[benjaminsuch]

Since I have moderate ADHD, I am currently in the process of implementing routines in my life.

I noticed I lose a lot of mental energy, because of lack of routines. This is especially important for shallow work. Like paperwork, phone calls any sort of action in my daily life that is inevitable and recurring.

Those tasks are annoying and I usually ignore them until the last day. I noticed that during the time I'm not doing it, it's still in the back of my mind and prevent me from diving deep into my real work.

For shallow work I reminded myself of what The Merovingian in The Matrix said:

"If we never take our time, how can we ever have time?"

We have to do the shallow work there is no way around it. If it takes 30 minutes now, it will at least take 30 minutes later. But the longer you wait, the longer it stays in the back of your mind keeping you away from the cool work. I had to make myself conscious about it.

It sounds very childish I must admit, but I have these issues and routines are the only way for me to solve them.

[tailspin2019]

I have the exact same experience as you. I’m also focusing a lot on building routines at the moment. They’re helping, but it’s hard work!

Would you care to elaborate on what sort of routines you’re working on implementing?

[benjaminsuch]

I started implementing fix wakeup and bedtime hours. I wake up at 7:00 and my "wrap-up" alarm is ringing at 22:00, means, cleaning up the kitchen (so it's ready for the next day), cleaning up my workplace and making myself ready for bedtime (brushing teeth etc.).

I also added a "day done" timer, means, at 18:30 no more work, no matter what. I stop and make my dinner meal.

My morning routine (the 7:00 wakeup call) had the most impact. This call basically initiates a sequence of actions: Wakeup, taking shower, breakfast and PAPERWORK. This goes until 9:00 which is the time where I start my work day.

My next step will be to integrate running into my morning routine as the first action. That being said, knowing that I will do my paperwork the next day at a given time helped the most. I don't have a lot of paperwork or urgent paperwork so this works for me.

When a new routine is integrated and becomes a normal part of my life, I start with integrating the next routine and so on.

One thing I noticed though is, no matter what the routine is and how you plan it, at some point you have to do it and overcome your procrastination. You have to find something that works for you. In the end you have to do the action and just not "plan" it.

I plan my routines in a way where I know I'm not "overwhelmed". You gotta be true to yourself :)

Oh and I should mention that I also have days set where I definately will do certain things. For example, I chose Sunday to be my day where I experiment with some cool programming stuff that I wanted to do. That could be a new library I found, programming language or whatever. But no pressure, it's just my "experiement" day where I look into things I'm curious about.

I also clean my "backlog" on that day in the evening. I have a bookmark folder called "backlog" where I move things I want to read or visit later.

Just knowing I have my fix dates and times to do certain things is really satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it feels relieving.

In the last startup I worked for, I had a certain behavior of what I call "goal-driven stopping". Instead of stopping my work based on the current time, I stopped when I was satisfied with the work/code I have done and if I didn't fix that bug or feature (the goal) I kept going. This was super bad because I wouldn't stop for lunch and instead kept going. Sometimes it was so bad that I would my 1st or 2nd meal that day in the late evening. For some reason I pressured myself for reason I myself made up.

I learned to not to do this with the help of routines :)

[tailspin2019]

Very cool!

Interesting to read this. You're focussing on very similar things to me. Getting the basics in place is important. I've been working on morning routine at the moment too.

One thing I've found to help me (with a lot of trial and error) is some home automation stuff to help "enforce" my routine.

I've had lights that fade up in the morning for many years, simulating a "sunrise", but I recently updated this so that it automatically turns the heating up at the same time when my "sunrise" starts. Sounds crazy, but automatically turning the heat up to the maximum in my bedroom forces me to get up (because it would be too uncomfortable to stay in bed) and has been really effective!

I also recently setup some very bright LED panels that also switch on in the morning and flood the bedroom with light, and finally, the thing I'm most pleased about is that I automatically disable the (smart) light switch next to my bed so that I can't turn all the bright lights off and go back to sleep. I have to actually leave my bedroom for the switch to start working again.

> Just knowing I have my fix dates and times to do certain things is really satisfying. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it feels relieving.

I can completely relate to this. Using daily checklists gives me this "relief" feeling. Without all this effort, I just drift from day to day and I never do the same things at the same time, ever! I find I need a lot of external systems/routines to be able to rely on myself to do the right things.

Interesting that you do your paperwork in the morning. This is a big problem for me. Maybe I should try that...

[benjaminsuch]

I totally forgot to mention, that I use earwax or earplugs during my prime worktime (that is from 9:00 - 12:30) and often after lunch too.

For me it's a blessing. Jesus christ, not hearing any background noise is a gamechanger.