[charred_patina]

@keikobadthebad already gave a good answer, but I'd like to expand upon it a bit.

> Sounds like the work might not lead somewhere you really judge is useful, or judge will be painful.

As someone with ADHD I have realized that my executive function goes to zero if I think doing something isn't worthwhile. Not if I consciously think it's worthwhile, but if I know deep down that it's pretty much pointless. Thankfully my brain is a pretty good judge of what is worthwhile. The value of doing something doesn't have to be intrinsic, it can be extrinsic. Right now I am thinking about a potential architectures I could implement at work, even though I'd like to enjoy the weekend. But it's easy to hyperfixate on because it delivers immediate value and gives me a consistent hit of dopamine. Before this job I was unemployed for 6 months, and became unproductive after 3 months and just started wasting the days. I was concerned that I would come back into this job and be unproductive. Nothing could be further from the truth. My brain just quickly learned that there was no carrot at the end of the stick (no impact of my software) as long as I was unemployed.

All that to say, it sounds like whatever you have been doing has been fruitless, or at least appears this way to the man in charge of your brain. Either you haven't been hitting consistent milestones, or the payoff isn't really rewarding.

A practice that has helped me determine which tasks are going to be easy for me to do is to think about how measurable a success metric is. If the success metric is just "learn a new skill" then I probably wont do it. If the success metric is to make something that will make my life or the lives of others easier, or something really kick-ass, then it becomes really easy to do.

You probably should sit down and think about what constitutes "success" or "completion" for each of these projects and think about why you think you want to do them in the first place.

[boomskats]

> I have realized that my executive function goes to zero if I think doing something isn't worthwhile. Not if I consciously think it's worthwhile, but if I know deep down that it's pretty much pointless. Thankfully my brain is a pretty good judge of what is worthwhile.

Thank you for putting this in writing in the way that you did. As someone who went undiagnosed for the first 37 years of their life, this is almost the exact wording I used to use to explain my executive (dys)function to my family, teachers, colleagues and friends.

Most of my teachers disliked me throughout my academic life, because while they could see the 'potential', my overall academic achievements were only ever good enough to level up to where I needed to be. However, I would win competitions and had a very high ceiling for the things I was into. As an adult I've struggled with myself a lot, but in the last 10 years I have built and sold a software company and successfully helped raise a family.

The ADHD label really made me question a lot of things for a couple of years, but I've now come back round to trusting and really appreciating that ability to subconsciously, intrinsically 'know' what is worth investing my time into and what is not. Rather than the hyperfocus people often cite, I consider that ability to be my real, true ADHD superpower.

[boredtofears]

Isn’t that constantly a thorn in your side though? Life is full of things that can feel intrinsically useless.

I’m constantly having to convince myself of the worth of things in order to finish them even when I may innately disagree with them. It feels like a never ending struggle.

[howenterprisey]

I'm the same way, and can answer: lots of things feel sort of useless, but so long as they have a deeper purpose I'm all for them. Like I usually don't have a problem with motivation for taxes, even though they feel sort of useless, because I know they're important in general. Although this isn't totally reliable... you're right, sometimes something feels too useless and I have trouble starting it. But usually it's fine.

[CuriouslyC]

To expand upon this, even if something will make the lives of others easier or could be a profitable product, that's still probably not worth doing since once you've built the thing you still have to market it, which is frustrating if you're not the sort of person who's into that (and then you probably wouldn't be a developer). There are a lot of excellent things (software, art, music, games, etc) that end up languishing in obscurity because they didn't get marketed correctly or enough, and that can be incredibly frustrating.

[xeckr]

>Not if I consciously think it's worthwhile, but if I know deep down that it's pretty much pointless.

This could be true, or it could be a self-serving bias. It's something to think about. Presumably, there was a point in time when you thought that the thing that you now think isn't worthwhile felt very much so.

[brainrot]

> All that to say, it sounds like whatever you have been doing has been fruitless, or at least appears this way to the man in charge of your brain. Either you haven't been hitting consistent milestones, or the payoff isn't really rewarding.

You know, this really hit home. I have very much failed to set milestones, or even properly break down the project into smaller chunks - in my mind it's just "the project" and sometimes it seems huge. I'm going to map it all out, then tackle it in smaller chunks. I'll hit the easy, quick tasks first - maybe those small wins will give me the motivation to tackle the bigger tasks. Thank you.

[charred_patina]

> I'm going to map it all out, then tackle it in smaller chunks. I'll hit the easy, quick tasks first

I didn't even get into coping mechanisms, but breaking things down into lists helps a lot. I am a one-man team at work but I still do stories and tasks and epics just to give a sense of progression.

I taught at a summer camp over the summer helping kids make games and all of the boys had serious attention issues, using a physical task board with sticky notes helped keep them on track and prevented them from losing morale.

> maybe those small wins will give me the motivation to tackle the bigger tasks

It sounds like you know exactly what to do. Usually I find starting is the hardest part, once I'm deep in the task it becomes effortless.

Finally, I wanna say that introspection is really helpful. I got diagnosed as a kid and never got medicated or anything, I never gave ADHD any thought until recently when I did some introspection and tried to understand /why/ I operated the way that I did, and how I could work around that. Asking why X was so easy but Y seems so hard is usually a good place to start. Good luck!