com/anti-planner/
| throwaway24124 wrote:
| Try looking for fully remote asynchronous companies. Comes with a
| different set of challenges for someone with ADHD, but companies
| with a culture that is more focused on asynchronous communication
| tend to work better with the high/low levels of focus that come
| with ADHD. I think if you're regularly getting pinged by people
| beyond your direct team, it's a sign of mismanaged culture.
| userbinator wrote:
| Ask your company to consider using Microsoft Teams instead. It's
| so repulsive that you and everyone else will probably be far less
| willing to communicate at all.
|
| Only half-joking.
| ideamotor wrote:
| Haha brilliant
| brailsafe wrote:
| This is so true though.
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