[rubyfan]

The VAST thing speaks to me. I am capable of deep focus work but often am subject to constant interruption and multiple concurrent urgent demands. During a work week I get a lot done but often feel pulled in a lot of directions like I imagine ADHD might feel like.

During the weekends when I am not occupied with a task I often fall asleep. This happens on the first day or two of vacation also. After a few days my brain acclimates to the pace.

[thewebguyd]

> like I imagine ADHD might feel like.

Definitely feels like that, with the exception of task initiation. I am capable of deep focus work, but I can't control when (or where). I can block out time on my calendar all I want, if my brain says "Nope, we're not doing work today" then I'm not doing work, interruptions or not.

It becomes a real disability in the workplace when everything is defined by more or less rigid schedules and your mode of operating is not a schedule but "whenever my brain says so." Some days that might be 7am, other days its 1am, and sometimes it's an entire week or two of not being able to get jack done and then staying up all night and getting 15 business hours worth of work done at once because you physically can't pull yourself away.

I always tell people, its not a deficit of attention, I have plenty of that. Its an inability to direct where and what that attention is on.

[pmg101]

Yes, I've found it to be completely incompatible with managers and the corporate world.

I had some success in small startups where I was left to my own devices and built cool stuff whenever I felt the urge to do so.

In corporate jobs I just have to lie and describe smooth and steady daily progress while actually working in sudden fits and starts, but it's hard to maintain the lie.

[bluefirebrand]

> I always tell people, its not a deficit of attention, I have plenty of that. Its an inability to direct where and what that attention is on

Yeah, ADHD is very poorly named unfortunately. It really is not an attention disorder, it's an executive function disorder

[Forgeties79]

I always joke that what I am interested in doing and when it is accomplished (if ever) comes down to when the Holy Spirit deigns to work through me lol

I’ve got a few dozen quarter finished projects still waiting in line…

[bluefirebrand]

> The VAST thing speaks to me. I am capable of deep focus work but often am subject to constant interruption and multiple concurrent urgent demands

This is actually something that is pretty misunderstood about ADHD.

People with ADHD don't actually struggle with attention. They struggle with executive function, because their brains don't produce/consume/manage dopamine correctly

Somewhat ironically, Hyperfocus is also a symptom of ADHD. When ADHD people are doing something that is rewarding (producing dopamine) to their brains they might be really hard to pull away from it. It's really common for ADHD people to be able to sit and play videogames for hours on end, because it is giving them dopamine. Ask them to sit and do spreadsheets and they can't sit still and they look "attention deficit". But attention isn't a problem when they're engaged with the work!

I have ADHD, and I really enjoy coding and building stuff. I can't sit still for more than two seconds when I try to use LLMs to build software though. I need to be more hands on than that. Same goal, same process, different execution, completely different experience for me. I don't feel accomplished or rewarded when the LLM writes a function for me compared to writing it myself.

[cjjuice]

As a fellow ADHD.. increase your threads... while the agent is working on one thing, prompt another thread to work on another project. Keep a bunch of them in the air at one time. But make sure you are still interested in what you are building. If you don't think what you are building is important coding agent or not it's going to be very hard to do that thing.

[bluefirebrand]

I dunno. Sounds like trying to keep many plates spinning with breaking any, to me.

I'll give it a try though. Thanks

[canibal]

My vicious cycle is that the optimal time to work is overnight, when the world is asleep and the notifications and the chatter finally cease. Then, of course if I'm able to keep myself awake through the early evening I'm up hard-focused all night. Then you wake up exhausted and the focal deficiency during the day is even more pronounced per the above discussion re: lack of sleep, etc. Rinse and repeat.

[SoftTalker]

> During a work week I get a lot done but often feel pulled in a lot of directions

This is normal for any "knowledge" employee or professional, or basically any job that is not strictly defined as doing one or a small number of fixed tasks such as on an assembly line.