What do you tell these mentees? What would you tell someone a bit further along in their career who still has the same problems?

Please pm me if you are open to a chat.

titanomachy.hn [at] pm.me

I don't mean "wasting" like relaxing and maybe sorting out a problem in my subconscious. I mean wasting.

I seem to be doing better recently. What I do is focus on doing something. Whatever I will do right now that is remotely productive, that's what I do. It might be refactoring code, or drafting a proposal, or reading a book, or doing push ups, or using the debugger to explore something I need to understand, or playing with some new tech I enjoy learning. Pick up any tiny task and just do it.

It ends up mixing personal and work stuff, which is not great. But at least, at the end of the day, I did something. And slowly I will try to control my focus better to get particular things done.

I'm also fairly certain I have ADHD.

And moving jobs terrifies me because I do pretty well in my current job, and my current job is a good long term one due to the freedom (and somewhat paradoxically some restrictions... it works out really well) it gives me.

  > what would you tell someone a bit further along in their career who still has the same problems?

If it's a relatively new thing, you might be going through a little burnout. I've been there a few times.

The first time it happened to me, I almost "fell out of it" by accident. My day job was in a bit of a lull at the time and I just decided one day that I'd had it with a lacking feature in Visual Studio and decided to sit down and figure out how to write an add-on shortly after waking up on Saturday. I ended up completing a really basic version that day -- enough that I knew I could do the rest of it, which I continued to work on for about a month until I released it.

I did this all during a handful of free evening hours during the week, but I checked my download counts regularly and was giddy every time they went up. I can't tell you when the burn-out ended -- probably that following Tuesday -- but any time I start to feel that way, again, I look at what I'm working on that I'm really excited about and I often find that there's nothing there. So I look for something new, usually not day-job related, with the goal of it being "far enough outside of my wheelhouse as to require a decent amount of new learning" and "not terribly difficult to do once that learning is over" because if I can't quickly get to a working "something" on a project like this before I close the IDE, I'm unlikely to revisit it. Ideally, that new learning leads to some new things to work on at the day job, too.

[0] Friends are often not the best unless you have a friend who is not afraid to insult you/the "hard truths". I've had a very close friend for most of my adult life that has been willing to say "You're being stupid/evil/what-have-you" when it was necessary.

Good to know I’m providing a valuable service

I've avoided many mistakes due to my friend's sobering assessment of things and I've done the same--though arguably much less so--for him.

At the same time, he serves the opposite purpose, too. He'd build up an idea that he saw value in, which others missed, and would go all-in on it. He frequently referred to the biblical idea that "iron sharpens iron". It's not really the way people operate, but if you're willing to sign on, it'll change your life. :)

  > Maybe I just need to be honest with my managers/co-workers and say that I can't focus on my project and I need some quick wins to get back to being productive.

My usual approach would be to say "I'm stuck on a few things with this project, but I have some ideas -- I just need to try them out on something simpler, so here's what I'd like to do" and follow with a well reasoned argument that serves more than my own sanity as its benefits. Most of the people I've worked for don't require much in the way of an explanation[1] but a few have been difficult -- but I solved that by changing positions since this only happened to me at the global telecom I worked at (it was also a small factor in my accepting a position at another company[2]).

[0] For various reasons -- sometimes it was written in a language that I wasn't familiar enough to understand the more advanced usages of it, sometimes it was just really complex code that I fully understood the design/code behind each of the pieces, just not "as a single thing".

[1] With no real correlation between "dev" and "non-dev" managers. I've had non-dev managers that are very receptive because they trust me, and they recognize they don't have the knowledge to challenge my conclusions, and I've had non-dev managers that think manufacturing widgets and writing code are perfect metaphors. I've had dev managers that hear the first part of the argument and say "do what you need to do" and dev managers (usually less experienced) who believe there's no difference between a small CRUD app and a globally distributed, multi-threaded access auditing, requesting and provisioning system.

[2] I hesitate to mention it -- the gentleman involved was a fine manager, he just didn't work with any of the technologies that my expertise was in at the time. Over the last decade, I ended up studying the things he had expertise in, and I'd be willing to bet this factor would have gone away, entirely, had I already had this expertise.

Also, I'm curious about these statements:

> There's a growing perception that traits like work ethic, focus, and motivation are fixed attributes that one is born with (or without) rather than abilities that are developed over time

Really? Who believes this and why?

> but then turn around and tell me that they're only capable of coding for 2 hours per day as a sort of fixed upper limit

Do they give you a reason? This seems pretty odd.

I don’t think I’m completely helpless about it - factors such as sleep, exercise, environment, schedule fragmentation, etc. do seem to be involved, and I can influence those. But it doesn’t respond to force of will in the moment.

I don't think anyone can instantly snap into being productive on command, all the time.

Maybe I'm just another uneducated recent college grad, but I really don't see how you can work 7+ hours a day and actually be productive. Doing different kinds of work or taking frequent breaks, possibly. But not just sitting and staring at your computer for 7 hours.

Ironically the only way I can be productive for that long is to do the opposite of what you're describing. Focus on a single problem or piece of work, take minimal breaks and sit at my computer for most of the day.

I've only ever done this for bursts of time before though (And never for a company, too many distractions), because how can you be spending so much time building without thinking? It has to be a large, well defined problem. But that doesn't really exist unless you're just copying something or you've already put in the work to define it.

In saying that, I don't think 2 hours is really long enough to make much progress on something. That would only leave me with about an hour of productive time.

Btw, if you're a recent college grad I'm probably around the same age as you.

There is a third option. You are working and staring at the screen for the whole day, even without breaks, but you can't actually focus on a single problem or piece of work, because the manager keeps distracting you.

I work for a small company, and as a consequence, I have a quite wide area of responsibilities.

I can't really focus on the bigger tasks (like creating user's manual for the new company product) when I'm supposed to drop everything if there are any unanswered emails from the client.

And learning midday that "Hey, man, the newsletters have to be ready today! And the website content needs to be updated before you send the newsletters!" is a very likely possibility, too.

Conversely, if I have full ownership over the codebase, built from scratch, 7+ hours will fly by. However, there generally always comes a point where it becomes hard work again.

Yes.

1. Kids with ADHD probably can't develop executive function as fast or as far as other kids. I'm pretty sure I have it, it explains the repeated performance reports of "You're good when you apply yourself and useless when you don't." Unfortunately I struggle to _choose_ to apply myself.

Willpower doesn't seem to come naturally to me, even after 10 years as a professional programmer. Adderall didn't help - I had to take it in the morning, after breakfast. So I was still late for work, because eating breakfast is not something I'm good at, and I couldn't start my day until I had finished breakfast. Then after work the stimulants wore off and I felt like shit and reverted to my normal do-what-i-want executive function. But it made me feel normal without caffeine.

So I quit the Adderall and just cutting caffeinated soda with non-caff every morning, as though I was lowering my dose on a prescription. So far it's working. I still never clean my room, which is status quo for the last 20 years, and work is still pretty easy. The phrase "idiot savant" comes to mind. All I want is for people to stop thinking that I'm doing this on purpose. I don't enjoy constantly feeling like a moron and being behind on simple household chores despite making decent money at a job that is considered (by other people) to be difficult.

And that might even be the case for the kids with detailed exercise programs. I don't exercise at all because it's not my interest. I program, because it is my interest. Kinda like how autistic people can't choose their special interests. I pity the kids whose interest is exercise but are trying to force themselves through a CS program into a career track they can't possibly do.

Dr. Russell Barkely goes into some detail in a 3-hour talk about ADHD here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY If anyone thinks I don't have ADHD because I sat through a 3-hour talk about psychology, maybe they need to watch it, too.

"There's a growing perception that traits like work ethic, focus, and motivation are fixed attributes that one is born with (or without) rather than abilities that are developed over time."

What if they are, though? What if it's like height, where genetics sets a range and environment picks a point in that range? If I had starved as a child, I would be shorter than I am now. But if I had eaten more, I would not be taller. I'm about the same height as my parents are.

There's a hypothesis that the current age of mass distraction (TV, phones, Internet, etc.) doesn't _cause_ ADHD, but it does _aggravate_ it. I don't know if the studies bear it out, but I really want this to be true. What if it's something that's latent in the human genome, and the fact that we can profit off of exploiting it nowadays just brought it to the surface? In early centuries, if I had nothing to do but my work, maybe I would find it easy to just "accept boredom" and do my work anyway.

2. I'm not sure how many employers would have hired me in college. I get the sense that unskilled labor just isn't worth much anymore, and pushing kids to get more education is kicking the can down the road since, as you pointed out, nobody wants to hire an adult with zero work experience whether they're 18, 22, or even 30.

I've also tried to use this when building my own habits and it's been fairly successful. When most people want to start something they get all excited about it and jump in with both feet. And then they burnout and stop. It's the New Years Resolution gym effect. After New Years, gyms are full of people who set a goal to exercise 5 days per week. After 3 weeks the gym is back to normal as all those people burnt out and realized they couldn't keep it up.

The brain needs time to adjust to change. I'll start out with something really simple like exercising one day per week for 15 minutes. Then after a few weeks when it starts to feel routine, I'll add another day and wait a few weeks. Eventually I find that I reach this equilibrium point where the time I'm putting in is enough and it's easy to maintain that habit.

In the context of this mentoring group, we go through phases where almost everyone suspects they have ADHD for various reasons. This is usually triggered by one of two things: Either someone shares an online "Do you have ADHD quiz?" that is sponsored by Takeda or another ADHD medication manufacturer, or a front-page Reddit infographic misrepresents ADHD as something like "Do you some times forget people's names? Maybe you have ADHD!"

The reality is that ADHD is very challenging for those that have it, but the pop-culture definition of ADHD has become so vague that people who don't have ADHD are increasingly convinced that common life experiences are symptoms of ADHD.

Focusing is hard. Studying is hard. The Grind is hard. It's normal to struggle to focus, but it's even more of a struggle for those with ADHD. However, having to work to focus for extended periods of time, in and of itself, is not an ADHD symptom, it's just life. ADHD is a much more severe impediment.

(Again, not referring to the parent comment): Anyone curious should avoid self-diagnosis and seek a trusted professional. Ideally not a family doctor who simply writes prescriptions on request, but someone who can recommend self-guided therapy programs and combination treatment. Adderall isn't all it's made out to be, especially after the initial motivating effects wear off and you're left with the realities of long-term stimulant use, which are nowhere near as exciting as the first few doses.

> What if they are, though? What if it's like height, where genetics sets a range and environment picks a point in that range? If I had starved as a child, I would be shorter than I am now. But if I had eaten more, I would not be taller. I'm about the same height as my parents are.

Genetics and upbringing may set a baseline for focus and motivation, but those traits are demonstrably not set in stone. Contrary to your example, diet does have a significant influence on height, but it's not the sole determinant.

Height isn't a good example, though. Consider something like running capacity. Some people are naturally more athletic than others, but barring severe disorders, everyone can develop more running capacity through training. Someone who gives up and never tries to increase their capacity may not believe this, but it's true. An average person can't simply work their way up to competing with Olympic sprinters blessed with perfect genetics, but they can significantly increase their running capacity from baseline by putting in the work.

Likewise, attention is a learned skill. Some have more baseline attention span than others, but it can be increased through training and practice. ADHD modulates this, but it doesn't prevent practice from helping. If anything, people with ADHD need to invest more effort into training their attention spans than those without.

> Willpower doesn't seem to come naturally to me, even after 10 years as a professional programmer. Adderall didn't help

Adderall and other stimulants don't provide willpower, contrary to popular belief. Only people without tolerance will experience a temporary motivation boost from stimulants. This effect diminishes as tolerance sets in, which is one of several reasons why drugs like Adderall aren't successful for treating disorders like depression.

Willpower is another learned skill. Expecting it to come naturally won't work forever. You have to learn to embrace the grind, do the work, and power through the urges to give up and do something easier if you want to get anywhere.

> I don't exercise at all because it's not my interest.

The reality is that the things we need to do aren't always going to line up with the things we like to do. You're lucky that you have a natural interest in programming, but you can't expect every necessary activity to have a natural interest behind it. Some amount of physical activity is essentially required for a healthy existence. You may not be interested in it, but that doesn't exempt you from requiring it and it certainly doesn't mean you won't benefit from it.

Some times the things we have to do in life aren't immediately enjoyable. It's on us to find ways to make them more enjoyable (e.g. find a sport you like, or take up walking), and some times we just have to do the unenjoyable thing for the sake of progress.

And things like this:

"Some times the things we have to do in life aren't immediately enjoyable. It's on us to find ways to make them more enjoyable (e.g. find a sport you like, or take up walking), and some times we just have to do the unenjoyable thing for the sake of progress."

Are just insanely tone deaf things people without ADHD wind up saying to ADHDers because they have the capacity to do those things and haven't experienced not having the capacity to do them.

Ultimately, I don't really trust the psychology field to determine what is a mental illness and what isn't. It wasn't that long ago that being gay was in the DSM.

It does terrible things to your health, finances, employment and relationships.

My difficulty with basic chores almost cost me my marriage, and I spent north of 1000 nights in the last 5 years doing the dishes at 2am dead last before going to bed because that was the only circumstance under which I could get myself to do them.

I think most people misunderstand it greatly because their frame is "can't focus" but that's pretty nebulous. A better frame is "having a disastrously shitty batting average on choosing what to direct your attention towards or away from". The chronic understimulation leads to engaging predominantly in things that provide enough stimulation, which often aren't what you're supposed to be doing, and getting locked in that mode because anything else pales in comparison so switching away feels almost painful.

Best metaphor I've come up with to describe the difference is imagine you had to live your whole life with no shoes. Imagine all the surfaces you've ever had to walk across and how that would have been without shoes. You'd be fairly reluctant to make transitions between certain surfaces due to the discomfort. So the routes you take would change. Some routes would lead you to not wind up at your intended destination due to needing to walk on a comfortable enough path. You'd always take longer than other people to get places.

Also it's not a mental illness, it's a neurodevelopmental disorder.

I say that as someone who definitely has something neurodivergent going on, as I do not know other people who get excited and have to pace around the house flapping their hands.

The result is that no one fit in it.

Expectations that other people can perform like you do if they just put their mind to it is so blind to the reality of human experience that it's hard to respond.

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...

I never claimed that was the case. In fact, I specifically cited examples where no amount of hard work could close the gap to top performers.

I wasn't suggesting that everyone can perform equally if they just work hard enough. The point is that attention, focus, and work ethic are not static traits of an individual. Yes, we pivot around certain biological attributes, but that doesn't mean they're fixed.

We all benefit from putting in the work to improve our attention spans and other learned behaviors, regardless of our starting baseline.

He's trying to show him where his bootstraps are.

Unless you're living with ADHD, you really have no business handing out such directives. I was a hardcore meditator for years, arguably the crucible of mind training -- spent months of silent, directed attention in monasteries -- and despite blowing open the doors to some peak states, complete equanimity with all phenomena, and insight into some of the fundamental mechanics of desire and resistance, I was unable to hold any kind of job at all before I bit the bullet and medicated.

The decades of suffering I experienced because everyone around me was pushing this toxic narrative that ADHD was overdiagnosed and most likely a schema of my own failures could have been avoided if my parents just took a hard look at me and took me to a psychiatrist.

Armchair psychiatrists of Hacker News: please stop this irresponsible and dangerous public criticism of your interpretation of mental illness or the state of psychiatry.

From my perspective it's a positive message, not finger wagging at the impaired.

When the vast, vast majority of people are capable of a baseline far above yours, they hold you to their standards mercilessly.

The number of times I've been reduced to tears by this conversation. I'm telling you. This is by far the worst part of it all.

There's also an awful lot of people, as the parent said, who don't have ADHD but still struggle with {focus, attention, willpower} from just not having used it. Those people should definitely be trying to focus harder and shouldn't be led down the path of "focus is innate/unchangeable".

The incentives for me to be better are already as strong as they can possibly be. Not to screw up my health worse, not to lose my marriage, not to lose my job, not to make rash financial decisions. The amount of effort I put into this already is just exhausting.

I'm glad I recognise these days the times when the car is out of gas and people are telling me "if you just turned the key a little harder, maybe the car would turn on" and ignore them.

I do agree with what you're saying btw. I think you can and should try to improve things, no matter which side of the coin you're on. The crux of the issue is that it's very, very important to understand which side you're on because the advice and strategies are fundamentally very different.

I'm not at all worried about the people who think they might be ADHD. They fall into 3 camps. 1) people who suspect they have it and it's a life changing revelation and they seek treatment ASAP, 2) people who suspect they have it for a long time and are right but for some reason or other never do anything about it and 3) people who don't have it, and don't understand it well enough to realise they actually don't have it

Group 1 sorts itself pretty quick. The trouble is realising you're in group 1!!!! This is why from time to time I talk about it here if its mentioned. Once it clicks it's unbelievable. I'm very interested in helping those people as it's pretty life changing.

Group 2 I mourn for. But at least they can recognise what advice and strategies apply and understanding why their life is how it is. Knowing is half the battle.

Group 3 I'm not worried about at all. It can be such a devastating problem that when it clicks and you can finally connect the dots, you sort of know. For this group the dots will be too few and far between though naturally for everyone there will be some and they'll hum and haw about it and mull it over in their mind before forgetting about it altogether. If you genuinely think you have then you must feel as if there is and always has been something quite wrong with your life. Though you may simply identify with the list of symptoms because it's somewhat vague, and just be unsure as to what it really means. If you actually think it could be an answer to solving a problem in your life you will go for an evaluation. If you don't think it's an answer to solving a problem in your life then almost certainly you don't have it and will just forget about it. You may go for an evaluation and it comes back negative but unearthed a different problem at the cause of some real troubles for you, and that's ok, as it's a differential diagnosis for exactly that reason.

Somewhat jokingly: maybe you should start doing it on purpose, and call it "prioritizing what matters." If you can afford to hire someone to clean, do that.

But seriously, this sentence really resonated with me. When I was in my teens and early 20s, a lot of things I couldn't change were being labeled as intentional laziness or sometimes drug abuse (I was in reality coding all night because highschool sucked, and never even touched so much as alcohol until my late 20s).