[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?
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Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?
I love HN. I check it out basically for hours every day, for the
past 5 years or so. But, HN is utter hell too... it's worse than
my addiction to The Guardian. I see so many topics I'm interested
in, so many cool projects, so I bookmark them. Then I see more and
bookmark them too. There's a never ending number of things I
bookmark. But the constant reality is that I will never ever be
able to do all the things in my brain. It's a severely frustrating
and depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs
and disappointment. But I'm totally addicted because there's just
so much new. Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a
healthier outlook about HN?
Author : WhackyIdeas
Score : 270 points
Date : 2023-01-23 09:06 UTC (13 hours ago)
| petercooper wrote:
| I've been diagnosed with ADHD but was told my ASD (Asperger's,
| but the docs can't call it that anymore) "masks" it because my
| urge to systematize everything means I can make use of much of my
| information hoarding (either for work or recreation). I don't
| want to celebrate these conditions, but I also think I wouldn't
| be as productive in my current field of endeavor without them
| working in tandem.. and I certainly wouldn't be as good as I am
| at the NYT crossword! ;-)
| mjdowney wrote:
| There is a mindset where each bookmark is an implicit obligation,
| and they of course pile up faster than you can go back and peruse
| them to your satisfaction, so this understandably leads to an
| unpleasant feeling of unfulfillable obligation.
|
| After getting into all the second brain stuff and trying out
| quite a few ways of organizing this kind of information, I've
| started to think very carefully about what sort of implicit
| commitment I'm making when I write something down. I use a system
| of tags for things I need to look at later in some way, and I
| almost never tag links, but I often search back through them to
| find something particular that comes to mind, and I'm glad I
| store them.
|
| Maybe you would have success reorienting your perspective to feel
| like "just" bookmarking is enough, such that there's not an
| implicit responsibility to come back and do something particular
| with the bookmarks? Or if you want that responsibility, that you
| can have one kind of bookmark that you're "just" saving, and
| another kind that you are okay committing to review?
|
| Then it might become clearer just by the size of the folders if
| you're "assigning" yourself an impossible amount of work.
| swinglock wrote:
| If glancing at the subject and bookmarking to later seldom go
| back to it allows you to move on, is that a problem?
|
| Just like you don't have to and cannot read every book in your
| lifespan, you can't read every blog post. Your bookmarks doesn't
| have to be your todo list.
|
| You might like Pocket or similar. Pocket specifically can sort
| your bookmarked articles in various ways, including popularity on
| the service, or just let it sit there knowing you have the
| possibility.
| cranium wrote:
| I set "noprocrast" in my profile: maxvisit=30 and minaway=360
| (just upped from 120). So 30 mins for looking at the frontpage
| links and writing a comment if I want to. Then 6 hours where I'm
| reminded that I'm opening HN on an impulse.
|
| For the links, anything that is a 5-10 min read I'll do on the
| spot. I try to be mindful with more involved content (long post,
| video, tutorial,...): I save the link in my inbox file with a
| small description of the content for reference or to read during
| a break - or never.
|
| Looking at my inbox, I often delete links without opening them
| because, in hindsight, I saved them to have something (anything)
| to read. It's the same as opening the fridge multiple times and
| lowering your expectations each time until you find good enough
| food. By setting noprocrast, you put a time lock on your
| imaginary fridge to stop you from mindless snacking.
| GreenWatermelon wrote:
| If you find it difficult to cope on your own, I recommend seeking
| Therapy, and getting diagnosed as well. It helped me a lot.
|
| I always believe that a professional's opinion is better than
| anything you could find here.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Turn on the noprocrast feature. Rather than bookmark, just
| upvote; you can view your old upvotes later
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/upvoted?id=WhackyIdeas).
|
| Also remember that there is no reason to feel sad for not getting
| to things. Because as long as you are alive, there will always be
| another thing waiting for you. It's an infinite highway with a
| piece of cake every mile. Missed the last one? Don't worry,
| another one's coming up. Half-finished one and need to move on?
| Don't worry, more cake ahead. The biggest problem you'll have is
| not being able to eat it all... but if you tried, you'd probably
| explode... The noprocrast feature is your diet. :)
| dbancajas wrote:
| Didn't know I had ADHD until I read this. Were you officially
| diagnosed?
| hollerith wrote:
| You probably don't have ADHD!
|
| Or more precisely, whether you would get a diagnosis of ADHD if
| you consulted the appropriate specialist is probably irrelevant
| to your life.
|
| You are one of the many people who have repeatedly derived
| pleasure from visiting HN. It is natural for humans to get
| pleasure from learning new things and getting fresh
| perspectives from other humans.
|
| And HN is easy and comfortable and very safe. There is nothing
| at risk: your visit to HN will not end in pain such as the pain
| of trying hard to achieve a goal important to you and failing.
| Yes, understanding the implications of something you learned
| here can require mental effort, and mental effort is painful
| (at least momentarily), but the mental effort is discretionary:
| if you choose not to make the effort, the consequences (namely,
| having a less accurate model of reality than you would have had
| if you had made the effort) are far away and minor.
|
| Things that are pleasurable and require no effort (and no
| danger or risk) are bad for people. Specifically it screws up
| the system in the brain for motivation, drive and reward.
| Indulge enough in these effortless risk-less pleasures and your
| motivation becomes weakened such that even if you go cold
| turkey on the pleasure, it takes weeks and weeks for you to
| regain the natural human ability to remain motivated by things
| that require sustained effort, pain and patience.
|
| Actually it is worse than that because pleasure causes
| reinforcement of the sequence of actions that led up to the
| pleasure. Suppose for example that you make a mental move in
| your mind along the lines of, "my situation is hopeless; I'm
| stuck, and there is no way out," while you are interacting with
| a web browser. Suppose further that your next move (while in
| this state of nihilism) is to type "news.yc" in the location
| bar, then 30 seconds or 60 seconds later you notice a story or
| a comment on HN that explains some aspect of reality that has
| been confusing you and nagging at you for years. Your discovery
| of the explanation is pleasurable (and should be pleasurable).
| So far so good (you learned something) but pleasure reinforces
| the mental moves you made that led up to the pleasure,
| including the nihilistic move. If that nihilistic move gets
| reinforced enough times in this way, it can take years to
| correct the problem.
|
| The point is that most of society is probably dealing with this
| problem. It's not that you have a mental disorder. Well, I
| don't know you: maybe you _do_ have a mental disorder (ADHD or
| otherwise) making your problem with HN worse than it would be
| if you did not have a disorder. But people with a mental
| disorder have the same mental architecture for motivation as
| the rest of us, so I have to believe that they should control
| and pay attention to their participation in effortless risk-
| less pleasures as strictly as the rest of us should.
|
| Some pleasures are better than others: for example, it is
| better to get pleasure from learning things than from harming
| other people (and at least some of the pleasure people get from
| video games is the pleasure in harming simulated people). But
| even a good pleasure can be a problem when a person has
| essentially unlimited access to it; when it does not cost
| anything and carries essentially no risk; when there is no
| painful effort or patient waiting between the moment the person
| decides to pursue the pleasure and when the pleasure comes.
| winReInstall wrote:
| Use the obsessive phases, find a topic that is overlapping with
| your obsessions and cram every new obsession into that project.
| Yes, it leads to cluttered projects, but suddenly you are that
| developer driving that open source project in mono-mode.
| nraynaud wrote:
| I haven't managed my ADHD very well in the last 2 years, my life
| is becoming a nightmare. But HN is less and less of a factor, I
| think my interests have somewhat diverged and I don't click that
| much anymore. Also, very often I see interesting stuff on the
| front page of HN that I have seen before somewhere else, which is
| probably not a good sign.
| FrankyHollywood wrote:
| I cope with various strategies:
|
| - Mobile is always disconnected. I have a few moments per day I
| check my WhatsApp and other apps, just like you would actively
| check mail in the old days. People get used to the fact that I'm
| not a quick responder.
|
| - I use 2 machines, a work laptop and a home desktop. On work
| laptop never check socials or news. On real quiet days I might
| check HN on my work laptop but that's an exception.
|
| - For work, I try to find real challenges. Even when fixing a
| little UI bug, try to understand completely, read a best
| practice, try to optimize it or design a cleaner solution. I
| discovered being distracted is also boredom and having no focus.
| Making even simple tasks more challenging makes it less likely to
| search distraction.
|
| - Get out of your head some times, for me it's indoor bouldering
| twice a week but there are many other activities. You need a
| balance :)
| nullcaution wrote:
| No formal diagnosis here, beyond doctor's suggesting ADHD for my
| poor grades in elementary school.
|
| I use Nicorette at work when I really need to focus, and I try to
| keep a consistent sleep schedule.
| vimanuelt wrote:
| Not knowing how things relate to one another can be frustrating.
| I suggest learning Category Theory to gain a sense of balance.
| Ingesting knowledge without an outlet is not a healthy practice.
| Use what you learn. To know and not to do - is not to know.
| eldenlad wrote:
| i think i feel the same way
|
| piling up browser tabs like dishes in the sink
|
| (no solutions here)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I go to HN to seek distraction on purpose; if I'm busy enough
| with work and able to concentrate on it I probably wouldn't
| bother as much.
|
| But I think everyone will find something to do with their brain
| when it's understimulated, and HN and its wealth of interesting
| things is a big source of stimulation.
|
| I've got little else to add that others haven't already mentioned
| though.
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| You're addicted due to a deficiency in your reward pathways. Stop
| beating yourself up. You have no impulse control.
|
| You can not control these things with will power any more than a
| dog can will its way to human.
|
| Self accept, get medication for the dopamine issue, stop beating
| yourself up, go slow.
| stared wrote:
| > There's a never ending number of things I bookmark.
|
| One of the key features of ADHD is a never-ending list of things
| to do. Edward M. Hallowell (who wrote "Driven to Distraction")
| remarks that perhaps it is the most characteristic feature of
| ADHD.
|
| Previously, browser crashes saved my sanity-- killing dozens of
| open tabs with fascinating articles.
|
| Now I try to _let it go_. In a Zen /stoic way, knowing that
| _nothing will happen if I don 't read something_. This list is an
| illusion, as there are orders of magnitude more exciting stuff on
| the Internet.
|
| Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I add
| to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT with
| the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find it
| again, I know where it is". So I have a cake and eat it too - no
| "wall of links of shame", and no anxiety that I might have lost a
| life-changing link.
| fipar wrote:
| > Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I
| add to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT
| with the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find
| it again, I know where it is". So I have a cake and eat it too
| - no "wall of links of shame", and no anxiety that I might have
| lost a life-changing link.
|
| That's what I do too and it works well. I've changed the system
| I use to track the content (currently I'm storing interesting
| things I may want to read later in Zotero, and some also in
| Safari's Reading List).
|
| What I like about this is that I can save something for later
| even if, despite finding it interesting, I either don't have
| the time or the mental energy to read it now, and also that I
| have a nearly-endless list of things to go through if I'm ever
| bored, stuck, etc.
| stinos wrote:
| _Now I try to let it go_
|
| That's really the essence of what there is to it, in my opinion
| and experience at least. _But_ : I only could start doing that
| when I was in my thirties. Before that my brain just wasn't up
| for it. Whereas when I now think about many of the things I did
| back then, especially the clinging to objects/bookmarks, I can
| fully see how useless and even ridiculous they were. Life is
| really better when you can just stop caring. Though it is also
| pretty hard to do. I know still sometimes feel pain about
| things I intentionally got rid of even though I know if I'd
| have them I would not actually use them. Goes to show the kind
| of tricks a brain can play.
| raydiatian wrote:
| > My brain just wasn't up for it
|
| could be an ADHD-anonymous meeting slogan. I can definitely
| commiserate with this notion.
| 6510 wrote:
| > Previously, browser crashes saved my sanity-- killing dozens
| of open tabs with fascinating articles.
|
| Laughed so hard reading that. I should one day write the
| browser self destruct count down extension. _Crashes as a
| service_ You can delay the shut down by describing what you
| think you are doing. This makes for a wonderful journal worth
| of stupid most embarrassing shit mixed with lies. Remember to
| use a strong password.
| varispeed wrote:
| When I no longer see any titles on my tabs, I just close my
| eyes and hit CTRL+W for a bit, then open and see what I am
| left with. If there is still to much, I repeat until I am
| left with just a few tabs. It's painful, but after 30 seconds
| I forget I did that.
| cronofdoom wrote:
| I've been using the new ARC browser. It erases your
| "temporary" tabs after a preset time with no activity. It
| "archives" the tabs and they're very easy to find if you need
| them again.
|
| I currently have it set to 24 hours. It has been game
| changing for me.
| babysavedmyadhd wrote:
| Not only have I experienced this crash phenomenon in browser
| form like you, I also experienced it in life form! I
| unexpectedly became a dad, which was a chaotic enough "moment"
| that I lost track of everything. I was not prepared for this.
| All my lists and systems came "crashing" down and I found
| myself at first lost... then free.
|
| I deliberately saved myself using the baby as a "mental excuse"
| to be ok with "clearing my list" completely. I then put therapy
| at the top of my new list.
|
| Now I have a much more solid handle on my ADHD (which is
| important when you have a kiddo).
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Now I try to let it go. In a Zen /stoic way, knowing that
| nothing will happen if I don't read something._
|
| Wha?!
|
| I download every movie and book I can. The more rare the
| better. I know, deep in my heart, they must be saved from dead
| torrent links.
|
| Even deeper nestled in the depths of my endlessly deep heart, I
| know that if there is a disaster, that government agency which
| tracks all, knows this, and I am on a list.
|
| A list to be saved!
|
| "Grab that guy and his raids", and so on. If nuclear war
| happens, save the leaders, the scientists, and _that damned
| geek_.
|
| Sure, they could break that triple ciphered encryption, even
| with the custom callback to a helmet + a reading of my tranquil
| brainwaves, but why risk a bazillion hours of video, text, and
| OSS source code on that?
|
| Instead, snag me and my stuff they will, plague, zombies, war,
| etc.
|
| But if I stop collecting, if I stop organizing!? I hear the
| conversation.
|
| "Who's on the media snag list", but as my name is to be spoken,
| "Oh.. he stopped downloading" and No!, I am left to burn and
| die.
|
| How do you stand it?
| danparsonson wrote:
| Ah a fellow archiver - don't listen to them! We must preserve
| at all costs!
|
| I wish you abundant storage redundancy.
| pas wrote:
| > "write it down"
|
| Writing a summary of whatever I read helps a lot. It's handy to
| reference it later, it's more searchable, and connecting with
| whatever I read/watched makes it easier to put it down for now.
| It's especially useful if I do it while I'm reading/watching,
| because it helps to focus. Duh :)
| mablopoule wrote:
| +1 on a bookmarking system you can trust.
|
| A few years ago I wrote a simple bookmarking service for
| personal use, and I don't know if it's the (barebone) tagging
| system, or the fact that it's not bound to a particular device
| or account, but since then the HN-induced FOMO I have when
| there is an interesting article or discussion is dispelled the
| moment I save it using that particular service.
|
| It doesn't of course have to be self-made or even self-hosted,
| but your bookmarking service just need to be trustworthy enough
| (as in, you know you'll be able to quickly find an article
| again in the future, even on another device) for the stress-
| relieving magic to actually happen.
|
| (Disclaimer: I only suspect I have ADHD, I don't have a formal
| diagnostic)
| rjh29 wrote:
| I add it to the Chrome reading list. That satisfies me enough
| to close the tab. Next time I have some free time I just pick a
| random article from the list and read it. A lot of the time I'm
| no longer excited about it anyway.
| davidy123 wrote:
| I wrote a simple browser extension that has an option to save
| all option tabs to a file. Every once in a while, when my
| computer is suffering and I feel a weight, I save the tabs and
| close them all, and start again.
|
| I literally feel a weight lift off my shoulders when I do this.
| It's become a joyous event. Though it only takes a few weeks
| before I have to do it again, it's ok.
|
| I can look up closed tabs in the files, though I've rarely
| needed to do that.
|
| One day, when I have a bit of time, and a kind soul on HN
| suggests a docker repo to me that provides a good endpoint for
| relating/clustering documents, I can put together a way to
| navigate all these tabs that over time were considered
| important to me.
|
| Sure, there are websites that do this, but this way, I don't
| have to worry about being profiled, sites going down, etc.
| uneekname wrote:
| This comment resonates with me. I've been working on accepting
| the idea that I'll never do all the things I want to, and
| that's a good thing.
|
| If you, dear reader, have ADHD that presents like mine does,
| try to find peace in that you'll never ever be bored. Nah,
| we'll never see all of these wonderful ideas to completion, but
| the ones that stick are the most important anyways.
| hahalolha wrote:
| > Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I
| add to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT
| with the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find
| it again, I know where it is".
|
| I can really vouch for this approach, at least for the never-
| ending list of things I want to do.
|
| I should disclaimer this by stating that I have been diagnosed
| with ADHD but people around me and myself have been doubting it
| since. (My doctor has also questioned their judgement on many
| occations but hasn't backpedaled just yet). What I'm trying to
| say is YMMV.
|
| On Android, a simple app which helps me tons is Linkbox (find
| it in F-Droid), its basically a fancy database (+ search) with
| 3 attributes: Name, URL and Category. I wish it had more
| attention as I really love it and I find that, even if I don't
| completely read an item (or even just completely blindly), I
| add it to the app and its there forever. I've actually come
| back to ideas on many occasions and never felt that feeling of
| regret, if anything its actually empowered me!
| IanCal wrote:
| I've found asking myself "why am I doing what I'm doing" helps
| - I stop midway in comments and delete them because I realize
| there's nothing to gain for myself or others. Helps me with
| overeating as well, am I doing this because I'm hungry or
| bored? It doesn't have to be a classicly productive answer
| "it's fun" is clearly a good reason, but a nudge towards
| positive actions helps me personally.
|
| I understand some will find this hard though, and am not
| suggesting it's a fix if you have ADHD.
| Kosirich wrote:
| "why am I doing what I'm doing" - this! As someone struggling
| myself, asking this question often helps
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Thanks for pushing through on this comment - have the same
| loop too, almost deleted this one... cheers and good luck out
| there
| [deleted]
| zackmorris wrote:
| I'll second this. Zen and stoicism saved my sanity towards the
| end of the 2010s and through the pandemic.
|
| For me it's not so much about the infinite list, because I've
| always had many thousands of tabs open and surf so much that
| there's no way I could ever bookmark everything (since the
| mid-90s).
|
| It's actually about the opportunity cost of distraction and
| finally work itself. Beyond a certain level of experience and
| mastery (perhaps 10 years), no job has enough variety to
| satisfy the ADHD mind. We all become Mike Ehrmantraut from
| Breaking Bad: manning a parking booth that could be fully
| automated while we secretly plot ways to escape and "get real
| work done". Which is the central theme of movies like The
| Matrix.
|
| The only thing that finally brought me out of burnout back to
| living was to realize that life is both a pointless game and
| the most sacred thing there is. Meaning that once I turned off
| my inner monologue completely and finally just observed, I
| found gratitude for all of creation through non-attachment.
|
| Applied to HN specifically, it might help to step back from the
| rational and look at it holistically. You and I might be
| missing out, but the whole world is learning and growing
| together. We're part of a higher consciousness now, a virtual
| mind overlaid on us that will transcend us before 20 years is
| out and we enter the New Age. These are the memoirs of Gaia
| (insert deity of choice here).
| mattmanser wrote:
| Yeah, this is definitely how I ended up dealing with it too. I
| just replaced my computer as the motherboard failed and hadn't
| setup sync on chrome. I have 1000s of links I no longer have
| access to and haven't missed them once in 3 months.
|
| File and forget is incredibly effective when you have ADHD.
| There are just too many things that are "interesting" that
| you'll never have time to do anything about.
|
| Just write it down (or an equivalent) so your brain can stop
| worrying about it. You'll find in a few weeks time the things
| that didn't actually matter are gone.
|
| When I was having anxiety problems it was also an extremely
| effective way of getting out of the circular thinking loop.
| Write down all your worries on a new tab in Notepad++. All the
| worries stopped circulating. When I might occasionally look at
| that tab in a month or two's time. usually I didn't even care
| about any of those things anymore. Even though they'd all been
| thought obsessing distractions a couple of months earlier.
|
| And lists, lists, lists. I'm at my most happiest when every day
| I create a short-ish to-do list for work and a list for home
| and throw it away at the start of the next day. I try and keep
| it below 7-8 things, in reality I often get 3-5 done. I fall
| out of the habit fairly frequently, and that's often when I
| start feeling overwhelmed.
|
| Plus exercise, exercise, exercise. If I haven't exercised for
| more than about 5 days, I start becoming a right asshole who
| gets anxious about the most ridiculous things.
| varispeed wrote:
| > You'll find in a few weeks time the things that didn't
| actually matter are gone.
|
| What gets me mad sometimes is that when I work on something
| and hit a road block, then I remember I found an article
| about it a year or so ago and I definitely saved it. I just
| have no idea how to find it.
|
| I have not looked, but I wonder if there is an indexing tool
| that would also do an OCR on screenshots, PDFs etc. in the
| local filesystem and then had some advanced querying.
| UltimateEdge wrote:
| Yes! Search is an incredibly important tool.
|
| I have recently started using Zotero, which can create
| offline copies of saved webpages and papers. You can then
| search their contents.
|
| Last week I bookmarked Yacy, which is a search engine and
| which seems to allow you to define your own web index.
| However, I haven't gotten around to seeing how it really
| works...
| now__what wrote:
| I rely heavily on an Apple Shortcut that I made which
| saves an offline copy of a webpage (just the text and
| images) and stashes it in Notes. Great for refreshing
| myself on a topic I read about months ago but hasn't
| become relevant until the current moment.
| crucialfelix wrote:
| I run a script daily that fetches my chrome history and
| creates a daily web log file in my Obsidian.
|
| Daily, all links are fetched (as part of a larger web
| search product I'm working on). I can search this, but
| mostly i don't bother.
|
| I will soon add semantic search and see if there's any
| magic to be found in my data exhaust.
|
| Truth is I'm forced to spend my days googling dull problems
| and reading vaguely interesting articles.
|
| No deep work for me at the moment
| vikaveri wrote:
| _stores this thread on three different devices for later
| reading because it 's interesting but there are more
| important things to do before getting there_
| fimbulvetr wrote:
| Currently, and for some time now, if your browser crashes, just
| open it back up and hit ctrl-shift-t (may differ between os and
| browser) - it will bring back all of the old urls (not the
| state, but the urls at least). Works for firefox and chromishs
| browsers.
| coolspot wrote:
| For HN addiction in particular, hckrnews.com (not affiliated)
| helps a lot. It only shows top 10-20 for each day, reducing
| noise.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Right now I have 100 tabs open, many of which are HN posts or
| links from HN posts that I still want to check back on. That's
| down from the low 200's a week ago. Once a week, before I read
| more HN, I go through my tabs and either read it and close it,
| save it for next time, or say "realistically I will not get to
| this within the next year due to (other projects I want more)."
| and close the tab.
| anonreeeeplor wrote:
| Number one strategy for people with ADHD is migrate to jobs where
| there is a lot of variety and complexity and things are changing
| all the time and lots of new interesting things to look into.
|
| The maturity part which I struggle with is how to convert my
| curiosity into forward motion.
|
| I believe that if you have ADHD you have to act like you are
| playing a different D&D character class than everyone else. You
| win by being your character and doing the things that character
| type needs to do.
|
| I personally like to walk around aimlessly for hours lost in
| thought. If I can't walk and have to be stuck indoors I can't
| stop but keep researching.
| efields wrote:
| > Number one strategy for people with ADHD is migrate to jobs
| where there is a lot of variety and complexity and things are
| changing all the time and lots of new interesting things to
| look into.
|
| Feels like you can never specialize with this approach, but
| maybe you become an excellent manager of a complex machine?
| spyremeown wrote:
| I feel like reading HN daily has given me more opportunities than
| anything I've ever done for my career (and my general general
| love for tech). I recurrently apply things to my job that I've
| picked up reading the amazing articles people post here.
|
| >There's a never ending number of things I bookmark.
|
| I just read them. I take my time to go through them :-). Every
| day for the past, I don't know, five years or so, my first hour
| in the morning is dedicated to reading about things I like on HN.
| That certainly kept the flame and the passion for tech going,
| otherwise it would become just a job (and if you're like me, you
| know how much that sucks).
| sodimel wrote:
| I don't think I have ADHD but I created a shaarli clone
| (https://gitlab.com/sodimel/share-links/) in order to be able to
| store, share and retrieve all the interesting link (the act of
| sharing interesting links happens more frequently now that I have
| a dedicated tool to store/retrieve them) :P
| brightball wrote:
| I like to joke that my dream is to one day be able to afford my
| own free time.
|
| But you're better off being excited about a lot and only having
| time for a little than the alternative. Getting excited about
| this stuff is the key to success in the field. That endless
| desire to learn is critical in a field where you need to
| constantly learn everyday.
| febin wrote:
| Somethings that helped me.
|
| 1. I realised the hard way that you can't focus on too many
| things at the same time.
|
| 2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive
| results.
|
| 3. Focus on areas you have circle of competence in.
|
| 4. I struggle with abstract ideas, and jump to projects without
| thinking the details, scoping abstract ideas and writing down
| concrete POA helps in completing things.
|
| 5. Working hard on staying loyal to my resolutions. I took a
| resolution last month to write a book on rust for beginners. I
| constantly hold this thought every day in my head. It helps a lot
| in making progress and saying no to distractions.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > 2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive
| results.
|
| This worked really well for me until I actually settled in with
| a long term partner, who was rightfully frustrated when I'd try
| to cut out some of the daily responsibilities that are required
| to be a good roommate and partner.
|
| When you're single you have a lot more freedom to squirrel away
| for a while on a problem, but it's a tremendously selfish thing
| to do when your life is intertwined with another person who
| depends on you to juggle your daily obligations like everyone
| else.
| kache_ wrote:
| i don't, but it all seems to work out anyways
| pjc50 wrote:
| Unlike almost everything else, HN has a "noprocrast" setting in
| your profile which you can use to constrain the time you spend on
| it.
| Karellen wrote:
| Whoa, I'd missed that every other time I'd looked at my
| profile.
|
| Thanks for pointing it out!
| nanna wrote:
| Reading HN via an RSS reader on my phone has helped my ADHD.
| Using the Feeder app I can skim headlines, find ones that
| interest me, pin them for coming back to later and bookmark for
| saving for posterity. Feeder lets me bulk mark posts as read so
| that I don't have to see old posts again. Navigating RSS feeds
| from my phone not my computer means I separate work and
| procrastination more effectively.
|
| https://gitlab.com/spacecowboy/Feeder
| robmerki wrote:
| Distractions usually happen when you're not satisfied with the
| other things in front of you. Of course nothing is black and
| white, but that's what I've found.
|
| I wrote a book on ADHD that quite a few HN users enjoyed:
| https://adhdpro.xyz/
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| > I love HN. I check it out basically for hours every day, for
| the past 5 years or so.
|
| been there done that
|
| > But, HN is utter hell too... it's worse than my addiction to
| The Guardian.
|
| For me it was spiegel.de ... since age of 16. I'm now in my late
| 30s. They helped me get a grip on it by introducing paid content.
| Given that I don't even like their quality of journalism that
| much since more than a decade. I mostly go there to annoy myself.
| Yeah, I guess for ADHD stricken minds that counts as
| entertainment.
|
| > I see so many topics I'm interested in, so many cool projects,
| so I bookmark them. Then I see more and bookmark them too.
| There's a never ending number of things I bookmark.
|
| I never really got into bookmarking. I just open lots of tabs and
| read through them. Then I forget about it and sooner or later I
| close the browser. Of course I don't start new sessions where I
| left off for a reason.
|
| > But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to
| do all the things in my brain. It's a severely frustrating and
| depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and
| disappointment.
|
| That's life. If you think about it - time and its investment is
| always linear for a single person while knowledge is created
| exponentially ... so, even if you'd live forever you couldn't get
| a hold on it.
|
| > But I'm totally addicted because there's just so much new.
|
| And so much old!
|
| > Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook
| about HN?
|
| Well - meditation - zen meditation - breath meditation - that's
| what helps me. Nothing else. It's this with devotion or misery.
| varispeed wrote:
| It's hard and took me a lot of time to just accept this is how I
| am. I also been doing a lot of bookmarks, screenshots, notes and
| what not. Most of the time I never actually return to them and
| even if I wanted to most likely I get distracted before I even
| get to it.
|
| I just go with whatever I get the moments of focus with and I
| learned to work in a completely non linear way, so that the chaos
| I have eventually turns into something that works.
| thr717272 wrote:
| Alt account of long time HN reader/user here:
|
| But I admit that with my life circumstances (adhd, coming from a
| non wealthy family) and choices (active Christian, more than
| twice as many kids as the average around here) there will never
| be time.
|
| I deal with it all by storing it in raindrop (used to be
| pinboard.in but I finally got utterly fed up).
|
| I also have a bullet journal (ok, Logseq these days) where I have
| pages for each project and when I see something relevant I can
| paste a reference to it there.
|
| Finally and most importantly I am realistic and I just admit it
| is not going to happen. That's life unless you are even more
| lucky than me. We can still dream though. My grandfather kept the
| blueprints for his retirement project (a boat he had designed for
| himself while being a boatbuilder as a young man) until he died,
| even if I think he realized before retirement it wasn't going to
| happen. He just made the best out of it.
|
| I have realized already so I bookmark stuff just in case and to
| get it off my mind and then I very consciously make the things I
| _need to do_ my hobbies.
|
| I.e. at the moments my hobbies are:
|
| - getting better in <tech I use at work>
|
| - home repairs (drywall painting atm, but I have added a half way
| finished cobblestone path around my house and a tool shed, later
| made wall mounted cabinets for the new garage from leftovers etc
| etc)
|
| - other repairs (clothes, toys, bikes)
|
| - cooking (good, healthy meals that my wife and children will
| actually eat - on a budget)
|
| - negotiations (bank, employer etc - I have a reasonably good
| economy but it needs to stay that way)
|
| - fundraising for the church (I think one of the best way to find
| great and reliable friends is to volunteer for causes you believe
| in)
|
| Also maybe interesting:
|
| I felt had an almost crippling addiction to HN, then since late
| February last year I have barely read HN because of Ukraine.
| hollerith wrote:
| >I felt had an almost crippling addiction to HN, then since
| late February last year I have barely read HN
|
| Can you say more? How did the invasion of Ukraine cause the
| ending of your HN addiction?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Stayfocusd chrome extension for sites that are trouble during
| working hours.
|
| I've started to implement the advice here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL6qRIJZ_Y albeit too early to
| tell. He's pretty well credentialed though, so I trust on average
| the advice is good (but specifically for each individual YMMV)
|
| One of his best points is dont act like or prescribe yourself
| ADHD solutions until you have a true diagnosis by an expert.
| Losing focus and distractions is commonplace for all people
| today, not just ADHD folks.
| akshaymalik1995 wrote:
| It is not about HN or The Guardian. Something new always excites
| our mind and we get addicted to finding something new, something
| exciting each day.
|
| The first thing is to realize this addiction to escape the
| present in the form of looking for new information.
|
| Write about it everyday. Slowly, learn to discipline your mind.
| Make a habit to sit in silence, doing literally nothing for half
| an hour or so.
|
| One thing you can tell yourself everyday is that every time you
| do something that is not highly relevant for your wellbeing, you
| will have less energy or focus for things that actually are.
|
| From there on you can ask yourself, how relevant and useful it is
| to spend time on HN for your well being or for your experience of
| life.
|
| Again, it is not about HN, humans find it very hard to face the
| plain everyday life against the sugary new information. We want
| it more and more.
| born-jre wrote:
| take a huge breath and close the tab
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.havabee.br...
| StefanWestfal wrote:
| On Brave I use "StayFocused" and set a maximum time per day. For
| YouTube etc. there are similar tools as well. Restricting access
| works best for me. Also, let someone else manage your password
| for these tools, otherwise you just change the settings when you
| feel a strong urge to visit HN even when you set daily time is
| over.
|
| Whit bookmarks, ideas and others, I keep track of them and once
| in a while filter. If I did not look at a bookmarked page in the
| last 3 weeks I will probably not in the future (unless it is a
| source for work or a hobby project). You might know this
| principle with items in your house.
|
| On a side note, please be aware that the described problems can
| be symptoms of ADHD but are common in people without (like me) as
| well and are, to some degree, normal. If you look at the problem
| biased to ADHD you might miss underlying causes that are not ADHD
| related like lack of sleep or exercise, nutrition, anxiety etc. I
| am saying this as I spent my early 20s diagnosed with a disorder
| and overlooked base causes for my problems through the lens of
| this disorder and chasing solutions for issues that were not the
| route causes of my problems. I am NOT saying that ADHD is not the
| cause but sharing a personal experience. , and I have a relative
| with ADHD, so I see the struggle.
| duffyjp wrote:
| Are you medicated? One of my boys has ADHD and it was life
| changing. When I was a kid ADD as they called it then was highly
| stigmatized because the meds turned you into a zombie, it's not
| the case anymore. Basically zero side effects other than appetite
| loss during lunch.
| collyw wrote:
| Isn't ADHD medication basically amphetamine? I experimented
| when I was younger and it wasn't nice stuff. Couldn't sleep
| properly afterwards, and loos of appetite (I am already pretty
| skinny).
| duffyjp wrote:
| There are I think three classes of meds now. I don't recall
| the specifics but they try you on the non-stimulant one first
| which for us didn't do anything.
|
| My son takes Concerta which is an extended release drug that
| basically gives you the minimum viable amount over the course
| of about 8 hours. By late afternoon it's gone, but it gets
| him through school just fine. He eats a huge breakfast and
| dinner so his mostly ignored lunches aren't an issue. No
| problems with sleep and he's definitely not "high" while
| taking it. It just balances him out to where he should be.
| a_alakkad wrote:
| Regarding HN in particular, I use https://hckrnews.com/ with "top
| 10" visible to reduce the amount of things I need to check. If
| that's too much, subscribe to https://hackernewsletter.com/ and
| don't consume content on the main HN website.
|
| Realizing the we have finite time and cognition is key to help us
| accept and reduce what we consume and what we like.
| aszantu wrote:
| I make it a rule to build the interesting thing, then the brain
| realizes it's harder than just fantazising about it and leaves me
| alone.
| xnorswap wrote:
| Yes, this is helpful to me too. I still sometimes get stuck in
| a loop of starting projects but the reality of how hard
| actually building something from scratch knocks me down.
| aszantu wrote:
| you don't have to finish it, you can even give the half
| finished projects away to someone who enjoys having them -
| sell as art or something
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| This is actually an interesting idea
|
| If I was picking it up I'd want a docker or similar so I
| could just start hacking
| ergonaught wrote:
| "Poorly". I spent a few days writing down everything that I
| clicked on, read, commented on, etc, and how much time I spent
| doing it. After that horror, well, I just kept doing it without
| tracking it, same as I've done the past many decades.
|
| The short solution is a very simple system. Pick 3 specific goals
| for your year, or your quarter, and before you
| bookmark/click/read/etc, ask yourself whether that is going to
| move you forward in a big way toward accomplishing one of those
| goals. If not, you skip it. It's Pareto Principle in a sense, and
| it applies to most everything. If you're tempted to "yes but" or
| other complications, recognize that you're sabotaging yourself
| and quit it.
|
| Abstinence is the other answer, but that doesn't help generate
| functional adaptations.
|
| GIGO. 90% of everything, very much including HN, is garbage.
| smeej wrote:
| Is this symptom unique to ADHD? I certainly accumulate hundreds
| of open tabs of things I want to come back to and research, but I
| don't have the other characteristic symptoms of ADHD.
|
| I use a browser plugin that lets me create markdown highlights
| from websites and I copy them into my Logseq system. I tag them
| and then, when I want to dive in and do something about a topic,
| I go to that topic and there are all my notes from hundreds of
| websites I've found interesting over the years.
|
| Maybe the difference between my experience of this and the ADHD
| one is that I enjoy the times I get to sit down, dive deep, read
| the sites, and make the notes, but people with ADHD have trouble
| with that stage?
| bloqs wrote:
| Bookmarks are for being able to quickly retrieve something that
| you have already read and mostly absorbed for future reference.
| They aren't a to do list. Even if they were, a to do list is not
| a universal constant. Highly engaged people will likely have
| things on their lists that last their while lives - your "todays"
| to do list is something structured by priority. Continue at will.
| darrenkopp wrote:
| I only check during the morning while my adderall is kicking in
| and I don't go past the first page. This allows me to go as deep
| as I want and do some exploring still, but with limits. It's just
| taken practice over the years because I could easily burn through
| hundreds of pages on reddit / hn easily.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| For me:
|
| (1) Recognize that if I'm struggling to focus, I'm probably
| either (a) not interested in what I'm doing or (b) have too much
| on my plate.
|
| (2) If I'm struggling to focus day after day, find something else
| to do.
|
| (3) If I have too much on my plate, insist that my employer
| lighten the load or, once again, find something else to do.
|
| It's not easy. Taken to its logical conclusion, I'm suggesting
| quitting jobs that aren't interesting or demand too much
| multitasking in favour of those that are mostly interesting and
| allow you to do one thing at a time.
|
| That's sooooo much easier said than done.
|
| But for me, it's the only thing that works. Yes, I meditate, keep
| studious notes and lists, make use of project management
| software, take my medication... and all of that definitely helps.
| But it's not enough. I've found there's no solution to getting me
| to be productive in a job I hate, am not interested in, or
| demands too much and sets me up for failure. There's not enough
| medication or self-help in the world for that.
|
| How much time I spend on HN is a great barometer for it. If I
| find myself struggling to stay off HN and do the task in front of
| me, I have to first look at myself and see if I'm doing all the
| things I know that help. And if those things aren't enough, then
| I know the problem is the job. And jobs don't change. Only people
| do.
|
| So if your job sucks, find a new one as soon as possible. That's
| what I usually do, anyway.
| vallassy wrote:
| >allow you to do one thing at a time
|
| Yep, this is why I chose truck driving as a job. I am looking
| to change out of it now after 12 years, but there's no short
| list of 'one thing at a time'jobs, and the ADHD has prevented
| me from learning programming so far.
|
| Regarding OP's question, when the tab counter on Firefox turns
| to infinity, I check the last ten tabs for anything really
| important, then take a deep breath and 'Close All Tabs'
| paulkrush wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this: "ADHD has prevented me from
| learning programming"?
| aussieshibe wrote:
| I don't have an ADHD diagnosis, but I have some suspicions.
|
| I find I want to be _doing_ things. Those things must be
| immediately (or very quickly at least) and consistently
| rewarding, or I 'll stop. That much is, as far as I've
| found in the last few decades, an unchangeable fact.
|
| That pretty much rules out studying.
|
| You can learn by doing things too, obviously, but the early
| stages of learning programming are either sensible small
| steps (hello world, what's a function, etc etc) or gigantic
| unrealistic moon-of-an-exoplanet-shot projects (I'm going
| to build the next World of Warcraft by myself by next
| weekend).
|
| The sensible small steps are exciting and give the doing
| things successfully rush at first, but that goes away fast
| and you need _more_.
|
| You do hello world (wow I made the computer do something!).
| Learn how to use some conditions (wow I made the computer
| decide something!). Learn about libraries (wow so I can
| _just_ stitch a bunch of these together and build the next
| Big App!). Start working on your big idea, quickly realise
| you 're not going to be getting the success hits fast
| enough. Do something else "for a bit" and never touch your
| project again.
|
| I'm fairly sure the only reason I managed to learn to code
| was that my first job in tech support was both easy and
| boring, and automating parts of that job was more fun than
| actually doing the job. Productive things become much
| easier when they're procrastination from something less
| fun.
|
| It's taken me ten years, but I'm finally at the point now
| where I've built up a big enough skillset that I can take
| on projects that I'm interested in, and make progress fast
| enough that I get my fix and can stick with them.
| ap77 wrote:
| Yeah... I thought ADHD is a almost a requirement for
| programmers.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| May I interest you the most potent dopamine kick for us with
| adhd?
|
| Build it, run it.
|
| For iOS development, that means rubbing the ink off of Cmd+R,
| Python in PyCharm is Ctrl+R, bash is uparrow+enter...
|
| The feeling of extreme frustration when things don't compile
| and run, met quickly behind a rush of "hell yeah!" dopamine
| when things work - is an adhd brain's white powder.
|
| However, keep in mind that over time, business success will
| mean not finding the next thing to battle with or to learn -
| it will be implementing what you know quickly towards a
| customer aim. There's a pit of despair if one doesn't keep an
| eye out for that.
| Birkeholm wrote:
| Can confirm.
|
| I was the typical "well-functioning, kinda smart" ADHD-kid,
| who got trash grades, to many of my peers surprise.
|
| I was too busy tinkering with electronic music production,
| which I guess has a similar profile to coding, in regards
| to instant feedback dopamine hits.
|
| Then I got into javascript at some point.
|
| Last year I actively chose to go back to school to study
| web development. Top grades now and I am super excited to
| go to school every day.
|
| Highly recommendable.
| wry_discontent wrote:
| I've never more clearly understood why I love lisp.
| tudorw wrote:
| I thought that icon up there in the top right just said 99,
| never questioned why...
| osigurdson wrote:
| I'm convinced that multi-tasking leads to brain damage over
| time.
| fipar wrote:
| Kinda like WFH, this varies a lot from people to people.
| Well, I don't know about the damage part, but definitely, for
| some of us, intense multitasking leads to cognitive decline
| (it was reversed for me hence why I said "I don't know about
| the damage part")
|
| I spent a few years working on a Support team, at least a
| couple of those years managing that team, and part of my job
| involved being interruptible with a very short response time,
| on several different channels (I mean email, IM, phone, etc.)
|
| I liked that job as I met great people and learned a lot, but
| the moment I was able to shift into a more focused position
| (within the same company) I felt a great relief, an
| improvement in my quality of life, and a recovery of my
| cognitive skills. At that same company, I had (had because I
| no longer work there, we're still friends of course) a great
| friend, someone whom I know since we were 16 (We're 44 now),
| and he's the exact opposite and took the opposite path: He
| started off doing dev work, focusing on just a few tasks at a
| time, but it didn't work for him (even though he was amazing
| at his job) and ended up loving working as a support
| engineer. He thrives in an environment where he gets
| interrupted multiple times per hour (!!) during his work day,
| with no impact at all on his cognitive skills. In fact, not
| only is he a great problem solver, while dealing with
| multiple problems in parallel (and the interruptions include
| having to jump on a screen-sharing session without warning,
| something I can't tell you how much I feared and despised
| when I had to do that job!), he can tell you by heart the
| numbers of all the tickets he's working on, including their
| description and context. And I don't mean while working, I
| mean over beers at a meetup ...
|
| The one thing we both agree on is that we love WFH and would
| never, ever go back to an office (he's been WFH pretty much
| all his life, while I've been doing that for 15 years now).
| And just as that is the case for us, I also know personally
| people who don't like WFH and need to go to an office every
| day in order to be productive and to feel a human connection
| with their coworkers.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Is your friend in support engineering truly being
| interrupted however? I think it has a lot to do with stack
| depth. Working on task A, then being interrupted to work on
| task B only to be interrupted again to work on task C is
| the source of brain damage - particularly for those who
| care about being productive.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| "The cost of an interruption is not just the time it
| takes, but that it breaks the time on either side in
| half. You probably only have to interrupt someone a
| couple times a day before they're unable to work on hard
| problems at all." -- PG
| osigurdson wrote:
| I (of course) think of it like multi-tasking in a
| computer. The machine needs to capture the context (stack
| and registers) associated with one task in order to
| switch to another. However, for a human this context can
| be enormous. Depending on the task, it is possible that
| one will never get back to the state of understanding
| that they had at an earlier point if working on a
| particularly complex thing - just the right combination
| of caffeine, sleep, motivation (more accurately gumption
| if you have read ZAMM), etc.
| fipar wrote:
| The ZAMM reference is spot on to me. The moment I used to
| get an interruption (typically an incoming call, but not
| only that), what happened to me was just what Pirsig
| describe of the gumption leaving you like air from a
| baloon, psssst.
|
| I eventually got into 'the zone' and I was actually quite
| good at figuring out problems with little context, but my
| gumption was gone nevertheless, and I was useless for
| whatever thing I was working on before the interruption
| for mostly the rest of the day.
| fipar wrote:
| Yeah, he's working in an intense context-switching
| environment. Also, since he's a very senior team member
| he gets interrupted frequently for escalations or just
| for short help requests.
|
| The context-switching is what killed me when I did that,
| and he actually does enjoy it, as crazy as it sounds!
| osigurdson wrote:
| Well, I guess it is a good thing that there is more than
| one type of brain out there!
| Aeolun wrote:
| > I've found there's no solution to getting me to be productive
| in a job I hate, am not interested in, or demands too much and
| sets me up for failure
|
| I can deal with the first and last, but the second is
| impossible.
|
| If your job bores me I just cannot do it.
| mavu wrote:
| > Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook
| about HN?
|
| No, that's pretty much spot on for everything. 1) See
| shiny/interesting/cool/usefull thing 2) start making notes 3)
| possibly even start 4) go to step one.
| kqr wrote:
| Is fixing your HN habit really going to improve your life, or
| will you find a similar escape from reality to latch onto
| instead?
|
| I think you'll get much more out of addressing the core problem
| -- I don't know what that is for you, but with therapy you may
| find out. See a good psychologist who is experienced with ADHD.
| skissane wrote:
| > I think you'll get much more out of addressing the core
| problem -- I don't know what that is for you, but with therapy
| you may find out. See a good psychologist who is experienced
| with ADHD.
|
| How do you know that the OP hasn't tried that already?
|
| "Therapy" is not the panacea many people make it out to be. If
| it works for you, great-but others are not guaranteed to have
| the same success. And poor results are not necessarily because
| the therapist wasn't "good" or "experienced" enough-even with
| the best therapists one can still have poor outcomes, and that
| isn't necessarily the fault of the client either, psychotherapy
| has its inherent limitations, and no therapy can be 100%
| effective
| pas wrote:
| It's not either-or :) And it might help someone else who
| hasn't tried therapy.
|
| And here's a very interesting talk about effectiveness of
| said therapy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z37i8-FnAh8
| codingdave wrote:
| At the same time, therapy is not the failure that many people
| make it out to be. If it failed for you, ok, but others are
| not guaranteed to have the same failure.
|
| It is a tool. It works well for people whose problems fall
| nicely into the toolkits that the therapy industry has
| evolved to treat. If this is run-of-the-mill ADHD, it can
| help. If it is something else, it might not.
|
| Therapy can also peel away layers of problems. If you have a
| slew of problems, maybe therapy won't solve everything, but
| it will help you identify a few problems that you can fix,
| easing the burden to find other tools to solve the other
| problems. Some problems also have a multiplying effect on
| each other, so a partial solve of your concerns may make the
| rest livable.
|
| I'd say if someone truly wants to improve their life, it is
| worth trying the tools available to them. If they work, great
| - if not, try something else.
| cheapliquor wrote:
| I'm in a similar position, but have also learned that I can't do
| everything all at once. If I see something I'm interested, of
| course I bookmark it, but I prioritize the projects/ideas I feel
| would be useful in the short term vs long term.
|
| Then I let em go for a little while before doubling back. Once I
| have some free time, I'll take a shot at one of em. It's
| important to avoid overwhelming yourself. It's okay to let things
| simmer for a while before you come back to them, or even forget
| about them entirely and "re-discover" the things you've already
| read later on.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Badly, I've had some trouble maintaining employment in the past
| because at times it's just hard for me to start something. It's
| bad. I've been able to break some parts of the pattern, for
| instance I can manage to exercise daily now - but there are times
| where I wonder if I'll ever be able to cram enough productivity
| into a given day to really measurably improve as an engineer.
| jredwards wrote:
| For starters, I use https://hckrnews.com/ and filter it down to
| the top ten articles.
|
| Like many people with ADHD, I have a tendency to hyper-focus on
| things, and if I don't have something that I'm focused on I tend
| to get depressed. Over the years (a lot of years, self-awareness
| is not a strong suit), I've become more familiar with my patterns
| and tried to accommodate them and make healthy choices.
|
| It's easy for me to hyper-focus on a series of novels and devour
| them and not feel too guilty (this is better for sleep). When I'm
| hyper-focused on a development project or a work problem, it
| tends to disrupt my sleep patterns more. When stuff like that
| happens I try to make a lot of notes about the things intruding
| on my thoughts, so that I can put them to rest for the night and
| not feel like I need to address them now.
|
| Similarly, if a subject is really interesting and I don't want to
| lose track of it, I'll save all of the articles in Pocket and
| know that I can revisit the subject.
|
| Lastly: I have kids and they do not care what you are interested
| in right now. They're great at pulling me away from what I'm
| absorbed in.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| Just set aside a specific time to check the things that are
| interesting. Say, during lunch for 30 mins or carve out a 1 hour
| block where you just read.
|
| 5 hours a day seems excessive and a waste of time. How do you get
| anything else done? You can build a million dollar business in 5
| hours a day compound over time.
| badpun wrote:
| I'm not sure it's ADHD. It seems that you just enjoy reading
| about interesting things and fantasising about doing them
| yourself - but you don't enjoy ACTUALLY doing them. Every
| creative field is full of people like that. These are the people
| who've been talking about writing that novel for the past 15
| years. Or ,,painters" who paint one picture a year. I don't think
| it's neccessarily a medical condition - just a character trait. I
| know I am mostly like that.
| ark4579 wrote:
| > I'm not sure it's ADHD. I don't think OP meant because this
| happens to him, he has ADHD. He just wanted to know how other
| with ADHD deal with this situation.
| [deleted]
| swiety wrote:
| I use Notion.so and if I find an interesting article I put them
| on a list.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| I just accept it as a part of life.
|
| Read about interesting things, do more research, learn about the
| subject, read about something new and learn about that instead.
|
| Learning about a variety of topics isn't a bad thing, a thirst
| for knowledge is good. Sure I don't have an encyclopedic
| knowledge on one or two topics, but I know a lot of things about
| a broad range of topics
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| In general I usually just disconnect from the Internet when I
| need to get stuff done. Phone goes in a drawer too. It's very
| relaxing.
|
| Realistically, most of "news" isn't actually stuff that's
| happened, but just opinion and speculation. The remaining
| fraction will reach you if it's important.
|
| I've also found that most of my procrastination is from not
| knowing what to do next and sort of hopping back and forth
| between things I think needs to be done, so something like GTD or
| just a todo.txt-file has been amazing.
| badcppdev wrote:
| My current strategy:
|
| - Don't read all the comments - Write a quick reply if I feel I
| must - If I find myself googling to fact check my comments then
| just close all the windows.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| I run an instance of yacy where I index pages that I would
| otherwise bookmark.
|
| It prevents the infinite mega list forming and if you ever do
| need the knowledge then it has full text search and you can find
| it again.
| StuffMaster wrote:
| I use hckrnews.com and only visit periodically.
| avhception wrote:
| Oh hey, this is me, too! I'll have to read the comments, let's
| bookmark this...
|
| Or, as I like to do, just keep the browser tab open. I'm
| currently at 3 Firefox windows with 10 to 100 tabs each. And at
| the and of the longest tab list, there is that "restore session"
| tab I've been meaning to get to month ago...
| 98codes wrote:
| I've come down to admitting to myself that there's a "now" pile
| and a "never" pile. Sometimes, the never pile items can graduate
| to now, but those events are often random or born from
| unforeseeable external events.
|
| Projects that are not on my current short list of "need to know"
| things are added to the pile (added to Pocket with a tag of
| "checkthisout"), and I've decided to stop making myself feel
| badly for the list of things I never got to looking at.
|
| Items that fall into into the "now" column are added to a
| separate text-based list that I actively look at and work
| thorough when I find myself with extra time.
|
| What's truly "extra" time and not just time that should be spent
| on chores or honest-to-god downtime is an entirely different
| conversation.
| nisa wrote:
| Fellow ADHS person here - it's an addiction, it's not funny and
| it's close to a personal hell depending how worse it is.
|
| If you can go offline and don't read HN or other news on the
| internet do it. It doesn't matter. Practice ignoring it. Turn off
| the internet - not forever but long enough every day that you
| realize in what situation you are in.
|
| Why I'm saying such harsch things?
|
| Because you (and me) are bullshitting ourselves here - we are
| consuming news, articles and comments and looking for some
| insights or new information but we can't link it to existing
| knowledge mostly or get sidetracked and lose control of our own
| directions, things to do because these are probably dull,
| difficult or boring and have consequences - so they cause anxiety
| - and it's easier and mostly automatic behavior to run away from
| them and just fill your head with random tidbits on here. I'm not
| saying this site is bad - don't get me wrong - it's just that
| reading for hours here every day will do you no good and won't
| improve anything.
|
| What to do instead?
|
| ADHD is all about executive dysfunction and working on improving
| things there can have a huge impact - medication might help but
| is no panacea - stress, anxiety, outright fear can also cause
| this behavior and make it worse (at least for me).
|
| If you are in education or school go offline, go the lab, go to
| the lectures, meet other poeple in real life and work with them,
| this helps me a lot - take a pen and paper and work on problem
| sets or meet with other students - go from reading/consuming to
| writing/creating - make a shedule and be gently to yourself
| because you totally ignore it - but exercise getting better at it
| - exercise itself also helps, so does settings time-limits like
| stop working on something at a time, pomodoro technique and
| things like that.
|
| This won't work very well or at all depending how deep you are in
| the trouble but if you catch yourself drifting away be gentle to
| yourself and practice taking control again.
|
| Work torwards mastering yourself and what is in front of you, you
| may think it's not as cool or important but that is probably very
| likely wrong - do interact offline with real people, solve real
| problems and don't run away from it - face your shortcomings and
| failures and learn from them or at least avoid running away from
| your reality.
|
| You need to learn to be honest with yourself and work torwards
| tackling realistic work in small pieces for things to improve.
| Going into writing/creating mode helps and also slows you down
| and puts real problems in front of you that are worth solving (or
| ditch the project because you had wrong ideas about that)
|
| And be gentle to yourself it's okay to do gown the rabbit hole
| once in a while.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Drugs.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Indeed. Not necessarily the drugs everybody thinks though.
|
| Zolpidem (5mg taken in the morning when you are well-rested)
| apparently does magic - totally nails ADHD. I have never been
| nearly this alive, present (attentive, mindful), concentrated,
| non-lazy for the whole day. Better than anything (I have
| experimented with almost everything in light doses) to enhance
| my day.
|
| I suspect ADHD has something to do with GABA
| deficiency/insensitivity.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Make a lot of bookmarks and never revisit them unfortunately
| locuscoeruleus wrote:
| If you missed it, I think a lot of the discussion in this thread
| will be interesting for you.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34272834
| hidelooktropic wrote:
| I completely relate. One thing that has helped me is to employ
| the following workflow:
|
| 1. Use the "Add to reading list" feature in Safari.
|
| 2. Reward myself*
|
| 3. Before bed, I use a TTS** app to listen to those articles.
|
| *Important step to give yourself a hit of dopamine, however
| small. The lack of which is the reason for not being able to
| control this impulsivity in the first place.
|
| **Text to speech
| jdminhbg wrote:
| What do you do to reward yourself in step 2?
| heisnotanalien wrote:
| Meditation to develop single-point concentration.
| ryloric wrote:
| I have an 8 hour quota for the time I can spend in a week reading
| 'news' and use leechblock to enforce it.
|
| I don't read anything on my phone, only on a desktop or my
| laptop. When I open one of these 'news' links, there's a tiny
| countdown timer showing me the time left this week. Once the
| timer runs out, all tabs close and that's it, done for the week.
|
| I'm forced to be conscious of the time spent, so I read fast and
| am very picky about what I read.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| Idk if this will help or make it worse (because now you will
| spend time searching your history), but I hope it helps..........
|
| I don't bookmark anything anymore because my browser's
| autocomplete is so good at finding what I need and lasts like 2
| years. If I don't need to retrieve it within that time (and
| obviously retrieving it will reset that interval), I probably
| will never need it. And if something is SO important that I want
| to save it forever then I will have shared it with enough friends
| that I can search our conversation histories to find things. This
| almost failed me once because I forgot who I linked one thing to
| but within a couple days I remembered and linked it to several
| more people.
|
| I guess in this case for the TRULY important things I should
| probably bookmark but well YMMV. I haven't had an actual problem
| with this. And the trust in the system stops me from obsessive
| record-keeping.
|
| (I guess I should add that I do use some websites' built-in save
| functions, sometimes, but tbh they're pretty write-only, and I
| only really click them a couple times as a novelty)
| prithsr wrote:
| Medication helps. Lifestyle hasn't changed too much - I still
| have endless to-do lists, bookmarks, things I need to get to, but
| medication has helped me in the sense that it doesn't all feel
| overwhelming at every single moment, anymore. Days _feel_ easier
| to manage.
| dncornholio wrote:
| [flagged]
| ChrisRR wrote:
| They never said it did, nor was there any implication that they
| were.
|
| This post was a question about how other people with similar
| issues manage it. I don't see how you read otherwise.
| jcpst wrote:
| The most recent thing I've done is make my phone a whole lot less
| distracting. I used this guide:
|
| https://whatifididnt.com/blog/iphone-dumb-phone/
|
| I kept one of my note taking tools, voice memos, and bank apps. I
| still haven't reinstalled a web browser or email. It's been a
| little over a week.
|
| I wasn't on HN all weekend, where normally I would have been
| checking it throughout the day. It not being at my finger tips
| has been positive so far.
| nus07 wrote:
| I have to keep my phone next to me for 2FA, MFA while working.
| What workaround can I use to not have my phone in a different
| room while working?
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| If you have an iPhone put it into grayscale mode. I promise
| your screen usage will drop by half if you can keep it
| enabled.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| If the issue is notifications, iOS focus modes have a great
| deal of flexibility and can also be activated by Actions.
| dmytrish wrote:
| Easier said than done, but repurposing an old phone or
| getting a cheap one for work might help.
| quonn wrote:
| Find a job you truly love and allow it to take all your
| attention.
| bamboozled wrote:
| It's hard to want to do that when 90% of the news on here is
| how all our jobs are going to be automated by AI :)
| pizza wrote:
| Would you really be happier if you actually set out to do every
| idea you come up with?
|
| Just keep on collecting bookmarks and wait for the day when a
| truly good idea comes along, one which you had been anticipating
| and preparing for all along.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Pi Hole with my own blocklist. That is, I block all of my problem
| sites, then let someone else set my pihole password and then I
| delete my ssh key off the server.
|
| Then on the phone, remove all apps that allows consumption
| (social media, games, readers, youtube, even the browser).
| Debloat it with adb too. Switch off all notification except for
| your main chat app (like whatsapp) and alarms. If still too
| distracting, set the screen to monochrome. Do not allow your
| phone to enter your bedroom & charge in another room.
|
| Same with laptops/tv, keep them out of the bedroom.
|
| For series, movies & games, have a set window per week/month to
| watch/play, do not endlessly play when Idle. Give your brain
| something intentional to do.
|
| Avoid pornography as it can hook an adhd brain to the max and
| destroy your attention span.
|
| Avoid caffeine if you can, drink more water, go bed earlier - it
| all adds up.
|
| You basically have to change your relationship with the
| computers/internet and not allow yourself to consume/browse
| without intent or a clear goal. The internet is basically crack
| for our brains, so avoid it as much as possible.
|
| Get some physical exercise and/or sunlight, once a day. Something
| as simple as stretching for 15 minutes makes a huge difference.
|
| Remember that your brain WANTS stuff to do, it will generate an
| endless stream of crap to do if you don't learn to focus it. The
| internet is just the easiest way for it keep busy if you don't
| use it.
| z3c0 wrote:
| This seems like a very puritanical viewpoint. So much so, that
| it's a little peculiar and almost feels like a caricature. A
| life of avoidance does not help an ADHD brain, and the idea
| that your brain wants stuff to do is not the case at all. You
| will burn out very quickly going down that path. You'll get
| much further just taking a few times a day to slow your
| thoughts via meditation or engaging in a passive activity that
| allows constructive mind-wandering.
|
| Hell, I'd even recommend medicating over locking your whole
| life down and living in fear of your own brain.
| hollerith wrote:
| I think some people _need_ to go very puritanical to survive
| and to succeed in the modern world with its almost-constant
| easy access to entertainments, distractions and mental
| stimulations.
|
| I'm probably one of them. And the meds I have tried typically
| prescribed for ADHD have done more harm than good.
| Specifically I've tried Ritalin, Adderal and modafinil.
|
| Actually that is not true: modafinil did more good than harm,
| and the other 2 weren't significantly harmful (because I was
| smart enough to stop taking them as soon as I noticed they
| didn't help on net).
|
| But the point is that modafinil didn't help me with the
| problem we are discussing here. (Modafinil reduces the amount
| of REM sleep I get, even if I take it in the morning, and my
| trying modafinil is what caused me to _notice_ that reducing
| my REM sleep would be a good idea, which motivated me to find
| a _better_ non-drug way to reduce REM sleep, after which I
| had no use for modafinil.)
| z3c0 wrote:
| I'm not denying that some people have a harder time than
| others, but to restrict an ADHD brain is not unlike
| repressing a child. The "distractions" are only
| distractions to an orderly system - it does not imply that
| your brain is inherently disorderly, only that it doesn't
| mesh with the order defined by our society. Learning to
| reconcile the gap between your natural strengths as an ADHD
| individual and those needed to make it in the modern world
| will work far better than trying to shoehorn yourself into
| a set of rules that your brain refuses to comply with.
| Living without fulfillment will only further muddy the ADHD
| mind.
|
| Medicine is a shortcut to that, but as you've already
| noted, it's a huge undertaking of trial-and-error, and may
| only amount to a transitory solution. Nonetheless, if it
| carries you forward even a little, it's a worthwhile
| endeavor.
| hollerith wrote:
| You describe it as "living without fulfillment", but if
| the average internet-connect white-collar Western person
| stopped consuming all video entertainment, news and non
| goal-direct use of the web and the smartphone, then after
| adjustment period of a month or so, I suspect that the
| remaining pleasures in their lives would become more
| fulfilling with the result that their average level of
| fulfillment would be about the same as it currently is.
|
| I think that that is just how the human motivational
| system works: there is a set point, and if for example I
| get hit by a car and lose the use of my legs, my life
| gets much suckier for a while, but a month or so after I
| have settled in to being paralyzed (i.e., I have learned
| enough about it to have a basic understanding of the new
| constraints on my life) I will be about as happy or as
| miserable as I am now.
| ryloric wrote:
| Unless you have it you don't know what it feels like. This
| sort of generic advice is useless when you're awake in bed at
| 8:30 AM, still trying to sleep from last night but you can't
| because you can't physically stop yourself from doom
| scrolling on your phone.
|
| The only thing that really works is an unbreakable commitment
| device, make it so that the only thing you can do in any
| given situation is the right thing.
| z3c0 wrote:
| I do have it, so the rest of your highly presumptive
| comment became moot after the first sentence.
| ryloric wrote:
| Everyone who doesn't have it talks about it more or less
| like the way you did, "oh... why don't they just learn to
| control it like me instead of having all these rules".
|
| My comment is highly presumptive because your comment was
| extremely stereotypical of people who make light of it,
| maybe stop using words like 'puritanical' when describing
| what works for other people. Your impairments might be
| light to non-existent, doesn't mean mine are.
| z3c0 wrote:
| Once again, you're being presumptive. I have a rather
| severe case of ADHD co-morbid with PTSD, and nothing that
| I've stated as a solution is easy. If anything, it
| requires more discipline than simply cutting out
| temptations. You will need to learn to recognize when
| "it's time" and step away to re-calibrate. This requires
| knowing oneself and being transparent about your problems
| with others.
|
| The routes described prior are _extremely_ puritanical,
| and if you don 't see that, I am sorry that you are stuck
| wielding such repressive methods. They will be more of a
| detriment in the long run, as you realize that they do
| nothing to address your thought patterns. I am speaking
| from experience, as that doesn't seem to have been made
| clear.
| hidelooktropic wrote:
| I completely disagree about caffeine.
| https://www.verywellmind.com/how-does-caffeine-affect-people...
|
| "if you don't learn to focus it." this is nonsensical and
| harmful
| aidenn0 wrote:
| What doesn't mix for me is caffeine and Focalin. When I'm not
| on Focalin, I can drink caffeine in moderation and feel fine.
| A single cup of coffee when I'm on Focalin, and I'm going to
| get so much less quality sleep that I feel like a wet dishrag
| in the morning.
| cardanome wrote:
| Is the long term consumption of caffeine really a good idea?
|
| I would expect the tolerance build up to negate the positive
| effects fairly quickly. Most people that need to have their
| coffee in the morning are NOT more awake than a non-coffee
| drinker but need the coffee to just reach their normal
| baseline.
|
| So you would need higher and higher dosages to see any
| positive effects and at that point you get nasty side-effects
| like heart racing and insomnia.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Caffeine isn't heroin: tolerance plateaus after a few weeks
| of drinking coffee daily.
|
| > nasty side-effects like heart racing and insomnia
|
| I've been drinking coffee daily for two decades now and
| haven't ever experienced heart racing, nor insomnia if I
| limit my consumption to the A.M.
|
| People do process caffeine wildly differently through. I
| apparently have genes that make me not very sensitive to
| caffeine at all, but I know this isn't true for everyone.
| now__what wrote:
| Once upon a time I could drink a full pot of coffee every
| morning and feel fine. Now a single caffeinated (sugar-
| free) soda makes me feel terrible: racing heart, anxiety,
| shakiness. I've tried exposing myself to more caffeine to
| get used to it again. No dice. Bodies are weird.
| aradox66 wrote:
| Some of the effects of caffeine are subject to diminishing
| with tolerance, others are not.
|
| People develop tolerance at different rates, and it depends
| on dose and usage pattern, etc. It's not hard to use
| caffeine a lot and never develop a strong tolerance.
| (Probably not true for everyone, And it's a different story
| if you've already been drinking multiple cups of coffee
| every day for decades).
|
| There's some really fascinating research on caffeine use
| out there, highly recommend that rabbit hole for the
| interested.
| helllo123 wrote:
| Agree with locking down sites/apps - if you find your hands
| just start auto typing addresses in the toolbar as a coping
| mechanism for dopamine hits then lock up the problem sites and
| throw away the key. Set the redirect to something to try to
| queue you/remind you why you have it blocked (e.g a webpage
| with a quote). Leechblock is a good in browser alternative if
| you are on a work pc without access to pihole (e.g. through vpn
| etc) - you can set password and throw it away.
|
| I would also add to all of this if you have the ability to work
| in person with your screen visible it may help you to keep on
| track if you feel pressure of being "caught" slacking. Research
| "body doubling" multiple approaches to this.
|
| Above might seem extreme but some tricks like this can help you
| use your other psychological traits as a stick against your
| adhd trait (because we all know the carrot only lasts
| temporarily).
| [deleted]
| 0x008 wrote:
| For me it's more about balancing the opportunity cost of possibly
| not knowing this one important fact with the pain that is
| realizing how much of the stuff I am actually failing to get back
| to in the end.
|
| So I usually try to answer these questions for me:
|
| 1. What is the probability I will actually read it?
|
| 2. How much benefit is _actually_ contained within the
| information the article might provide?
|
| 3. How much stress will I experience when I realize I am not
| catching up?
|
| If I am honest on most of the things on HN score rather low on
| 1+2 but medium on 3. I can make the conscious decision that the
| trade-off is not worth it for me.
|
| Combine that with a rule that either I will read it now or it's
| not important enough and usually I can browse through the
| comments a little bit trying to siphon the gist of an article in
| a couple minutes and failing that I will just move on.
|
| Apart form that it has also helped is realizing that I absolutely
| loathe reading any long form articles. Even if I am really
| interested in the topic, I just cannot concentrate long enough to
| read any technical long form article that contains any form of
| 'fluff' in the writing. I started to hate reading these kinds of
| articles more and more.
| ark4579 wrote:
| Using RSS bot in slack, i recently added a subscription to HN. In
| Slack, i can skim through various articles while scrolling and
| open only those i want to read right away. Since it's url is
| already in slack i don't have to bookmark it. And Just because
| it's in slack doesn't mean i have to read it right away. So, for
| now it's working out good.
| munbun wrote:
| With ADHD, a single HN post could have me following source
| material and child nodes up to 5-6 layers deep.
|
| Once the time-blindness wears off, the anxiety sets in you
| realize hours have passed and outstanding work is due soon.
|
| What sort of worked:
|
| - Blocking web sites during work hours (SelfControl for MacOS and
| NextDNS for devices)
|
| What did work:
|
| - Consistent sleep schedule (10PM)
|
| - Mindfulness meditation in the morning
|
| - Getting physically active in the morning
|
| - Working in a different environment
|
| What helped on top of that:
|
| - Getting prescribed for ADHD medication
|
| - Professional counseling from a therapist
|
| - Dealing with what's causing your anxiety (or depression)
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > Working in a different environment
|
| By this, do you mean working in a different physical
| environment from where you relax? Or continuously changing your
| work environment? Or something else?
| munbun wrote:
| semi-public spaces where you aren't isolated, like co-working
| offices.
|
| if that's not feasible, a service like FocusMate in your home
| office.
| 56friends wrote:
| That basically describes my schedule and my habits.
|
| One important thing to add to that: an online diet. I have The
| Guardian, Reddit, and a ton of other distracting content
| blocked on all devices (hosts files, NextDNS, etc).
| fragmede wrote:
| If you haven't see it already, set noprocrast on your profile
| page.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I don't know if it helps but noprocrast (in HN settings) and
| Leechblock (browser extension) are the only way I stay employed.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > it's worse than my addiction to The Guardian.
|
| It's not :) Compared to other sites, HN is quite a healthy place.
| News are anxiogenic, and Twitter is as toxic as it gets.
|
| Moderation makes a good job of keeping the place sane, and even
| if it's just reading the headlines and comments, at least we kind
| of know what's going in the tech world.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Wasting the one non-renewable resource that we possess (time)
| is a problem, no matter which comforting delusion we use to
| justify it.
| Jatidude wrote:
| Only waste if it's defined as such. People get to decide how
| "bad" spending time doing things is for themselves.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I have adhd and have been taking adderall for more than a decade
| (wow I just now realized it's been that long). Ultimately, I've
| learned to just stay vigilant with my attention. I try to manage
| my brain the way I manage my kids hah. Direction and control but
| plenty of freedom and independence mixed in too. It's a balance
| that is rarely ever perfect though.
|
| Btw, I have a bookmark folder named "interesting" that has maybe
| 100 links and growing. I don't think ive read the content for any
| one of those links to the end. However, reading the list and
| remembering why I found it interesting in the first place is
| satisfying
| efields wrote:
| I find that bc I have to manage my kids, I can't manage my
| brain as well. Ever go through this?
| rsd79 wrote:
| 99% of all content I find interesting is added to Pocket for
| future reading. This gives me a relative peace of mind that I can
| return to all that when I feel like it, without actually doing it
| now. From time to time I browse Pocket to choose something to
| read. Once every few months I go into consumption mode for a day
| or two when I go through hundreds of articles (in some cases by
| just archiving). The time a piece of content stays in Pocket
| limbo helps me to distance myself from the joy of stumbling upon
| the content, which in effect allows me to focus on reading just
| the more interesting pieces.
| tbugrara wrote:
| I don't see any issues with what you've described. If I were you
| I'd challenge the interpretation that not reading every single
| thing you find interesting is a bad thing.
|
| The fact is there will always be too much for anyone to do. It
| might help to think about the issue you're having like how you
| think about FOMO.
| [deleted]
| castillar76 wrote:
| I hear you and am right with you---I recently spent the weekend
| trimming out Safari on my iPad from 500 tabs (mostly from HN
| articles) down to 20, and I'm already back up to about 75. And
| yep, super-frustrating to feel like there's all these cool ideas
| and projects and sites out there and all I'm doing is reading and
| marking them for later.
|
| One thing that helped was accepting that bookmarking it was just
| a way of putting it down _for now_ , and that I always have the
| option to come back to it. That doesn't happen often, but pruning
| back all those tabs did remind me of a couple things I'd marked
| that I wound up doing things with. And then on a regular basis
| I'll run into a problem and think, "Wait, I think I marked a site
| in Raindrop about this...aha! There it is." So storing those
| marks (as long as they're searchable!) still has benefit without
| immediate action, which helps me not leave them open (although
| I'm still wrestling with it...).
|
| Meanwhile, the act of browsing all those interesting reads and
| looking at those projects is beneficial in its own right _even if
| I do nothing else but read and bookmark_. By reading and
| absorbing all those different ideas, I make it far more likely
| that when I'm working on projects at work or talking with other
| people, my brain will pull those random articles together and
| make a connection or a reference that's useful.
|
| A friend of mine likes to call herself the "corporate bumblebee",
| gathering bits from one project and connecting it to other
| projects like a bumblebee spreading pollen. Think of reading HN
| as being a tech bumblebee: you're gathering the pollen that you
| can later give to other people.
| midjji wrote:
| Rittalin helps
| rey0927 wrote:
| i don't want to sound like a shill but stimulants definitely
| help. if you really have ADHD at least try them once it will
| significantly improve your quality of life and help u overcome
| the impairment.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Yup. The meds help. It was a big improvement from less then
| barely functional to moderately functional.
| corobo wrote:
| If it'd take longer than 5 minutes or so to read the article I
| chuck it into Instapaper.
|
| From there I've got my instapaper feed in my RSS reader, I'll
| give them a read whenever I've got a spare moment.
| y-curious wrote:
| Came here to say the same thing. Instapaper working so
| seamlessly with this site means I can read cool articles _in
| bed, on my Kindle, later_.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Two things,
|
| a) I categorize patterns of discussions that return again and
| again on here and they slowly become less stimulating until I
| stop looking. Most internet sites present the same information
| again and again, it doesn't satisfy anymore.
|
| b) I get annoyed, say something disagreeable and wisely take
| break from internet commentary and reading until I've moved on
| from whatever was annoying me. It can take months.
|
| Working with your hands on real life objects helps a lot too. You
| no longer desire to follow thoughts into addictive loops when it
| also hurts your body at the same time.
|
| For example, following a youtube video tutorial on repairing
| bicycles and cars, makes it plainly evident that you have to
| choose your battles, come up with creative solutions for your own
| environment and suffer some scars to actually follow through on
| your stimulating thoughts. Your back will hurt, you will find
| rusty bolts you can't move no matter how much you think it and
| have to let go of hyperfocusing on one solution and reframe your
| headspace.
|
| The internet and computing has a very low physical cost to
| participating in stimulating thoughts. Be wary of that fact.
| desro wrote:
| I also compulsively[?] bookmark things to get to them "later" but
| I think this is just something that stems from how ephemeral the
| web can be. I've started trying to regularly send my massive set
| of bookmarked links to a selfhosted ArchiveBox instance to
| preserve the content. Haven't figured out search yet, but I'm
| looking at Yacy and possibly Elastic. I cobsider it a personal
| knowledge base. It's reassuring to know that the feeling of "oh,
| I saw this! or read about that!" or "yes there was this project
| posted that solved this problem..." and know you can find it
| again with very little effort even if the original has long
| vanished.
|
| As for coping with ADHD in general... the tack I'm taking lately
| is to just embrace the mundane. "Mundane excellence" is kind of
| the mantra. I'll do outrageous things to avoid the mundane
| business of everyday life and work, but it causes a lot of
| problems and discomfort. But it actually tends to feel rewarding
| to engage with it over avoiding it. The whole frustrating "thing
| I put off for months just took ten minutes at 5% effort to just
| _do_ "... I don't know. It all remains a challenge, despite
| medication.
| leoedin wrote:
| > But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to
| do all the things in my brain. It's a severely frustrating and
| depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and
| disappointment.
|
| This really rings true with me. The excitement of the new
| project, and then the crushing realisation that I can't trust
| myself to put in the work to build it. Rinse and repeat.
|
| I have no answers, but to say you're not alone. I do build
| things, sometimes.
| Kiro wrote:
| We need to stop pretending HN is not part of the problem. Every
| time I see someone say they quit Facebook or Twitter on HN I
| chuckle. It's like announcing you quit smoking while shooting
| heroin.
| xcskier56 wrote:
| This app: https://selfcontrolapp.com/
|
| I don't quite know how it works, but it allows me to setup a
| website block list that I can't get around. I'm sure if I really
| tried I could figure out what it changed and get around the
| block, but 1) then it would defeat the purpose and 2) that takes
| effort that I don't want to spend.
|
| Then I put my phone in the other room, and voila! 95% of my
| distractions are out the window.
| ap77 wrote:
| Here's what works for me.
|
| 1. Start the day by mentally going over goals, and figuring out
| what I need to do.
|
| 2. Use _simple_ project management SW (like Trello, Notepad,
| Kanban boards) to keep track of what's going on and what's
| coming. The dopamine hit marking tasks "Done" is usually enough
| to keep me motivated.
|
| 3. Allocate time for off-task activities, like reading random
| interesting articles, YouTube, etc. This can be 10-15 min breaks
| throughout the day, and only after completing the current task.
| After that, actually shut down distracting apps/pages.
|
| That's enough most of the time. If it's not...
|
| 4. Switch to a different (work-related) task for a while.
|
| 5. If really stuck, ask for help in chat. (I work remotely, so
| the ability to self-motivate is really important) The process of
| talking through a problem usually helps me focus on it.
|
| 6. If I catch myself procrastinating too much, I invoke a "boss
| personality". You know how we act differently around different
| people/situations? Those are mini personalities. I have one that
| tells me: "Dude, get your s--t together! People are counting on
| you."
|
| 7. The fear of having to look for a different job! :)
|
| I find that developing good habits and schedules really helps me.
| zabzonk wrote:
| you can be addicted to the guardian? i have read the grauniad
| since i was 18 or so, thus for over 50 years. there are perhaps
| two or three articles in the average day that might be worth
| reading, plus the new word game that i got 100% on today
| (supercriticality) but that only takes me 20 mins or so. what can
| you find there to interest you so much?
| comprev wrote:
| Discipline. Perhaps a harsh answer but it's true.
|
| Some are self controlled enough to remind themselves HN is a
| dangerous time sucking rabbit hole as soon as they see the
| homepage. They close the tab instantly.
|
| Others require browser plugin or DNS level intervention because
| their self-control is not strong enough - yet.
|
| Personally I have a my medication bottle _next to my monitor_ as
| a visual reminder. My ultimate goal is to accomplish the same
| tasks with zero medical assistance, and I acknowledge this might
| be a long journey finding out what works for me.
| [deleted]
| Friday0722 wrote:
| I use a Reading List and file away anything interesting and then
| immediately close the tab. When I have time, I can go back and
| review all the things. In truth, I don't read most of them, but
| filing them away makes me comfortable to move on. If your browser
| doesn't have a Reading List, there are myriad extensions, you can
| also use Pocket, or even Evernote's web clipper. Use a couple of
| key tags - don't go overboard on tagging.
|
| I also just focus on article content and ignore comments on all
| sites. Anyone can make a comment on a site, and there's no clear
| indication of authoritative comments vs amateur opinion, so
| they're largely a waste of time - there are lots of good
| comments, for sure, but I just don't have the time to wade
| through looking for them.
| marmetio wrote:
| I don't bookmark anything interesting anymore. If I get inspired
| to look at something again, I search for it.
| andybak wrote:
| Yeah. I have several levels of "things I will never get around
| to":
|
| 1. I keep a tab open for a few days until I have 200 tabs open.
| I then bulk save them using OneTab and never look at that
| either.
|
| 2. Things I want to remain in my gaze goes in my bookmark
| toolbar until it scrolls off the end and is never seen again
|
| 3. I occasionally use regular bookmarks and have come to accept
| the fact that I never look at them (although it does give them
| a bump in the address bar autocomplete which sometimes helps)
|
| So - all of this is basically a sop and deep down I've just
| made peace with the fact that I never return to most of these
| things. I figure if it's important enough I'll just remember it
| and search for it.
| marmetio wrote:
| I resist doing any of that in the first place because it's
| just giving in to an unhealthy habit. The time and attention
| I spent cataloging was supposed to be for something else.
| andybak wrote:
| This is the quickest way I can get round indecision.
|
| Do I need this? Not sure... One click to stop worrying
| about it and move on.
|
| I certainly strive to do no cataloguing or sorting of this
| stuff. That was an early valuable lesson I learned (even
| before getting diagnosed)
| marmetio wrote:
| The click is cataloging.
| andybak wrote:
| You are technically correct.
| marmetio wrote:
| What's important is that it's reinforcing a bad habit.
| andybak wrote:
| The "bad habit" is poor impulse control and failure to
| control focus. That's something that is so central to
| ADHD that all I can ever really hope to do is mitigate
| it.
|
| Sometimes having 50 tabs open is a sign that I'm
| distracted and sometimes it's a sign up being really
| productive. All I can hope to do is make sure that the
| needle swings to the latter more often than the former
| and that I have a good strategy to recover when it
| doesn't.
| marmetio wrote:
| I was coached+medicated out of doing the same thing.
| Betelgeuse90 wrote:
| I feel you. There's so much good stuff out there.
|
| But you're only capable of handling so much. You're under no
| obligation to process every piece of information you think you
| might like, and moreover - you shouldn't. You'd be setting
| yourself up for disappointment.
|
| The way I work is I acknowledge my limits and follow my gut.
| Sounds vague but that's what I got.
| zabzonk wrote:
| no, there is so much crap out there - just learn to ignore it
| boomskats wrote:
| Bookmarking this comment section for later. Thanks OP!
| cja wrote:
| Medication to make your brain less dysfunctional and
| psychoeducation to learn how ADHD affects you and about tools and
| techniques to manage yourself better.
|
| There's tonnes to learn and to discover about yourself. The more
| you know, the better you can focus your actions to achieve your
| goals.
| niuzeta wrote:
| I get prescribed with an ADHD medication.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I have to block HN and Reddit during the work day. My problem is
| that I take just a second to check HN while something compiles
| and then an hour later I'm still reading.
| elektrontamer wrote:
| I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but I've been trying to
| reduce distractions for a long time and the one thing that was
| extremely effective for me was going to the office and taking a
| desk in a busy region with my back against interior rather than
| the windows, this made my monitors visible to everyone. The
| constant feeling of being judged made it impossible to get
| distracted and I was extremely productive when I was at the
| office.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Huh, interesting. Whenever I tried this I just felt anxious and
| retreated into my phone.
|
| I suppose it depends on the type of work though. I could see
| this working well for the more mindless, grindier tasks, but
| this seems kind of awful for a task that requires some
| concentrated thought and creativity.
| elektrontamer wrote:
| It might also be my mind naturally fitting in with the crowd
| when I see everyone focused on their task. The anxiety is odd
| though. Do you hate crowds?
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I actually love crowds, and work just fine in coffee shops,
| but don't enjoy the perception of being watched as I work.
| dmytrish wrote:
| What works for me:
|
| - reminding myself that my fear of missing out is misleading.
| Grounding myself in work and specific interests. Nothing bad will
| happen if I miss a hot new JS framework.
|
| - that clears space for more introspection. Observing myself,
| what I spend time on exactly here, how and why.
|
| - then, deprioritizing new shiny unimportant things from HN in my
| mind; I still look at new things outside my niche, but I try to
| prioritize looking at HN posts closer to my interests. It's also
| good because some of HN comments look deep and insightful, but
| are not actually accurate or objective. It takes some pre-
| existing knowledge to be able to tell that.
|
| - sorting through the tabs, moving important ones to the left, to
| be able to close a ton of tabs on the right in one go without
| hesitation when needed. Tree Style Tabs for Firefox helps me make
| rabbit holes visually obvious and undig myself from them.
|
| - getting into a habit of more self-awareness of why I spend time
| here, "do I get anything meaningful from this time?". If not,
| time spent in comments would be better spent reading the actual
| article or docs for this new thing.
|
| - getting "no HN" time, when I consider even visiting it a bad
| thing (not in a shameful way, just "here we go again").
| Practicing switching attention to something else, even if it's
| something silly (and hopefully not too engineered for grabbing my
| attention).
| onion2k wrote:
| I think I have some sort of weird ADHD combined with a stoic
| outlook. I want to see all the new, shiny things, but I also
| understand that I can't, and nothing bad happens if I don't, so I
| accept that I'll just miss some things.
| affgrff2 wrote:
| I agree. I think it is necessary to accept (as in 5 steps of
| acceptance) that is not possible to process all the shiny
| things. Keeping bookmarks and not closing tabs thus indicates
| an early phase off the acceptance process, probably denial.
| Xanadu666 wrote:
| I'm 72 and retired. A blessing and a curse. I spend a lot of time
| ferreting out obscure facts on obscure topics and pursuing and
| commenting on social issues on web sites and to elected
| officials. I can't stand online videos or podcasts as the
| transmit information too slowly. I prefer to read and think about
| issues or concepts being presented. I have thousands of books in
| my house. I have thousands of bookmarks that I continually re-
| categorize. When I interact with people (which my wife, a nurse,
| forces me to do as a mental health measure) topics come up that I
| feel compelled to research and provide a report on later. This
| need to know, this feeling of missing out is exhausting. I have
| to force myself away from the computer and relocate myself
| physically somewhere where there is no access to the internet. My
| eyesight is failing me which is a blessing as I find it
| frustrating to use my mobile to look up things on the internet
| and instead actually use it for what it was originally designed
| to do - handle phone calls. Drugs just put me in a contemplative
| state that makes the browsing just that more dopamine rewarding.
| Therapy has been frustrating - primarily for the therapist - as I
| bring far too much information to sessions in order to "share".
| I've come to accept this state of existence and do my best to
| time manage the impact and not let the compulsion overwhelm other
| aspects of my life. My growing existential realization that the
| end of life is closer than the beginning provides an incentive to
| experience other things besides the internet as it may be the
| last time I experience that other thing. My advice to younger
| people with ADHD is to force yourself away from the compulsion.
| Very hard I know. You need to recognize and internalize that it's
| simply not possible to absorb everything we, as a species, are
| creating. The rewards for actually experiencing life far out
| weigh the rewards from simply reading about it.
| [deleted]
| mceoin wrote:
| noprocrast mate.
|
| Go into your HN profile settings and implement it now if you
| haven't already.
| samelawrence wrote:
| I visit the HN site very rarely. I mostly see HN links via the
| Panda browser plugin. I open stories I'm interested in, which
| then leads to tab hell, but that is at least a defined list I can
| work through vs. the infinite scroll problem. YMMV.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| As with others, "poorly", though I've made some attempts.
|
| I keep my principle mobile device (an e-ink tablet) free of
| virtually _all_ authenticated services. (An articles-clipping app
| is the one exception). I can _read_ HN, but cannot _engage_ from
| that device specifically.
|
| I'll also try to turn off WiFi at least when possible.
|
| HN as an article-filtering tool works well. Combining that with
| Algolia Search's time-bounded search, you can filter by the most
| popular stories of the past week, month, or year, which can be an
| interesting further restriction by entering a blank search:
|
| Week:
| <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=fal...>
|
| Month:
| <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...>
|
| Year:
| <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...>
|
| As always, "popular" isn't a synonym for "best", though it is a
| reasonable proxy.
|
| You can also of course search for specific topics or people of
| interest, though here _story_ search is often less useful than
| _comment_ search, for which matches tend to be more likely and
| relevant. Note that comment votes were removed from publicly-
| exposed data ... a long time ago? Apparently 2011:
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595605>, though I thought
| it was more recent.
|
| You can also visit "past" which will show _previous days '_
| posts, after the voting has largely settled. Again, this tends to
| filter out lower-quality content.
|
| Otherwise:
|
| - I'm trying to read or at least skim the article _before_
| reading comments, though that 's one of those "observed in the
| breach" pledges...
|
| - Recognise that comment quality on HN, whilst _higher_ than
| _most_ other significant online sites ... is still fairly poor
| relative to more curated sources, and there 's a great deal of
| partisanship and ignorance (myself included) in discussion.
|
| - "You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to", a/k/a
| "Someone is _wrong_ on the Internet " <https://xkcd.com/386>.
|
| - The HN Hivemind itself tends to glom on to specific topics and
| ideas more readily than others. I'm reminded of this every time I
| review my own submissions --- the stuff I'd really like to see
| take off rarely does, though there are occasional exceptions.
| It's usually either throwaway or predictable submissions which do
| get attention. (The submission queue is fickle, there _is_ the
| Second-Chance Pool ( "Pool": <https://news.ycombinator.com/pool>)
| to which you can _both_ submit _and_ peruse usually higher-
| quality / less immediately catnippy articles.)
|
| - Time-boxing is underappreciated. Recognise what role HN does
| play in your life, and admit it _at times_ but _only in a limited
| fashion_. You have 24 hours in a day, and probably about 2--4
| hours _per day_ which you can tightly focus on intellectual
| content. You 're going to need to allocate that to work, personal
| matters, and general distraction. "Eat the frog first", put your
| most important tasks earlier in the day. (Much of this comes from
| David Allen's _Getting Things Done_.)
|
| - I've also tried to apply a "BOTI" principle to what I
| encounter. That's "best of the interval", where "interval" is
| day, week, month, year, etc. I'll try to capture what seem _both
| at the time and on later reflection_ to be the most significant
| articles, books, ideas, etc., I 've encountered. This is
| partially reflected in the Algolia tips above, though I'll also
| keep a local list (bookmarks folder for "BOTI-Jan-2023", say, or
| a save-to-ePub EinkBro compilation on my e-book reader). There's
| the question then of whether or not that material actually _was_
| as compelling as thought at the time, and of course, the
| challenge of actually reading what I 've archived. But it's at
| least an effort at organisation.
|
| That said: the struggle is real and constant.
| cma wrote:
| HN weekly mailing list (only sends the top 100 articles of the
| week), or noprocrast settings.
| throwaway049 wrote:
| I accept that I'm not a polymath or genius. But I used to think I
| was supposed to be keeping up with everything in every field.
| icebergonfire wrote:
| I'm going to tell you what worked for me, with the explicit
| caveat that it may not work for you and/or you may not find it
| palatable.
|
| I use browser extensions to timegate the time spent in websites
| that I know hit me in my weak spots and tend to send me into
| time-wasting sessions that I have nothing to show for. There's
| Stayfocusd and Leechblock, and probably other alternatives.
|
| This worked for a few years, but it stopped. I tried rectifying
| that with no consistent success, there's no amount of calendar
| reminders / pomodoros or external triggers that helped beyond the
| initial novelty.
|
| I tried medication, currently on Concerta XR 36mg, and it has
| made a world of difference. It's not a superpower but it does
| enable me to notice the distraction spirals I can get myself into
| and I can now break them.
|
| I still have to use the same support systems I used before
| though. It's not a miracle cure, it just "adds" willpower to my
| toolbox.
| esskay wrote:
| Ugh, wish it was easier to get hold of ADHD meds (or even a
| diagnosis) here in the UK. I've got it, well aware I have and
| have avoided even attempting to go to the GP to get medicated
| as from what I can see the wait times go into the years.
|
| Is it 'worth it'? I.E is your life noticably beter for being
| medicated for it?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > Is it 'worth it'? I.E is your life noticably beter for
| being medicated for it?
|
| Yes, absolutely.
| esskay wrote:
| Thanks for this. I ended up going down a rabbit hole after
| my post and found out that we now have something called
| 'Right to Choose' which is where you can ask your GP to
| refer you to a private practice.
|
| From reading the ADHDUK subreddit it turns out it takes it
| down to under 6 weeks. Think I need to call my GP and have
| a conversation.
| thelittleone wrote:
| I concur. I am super conscious of what I consume, and was
| very apprehensive, but a few months on dex got me and my
| business back on track.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I was reluctant to as well, it's part of the "why don't
| you just focus" narrative we've heard for years. My
| therapist said, "You're a gamer, why do you want to play
| life on hard mode when most people are on normal mode?"
| scajanus wrote:
| The years pass anyway, so why not get the process started
| like right now?
| esskay wrote:
| You're right, I've kinda been in a bit of denial about it
| to be honest. That needs to change.
| marmetio wrote:
| You can get equal benefits from meds and coaching, but it's
| relatively effortless to benefit from coaching with meds. The
| first time I took a stimulant, it kicked in basically
| immediately and suddenly nothing was difficult except coping
| with not having done it earlier.
| zhenyakovalyov wrote:
| are you considering any long term effects of meds? or are
| you using them topically? how are your cognitive effects
| while on meds?
| marmetio wrote:
| There's no real long-term dependence. Going off the meds
| just returns me to my natural, dysfunctional self. I
| don't usually do that because it's disruptive without
| benefit.
|
| The first type I tried happened to be right for me, so I
| didn't experience any negative effects. I did experiment
| with dose, though. Getting it right just feels like being
| more awake, which is how I describe the ability to choose
| where I hold my focus.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > There's no real long-term dependence.
|
| I think this varies highly from person to person. As
| someone who takes one to two days off a week, when
| possible, I must say I get some pretty brutal withdrawal
| side-effects.
|
| None of the side-effects are really dangerous or life-
| threatening by any means, but they are still somewhat
| disabling. I've been taking my medication for about 8
| years now, and I am starting to feel like the medication:
|
| 1. Has drastically diminished it positive returns
|
| 2. Is starting to take more away from me than it's giving
| back
|
| Not sure, what other option I'll move to, but I do not
| have many of them left since I have tried almost all the
| various stimulant formulations multiple times minus
| Desoxyn.
| skissane wrote:
| Does the UK have private doctors? If the public system has
| endless wait times, can you pay $$$ to a doctor to see them
| quicker privately instead? (Assuming one has $$$ to spend - I
| acknowledge not everyone does, and the people who would gain
| the most tangible benefit from a psychiatric diagnosis are
| often the people least likely to have the $$$ to pay for
| one.)
| esskay wrote:
| It does, I did a bit of digging after posting and it looks
| like you can get your GP to refer you to a private
| practice, pay them and then switch back to the GP once
| you've been diagnosed and started medication.
|
| So it looks like theres an initial cost to get going but it
| takes the wait time down from ~3 years to around 6 weeks.
| Think I might need to call my GP and get started, I've been
| putting this off way too long.
| _dain_ wrote:
| You don't need to have a GP referral. I didn't. Just go
| with a private psychiatrist that specializes in ADHD and
| you can get diagnosed.
| bashkiddie wrote:
| I have been on Ritalin for 5 years when I was a teenager. The
| side effects are strong, the benefits are weak. Side effects:
|
| * After eating I do not feel full. Never. There is a feeling
| of "my stomach starts to hurt, there is hardly any place
| left". * I am scared of the dark, I remember all the horror
| movie snippets I have seen in my life
|
| The side effects still reside today
|
| Benefit:
|
| * After getting off Ritalin, my marks in school dropped by
| half a grade. Which is not that much, I still ranked best of
| class.
|
| It was a good decision for my personal development to drop
| Ritalin.
| smcl wrote:
| I tried modafinil a few times. I was never diagnosed with
| ADHD but I was describing to a friend basically exactly what
| OP said, mixed in with a lack of focus @ work. He suggested I
| try modafinil and gave me a bunch of his stash (along with
| some stronger things I wasn't as keen on). Taking some before
| I hopped on the tram meant it had started to take effect
| around the time I sat down and started work, and I felt
| remarkably more motivated and focussed during the following
| ~8 hours or so. It's a bit of a game-changer. I felt a little
| bit like the day whizzed past, and had a bit of trouble
| sleeping afterwards so I was sure never to use it more than a
| couple of days out of any given week.
|
| I think it's of questionable legality here, but if you can
| get a doctor to prescribe it legally it's well worth looking
| into.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > I still have to use the same support systems I used before
| though. It's not a miracle cure, it just "adds" willpower to my
| toolbox.
|
| It switched all those support systems from kinda work and
| absolutely necessary to kinda necessary and absolutely work.
| jbirer wrote:
| - Constantly reminding myself to get back to work
|
| - Deep house music in headphones, sad ones help focus
|
| - Tomato timer
|
| - Edging, which releases dopamine and helps you focus.
|
| I don't take amphetamines because they just make me sleepy, in a
| bizare twist.
| zyang wrote:
| > Edging, which releases dopamine and helps you focus
|
| Hopefully you work from home.
| annie_muss wrote:
| How do I manage? with the help of assistive tools. Calendars,
| timers, reminders, alarms. They all contribute to the ability to
| get something done. You also need to learn techniques to help
| control the emotions that are involved with the procrastination
| you face. The good news is you can improve. The bad news is, if
| you have ADHD, you'll probably never be at the same level of
| someone who doesn't suffer from it.
|
| My comment history offers other advice and suggestions for ADHD.
| It's a long struggle but it's worth it.
| boomskats wrote:
| Your comment history looks really interesting! Bookmarked for
| later.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I don't. I'm just waiting to get fired and die.
| Fell wrote:
| I see something on HN and I get inspired. It sparks many ideas in
| my head and I start planning a project in my mind.
|
| But I don't write it down. Nor do I bookmark anything. I don't
| use bookmarks at all, frankly.
|
| I know I don't have the time to start any new personal projects.
|
| So I think about it, and then let it go.
|
| I think this only reflects the jumpy disjointed nature of my
| brain. Things come and go, and that's okay.
| tibbon wrote:
| I've on and off had problems with similar since early Slashdot
| years. Very ADHD.
|
| A few years ago I realized I have more important things to do. I
| log on here when I can, but i'm fine with missing things.
|
| Sure; there's so much I'll never come back to, but whatever.
| That's just life. I look for recurring patterns, not individual
| items.
| rchaud wrote:
| I definitely get it about the constant bookmarking. There are
| often really good comments on HN, so I began saving the good ones
| in my Logseq journal. I save a ton of stuff in my Twitter
| bookmarks as well.
|
| The key is to regularly re-visit these bookmarks and clean them
| up. For me it means categorizing these saved threads and comments
| under a specific theme. Maybe I'll write a blog post about it
| once I've arranged those ideas together. Even if I don't, the act
| of acting on those bookmarks reduces mental clutter.
|
| Be sure to time-box it though. There's nothing more frustrating
| than opening up Twitter to review some old bookmarks and then
| getting distracted in the organization+deletion cycle for 45
| mins.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Yep, I struggle.
|
| Things I've done.
|
| 1. Delete my account, change /etc/hosts or use OpenDNS and block
| it. 2. Restrict it to one device and only for 1 hour a day. 3.
| Sign up for a digest email from another service and only use
| that.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I don't have ADHD. But I do have a bad Guardian habit, and I
| spend a lot of time following HN links (I have time to spare).
| Most of the things I want to do never get onto a todo list,
| because I don't want to clutter my list of _important_ things to
| do, which I try to restrict to no more than three items.
|
| I doubt it's about ADHD, mate.
| collyw wrote:
| Having a habit of reading the Guardian is bad.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Specifically relating to browsing:
|
| Just use a website blocker, plenty about. I use Cold Turkey
| (mentioned in another thread the other day), but there are
| others.
| mleafer wrote:
| yea i feel exactly the same. i just open a billion tabs, and use
| a mix of saving to pocket and onetab - onetab is the best, i
| rarely go back and check it, but it makes closing tabs feel a lot
| easier
| thevania wrote:
| I do white noise on headphones, help me focus for many many
| hours, YouTube is full of that, get some good mix of vacuum
| machines, hair dryer noise on multiple tabs, play around with
| what works best for you - try to look for a moment where it makes
| you feel goosebumps aka when you hit some kind of "resonance"
| then keep that playing and try to focus - don't fight the "noise"
| instead try to embrace it let it flow thru you and time will
| kinda cease to exist and work will get miraculously done :D
| player00000001 wrote:
| Implement a FIFO based bookmarking scheme that deletes bookmarks
| >3mnths old, if it's not on your mind for longer than 3 months
| you'll probably never care to read it.
| atemerev wrote:
| I stopped bookmarking long ago. I almost never read bookmarks,
| and if I still bookmark something, and never return to it, I
| don't feel any guilt. Such the way it is.
|
| I, however, still sad that I don't have energy and not bright
| enough to do quantum computing research (I am trying, but my
| applications to Xanadu, CERN and LANL were rejected), and many
| other things. FOMO is inevitable.
|
| But letting things go is inevitable, too.
| mleafer wrote:
| use onetab - i rarely go back and check it but it makes closing
| tabs down feel a hell of a lot easier
| triggercut wrote:
| Somewhat luckily/unluckily my job sometimes needs me to raid my
| references to come up with positions on niche topics.
|
| Probably not that healthy really. Like a hoarder with happy
| clients
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| The book four thousand weeks by oliver burkeman or even just
| reading through his news letters is helpful to understand a
| different approach to time management and a philosophy of
| accepting finitute, I understand your issue, I am the same, but I
| think the freedom comes from understanding that you cannot win,
| you cannot find a solution to your question, there is just too
| much and always will be too much for you to do or that you could
| do and that is okay. Once you come to terms with that, it allows
| you to stop trying to do everything or follow every interesting
| path and get to work on something worthwhile.
| dspillett wrote:
| Not ADHD0 but I have similar issues with HN and similar. This
| usually results in a great many open tabs, different ones in
| different places1, spread over numerous browser windows where
| applicable. I need a better way to manage it all but what
| currently happens is:
|
| * Anything not being immediately looked at is shovelled to a
| different desktop to help keep focus. Tabs on phones are move to
| this desktop on one of the other machines.
|
| * When browser memory use starts to climb it is time for a
| pruning session. Things that I don't really remember usually
| weren't that significant and are just dropped. Other get filed
| with notes in my collection of "possible projects/playthings"
| text files that are kept on a server accessible to all my
| devices4. This can take some time as I usually get distracted and
| end up climbing back down the rabbit-holes that resulted in some
| of those open tabs in the first place...
|
| * I've started actively trying to be "evil" with myself and
| controlling the amount of time I'm here. This sometimes means
| passing up on links in favour of others, or just opening the tab
| but not looking at it until later (if I don't end up having time
| later this either gets closed or moved to that dumping ground
| desktop). If something is relevant to particular projects or idea
| groups the links (source and HN thread) go directly into the
| relevant project text files, skipping further attention/triage,
| to be looked at in more detail in that mythical future time that
| I properly look into said project(s) again.
|
| I used to use a mind-mapping tool to keep the lists of lists of
| related lists of lists & notes together, but that became unwieldy
| so went back to tetx files. I've tried or just looked at various
| apps2 and not spotted anything that matches what I want. A couple
| of those many project files concern writing my own tool to manage
| my brain-dumps, or at least a tool to help index/search the
| lists/notes as they are currently stored.
|
| Occasional lost windows full of tabs due to browser crashes that
| have had no lasting effect on my life should probably be a sign
| that I should just stop caring to a large extent, but that is
| never going to happen!
|
| ----
|
| [0] unless I am but undiagnosed!
|
| [1] home main PC, laptop, phone, work machine, old phone that I
| haven't decommissioned yet as moving the FirstDirect banking app
| over is a PITA, old phone I use for work as I refuse to have
| Teams & other work stuff on personal devices
|
| [2] like OneNote, keep and various FOSS options - Keep sometimes
| acts as a temporary3 dumping ground for things on their way to
| the text files
|
| [3] though not temporary enough, I have too much in there ATM
|
| [4] and, or course, backed up & historied along with other work,
| not actually in proper source control like I almost certainly
| should5, but at least in backups that allow access to older
| versions
|
| [5] yet another not-on-going project being to rationalise how I
| store and backup _everything_.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Fear of missing out, FOMO.
|
| The simple fact is, humanity is producing more content than you
| can consume, even if you dedicated every moment of your life to
| consuming it.
|
| So stop dedicating every moment of your life to bookmarking
| things you plan to consume. You won't.
|
| Trust that cream rises to the top, check the front page, read as
| many articles as you can, then forget about the rest. That's all
| anyone can do.
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(page generated 2023-01-23 23:02 UTC)