Sure, though I don't know how helpful it'll be to you or others. I basically had to change my career to get through things long term, but I do have some day-to-day techniques I follow listed down below. Hopefully some of it is useful.
I was a developer for 4 years after college, but I noticed I was struggling way more than my coworkers and friends in terms of just staying on task in a long term project for more than a few weeks at a time. In the short term I was at least as good as most, but after a while things just became impossible to keep focused on. I constantly asked my manager to be given different tasks or parts of the code to work on. This wasn't terrible because I was useful in many different parts of our code base, but eventually there weren't any parts of our project that I was interested in, and I couldn't see myself being interested in any other role where I had to code for the majority of it. I ended up switching into Software Sales Engineering.
Sales Engineering is, for me right now, the perfect role because I still get to think and work on some technical stuff, but no project is longer than 2-3 weeks which is about right for my ability to focus. There is also a huge dopamine hit at the end of a project because there's a clear endpoint. I'm not one of the Sales Engineers who needs to 'close' I just need to build out demo projects for a client until it's deemed a 'technical success'.
Some short term techniques I've learned for my own mind in just being productive (these were a lot more necessary when I was a developer but I still follow these in some way):
* Change my physical working location every 2 hours (COVID has sucked for this, but going to coffee shops and libraries helps a lot)
* Drink 1-3 cups of coffee in the morning, and 2-3 cups of tea the rest of the day (I've had to experiment with timings and doses a lot)
* Keep a hand-written TODO list and keep my eye on it throughout the day
-- For very boring topics or in difficult times, literally write down the scheduled time blocks I will spend on specific topics
* Also in very difficult times, I TRY not to look at the computer unless it's to work on my required tasks. Internet to me is seriously more addictive than anything I've experienced
I was a developer for 4 years after college, but I noticed I was struggling way more than my coworkers and friends in terms of just staying on task in a long term project for more than a few weeks at a time. In the short term I was at least as good as most, but after a while things just became impossible to keep focused on. I constantly asked my manager to be given different tasks or parts of the code to work on. This wasn't terrible because I was useful in many different parts of our code base, but eventually there weren't any parts of our project that I was interested in, and I couldn't see myself being interested in any other role where I had to code for the majority of it. I ended up switching into Software Sales Engineering.
Sales Engineering is, for me right now, the perfect role because I still get to think and work on some technical stuff, but no project is longer than 2-3 weeks which is about right for my ability to focus. There is also a huge dopamine hit at the end of a project because there's a clear endpoint. I'm not one of the Sales Engineers who needs to 'close' I just need to build out demo projects for a client until it's deemed a 'technical success'.
Some short term techniques I've learned for my own mind in just being productive (these were a lot more necessary when I was a developer but I still follow these in some way): * Change my physical working location every 2 hours (COVID has sucked for this, but going to coffee shops and libraries helps a lot) * Drink 1-3 cups of coffee in the morning, and 2-3 cups of tea the rest of the day (I've had to experiment with timings and doses a lot) * Keep a hand-written TODO list and keep my eye on it throughout the day -- For very boring topics or in difficult times, literally write down the scheduled time blocks I will spend on specific topics * Also in very difficult times, I TRY not to look at the computer unless it's to work on my required tasks. Internet to me is seriously more addictive than anything I've experienced