The oversimplification and promises that if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days really irks me.
I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference.
Without the understanding that diagnosis gave me, I'd tried every productivity technique and app, and came up with my own ad hoc systems, but they didn't stick and just reinforced the cycle of seeing myself as someone who's just doomed to live the life of a chronic procrastinator, always stressed out and overwhelmed.
A course like this would have done nothing but separate me from some money and give me a temporary feeling that I found the magic answer to everything, leading to disappointment and self hatred when I inevitably dropped it all.
I only have a personal anecdote, but if it sounds familiar, maybe there's some advice buried in it.
It's the classic situation of someone without ADHD telling us "just focus!" or "you just need to write things down!" or "you're just lazy".
I have ADHD, and I also do not have a sense of smell (lost it in a TBI when I was a teenager). I tell people, "you take for granted what it's like to have a sense of smell. It affects every moment of your day, catching your interest and directing your attention all the time. Imagine not having a sense of smell. Imagine not smelling dinner or smelling your wife or smelling your baby. Imagine not smelling flowers or not smelling a gas leak. So much of what you take for granted comes from your sense of smell. Having ADHD is like that. You take executive function for granted, and can't imagine what it's like to not have that. When you say 'just write things down!' it's like saying 'just smell harder!'"
I'm sorry that happened to you. The phrase that made my then wife an ex-wife for me was "you're not supposed to be fixing yourself you're supposed to be fixing our marriage!"
Led me (with therapy and time) to realize what I meant to her; I was an accessory.
The thing that worked for me was getting so bored of being depressed that one day my mind went “Okay fine, you’re right, nothing matters. If nothing matters, then me feeling this way doesn’t matter either. I’ll just go do the things regardless of how I feel”
Been 20 years now. Works fine. The depression has been starved of attention, only comes back when I’m hungry.
> Nihilism is often associated with feelings of despair, pessimism, and apathy, as it challenges traditional beliefs and values. However, some argue that it can also lead to a sense of freedom and liberation, as it allows individuals to create their own meaning and values without being bound by pre-existing structures.
It is counter-intuitive to the traditional: find meaning and purpose dogma.
Years later, I read Viktor Frankl and his approach really resonated with me. He adds the nuance that you need meaning, but you can create your own out of anything.
Yes. Being depressed is SO boring. So is being in a psychiatric hospital because of deep depression (I've done that twice, in 1977 after a near-miss suicide attempt (pills) and in 1991 when I became anxiously non-functional and frightened).
Though I've never been in jail or prison, I suspect boredom is a dominant condition there too.
Sure, but that's something that only works when you say it to yourself and believe that it will work. It worsens the situation when it comes from someone else.
I'm not a medical expert or anything but I guess there is a good chunk of population who just procrastinates or can struggle with focus without having ADHD? Or is there always a 1:1 relationship?
A lot of people (myself included) procrastinate on something because it's emotionally uncomfortable, without necessarily having ADHD. For example, when I was much younger, I'd procrastinate on math homework specifically, not because I struggled with focus, but because it was difficult to admit to myself that I didn't know how to do it and would need to practice. Subjects that came more naturally to me (English, science) didn't give me a "fear of failure" response in the same way.
Growing up, my parents didn't have encouragement or patience in their emotional toolkit. You were expected to do everything perfectly - homework, writing a letter, any kind of planning, even sweeping the floor or washing dishes - and if you struggled in any way you were berated at length.
Many decades later even mundane things can be a battle - ringing a doctor to ask for an appointment, or a provider to query a bill, filling in forms and so on. Most of my procrastination stems from my experiences back them. It is easier in my mind to defer action than to risk the imagined verbal abuse. I'd imagine a fair share of non-ADHD related organisational issues can be traced to similar experiences.
Just like you can't out-train a bad diet, you can't out-live a shitty childhood.
Really sorry you went through this. Your experience reminds me of mine, which left me to contend with a lifetime of challenges.
> Just like you can't out-train a bad diet, you can't out-live a shitty childhood.
I think I’d challenge this slightly. Out training a bad diet probably doesn’t work, but is better than a bad diet with no training. And when you fix your diet, the training can start working wonders.
My childhood left deep and unhealthy imprints, but I’m no longer in that environment. I think you can out-live a shitty childhood, by changing your diet so to speak. This is grueling work, painful, slow, and often frustrating. But replacing old patterns can really transform living in the same way changing a bad diet can transform the process of training.
Over time I’ve come to believe strongly that the only thing harder than dealing with the past is not dealing with it. And over time, this gradually transforms the present. I very much prefer the late 30s version of me to all of the preceding iterations.
Best of luck on your own journey. Send me an email if you ever want to chat. (Not selling anything, just someone who cares about this topic a lot).
That sums up a lot of workplace disfunction. Proactively pushing new ideas and then getting blamed for failure, not applauded for them attempt. It’s why corporates can’t innovate internally.
The book "Learned Optimism" was a life changing read for me coming from this kind of background. It includes exercises that start to rewire your brain. Highly recommended.
But with the upside that it is technically unknown whether or not you actually could have pulled it off if you tried, and if every once in a while you manage to perform the impossible, that covers for 100 failures.
People who don't care about their children don't care about this, of course. You have failed them simply by being a child.
"Why didn't you just have better parents you stupid little brat, didn't anybody teach you anything you absolute dumbass lazy #%!£ moron?"
It did mess up with my ego heavily. Because once in a while I would actually manage to push through anxiety and do something, and I'd succeed.
Unfortunately it made me quite narcistic, as I ended up with belief that I could always succeed, if only I gave in some effort - but as I never tried to do that in practice, I ended up at the top of Dunning-Kruger curve. High ego, no skills.
Excelling at school & career at an early age, while being absolutely trashed at home/family time, gave me the anxt from sticking my head out of the room. But, at the same time, while out and about, already working on something, subconcious power trip in most interactions.
Like, when I am already on a roll, I have this vivid vision of the tasks to take & tools to use. I am quick to decide and to come up with solutions and at the same time very loud about it.
But every time I wake up, I feel worthless, scared that I am not enough, that one step into the world, means step between thousands of angry faces that want to hold my face against a gutter.
How do you overcome this? I've avoided things due to emotional discomfort my whole life and I don't think I can ever do better at this point. I find that it requires conscious effort to learn to do things that are required as standard for most adults.
With math specifically I had a good teacher in high school who made us practice in class together. He'd get everyone to sit around a table and he'd give handheld whiteboards to every fourth or fifth person (depending on the number of basic steps in the problem), and then the person with the whiteboard would do the first step and pass it to the person on their right. That experience stuck with me because just forcing me to get started (with help available) was enough to quickly clear up anything I was avoiding getting started on at home.
I still avoid doing things because they're emotionally uncomfortable occasionally, so I haven't really found a general solution. But it's gotten better over time and it's less of an issue when I'm more invested in something.
I have found the advice in this Andrew Huberman video to be helpful. Long version: [1] Useful clip from that longer video: [2]
TL;DR: motivation is a muscle that can be developed as long as your efforts to do so are voluntary. In other words, do the hardest thing that you can actually do, even if it is just pick up one piece of trash and put it in the garbage. Or wash one dish. The list of possibilities is endless. The idea is to face your discomfort, and as you do so repeatedly, your ability to do so increases.
Makes perfect sense. Kind of interesting the opposite can bite too: Math came naturally to me, but after seeing some high standardized test scores adults paraded them around and made a big deal of it, so it became stressful to do without perfect outcomes. For my own kids I just refused to allow a lot of that stuff like IQ testing, etc.
Yep, that's my experience as well. Or because it's just something I don't like to do that much or that doesn't give me some good hormone to my brain in exchange after doing it.
Extreme forms of procrastination do not mean that someone has ADHD by definition. It can be rooted in anxiety, stress, depression, other mental health conditions. It can be lack of motivation, or simply the habits and behaviors one has developed over time.
I’d really like to know in addition to personal anecdotes of successfully overcoming it, what on average turns out to be most effective?
My ADHD meant I couldn't hold down a job or relationship. You lose your job enough times and the depression that follows is inevitable.
That said, I can imagine a Dustin where I had stumbled into a different career, a different family situation. Then my ADHD might not have caused enough problems to be a disorder.
I sometimes wonder if it’s just a sign of being in the wrong career.
A lot of people chase the money in an area of general interest. But the actual tasks they are being paid for might simply not be what they are suited for.
If always think to myself if only brainstorming, ideation and online shopping were a career haha.
ADHD is definitely a major cause, but another big one which is much more complex to talk about is “avoidant” type behaviors that are a result of trauma/neglect/abuse early in life.
There is correlation that occurs among diagnoses of ADHD, Autism, CPTSD, and other “mental issues”, such that by the time one becomes noticeable as having pathological effect, then it’s likely to be able to identify at least a few more issues acting in a comorbid manner.
Avoidant behaviors can also just be a result of getting older. Everyday is the youngest you will ever be and gradually doors close off to you which can induce panic and anxiety.
Starting a task towards a longer term goal brings to the forefront of how little time you have left.
People love to label things, and parents overlabelling ADHD has been a common warning among anyone working with kids now.
In broader context I think we are now finally starting to pay attention to the fact every single human is subtly or not so subtly different, and we haven't even scratched the surface of mapping all those particularities and so we put people into categories we know, not necessarily where the actually belong.
It's great were slowly letting go of 'normalising' ourselves, but we're going to have to learn entirely news vocabularies to says describe who we then are. Also, by thinking about yourself you define yourself, so if you think differently you define differently. I.e. we are fluid, to a certain extent.
I was diagnosed with anxiety and ADHD about 8 years ago, and since then, I have mainly worked on my anxiety. My anxiety has diminished drastically, and I have found that my ADHD symptoms are now manageable without medication (although I still struggle some days). For me, ADHD led to failing in my daily duties as a kid, which led to higher and higher levels of anxiety, which really exacerbated my ADHD symptoms. Now that I have learned how to control my anxiety, and with the resulting calming of my nervous system, the ADHD isn't nearly as problematic.
TL;DR: anxiety and ADHD are often intertwined and they spiral each other out of control, so what looks like ADHD is sometimes much worse because of anxiety.
If you read the diagnostic criteria that is used, it’s so broad it could easily apply to most of the world’s population…as long as they declare they have trouble focusing.
I disagree. I think that 6 months or more of 5/9 symptoms of inattentiveness or 5/9 symptoms of hyperactivity, persistently, does not represent most of the world. (And excluding: "The symptoms are not solely a manifestation of oppositional behavior, defiance, hostility, or failure to understand tasks or instructions." 6/9 symptoms are required to diagnose children) [0]
Indeed, surveys show that it's probably under 10% [1]. Mind you, these are surveys of symptoms, not surveys of diagnoses.
If you look into how the criteria is chosen its very arbitrary. And this descriptive diagnosis where you pick from list A and B is extremely bizarre from a common sense standpoint. And there is no brain imaging or genetic markers available.
> The number of criteria required for a diagnosis of ADHD has been set arbitrarily in DSM-5. No scientific justification has been presented nor method used for deciding how many criteria should be required
> For the case of ADHD specifically, this is translated to: “if an individual has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder it is because he is inattentive, disorganized and hyperactive-impulsive, and if an individual is inattentive, disorganized and hyperactive-impulsive it is because he has ADHD.
The set of symptoms are not arbitrary, but are connected logically, by each being the result of a deficit in some type of executive function. ADHD is broadly a disability of executive function.
Executive function is historically entirely a psychological concept, although there is starting to be some biological understanding which came later (e.g. which brain regions are involved, etc.).
> The number of criteria required for a diagnosis of ADHD has been set arbitrarily in DSM-5. No scientific justification has been presented nor method used for deciding how many criteria should be required.
Erm.. welcome to psychiatry ?
There is nothing bizarre (or unique to ADHD) about picking from a list of precise, agreed-upon criteria to form a mental health diagnosis. It's how the entire field works, and it's actually a huge step forward from the times when each therapist made up their own definitions.
In the absence of definite imaging or genetic markers for most illnesses, building consensus on criteria and thresholds in a reference manual (the DSM) is the next best possible way to end up with objective, useful and standardized definitions.
Not having a blood test for an illness doesn't mean it isn't real.
> It's important to be aware that each percentage point is hundreds of millions of dollars.
You don't need to resort to conspiracy theories once you understand the above.
Many people probably do have the same brain wiring, or maybe it's a low level of background dopamine, or whatever it turns out to be once science figures it out.
The reason most of the worlds population isn't diagnosed[0] is that second D: Disorder.
No disorder, no problem, no diagnosis.
[0] outside of lack of access to mental health resources, not knowing what they're looking for so never getting referred to a place to diagnose it, not believing in treating mental health issues, self-medicating, avoiding stigma, etc
This is true about most diagnostic criteria, which is why medical students think they have all the illnesses before they get experience with people who actually have them. Its just very difficult to use words with sufficient precision to capture the bits that are, somehow, more obvious once experienced.
The brain does adapt to adhd meds and there are studies showing this.
The thing I don’t like about adhd is that the premise is the brain doesn’t produce enough dopamine so we return it to normal levels…but the brain always seeks homeostasis so it will adapt by producing more dopamine reuptake cells. There are no conclusive imaging studies or genetic markers for it.
The meds certainly do work but if you ask someone to explain their condition to you they have all have the same simplified and erroneous explanation as to why they can handle addictive meds and the general population cannot.
I think it’s pretty much a general smart drug but with high risk of addiction.
Deep breath in... Many people who suffer from ADHD actually have undiagnosed allergies.
My father was told he had ADHD late in life... he had allergies. I had problems with focus and being scatterbrained... on days the tree pollen was up. Kiddo was starting to get easily distracted and unable to focus on schoolwork... It was an allergy to the hard wheat used in U.S. bread making and preservatives.
You [edit: most people] don't just "have ADHD." That's like diagnosing someone with a headache disorder. There's an underlying cause that requires more work to dig out.
No that's not true. ADHD is a real thing that exists. You shominimize that.
Now are there other disorders/illnesses/allergies that affect concentration definition.
A lot of people have deviated septum or allergies that make nasal bresthing incredibly hard without effort. Of course this has a major effect on concentration.
Other examples surely exist. But please don't minimize real debilitating ADHD.
I don't think they are in any way minimizing ADHD. ADHD is diagnosed by symptoms, and has a large number of different possible underlying causes, most of which are not well understood. When ADHD is caused or worsened by an allergy, that in no way makes it not real ADHD, but can make it easier to treat, if the allergy is identified!
It's known that ADHD is highly heritable and has some specific genetic mutations weakly associated with it, but it can also be caused by traumatic brain injury, toxin exposure, some food dyes and preservatives, and allergies. It's very likely that many of the heritable genetic factors themselves have interactions with external environmental factors, and can therefore be treated with environmental manipulation, if we can understand it better.
If you ever get diagnosed as having ADHD though, then every doctor will forever pretend that they know for a 100% fact that your ADHD is caused by mutated dopamine receptors, while having done no testing of course; why would they when you have already been diagnosed
That is pretty silly, and a misunderstanding of the research. All of the mutations in dopamine transport associated with ADHD are pretty weakly associated, and still very common in the non-ADHD population.
You are actually making the case that ADHD doesn't exist or is pretty meaningless.
There is no scientific basis for it, it was a bunch of criteria that were arbitrarily chosen to create a term called "ADHD" so that they can prescribe meds.
You just have to ask the question as to why we can't give meds to everyone when 25% of college students report using them. Why can't we give meds to someone addicted to social media as a fix?
Everything is premised on it being a neurodevelopmental brain defect from birth...so that meds can be effective. But there is no basis for this.
You might as well just give anyone who doesn't get good marks at school or doesn't perform at work meds. In fact people want to do this.
Most medical conditions are diagnosed entirely on symptoms, and then those symptoms are treated. Especially in psychiatry, where we understand so little about the brain- all conditions in the DSM are symptom based, not mechanistic.
We cannot have a scientific understanding of the underlying mechanisms behind a disease, when our biological understanding is way too primitive to allow that.
Medicine has been helping people effectively for thousands of years, long before science even existed, by treating symptoms. It is "scientific" in the sense that the symptoms for a specific disease are clearly defined, and the safety and effectiveness of a treatment is determined experimentally, for the group of people fitting those symptoms.
The concept of a neurodevelopmental disorder is also symptom based- there is a measured progression of certain abilities in the "average" person, and there is a measurable delay in those abilities with a neurodevelopmental disorder. Again, that is a symptom, and has nothing to do with understanding the mechanism.
Using a lack of mechanistic understanding to say a condition doesn't exist, or is meaningless is nonsense. It's a clearly defined set of symptoms that can make normal life extremely difficult for the people affected, and can be effectively treated. It has known causes- both environmental, and genetic, as well as known physical phenotypic traits that can be measured experimentally. All hints towards eventually increasing our understanding of the underlying biology.
I would argue we actually understand virtually nothing about essentially all medical conditions, even the most deadly and most treatable ones. By your same logic, you could say diabetes "does not exist" because we don't understand exactly why people stop producing or become resistant to insulin. Yet people without treatment die, and people with treatment can thrive, which is sufficient reason for having a disease category despite lack of mechanistic understanding.
It would be great if we understood the human body a lot better, but that will take a long time, and a lot more research. We shouldn't stop making peoples lives better in the short term.
As a researcher in the biomedical field for a long time, I have come to see mechanisms come and go for diseases over the years, yet the diseases themselves remain constant. Most of our historically popular mechanisms like "depression is low serotonin" turned out to be either misunderstandings, or gross oversimplifications. Yet that doesn't change the fact that certain treatments work for certain clusters of symptoms we define as a disease.
I think "scientism" in medicine has been very harmful, and is mostly a delusion, and often a type of fraud aimed at creating an illusion of credibility. Pretending that things have a deep mechanistic explanation or understanding when they do not, and then dismissing safe and effective treatments when the mechanism isn't understood, or dismissing traditional medicine from other cultures and time periods because it's "not scientific."
Indeed, defining medical conditions always involves a cultural context, and is therefore "arbitrary" in a sense. I could imagine, for example, that having an ADHD brain could actually be a huge benefit to a hunter gatherer, but harmful to a modern office worker. Many other cultures and time periods have concepts of disease conditions that are basically incomprehensible to us, because they represent human differences which are now mainstream and culturally acceptable, so, despite representing a real difference, they do not cause a problem for people affected in the context of our modern society, and are therefore not a disease to us.
> We shouldn't stop making peoples lives better in the short term.
> I think "scientism" in medicine has been very harmful
That's what they said when they were drilling holes in people's skulls and doing lobotomies.
Now we are giving children meth and yelling down anyone who wants to discuss long-term side-effects.
The obvious reality is ADHD is a means to sell meds and psych appointments. You cannot escape homeostasis and you just end up with people dependent on a drug for the entire life where the effectiveness has completely waned and they are worse than when they started.
It's unbelievable that ADHD diagnoses are increasing at the same time almost everyone is completely addicted to social media. If you start prescribing stimulants for ADHD when all they needed was to get off social media...you are going to fuck up an entire generation.
The neurodevelopment dopamine theory is the reason why ADHD people get these smart drugs and no one else does. It makes them safe from addiction. But its entirely unproven.
I agree that we should study the more extended time effects of this medication. I started in 8th grade and stopped 2 years after college because I was worried about building a dependency. When I stopped taking my meds, my symptoms were way worse, so I almost had to take meds. Since I've stopped, I've been able to manage my symptoms well.
Meds are a great starting place to give you momentum, but we should slowly transition away from them as we develop better habits.
I get why you have this perspective because I shared it a few months ago, before my kid was diagnosed, and then I did a deep dive into the research, and more or less did a 180.
You are dead wrong, and have some serious misconceptions, which can't really be explained in a short reply here, but I will outline the main things I think you are missing, if you are open to looking into it.
-There are a lot of non-stimulant treatments and medications that work for ADHD. The reason stimulants are the most widely used is because they have high effectiveness, and low side effect risk. There is tons of research, discussion, and concern on long term side effects and there are risks, but they are less than the extra risks of untreated ADHD.
-Tolerance does not negate the effectiveness of stimulants, it does keep working long term for most people.
-Addiction and dependence on stimulants has mostly to do with the rate at which the effects come up. Doses and protocols used for ADHD don't cause addiction in ADHD people or the general population, because the levels don't come up enough to cause any euphoria.
-Social media and smartphone/internet addiction, etc. do harm executive function in everyone, and make ADHD worse but the effect is tiny compared to the baseline impairment in a person with ADHD.
-The "neurodevelopment dopamine theory" you're talking about is not a mainstream concept among neurologists and neuroscientists anymore. Current research and ideas on executive function and ADHD have moved a long long way from that. If you're seeing a psychiatrist that thinks like this, find someone that has read some literature in their field in the last few decades.
-Your response to my comment about scientism shows you don't know what I mean by scientism. I'm not critical of using science to advance medicine, but in doing the same old thing and pretending it's science, with nonsense explanations. The "neurodevelopment dopamine theory" is scientism.
I'm not talking about difficulty breathing. I'm talking about a systemic inflammatory response from allergies that includes neurological symptoms like an inability to focus, problems with reading comprehension, and uncontrolled daydreaming or "tuning out." Every time I got my allergy shots, my concentration was shot for the day, and it had zero to do with my nasal passages.
I'm not minimizing the problems of those who suffer from ADHD. I'm hoping that they work with their doctors to see if there's more going on.
ADHD is a spectrum, so it can have different severities. Some people simply find it more difficult to function well whereas some people find it absolutely and utterly impossible.
What spectrum means in this context is that it's a multi-dimensional problem- different levels of severity across a large number of different dimensions. Executive function is typically broken up into a large number of different functions, and people have different levels of each, so a person that functions well in one context might do poorly in another, and vice versa.
> What spectrum means in this context is that it's a multi-dimensional problem
I used "spectrum" to mean that ADHD is not always severe enough to cause outright disability, but the underlying problems can still be present to a lower degree.
The parent mentioned "procrastinates or can struggle with focus without having ADHD" (emphasis mine) and I wanted to point out that some of those people may also have some very mild form of ADHD.
I don't disagree with your point, but you are misusing the term and misunderstanding what it means when it is applied to neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and ADHD.
ADHD the diagnosis is a set of symptoms. These individual symptoms may be present to varying degrees in different people. The fact that it varies means that ADHD is a spectrum. That's not misuse or misunderstanding, and it agrees with your original comment. I'm simply clarifying what I meant because it's not just "everyone has different specialties". It's that specific problems that can contribute to ADHD can be present in people even if they don't have the entirety of ADHD. There is no genetic boolean that decides if one will have ADHD or not.
While, sure, everyone does have different specialties, they could also have some traces of ADHD that aren't severe enough to give them all the symptoms but still manage to hurt their performance in certain areas.
Also, I said nothing of autism. Please don't extrapolate
ADHD is the set of symptoms. The only reason people care about the term is because you can access drugs.
> “The child often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities because she has ADHD and she has ADHD because she does not sustain her attention in tasks or play activities.” As Pérez-Álvarez (2017, p. 2) notes “the symptoms are the guarantee of the diagnostic category, which in turn is invoked to explain the symptoms in an endless loop.”
The formal diagnosis of ADHD, which is what I was referring to, is based on the presence of a certain set of symptoms defined by the DSM-V or ICD-11.
ADHD itself, which the diagnosis aims to identify, is not the set of symptoms itself but rather the root cause of the symptoms. The symptoms point to the presence of some root cause which is ADHD.
I don't think it's logical to assume that there is one singular root cause for the symptoms of ADHD (or any other symptom based diagnosis). There are likely a number of very different distal causes, although, because they present with the same symptoms, they may involve some common mechanisms. ADHD itself is defined as its cluster of symptoms, and doesn't imply or assume any singular underlying mechanism.
For example, streptococcus infection seems to be one (relatively rare) cause of ADHD.
As our medical understanding evolves, I think a lot of conditions currently based on symptoms will be found to be a cluster of different underlying mechanisms, and may eventually be divided into different conditions with different treatment approaches.
In reality, virtually all medical conditions are symptom based. Our knowledge of biology is very primitive and incomplete, so even where we think we understand parts of the mechanism of a condition, we are probably still missing much of it, and our perspectives on these change. In that sense, it's more clinically useful to stick with symptoms which we can observe directly, and not focus on ever-changing and incomplete theories about what might cause them.
> I don't think it's logical to assume that there is one singular root cause for the symptoms of ADHD
yeah, okay. I didn't mean to assume that, but in anyone who has ADHD there must be some root cause or set of root causes that result in the disorder. I'm not saying all cases of ADHD are the same, in fact the entire point of my comment chain is to say the opposite.
Aren't you guys talking about an academic and somewhat theoretical definition of the term "spectrum"?
In reality, it means
"But doctor, how can you attach this very serious and stigmatizing diagnosis to my child while skipping half the tests in the official criteria and fudging the numbers to reach some threshold number?"
"Oh don't worry, it's a spectrum, you see"
...
"But doctor, what you just entered into my medical records is not what I told you at all, how can you be sure you're making the correct diagnosis if you're not really listening to what I'm saying, and when you're completely misrepresenting my situation?"
I'm using "spectrum" to mean that mild and severe cases of ADHD exist, as well as everything in between.
For example, ADHD controls my life and I was never diagnosed with it until I figured out the symptoms myself, because nobody could ever see me struggling with it - there is no fighting it for me. However for some others, their ADHD is trivially controllable via medicine or habit-forming.
When analyzing people what is not a spectrum? Every human attribute can be placed on a spectrum. Even other diseases, disorders, etc.. A broken bone can be a hairline crack or shattered into pieces.
> "It's the classic situation of someone without ADHD telling us "just focus!" or "you just need to write things down!" or "you're just lazy".
Of course, this advice was never helpful and did not work. However, I was properly diagnosed, went to medication route, coupled it with therapy, and I'm still not better. Now, the medication and all that is definitely better than nothing, and I still rely on the relief I get. But the benefit of modern medicine for me is like taking a low dosage of painkillers for 3rd degree burns.
I swear you are on to something. I have been on them for 9 years, and I am basically fried and useless. It's as if I had never been treated at all, if not worse than that. I feel like I am in a constant state of burnout, without actually being burned out, so to speak.
You will find that a lot of negative ADHD med discussion is censored. Even on HN if you question the science or legitimacy of an ADHD diagnosis you will have posts removed. It's a pretty deep rabbit hole to go down if you are game, and there are massive financial incentives to increasing diagnosis rates.
If you drink too much coffee it loses its effect. This is the same but with a much stronger and extremely addictive drug.
ADHD is sold as a neurodevelopmental disorder which means you had it since birth, where they hypothesize that your brain doesn't make enough dopamine so you can't focus, so they simply return it to "normal" levels with meds. This is used to justify why normal people can't have it, and also why ADHD people won't simply develop tolerance and get addicted. But there is no "normal" across people. Your brain ships with a system that does everything it can to maintain its levels of dopamine, aka homeostasis.
There is no conclusive brain imaging evidence of it being a result of a brain defect. It could just as well be environmental or masquerading as social media addiction, or any other afflictions caused by rapid societal change. So you potentially mess up everyone's brains and get them hooked on pills for a lifetime. It would take a long time to re-adjust back to normal dopamine levels, so most people won't go through this process because it will be years of finding it harder than it originally was to focus.
I mean ADHD medication is essentially meth. At first it works, and then you need a little bit more to get the same effect.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 19 years of age (quite a while ago) and it took me 9 months to realize the medication was a net-negative for me.
I encourage you to seek other forms of treatment that aren't medication-based. What works for me is a lot of exercise, good sleep, healthy diet and limiting "easy" dopaminergic activities like scrolling random content or watching random YouTube videos.
"doesn't it feel good to be consistent and achieve things" and I'm like yeah no shit.
"so you need to be consistent with something" yeah that's my problem dawg.
"what's the feeling you get when you want to quit?" it just happens that my life falls apart or I get really into sth else. does nobody else just lose track of all the bricks required to do things sometimes?
"it will eventually not become effort to do these things" no sir I can tell you from experience that it NEVER becomes natural for me to be organised and motivated. It takes substantial effort for me just to use a diary, which apparently is what is supposed to make me organised. Sometimes it becomes easiER because I have a streak of good habits, but it can fall apart at any moment because it's all a precarious conscious effort.
"that's because you've never stuck to anything long enough" i've stuck to different things for different lengths of time, at what point are you suggesting this actually starts working?
God I hate therapists. I sure do hope I actually have ADHD. Otherwise I'm fucked.
It sounds like your therapist is in the wrong profession.
I've interacted with four different ones so far, and while the value I got out of them varied greatly I think none of them would ever say BS like that.
> I sure do hope I actually have ADHD
I hope whoever tests you is not like the ADHD "specialist" I had to deal with. Knowingly swapped symptoms and cause in the final report for whatever reason, and made terrible jokes that indicated he either doesn't know the basics I could read on Wikipedia or just already made up his mind beforehand.
Absolutely fantastic when it comes to disorders subtle enough that you even question yourself sometimes.
It's always uncomfortable with a new therapist because they lack the context to know what you're going through, for how long, and the factors that are affecting it. I've seen mine for over a decade at this point, and when I talk to people about their potential growing pains when they're seeking out help, a lot of it is a reminder that you have to create that context/history with them over time.
It seems like yours is more comfortable making suppositions without the historical context, which sucks to hear and is pretty exhausting.
Yeah, most therapists have pissed me off because its infuriating having to teach a so called expert how to understand you at a premium price. I find it ludicrous that they'd be able to tell me anything about myself that I don't know or that my friends couldn't point out to me, because I'm not exactly someone who struggles to analyse myself. I'm not unfamiliar with journalling, I have read tons of stuf about psychology and I'm not afraid to confront these things. I have therefore quit all therapy I've tried after a couple months tops because I can't justify paying to see how it goes. However, I am trying it again now because I am paying nothing now because of insurance. So even if I'm skeptical I lose nothing. So hopefully I'll get to the point of them having enough context to be helpful and can assess it properly this time.
YMMV but the best therapist I've met so far already felt more understanding and productive in the first hour than others in months, I think if it's going nowhere after a couple sessions that might not change any time soon.
Find someone that understands ADHD (even better if they have it too). This is just more gaslighting from people who can't comprehend that other people might not be wired the same.
As the non-ADHD spouse I definitely understand this but it leaves us both scratching our heads when problem solving ADHD related things. I simply can’t comprehend what it’s like and nothing that works for me works for her. Mostly I just try to focus on myself and my needs (which has limits in our relationship). I can’t offer anyone advice except sometimes loving someone else is a choice you make for you, especially when it’s inadvertently (often but not always) one sided.
They need deadlines where they feel shame if they fail. And they will do anything to avoid having them. To provide the necessary structure and disciplining as a partner is next to impossible in a relationship of equals.
They need some external force to exert pressure, which is usually a strict boss and job, but usually they will just leave their job if the income is not needed.
A lot of ADHD advice promotes being more empathetic and forgiving, but ultimately they need a much stricter regime than the rest.
I note you're casting your take as contrary to a 'lot of ADHD advice', but it's not clear to me whether you're implying that (a) a lot of popular ADHD advice is scientifically unsound and your advice is more in line with the science, or whether you're saying that (b) both the ADHD advice and the science it is based on is wrong, but your take is right.
Edit: Saw some of your other posts and am reasonably confident (b) is the correct hypothesis.
"ADHD" is pseudo-science in my opinion. The impairment to life is certainly real. But the cause is unproven, and for ADHD and the medication, it must be present since birth...a brain defect...but we live in an incredibly distracting environment due to social media and all the societal change coupled with that.
> For the case of ADHD specifically, this is translated to: “if an individual has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder it is because he is inattentive, disorganized and hyperactive-impulsive, and if an individual is inattentive, disorganized and hyperactive-impulsive it is because he has ADHD.
My take on this situation is based on common sense and personal experience.
I would be interested to read the science that counters this if you have it.
ADHD people tend to leave things to the last minute. But the reason they start in the first place is because of the deadline's existence and strictness - the physical reaction of stress when they finally consider the consequences. If you acknowledge they leave things to the last minute and account for that by making deadlines less strict and more forgiving, then the motivating and focusing power of the deadline decreases and they can just make excuses and don't find the deadline motivating enough to start.
The key is maintaining the motivational power of the deadline.
The smaller the deadline, usually the less motivating power it has and the less consequences it has to missing it. It's all a delicate psychological dance, but at some point the person needs to push up against a negative emotion now and then...which our modern culture seems to want to entirely eliminate.
Its the age old: why do I only have intense motivation to do the task the night before its due...next time I just need to start earlier...without realizing its the power of the night before that is the key to it all.
Well, yeah: the lack of motivation is the problem. But here's the thing: just like a depressed person can't just "snap out of it", someone with ADHD cannot just make themselves get the motivation. Why? Because we can't remember that we need to. ADHD is primarily a working memory impairment.
All brains have an autopilot mode, and an ADHD brain on autopilot thinks thousands of thoughts at once. When I am not medicated I can be cooking, having an imaginary conversation about politics, planning the weekend, and listening to a song playing in my head - all at the same time, and doing all of the above badly. When I am medicated I do the same thing, but after 10 or so minutes a thought pops into my head: hey, you are distracted, focus! Without meds this thought may take an hour or two to arrive.
A deadline seems to raise the baseline of executive brain activity for a similar effect to the medication, but it's not guaranteed. Now try explaining to a boss who doesn't believe that ADHD is a thing why your performance is inconsistent. Don't you care about deadlines? I do, but I can forget that a deadline is a thing that exists in this universe.
OK, you'll say, just build routines. Discipline. Of course - I couldn't survive without routines. The trouble is: I forget I have a routine when my brain is in that fuzzy state. I can get to work, not know what my tasks are for the day, and start daydreaming. Why not just look at JIRA? Because in that state I don't remember that such as thing as JIRA exists in this universe. I actually have an alarm in my phone that tells me to check JIRA around the time I get to the office. I rarely forget, but when I do - the failure is epic.
I haven't really heard about ADHD framed as a working memory impairment.
Because it does seem like an easy workaround via religiously following pomodoro - every 25 mins a reminder that you should look at your task list. It's hard to argue that someone can manage to ignore an alarm ringing every 25 minutes.
I thought of it more as you actually do know what you should be doing, but there is something a lot more interesting and novel that you prefer to be doing and the thought of reverting back to the task you should be doing without exploring this novel one feels like complete torture.
The working memory impairment idea comes up a lot. I don't know that it's necessarily "scientifically correct" but it feels subjectively true to me, and thinking about it this way seems to help.
Here's the thing: I know what's important, I know that hard work is one of my core values, etc. I just don't remember any of this when stressed and the brain goes for the shiniest thing that gives immediate gratification and gets stuck there.
A too-perfect-to-be-true manager could maybe notice daydreaming and just say, hey, focus. That would be enough to snap out of the fugue state. Unfortunately, manager types tend to be the "tough love" people and they assume things about morals and values. Avoiding this is what people mean when they say ADHD people need more compassion.
Essentially, people with ADHD have figured out how to act in order to trigger the "they have the right beliefs" thoughts in people like you. It takes a lot of effort, and because it's not automatic sometimes we get exhausted and fail. That's when you see the inconsistency.
Imagine being in a wheelchair, needing an elevator to get to the second floor, and then being berated for not wanting to go up there badly enough when you can't make it when the elevator is broken.
Are you a conservative or a republican? you sound like one. I am not being passive-agressive, just making a point that political beliefs have strong influence on attitude towards mental disorders.
I cannot overstate how odious I find opinion. Yes, people with ADHD need structure and accountability. But they don't need more shame or punishment.
Shame is malignant. It is an unproductive feeling that hinders people from seeking out accommodations that would help them.
This idea of punitively shaming people with ADHD is doubly asinine, because people with ADHD often suffer from rejection sensitivity dysphoria[1], which already can make them sensitive to embarrassment and prone to having low self-esteem. Emotional dysregulation[2], another "fun" part of having ADHD makes it hard to recover from the experienced rejection.
Some research is more focused on self-regulating aspects of ADHD, as opposed to relying solely on medication[3]. This source is focused on pediatrics, but self-regulating therapies exists for adults, e.g. DBT.
It's more about ensuring they appreciate the severity of the deadline.
If I tell a non-ADHD person to try their best to meet the deadline, they might get it done or might not and need a little extra time.
If I tell an ADHD person to try their best to meet the deadline, they might have not started at all, and end up falling far behind, or start making excuses because they are captivated by another task.
There are so many times where fear of repercussions from an imminently looming deadline gave me the initial momentum to put everything else aside and channel my focus to deliver.
But every time this happens you want to say "I just need more time because I started late because of ADHD"...and if the boss says "sure that's okay, take your time"...the motivation dissipates and you are back to tasks piling up.
I can only conclude that ADHD people need a shorter leash regarding scope and stricter deadlines, and not a comforting presence to reduce the pressure.
I am very open to hearing criticism of this approach.
But I think it's actually cruel to not be tough with someone and let their performance drop to a point they have to be fired which is the inevitable consequence. If someone cannot deliver then they cannot be kept around. If someone has 6 months to prove themselves...do you think with less deadlines and less strict deadlines they will have more chance of success? I think it just adds more risk and stress to themselves.
RSD is a term used to explain a behavior. It doesn't have to be a medical diagnosis for it to be something people experience.
> It's more about ensuring they appreciate the severity of the deadline.
People with ADHD are aware that there are consequences for missing deadlines, so aware they've coined the phrase "ADHD Tax"[1]. Shaming doesn't motivate people, especially people who have issues with motivation in the first place[2]. It just causes them to withdrawal.
> If I tell an ADHD person to try their best to meet the deadline, they might have not started at all, and end up falling far behind, or start making excuses because they are captivated by another task.
Telling someone to "try their best" doesn't actually address the problem their having.
Folks with ADHD aren't always just distracted. There are a number of factors at play with ADHD: poor memory (e.g. often "out of sight, out of mind"), poor organizational skills, and often time-blindness make it hard for people with ADHD to structure their lives. All of these things fall under "executive function"-- which is impaired in people with ADHD[3]. Ex: someone with ADHD might spend a week working on some random detail that doesn't matter, because they think it's important.
Deadline extensions are only one type of accommodation, but imo they don't really address what the person is struggling with.
There a multitude of other accommodations. This may include letting an employee wear headphones, or having a "do not disturb" sign (that is actually respected), or partnering with an employee with especially good organizational skills. Allowing them to block out a few hours of the day where they will not respond to phone calls or emails, etc...
For projects: assistance with breaking down tasks and setting priorities paired with frequent deadlines can combat overwhelm and help with consistency. There are lots of ideas out there, here's a particularly helpful list[4]. Do not micromanage-- you'll make it worse.
> I can only conclude that ADHD people need a shorter leash regarding scope and stricter deadlines, and not a comforting presence to reduce the pressure.
The most helpful accommodations will depend on the individual, but now you have lots of ideas. Of course, they hinge on the employee feeling comfortable enough with you to actually discuss what they need.
> assistance with breaking down tasks and setting priorities paired with frequent deadlines
Pretty much what I am arguing for.
Deadlines have to matter.
> someone with ADHD might spend a week working on some random detail that doesn't matter, because they think it's important.
No one is like "oh, thanks, it was just a matter of working on this thing, my bad, I lost track of time". It's a totally arduous process to abandon this task you are enjoying and drag yourself kicking and screaming to work on what you should be working on...which will be pain inducing. You need a way to get through this pain.
Your response demonstrates you didn't engage with my response. ADHD is not a character flaw, it is a disability.
1. More deadlines for smaller chunks does not imply that the deadlines are stricter; it's about preventing overwhelm and helping with time-blindness.
2. Focusing on the wrong thing is not (always) about "enjoyment", so much as it's about being overwhelmed, bored, under/overstimulated, or being unsure of what one "should" be working on.
3. Your wording, particularly "kicking and screaming" reveals your disdain for people with ADHD. You are not "very open suggestions" on accommodations as you claim to be.
I think for me I can think of several examples when my desire to avoid another broken relationship was what motivated me to do whatever it is that they care about before they get angry about it. For example I used to be bad about doing dishes and left them in the sink for too long, to the frustration of roommates. There was something in my brain at the time that dragged me to my room to be alone. I eventually forced myself to just do the work and the pathways for doing that chore formed. I "couldn't" do it at the time for some reason but I "can" now.
While I can relate that it isn't simply about laziness, I think people getting angry can simply be their way of saying that they aren't your psychologist and they expect you to do your share regardless of your mental state.
That's fine and all, but where did I write it down again?
I lost my sense of smell for a few weeks with covid, and I actually can relate now. It's a very, very strange thing to be without. It doesn't seem that important until it's missing, but now I can't imagine life without it.
I could have written this... I've spent thousands on productivity and organization courses, and put a lot of effort into them, only to find myself unable to follow the system, for reasons I don't understand.
My whole life I've suffered from massive guilt, shame, and stress over not getting things done that were really important to me, and nobody understanding. "Clearly it's not important to you, or you would just do it."
I was actually diagnosed with ADHD 12 years ago, and the first medication and dose I tried didn't work, so I stopped, and basically forgot I even had ADHD. In part, I think I internalized the shame and dismissals from other people and still believed I was just "lazy" and "bad" and needed to try harder even despite having a clinical diagnosis.
It didn't help that my (now ex) wife also was totally dismissive of the idea that I had ADHD, as were most of my friends and family. Even from other people I know with ADHD, they would get angry or dismissive when I mentioned my diagnosis, saying I can't possibly have ADHD because I have been successful so far in my career.
I just recently decided to start looking into it again, now that my son has also been diagnosed. If I can learn how to help myself, maybe it will help me help him.
I recently heard a podcast interview with Jessica McCabe, and she said something that was mind blowing to me: that there is no one solution or cure for ADHD, and we need to stop looking for that. You will need a large toolbox of things to help, and will need to keep adapting and changing this, and it still won't ever be a "cure."
If anyone has any good info or resources to learn more about ADHD, please post them.
I always see these portrayals of ADHD children being hyperactive and just think: what if you just made them run outside for a while...surely they can't have never-ending energy and eventually tired themselves out.
And after this period of exertion, when they rest, do they then just instantly revert back to 100% hyperactivity?
The physical hyperactivity is often a pretty minor symptom of ADHD, bigger issues for many kids are things like inability to regulate emotions, e.g. causing violent outbursts over small things, or inability to focus, e.g. not able to do school work.
The physical hyperactivity, like other ADHD symptoms, is a lack of executive control- the person cannot choose to stop moving even though they want to, or feel they should. This is the part that is often hard for non-ADHD people to understand: lack of executive control is an inability to direct our own activity with will or intention. We know what we should do and want to do, but cannot make it happen. So we can, e.g. be really tired, and really want to stop moving, but be unable to do so. Sometimes, with enough will and focus, we can for a short time, but it takes 100x the effort it would take someone else, and can't be sustained for long.
As a person with ADHD, and a father of a kid with ADHD, I can tell you that what you are asking isn't true, at least in our case. It's not about having never-ending energy, but about not being able to limit movement. My kid is constantly moving, even when extremely tired. They will fall out of chairs, and even thrash hard in the bed while trying to fall asleep. We are active outdoors people, and hiking all day long with a heavy load even makes zero difference. In fact, being tired seems to make the executive control worse, and therefore the hyperactivity worse. Which can be a downward spiral, because then you get increasingly tired, and are unable to physically relax, causing even more tiredness. For my kid, peak hyperactivity for the day is often the moments before falling asleep!
That said- lesser amounts of exercise that are enough to be calming, but not tiring, are often very helpful. A short walk, etc. can really help.
Don't you wonder though how evolution allowed this trait to come so far though, especially with it being so prevalent.
Potentially it meant that for centuries there have been children with poor school grades who simply went off into lower-income careers that they were suited to.
Most of the people in previous generations in my family killed themselves with alcohol at a young age. In my generation, we are all diagnosed with ADHD, managing it effectively (without stimulants), and making 6 figure incomes as scientists and engineers. None of us have any hint of alcoholism.
My pet theory is that alcoholism doesn't actually run in our family, but that people were previously self-medicating for the emotional pain of being a round peg in a square hole with alcohol. When your whole life you are told that you are lazy and useless, despite internally wanting to work hard, provide for your family, and accomplish something- that causes a massive amount of pain and trauma.
People like you who insist a disability isn't real because you can't physically see it from the outside, are the reason why it took so long for people who are different to be accepted, and be able to find ways to cope. I still have to hide the fact that I have ADHD to be taken seriously professionally. Your attitude sucks, and is harming other people by dismissing who they are, and what can help them. You're morally and practically the equivalent of someone advocating for removing wheelchair ramps, and telling paralyzed people to just walk, and that people are just trying to sell them wheelchairs- it's just a scam. From the bottom of my heart- fuck you.
> My pet theory is that alcoholism doesn't actually run in our family
There is a lot of research that shows that medicating ADHD via an addictive drug can actually reduce the risk of addiction in the long term, because the dopamine delivery becomes more stable. So not so much a pet theory but actually well-studied science.
> You're morally and practically the equivalent of someone advocating for removing wheelchair ramps, and telling paralyzed people to just walk
Are you really trying to equate ADHD to being in a wheelchair or being physically paralyzed?
This is why people can't take you seriously. 6 figure income and your life is as bad as someone who is physically paralyzed apparently.
> From the bottom of my heart- f*k you.
Do you really think this is an acceptable way to talk to anyone in life, let alone the HN community?
Sorry to heard that. I also have adhd and I’ve looking for solutions since I was 11 years old, now I am 29 years old and pretty much tested all the vitamins, exams, medication, therapy and bunch of other things. Today I found how to manage my adhd, the basic stuff, eat well, exercise and sleep well. It seems so simple but we need to find a synergy between all the basic, vitamins we sometimes have to take, CBT and so on. The doctor Le Grand on YouTube helped to discover a lot of alternative treatments and it worked, so well that I think I am using the super power of adhd and not longer controlled by a incessant mental energy.
I have ADHD (professionally diagnosed as an adult) and basically cannot focus without music. I complained at work about endpoint management software that was interfering with my music player and was told I didn't need to listen to music while working.
I WFH so I just found another way to play music, but it was tempting to point out to my boss (who I otherwise quite like) that he had just told me that I shouldn't be using a reasonable accommodation for my disability that costs the company nothing, lol.
Not to excuse these dark patterns from shitty products that can't get revenue without tricking people, but privacy.com lets you set up single-use credit cards with e.g. a $1 lifetime limit. This is my go-to for places like this if I really, really want to try it.
You might enjoy the binaural beats and ambient radio on https://ambiph.one as a free alternative (disclosure: it's my site). Not as science-y as brain.fm but it helps me a lot with focus
This isn't at all what they claim. Can you point out where they say that "if you just buy their thing you'll have a distraction free life in 14 days" ?
What it actually claims is to get you to "bearable levels of procrastination", which I find refreshing, since it seems like a very achievable and realistic goal for those of us that procrastinate. In fact, this claim is nearly the opposite of what you're railing against.
You also said you have personally started making a meaningful difference, but gave zero hint about what you have done, and what impact it has made. And you leave us with "maybe there's some advice buried in it". I'd like to say, no, there's none I can see, unless you'd like to offer something specific and helpful. I'm curious to see what you have done.
In fact my first reaction would tend to be the same as yours but then again,
- If you read the whole article you see that it is in fact a pretext to a subscription.
- There is in fact burried advice. The fact that reading articles like this is exciting and gives hope, but might turn out to be false hope in the end, especially if you have a severe form of ADHD. The advice is YMMV.
My first couple of weeks at Bridgewater I was diagnosed with a fear of failure - deep reluctance to set off on a journey unless I could see the entire path through to the other side.
I thought that was a good way to be actually (keeps you safe from doomed endeavors) but obviously keeps you from progressing on things where the only way to figure out the path is to walk it.
In retrospect it’s a form of anxiety. If you assume the world is against you and dangerous then setting into an ambiguous space is probabilistically negative. If you have faith that things work out for the best, it lets you set out on such a path easier.
I think this isn’t just me. We tend to procrastinate in the absence of “perfection “ because we perceive some sort of danger / downside for ourselves from that imperfection. Whereas the better way to think is with the end in mind: what outcome do I really care about? Does this messy step X make that outcome a bit more likely? If yes then you do it with excitement.
To lessen the cost of the first step that begins The Thousand Mile Journey: I plan to do everything at least twice. Leave room for failure in the prediction to (at least partially) avoid the planning fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy (if you haven't encountered this one weird quirk yet, it's a must read/skim). I believe most mammals tend toward optimism... They naturally have less fear of doomed endeavors.
I had an essay on Emergent Design Principles around here somewhere... For instance, I do a quick and dirty stab in the dark to map the problem space. Then totally rewrite and refactor now that I can make a more educated guess. Right then I generate the API and all (public function stubs), organizing and documenting everything. Management will demand I "ship it" without full docs and full of kluges otherwise...
I'll save the rest of that for a more on-topic thread. The gist is that procrastination can be countered by allotting time to play around in the problem space (incorporate procrastination into workflow -- can't beat it, join it). At worse I try a deliberate attempt at failure (well I knew it wouldn't have worked, but it would have been cool if it had), and at least I got myself into "code mode" doing something at all. No fear of failure, since I planned to fail that time anyway. Then I'll at least know a bit better the "lay of the land" (problem space features to fit against). It's oft the first step for me that's the hardest.
My favorite trick is to have at least one side project that I work on as procrastination of doing main projects. Without fail I'll be worrying about the main project enough that I'll realize some side-project procrastination-code I've just written shows an elegant way forward in the main project and I can no longer resist the urge to see it in action. At the least I'll be making some manner of progress, and getting closer to that "Zen" state wherein I do my main project work.
I love Louis CK but you're quoting a joke. In reality almost everything we do is rooted in some optimism.
Ever go on a job interview? It's because someone deep down you trust that it or another one like it will land you a job. Ever go on a date? It's because deep down you trust that something will work out with someone.
Maybe you don't do these things, or maybe you do these things expecting bad outcomes (which ironically nearly guarantees that outcome) but the majority of the world operates this way.
> Ever go on a job interview? It's because someone deep down you trust that it or another one like it will land you a job. Ever go on a date? It's because deep down you trust that something will work out with someone.
I trust statistical outcomes. I wouldn't trust going to just _one_ job interview in order to get a job, unless there's some extraordinary circumstance. Likewise, with dating, it's a game of statistics, or rather luck and attraction (simplified of course).
I have the same "deep down trust" for some random HR guy, as I would for a random stranger: none.
In addition, some things you can only do once. Like get a degree. Or start a company, because you only have the funding for one attempt. Not saying that it should keep someone from taking a risk, the point is though, this risk should be well calculated at least in the areas where information can be obtained.
Ask your insurance company or bank on how many decisions they make based on "deep down trust" or "a gut feeling".
I can definitely relate to this, and I found the only way past it (for me) was to not plan at all. Just show up and hope for the best, basically. Requires a different kind of prep (good habits vs direct planning) and an adjustment of attitude (it's fine if things aren't perfect).
One thing you have to practice is the art (science?) of separating emotion from action. My historical crutch is suffering from the emotion of failure or anticipation of failure and not learning as much from that failure. And, what looks like failure at the start of something may in fact turn the other way. Life, process, things evolve somewhat out of your control.
That ties to my other point. I think it's important to learn to give up power/control. Try to look things with an objective lens. What can you do, what can't you do, where do you need help, and methodically tackle. Worry less about where the power and control comes from and do things that drive toward an outcome.
I think it popped up on an assessment, or maybe my manager quickly tuned it. Either way, the organization was very keen to identify and help grow through such stuff.
Interesting that pretty much all submissions on the first page of results from this domain is both by the same user and broadly seems to be about the same overarching theme of procrastination.
Is OP the author of the site?
(OP also posts links to other sites, so not saying OP is doing anything wrong though.)
Since 7 of the last 30 submissions by OP are that site and the pattern continues, I find it absolutely understandable and good-faith to become suspicious.
I don't want to participate in a witch hunt here, but HN needs to stay vigilant against spam and self-promotion that exceeds the reasonable intersection with honestly showing personal projects.
Discussions including "human interest" topics like this one are often of exceptional quality here. It would be bad to lose that.
So I think it is fair to dicuss this openly. Sorry if I am being coming across as rude towards a one man enterprise or something, but self-promotion on HN should follow strict rules and if this is indeed promotion, it is breaking the rules.
I think given the OP is a regular poster and they often post content from the same domains multiple times (each with a different article, with decent amounts of time between posts, i.e. ~1/wk), they probably just follow the content on these sites and "cross post" it to HN whenever they find something particularly interesting to them.
I can say personally (while I don't post on HN), when I share content in a community, it's things I find interesting, which often I see from the projects/blogs I subscribe to/follow.
So odds are OP is just someone with ADHD who finds this content useful to themself and people like them so they share new content from the site when they see it.
> but self-promotion on HN should follow strict rules and if this is indeed promotion, it is breaking the rules.
What rules are you referring to? This is what the HN guidelines say:
"Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity."
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
I'm sorry, harassing OP was the least of my intentions.
So maybe I should have worded my comment differently, or not comment at all.
The reason for my comment and that I even deep linked another thread was simple, I strongly felt that this exceeds a normal amount of promotional content, especially when it comes to self-help themes.
My sincerest apologies if this came across as me unaskedly playing the moderator, or if my brief look at the previous threads appears like I was stalking OPs comment history.
I post whatever I find interesting and occasionally throw in one of the articles I worked on. If people find it interesting or useful, great, if not, that's okay too.
I'm not comfortable taking advice on "deprocrastination" from someone who made procrastination their career (or side gig?), except for the advice "if you find yourself procrastinating, quit your job and make what you'd rather do your job". But that rarely pays the bills .
Gee, I wish I had something stable that I'd "rather do". The problem is that even though I've had hundreds of hobbies, once I get good at something, I stop being able to do it. Not a single one of those hobbies lasts long enough to be a job.
All these advice on productivity ultimately seem to wanna turn you into some sort of assembly line robot, achieve maximum productivity, produce!
Well funk that, in the end what matters is persistence. You don't need to work 12 hours per day, heck don't even need to work 8 ;) ;) ;) I mean like everyone knows the productivity window is at best a couple hours. But those couple hours add up and in the end somehow stuff gets done, tasks get completed, company carries on.
And on my own side projects I'm applying the same philosophy. Ideally a little bit from time to time (not even every day coze it starts to look too much like work). And if it happens that I start working and some interruption comes along, so be it, there will be another day. I don't have to ship tomorrow as long as I finish eventually. Over the years this has added up to quite a bit of accomplishments.
I also suggest to add a physical signal on your typical life accessories like phone or watch.
E.g. swapping or adding a special colored case during productive time to remind you to return to focus on production when you tend to break into "day-dreaming".
Does not make you start the day, but lets you keep going longer (ok, that might sound wrong, but let's keep it for its mnemonic value).
I have a little silicone thumb ring I use for this. No idea why I bought a handful of them in the first place but they're useful for this sort of thing!
If I'm wearing it, there's still work stuff on my todo list that needs doing today.
Brings me back to the PC rather than coming in from a walk and doing a bunch of housework I notice on the way in haha. Hard to miss being on my hand, almost anything I could do while procrastinating will make me see it :)
In all fairness the phone is a very good choice too!
It's likely the first port of call when procrastination tries to sneak in (which is exactly why I use it for medication reminders rather than a sticky note or something that might blend into the furniture after a day or two haha)
Great ideas. I believe that dealing with a messy ambient or situations is a nice skill to develop, some people can't handle it at all.
With time, you'll start to appreciate the imperfections, the fact that you can't absolutely focus for a task because people are sending you messages, will have a smaller impact on your emotions and your overall focus will improve.
Having the goal of having absolute uninterrupted time and the stars aligning so you can just do what you need is the root of all procrastination, doing something 10% is better than 0%.
I'm a perfectionist and as soon as I've started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.
You also don't need to worry, you can't unlearn being a perfectionist, but indeed, you need a few things or moments of your day to unleash that "perfection' energy, it just doesn't need to be everytime.
> I've started thinking, reflecting and accepting real and even half-assed solutions to problems, my life started to improve, and it became lighter as well.
Love it. Great job. I feel the same. Good enough works well in many situations.
Especially valuable piece of advice is to find 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and aim to knock out one small task. Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
Taking notes will both help you track progress and give you a sense of movement. It will also make sure that you can easily regain context in the next attempt.
I agree wholeheartedly. I've been stuck in a rut of procrastination for the last several years, during which I hardly ever started side projects or experiments due to tired old excuses such as "I simply don't have enough time", "This would at least need x hours per day", etc.
When I eventually tried to start something, it would inevitably be delayed by other daily things to carry out (work, family, other life related stuff), so not taking notes would always result in "" have no idea what I was aiming for last time".
Add to that a fairly (un)healthy dose of perfectionism coming from working in the same field, and you have a recipe for years wasted on complete inactivity.
Another fiend of this kind, friendly to procrastination, is the inability to decide what to actually work on, especially when you have a lot of interests.
Then the question becomes "I have hours available to work on something, but I cannot pull the trigger on any of those things that interest me", so back again to square 1 with year wasted on indecisiveness with nothing to show for it.
For both of your cases, the "25 to 30 minutes task" trick won't work at all. For a case that persists for years, what I've learned is that it's either real ADHD, or some emotional problem around the topic. For me, it was 100% an emotional problem, though I do have a bit of a scattered mind, but I can focus it, whereas I've seen people with serious ADHD who can't do it at all and need meds (among other things).
For example, having many interests is fine, but when it comes to choice, what keeps you stuck can be something like a complete fear of regretting the choice. Words like lazyness or perfectionism are usually the sheep's clothing that the wolf (emotion) is wearing. How can some organizational trick from a blog post help here?
I've read lots of self-help books (among other things) when I faced these issues a few years ago, and there's a curious commonality: it's all small tricks developed for the author's personal experience. But what I've noticed is that there are two kinds of people in these situations: the ones who don't a solution and get out of the problem (which is the group that happens to include most of those authors), and the ones who stay stuck looking for an answer, a quick solution, a trick to escape.
The first type can get out by using something like the GTD book. That means their problem really was that they lacked some crucial bit of organizational knowledge to unlock their path towards whatever they want to do.
But the latter type (the ones who're stuck in the cycle) need to let something go rather than accumulate new things (in this case, tips and tricks about Getting Things Done).
There's the DIY path (hard, involves journaling, introspection, noticing and categorizing your emotions, reading Jung, reading ancient texts like the Bhagavad Gita) and the psychologist path (you need to find a good paychologist who doesn't just ask "and what do you feel about it?" over and over but actually takes an active role in your situation and your circumstances)
> For both of your cases, the "25 to 30 minutes task" trick won't work at all. For a case that persists for years, what I've learned is that it's either real ADHD, or some emotional problem around the topic. For me, it was 100% an emotional problem, though I do have a bit of a scattered mind, but I can focus it, whereas I've seen people with serious ADHD who can't do it at all and need meds (among other things).
I'm not so sure about that. Mind you, I had already been thinking that putting some effort in limited amount of time instead of doing nothing at all before reading the article, so if anything the latter gave me some more confidence that it's actually a solution that at least worked for someone
> But the latter type (the ones who're stuck in the cycle) need to let something go rather than accumulate new things (in this case, tips and tricks about Getting Things Done).
On that front, I thing you're perfectly right.
> There's the DIY path (hard, involves journaling, introspection, noticing and categorizing your emotions, reading Jung, reading ancient texts like the Bhagavad Gita) and the psychologist path (you need to find a good paychologist who doesn't just ask "and what do you feel about it?" over and over but actually takes an active role in your situation and your circumstances)
Admittedly I don't feel 100% sure that what you just wrote doesn't apply to me, so would you mind expanding a bit more on the details?
Why would procrastination in a case like mine be linked to emotional issue? Actually even better, was it that for you? In which way did this link exist, and how did you find out? How did you managed to solve it, if you solved it at all?
(there's a typo in my post: "the ones who don't a solution and get out of the problem" ought to be "the ones who find a solution and get out of the problem")
> I'm not so sure about that. Mind you, I had already been thinking that putting some effort in limited amount of time instead of doing nothing at all before reading the article, so if anything the latter gave me some more confidence that it's actually a solution that at least worked for someone
Yes, absolutely, but for the kind of people I'm talking about, it's like telling an overweight person to "just go to the gym, bro". It works, yeah, but there's some who do buckle up and go to the gym, and there's others who stay stuck in a cycle and don't take any steps out even thought from the outside, what they have to do is obvious (for example, some cope with stress or anxiety by eating. How can they become healthier without tackling the root of the issue, which is the source of the stress/anxiety? This is what I mean by things having emotional causes)
For ADHD, you needn't look too far. There's a top comment in this thread about someone who spent 40 years with these issues until they got actual help. Once the root is identified (diagnosed) then the difficulty in dealing with the problem goes down.
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> Actually even better, was it that for you?
It's good that you ask this, because I don't know your situation. As for me, I basically tried to exhaust the possibilities by reading self help books, then moving into philosophy (mostly eastern) and then moving into psychology (via Jung's books, and Alok Kanojia's youtube videos). No tip or trick helped me, and intellectually, I knew what the right answer was all along (an equivalent of "just go to the gym"). But that still didn't translate to action, which surprised me. In the end, I was forced to leave my overly intellectual/rational view of the world, and delve into what Jung called Eros, a contrast of Logos. But don't be distracted by the name. Perhaps it's better to talk about "intelligence quotient" (IQ) and "emotional quotient" (EQ). My underdeveloped EQ was causing me quite a bit of problems, because I wasn't aware of my emotions, of what I was feeling, of why I moved towards some things and not towards others. EQ is related to motivation, among other things. That's where what I wrote in the DIY path comes in. It took me a year of work. And it taught me a very interesting meta-lesson: I noticed in hindsight the amount of effort that I had put into this problem. It made me feel so desperate that I spent hours and hours going through books, taking notes every day, and learning a lot. But for the areas that really mattered to me, I had been led away. The lesson is that the more intellectually important something is to me, the harder it becomes to deal with it. This can manifest as perfectionisn. For example, I don't care at all about how my books are arranged in my bookshelf. So I place them as they fit. But if I care a lot about organization, I may keep them in boxes for years while I fret over the best way to implement the Dewey system for my 1000+ books and also planning (but not writing!) an app to scan my books into a local database and so on.
(What do I mean by "intellectually important"? It's whatever we aren't led to by our emotions yet still matters to us. When I was led by the emotion of despair, I studied ceaselessly to get rid of it. But when I think about wanting to do something without a strong emotion backing it, it's harder to jump into it without forcing yourself)
So I care about a lot of things, and I care a lot. Also, I want to work on everything.
So my inaction here was because I was scared of the possibility of letting go of the others if I dedicate myself to a few things, and truly focused on them, devoting my time and energy to that endeavour.
That's what annoyed me when I saw others, who spent years on making their passion project (whether a game, a set of paintings, a program or a tool to help others, a web novel they self-published, or whatever else)... And I knew what I had to do. Do what they did but for what I care about, for my ideas that I feel so strongly about. And I wasn't doing it. It's fucking annoying, like trying to lift your hand (which you know works perfectly) but you can't.
As for your case, only you can find out. The first link that therapists will try to find inside you is trauma, because that kind of stuff has far-reaching consequences on everything in your life, including motivation. But it's not always trauma, so don't think that there must have been something suppressed inside you or whatever.
For example, I had a lot of problems from having been a "gifted kid", being treated like I'm super smart and whatnot. That pushed me away from hard work and from things that weren't immediately easy, and that a big root cause. But it wasn't a trauma of any kind - I had a normal childhood
About my progress... I'm working on it and getting much better. I recently passed a big exam, and I'm honing some of my skills, putting in the hard work.
I don't have tasks I can do in 25 or 30 minutes, except for the exact kind of "marking messages read" tasks that leave me feeling empty at the end of the day.
> Even if you didn't finish it, note down progress and next steps. Go at it again in the next slot.
For me, these notes would mostly be "spent 25 minutes rebuilding context, got pulled away" over and over again.
I think there are some good techniques in this article. Taking notes is good.
But I don't think embracing the chaos is the way to go, I think being a lot more proactive and firm about giving yourself the time you need to focus and do high quality work is the better approach.
If every day is becoming a mess, start by figuring out how to fix that.
This is part of my issue, too. Not having no things to do in a short amount of time, but knowing that I don't have time, preventing me from starting. A lot of people have the ability to just dive in regardless of how much time they foresee having. I don't. I need to have time in order to feel safe starting anything.
In the hours preceding something like a doctor's appointment, I can't do anything. Anything I start will be interrupted by the appointment, so I can't even try.
Having endless uninterrupted time surprisingly doesn’t help either. “I cant start because the weekend is in 4 days”.
Some of my most productive times have actually been sporadic bursts before appointments mainly for annoying tasks. The fact that you don’t have enough time seems to break the perfectionism blocker “I don’t have enough time so I’ll do a rush job of whatever I can knowing it will not be completed” and also avoids the self-disappointment pressure that would come from “I have plenty of time now but I still can’t work so I will never get it done”. It’s a time for building momentum. And it’s not like you are running away from the task purposely to procrastinate…it’s that you have no choice.
It’s like how some people are calm and productive when everything is in chaos, because the chaos makes it obvious exactly what needs to be done and no one is judging how it’s done they just need it resolved and you will be a hero.
This is just how the brain works. People who claim they can do a hard focused task in 20 min chunks are faking it. The article is trying to say I think "don't worry about that, because on average you will have some uninterrupted stretches in which to do the hard task, but right now get some simple shit done because that needs done too".
I didn't read it as embrace the chaos, rather to not fixate on the perfect non-chaotic day that's coming (it isn't). Instead adopt a "continuous improvement" stance where any little deviation from total chaos is a win. Iterate that process. Basically the same thing as continuous delivery: start delivering a crappy thing and progressively fix issues / add features until it's done.
Sometimes I said to myself: just spend 2 mins on this side project and get as much done as you can. Surely I can do as little as 2 mins regardless of where it gets me.
Yet I simply can’t. It’s a total mind fu*k.
Yet we all do this all the time. Maybe someone has always wanted to learn some language, and then they’ve never spent even a few minutes starting.
I like to think about discipline in terms of habits, either built in a perfect environment or real and messy, as described in the article. The perfect ones are what we aim to achieve, but they are flimsy because once we are in a different environment, the habits disappear. The latter are much more prone to changes but harder to initialize.
This is the conclusion that I've come to as well after trying for way too long to find inspiration to those things that I either want to do (on some level) or need to do.
Habits are things you do that don't have a big hurdle. For years I've been able to run without feeling that there's a great resistance in doing it (I don't normally identify as a runner). But picking up some work that I want to do but don't feel it's the right moment to do has been a lot harder. Lately I've had some progress with at just doing tasks because it's become a habit when I have some time over.
I run every day but totally struggle with work consistency. I have always wanted to transfer that discipline I have for running to work life but never managed it.
I think the thing about running is I can’t just start watching YouTube and procrastinating along the way. And it’s much more straightforward - same every day with predictable and consistent reward. Plus there’s the adrenaline release.
There is also the idea that the common thing is more important than the extraordinary. Common everyday tasks should be higher priority than the extraordinary tasks.
I was suffering from procrastination last 3 years. The reason was 1) burnout. 2) some biological health issues I did not know about. Once I fixed that it went away. No philosophy was needed. So no, no amount of incantations will help, if you are biologically unwell.
In my experience the best way to solve procrastination, provided you have a tangible goal, is to do at least one small thing towards it per day. This will often (but not necessarily) put you in the mindset to do more things.
Tiny successes in something like this - I've got a whole system of timers that are either tracking what I'm doing or tracking the time when I'm not doing something during work time.
From there I've got an automation that will send me a notification warning me the timewaster timer is about to start and that I should start working on something. There's a tiny slither of shame in there that seems to be helping! :)
I am also working on a more thought out app/system/service/bot that does indeed use GPT (and regular old if statements and cron jobs) to help me schedule out my tasks for the day, recover my schedule after missing tasks, shame me via a messenger interface for leaving a task on my list too long, etc... but in the most obvious case of irony I keep procrastinating on actually building it. It's getting there slowly :)
> tracking what I'm doing or tracking the time when I'm not doing something during work time.
Made me think of a chess timer. Maybe I will buy one now haha.
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I’ve found that any ideas I have for projects to help with procrastination never get done. It’s the ultimate procrastination and there is no end to it. It doubly kills my motivation because now I have to be thinking how much more efficient I would be if I had my tools which I currently don’t have. So even if I eventually start working, now it feels even harder :D
I think there are a lot of rabbit holes like this in programming in general.
ChatGPT prompt: Play the role of someone with ADHD who is easily distracted and loses interest in tasks. I will ask you to do a task, and then we will have a dialog....Can you please put the dishes into the dishwasher.
It's a pretty frustrating experience haha.
EDIT: God...it does it so unbelievably well. I can even ask it about its inner emotional state that led it to being distracted.
If you look at their stuff on addiction, they have no grounding in current theory. And by current theory, that's from science to religious ideas like prayer, nothing they talk about matches anything in the world from hard numbers to mysticism. They also have no explanation why they break with all the current theories or where their theories come from.
By now they are a HN institution, but I'd be very wary following their advice if you medically depend on it working.
deprocrastination.co is like a surreal movie, I think I like it, but I'm glad sites like these are not everywhere, like Scientology, fun because it's different. OP you should also create a new religion and run a site, you'd be good I think. That's not facetious-ism, but you'd have to be morally ok with it.
[edit] As an example of what I'm saying related to this article - "Imperfect action > perfect nothing" has no real meaning. It's simplified to "action > nothing"
What would be meaningful is "wrong action > perfect nothing" or "action > planning"
But as you can see HN eats up stuff like "Imperfect action > perfect nothing" It's good writing.
I think you may be right about the rest, but I don't understand your last point. "Imperfect action > perfect nothing" is not meaningless and does not simplify to "action > nothing". It's just a different (not nearly as evocative, IMO) way to say "don't let perfect be the enemy of good". And I think this is indeed an important point that chronic procrastinators constantly struggle with.
I struggled with this stuff for over 40 years. Only last year, after a disastrous crash, did I start learning about ADHD, which finally gave me the language and tools and access to support that I needed to start making a meaningful difference.
Without the understanding that diagnosis gave me, I'd tried every productivity technique and app, and came up with my own ad hoc systems, but they didn't stick and just reinforced the cycle of seeing myself as someone who's just doomed to live the life of a chronic procrastinator, always stressed out and overwhelmed.
A course like this would have done nothing but separate me from some money and give me a temporary feeling that I found the magic answer to everything, leading to disappointment and self hatred when I inevitably dropped it all.
I only have a personal anecdote, but if it sounds familiar, maybe there's some advice buried in it.