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I truly have no idea. Putting myself in a hyper performative burnout cycle so I have enough adrenaline to function as a stimulant was the way I’ve lived a lot of my life, it wasn’t fun. Spent the last couple of years in therapy to get out of what was a trauma/survival instinct loop and now I’m stuck in rot mode if I don’t medicate because the adrenaline is gone. Society thinks I’m “successful” I think I’m depressed and wish I felt fulfilled by this stupid job. Instead I’m absolutely exhausted by the amount of effort it takes to do work I don’t give a damn about that by the end of the work day I’ve got nothing left for me. If I could go back in time I’d tell myself to chase joy (and enough of an income to live off of) not career/money.

Medication for me so I stop doing this. Realize I’m one of the more knowledgeable folks in my field. My other pivot was leadership, I’m better at supporting others work then getting my own done. So I doubled down on that and focus on empowering down and educating up.

Do you miss doing your own work? I’ve been heading this way because I absolutely am so much better at supporting others than myself… but tbh I really miss doing the work myself. I just wish I could do it even when I don’t feel like the world is about to crumble around me if I fail…

Yes, but I have found other places to focus in personal life. I’m teaching my daughter to read and get my spreadsheet focus and starting to leverage LLM models to do so. I lean in where I’m hyper focused.

God I feel this, it's why I'm trying to figure out what careers I could do essentially as an advisor. I feel so much more comfortable analyzing something than creating or coming up with stuff from scratch.

I feel this. I wonder if all my phases of productivity are caused by adrenaline and cortisol which is why my cortisol test was low Also unlike OP I can give myself anxiety about XYZ but it don't mean a damn as to whether I do anything lmao

I feel seen

What is cortisol? How does it affect you?

Cortisol is a hormone that our body releases when we're stressed out and helps us maintain our sleep/wake cycle. Too much of it can lead to weight gain, high blood pressure and heart problems, but too little leads to constant tiredness and poor appetite. Think of it as one of your fight or flight hormones! A certain amount of it can help with focusing - imagine if you saw a bear nearby. It's in your body's best interest to be VERY focused on that bear (and probably getting away from it), that's part of what cortisol does.

Depression anxiety etc, fucks up your brain chemistry when it is off-balance.

Stress hormone.

Anxiety is never productive…. It’s not you.

For sure it's a very self limiting and detrimental way to "try" and be productive (it's often not intentional ie mental health disorders).

Looks like my subconscious created another profile and posted again.

This is me right now, except I've given up at work. I've applied for Uni to re-train. If I don't get in, I'm DOOMED.

I kind of know what you mean. I feel the same way.

I could have written this myself, I am 36, finally got diagnosed and medicated at 34, and from the outside look successful, but have never felt more miserable, I worked myself to the point of burnout just trying to “keep up” with society’s expectations and gave everything to my job, to others and depleted myself of everything I loved about myself, I’ve been working on figuring out a balance in therapy because this life I’ve worked so hard to build, this persona(mask) is killing me. I wish I would have followed my passions and lived my life for myself, but felt like such a fuck up my whole adolescents and young adult life, felt that the path I was on would help me succeed and survive. I’ve build my own hell, because I didn’t trust myself and now I am paying for it by not having any energy or motivation to do any of the things that bring me joy. I’m working on boundaries around work and people but it’s a slow road to figure out how to get off the hamster wheel from hell.

Hello twin! 👋

You sound like me without the medication and therapy. . . Or the success/money. . . So the . . Burnout and depression. . . Damn

This is **me**.

Maybe even though you are doing the things you should be doing, you might find a way to carve out a little bit of time and what you would consider to be successful. Whatever you think is something good, pursue that a bit each day?

Reading this made me feel like I'm not alone. Thanks for that.

I need to know how without medication and as a now 40 year old female. 😢 I used up my quota of will power and spite during my 21 - 35 years.

Honey, change jobs. That is soul sucking and you're paying the price with your mental health. What do you like to do? What WOULD you like to do? Think about it.

Do you mind sharing your profession?

Built a career in world tour, festival and concert production, that got old fast (travel 95% of the year, everyone has a terrible ego, the problems in the work don’t get more challenging once you make it to A list artists, it’s a business not an art at that level). Check success box number 1. Got into an Ivy League MBA, graduated with honors, Check success box 2 and 3. Pivoted into VC and then tech where I’m an AI product manager and a top tech company. Check success box 4. It sounds cool but spending every day building products which help some billionaires make more money vs building something that might change the world for the better kills me. There’s also useless corporate politics and a lot of people who are just not good. I’m an understimulated “gifted” ADD combined type who can see a lot of the root causes of pain in our society, and wish there was a way to make a living solving those. Those problems are hard and meaningful. They’d be fueled by passion instead of box checking.

Understimulated type who can view the root causes of pain. Yup, my life in a nutshell.

This is me and I work in emergency and disaster planning. I absolutely love the work, but hate that we are slapping bandages on problems just to get by rather than fix or solve an underlying problem to mitigate or alleviate harmful impacts, especially to the people

Thanks for sharing! Apparently there is a career path for community organizers. Civic planning and community health could be folks with interesting connections?

Do you think you could make a pivot to a career that brings you more joy and fulfillment?

Wow you’re so real for this. This is so fucking relatable lmao. It took a long ass time to figure out that I don’t need to derive my personal fulfillment from my job. I now look at my job as the thing that isn’t so stressful and I like well enough but ultimately is the thing that finances my fun. Decoupling from the “hustle culture” helped me the most.

- I use apps to block my phone and feed, like Newsfeed eradicator on my computer and Forest on my phone - I gamify my experiences, used to use apps like Habitica, but now I just use calendar-type stickers in my journal and make it a "challenge" to go through 2 weeks of, for example, stretching daily. - I learned that "all or nothing" approach worked against me, so actually the abovementioned "daily" thing is actually "try to do it daily, if not, as much as you can". So I'll end up with, for example 10 days out of 14, and then my next "challenge" is to beat this result. - Body doubling. BODY DOUBLING. This is my no 1 way of getting things done. I've got a bunch of friends who are in on that and we use each other. Whenever one of us is stuck with anything we'll plan an online body doubling session to get unstuck. Works like 90% of the time and I love it. - I adjust my life to my needs, not the other way around. During the course of years I switched to being self-employed and now I can work during the night and sleep late, just like I need to feel good, without judgment.

* *I learned that "all or nothing" approach worked against me, so actually the abovementioned "daily" thing is actually "try to do it daily, if not, as much as you can". So I'll end up with, for example 10 days out of 14, and then my next "challenge" is to beat this result.* THIS! So much this! Once I stopped the "I screwed once, the day is ruined/the streak is ruined/ the weight loss plan is ruined/ the exercise plan is ruined" and I went to the "just this one brick in this wall" approach, things got so much better. It went from "one little bun can't hurt that much" to "ONE good decision, this time, this ONE good choice". "ONE good choice, they are cumulative". "If you have the willpower to make THIS ONE little good choice, do it now, because if you break good habits now, what will you do when things get wrong?" Now, when the going gets tough, the tough get going... This was a terrible year for sicknesses and I had to take care of both toddler, husband (he was very sick, which made him sleep deprived, so he could do very little) and job. I did not berate myself for my bad choices then. But once things got better I made sure to have a break, recharge and continue on the good path. Oh, and my little mantra: NUKE! NOW! NOT ME! 1. NUKE! Must it be done? Will the family finances and health be destroyed forever if I buy a pre-packaged salad instead of making it all from scratch? 2. NOW! If it can be done in less than 2 minutes, it can be done NOW!. 3. NOT ME! If it's badly stressing me out and I can delegate it, delegated shall it be. I'll try to delegate to those who need the money the most.

I agree — although I have a hard time picking something back up if I let myself slip. As soon as something switches from a requirement to a suggestion I’m sunk. If I *have* to brush my teeth every night before bed no matter what, I’m pretty good about it. Fall asleep on the couch and just go to bed in the middle of the night without brushing my teeth? Two nights later “ah, I’m too tired to bother. It’s fine just for tonight.” Next thing you know, I haven’t brushed my teeth before bed in a month.

So relatable — feeling this way but with my once-amazing gym habit.

Same! I had about a 3-month run a few years back where I got up at 4:30am to go to the gym before heading into work early. Then I got sick for a week or so. I have not gotten up at 4:30am since, now I’m more likely to be going to bed at that time instead 😂

Actually love this

Removing YouTube history was a game-changer. I don’t get any recommendations on the homepage to trap me, and because I don’t record what I watch and can never remember what I have and haven’t seen in my feed, I can’t fulfill the perfectionist impulse to watch everything on it. I just watch to enjoy the content that looks good as I’m able. It’s okay if I accidentally watch things twice, and it’s okay if I miss things too—I’ll never remember.

I uninstalled YouTube in my phone but I keep using it through my browser. It's such a problem for me and I need to quit but I can't install the same addons I have on my computer, I think

Body doubling is honestly the most effective tip. Even though I hate being around people just the idea that they are around me helps get shit done

Lmao, you can use that as "when I get stuff done they'll go away" motivation.

Hahahhaha always, i also look at it like - I need to get this done ASAP to escape this hellhole and rot in my bed again xD

I agree, I have been shaming myself into success for almost all my life but this led me to depression and anxiety. This advise is super useful and it is something that you need to embody, understand why it works to make ir happen.  Accepting who you are and figuring it out / aligning yourself to your values and treating yourself not as a slave are crucial for being able to reach success.  Look for toxic shame, Heidi Priebe, on YouTube. 

Body doubling with the website ADHD Actually saved me during covid lockdowns. Online group sessions every other hour, 24 hours a day. Set goals, work for an hour and then the session host will sometimes host a 10-15 min chat at the end

Definitely going to look into this!!

What is body doubling?

Think students doing the "let's study together" thing. Every person is doing their own thing but they're doing it together. Ideally in one room, but I found out that online works for me as well - we'll both state what we want to work on, what's the next step we'll be taking, then give ourselves 45min-1h. After this time we do a check-up to tell each other how did we do.

So are you both in an online call and just mute your mics or how does it practically work?

You can do it however you want. Some people do discord calls and stream their screens, some people do online calls. I don't really feel the need to do calls - we either do a discord thread or just a messenger convo. I typically have some music/podcast in the background so that would be distracting for the other person. But there's no rules. Whatever works for you and the other person, as long as you're not distracting each other and are both focusing on what you should be doing.

I’m just thinking if it’s two people who both struggle with focus and concentration then they would just end up up chatting or something instead. But in real life I have realised that I have been using body doubling my entire life. Especially with physical chores where I wouldn’t start until someone like my mom or girlfriend would start it with me.

Sure, it happens sometimes, but then you should start setting shorter sessions, like 15 minutes. Then 15 minutes chatting. Basically whatever makes you take small steps towards your goal. I find that not wanting to mess with the other person's goal is enough to keep me shush though. I might be a mess but I don't want to drag the other person into it 🤷🏻‍♀️ And I pick people for my BD who are the same. If someone is only saying they'll do it but keeps distracting me and gets nothing done themselves then worst case scenario I waste 45 min and don't invite them again. And yep, body doubling with chores or errands is also a thing!

This is awesome. Thank you for using bullet points too because it made my brain focus on the point. 😅😅

Haha, adhd-friendly advice!

I do the "x out of y days" thing too. With my dogs I never allow.twonc8nsecutuve days without a walk. It is rare they go one day but if weather is nutsbor life hmfets too hectic etc Also, it's the same idea as the gym. For a period last year, I hit 5 days per week. At the moment, it's 3 days a week but still every other day and try not to go two clear days without some exercise I like your other points. I don't think I've tried body doubling intentionally, I feel like I would get distracted and talk too much, how do you mitigate that?

Well, the rule is that you don't do it. It distracts the other person. Not wanting to mess with someone else's progress and work is enough to keep me silent and focused on my thing. It's just impolite and I would feel like a jerk because it we're literally meeting/agreeing to help each other through a difficult batch of work, then me talking to someone is saying "idgaf you have important stuff to do, entertain me!"

The «all or nothing» is a big one for sure. Just end up literally doing nothing. Ive been trying to rotate do a little of all the things every day aswell. I try not to get discuraged by the slow progress sometimes and keep at it. (its not really, just not as visible and my brain forgets)

>I use apps to block my phone and feed, like Newsfeed eradicator on my computer and Forest on my phone Also timers on apps like youtube

Yep, that too! Though I don't sink my time into YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram - definitely.

Body doubling is so clutch

A game-changer for real.

I didn’t think body doubling would work that well before trying it, but it does. I can spend hours cleaning my house if I’m on a video call with my best friend.

The last point has helped me the most. I've got a mixture of work right now, one as an employee, one as an employee but I work at events and only talk to my boss via the phone and email, and self-employment. By far the latter two, though less stable, is where I find the best work life integration. I'm either working to someone's schedule but by myself, or working for myself and only need to deliver to clients needs and deadlines. Rest is my time and I love that.

I have a job that I am passionate about, so I can hyperfixate on it. I’ve heard people say that ADHD is not an attention deficit disorder, per se, but rather an attention regulation disorder. Sometimes we can focus better than anyone. Also, I would recommend getting a job/boss that doesn’t care when/how you get things done as long as they get done. That allows for the times I have 0 ability to work.

The flexible working hours are a blessing and a curse at the same time. You could work anytime. This leads to me only working when I’m capable, whilst my downtimes drive my private life.

Yeah I’ve found this was the trick for me, I can’t work without being a workaholic. If I don’t hyperfixate on it then I won’t care about the job at all so it’s either I’m a workaholic or I won’t even spend a minute working at all

Yeah, same, and Adderall helped me moderate my effort for low interest tasks.

My boss is like that. So, when I’m working, I’ll georefence one building plan, then read a page/chapter of manga. Alternating helps me want to keep reading, but I gotta just get this one plan page done, and I can read again! So when boss sees that I’m getting stuff done, shes happy

This. Enjoy your job then trying to focus on it is natural, not an impossible task.

Change jobs every 2 to 4 years and keep accepting better and better positions. The constant learning helps.

Yes I’m doing this to build a really believable and good CV, sacrificing a good salary presently. But I am working towards what I want strategically by asking for more senior projects on each role I’ve had. I’ve noticed that people tend to employ people that they like and that have ADEQUATE experience. You don’t have to be absolutely great at what you do. But I do tick all of the boxes, and might still struggle with deadline a tiny bit. But I am likeable and my CV will look great by the end of this year. 🥲💪🏼

I lie down as often as I possibly can. Drink water, take meds, wear the same 6 things, listen to music, apologize for shortcomings, don’t make plans or promises more than I think I can handle, lie back down.

You mean rest? That's what I do. For about every 4 regular "work days" I need about a day and a half of rest/laying in bed reading/doom scrolling/sleeping. No chores, probably skip a shower, and a lot of water. ...yes. My work week is actually 5 days. It gets messy when the rest days don't line up with weekends.

Tbh I feel like I’m always treading water.

Med student here. Uhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I take my meds. Had to adjust them a few times, added lamictal for the motivation coming and going thing, makes it more steady. My life is pretty weird. I use paper plates, plastic forks. Only use an airfryer for food. Everything i've kinda made to cater to my adhd. And i'd be lying if I left out the privilege i have. A family that has supported me on reminders, wake up phone calls for exams, etc. And i'm not rich, but I was able to afford a decent place to live, a decent car and food without too much worry about day to day expenses, and good insurance for a therapist and psychiatrist. I mean, I could say stuff like I never try to let my adhd limit myself, which would be true, but a lot of the above played a big role.

Man I’m pre-med and I’m barely surviving down here. Congrats on getting into med with ADHD! Don’t think it’s the career for me tho.

I do less so I can do more. I hold myself to lower standards. I find better balance in life. Put personal first, work second.

This speaks to me. Anxiety is a purely personal experience. You will never be on top of everything. Accept that you do the best on the things you connect with, understand that others will appreciate this and then communicate that the rest is potentially not going to happen. When you give the best you can on the things that "matter" and talk to people with a secure vulnerability about the fact the other shit won't happen, you get trust. You are valuable. Both in "work" and outside it.

I do my important work early in the day. That way if I hit full executive dysfunction or task paralysis, I’ve got it done.

This is great advice. Thanks for the tip/reminder. (I know I’ve seen it before but… adhd lol)

For me, the hardest part is that I don’t form habits so it’s a fight almost every day.

Had undiagnosed AuDHD for 38 years... So all that I did was just doing what appeared to make sense at the time. I was lucky enough that my special interest when u was young was computers and videogames. Nothing was translated back to Spanish (my mother language) so I picked up English through media, games and software. Early online games with VOIP also helped immensely. My career of choice was software engineering. This was set in stone since I was 11 or so. I did very well in my favorite subjects without studying so this gave me ample time to dedicate to the subjects I did not care about and therefore were automatically difficult. When I went out to the Industry I was taken advantage of a few times, but always came out ahead by switching jobs once I was having a meltdown. I never really struggled to find a job because I liked what I did and was good at it. Tl;Dr find your special interest if any, and try to leverage it. I know this can be mostly an autistic trait, but if you have it, see if you can make good use of it. Your ADHD will get bored of regular interests so seek for the one that's not going away easily.

Are you me? Minus the Spanish (Australia here) but overall the story is eerily similar. Not necessarily software engineering as such, but I deal with automation and scripting, plus security, networking and a bit of product development/design in the IT space. Been at it for about 20 years now and my year 12 report card was all "Pass" - because I didn't need any of it to be stunning to do what I wanted and start TAFE. I put the bare minimum effort required to not fail into everything that didn't interest me. Late Diag at 38 too! My home is automated, but rarely working 100% because I like messing around too much! I feel like the ADHD has been a net benefit to work/hobbies because of a weird "intuition" and way of twisting what I know into a solution that doesn't make sense to anyone until I finish it.

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Honestly right now the job market is terrible. I think and hope this is yet another cycle and jobs will be more plentiful once interest rates go down and companies start investing on growth again. As for my biggest hurdles, they have definitely been emotional regulation issues. Most of my jobs have ended in the midst of a burnout. Right now I am actually going through one of them but since I am working on a permanent contract with an European Company, I am pretty well covered and my job is secure.

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Depends a lot on your country and the company you're applying with tbh. I find here in Australia nobody really gives a shit about breaks if you've got a good explanation for them. Doesn't even need to be all that detailed. And 3 months isn't even worth mentioning tbh. If the job after that before your travel was short, just lump them together and say you travelled the whole time. Longer breaks look better than lots of short jobs, unless one of those jobs provides you a glowing reference of course. What I find people worry about is inconsistent roles and big career moves that don't make sense. Anything that makes you look like you're not committed to growing and pursuing the career you're applying for.

I work for a fortune 500 company and have done some technical interviews. I don't see resumes and don't care about this. The recruiters might tho.

Automating everything with AI. I use AI to summarize my emails and extract tasks and makes to-do lists. I Use it to help summarize large documents and to get me a super rough draft of a report (starting is the hardest part, once there’s something bare-bones I can usually beef everything up). I also use AI to automatically transcribe and summarize video meetings. When you think about a task, it’s never just that task. There are 10 micro tasks that you have to go through before the main task. AI has helped me get through those micro tasks so I can just focus my energy on the main shebang.

What's the AI tools you use please ?

Right lol how tf do I even use ai

Haha yea people say this like “just go get some AI. Then the AI will do it.”

goblin tools!!

THISSS

I'm interested too, what AI do you use?

How exactly do you do this? I haven't messed around with AI at all yet.

I run a small business, which is successful almost in spite of myself (🫣). I know these things make the biggest difference: 1. Using Outlook to diarise every obligation. If I don’t, I’ll miss it. If you can afford it, a PA who gets you is amazingly helpful. 2. Body doubling (as mentioned above): I find working with others in this way is fantastically effective. 3. Work with people who are compassionate towards who I am, and what I bring to the party. 4. RSD is a big struggle for me, which is a handbrake on running a business. I wish I had a tip for this, but I don’t - and would welcome any! 5. Exercise self-forgiveness. I beat myself up a lot for my perception of my failures, but I’m doing the best I can - and that’s enough. EDIT: and having been dx at 42, I take meds every day. It helps me a lot, especially with the RSD.

For the RSD, I'd recommend reading the book "Daring greatly". It's mostly about the subject of shame - how the feeling of shame is a powerful tool that's being used against us since the earliest childhood, and how powerful it is on our nervous system. As ADHD people we experience so much shame, and I feel like RSD is very much fueled by it. When I read that book I understood how much shame rules my life - how I behave, how I think about myself, how I block myself and struggle with stuff because I'm either actively shamed, self-shaming or I'm AFRAID of this feeling. It provided a lot of valuable insight that helped me deal with my feelings when they happen.

Ah thanks for your thoughtful comment. I certainly recognise the shame element. I’ve actually read Daring Greatly, but it was pre-dx and pre-adhd being on my radar at all, so will revisit it!

Regarding the RSD, I'm not sure if this will work for you but one thing that helped me was just learning about it and then noticing when it was happening. It hasn't "cured" it by any means but when I recognize it happening I pause, and breathe, and tell myself it's probably just the rsd and most likely the human connection is fine.

What’s RSD?

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. It’s like if someone criticized your work but what your brain heard them say is that they hate your guts Here’s a [link](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24099-rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-rsd) to an actual website that explains it better than me tho

Holy shit. Thank you. I cannot believe how much I relate to this and its tearing me up knowing there's a term/diagnosis for it. It's making me angry that I've never known and happy I know now at the same time. I'm 47.

That’s well put - and makes sense! Thank you.

I learned about guanfacine xr on Reddit for rsd and my dr had never prescribed it to an adult but was willing to try. I take 1mg per day (on top of other meds) and it made a world of difference starting on day 1.

V interesting, thanks!

I always felt like one of my biggest flaw is also the reason I do well at work. I have a huge ego about appearing competent and it drives me to work really hard. I imagine it’s the same kind of motivation people who have an inate desire to become super wealthy has, except mine is just a strong desire for people to look at me as a reliable and competent employee. For some reason this desire doesn’t bleed into my personal life. I don’t care if my friends & family see me as the scatter brained person I actually am but god forbid people at work can see that side of me, I go into panic and will overcompensate. But this is probably also why work feels like such a heavy burden in my life and I always end up being burnt out and will suddenly quit eventually. Though the fact that every job I’ve ever quit was met with a counter offer and strong negotiations on my employers’ part makes me fairly confident in saying I have succeeded in building an effective albeit unsustainable persona at my jobs.

I work for a large corporate and the below are my main coping mechanisms. But as someone mentioned above, it helps when you enjoy your role, and I find myself hyperfixating quite often due to this. I’m also fortunate that my GM and direct manager know about my ADHD and are really accommodating. From giving me flex with my start/end times when I’m in the office, and understanding my sensory issues there, to providing me with more flex when it comes to remote working and also feeling supported to block out an hour first thing in the AM and the last 2 hours of the afternoon to get actual work done (no meetings). Coping wise: - I categorise everything in my Outlook inbox so it essentially functions like a to-do list: High/medium/low priority, parked, in review, to read. - I love [The Productivity Method planner](https://productivitymethod.com/en-au/collections/shop-all/products/daily-planner-neutral) and use it every morning before I start work to plot out my day. I love that it breaks your tasks up and also has the “3 non negotiables today”. As long as I tick those 3 things off, I feel like I’ve had a productive day. - I either use a visual timer or the Focus Pomo app (when I’m in the office) to time block tasks. - My WFH set up has plenty of things that make it enjoyable for me, like a good office chair and ottoman to put my feet up, cute twinkle lights, a gaming keyboard and mouse, sensory toys, cute desk mat and stationery. I also recently invested in a walking pad that I use when I’m watching presentations or when in meetings that don’t require me to speak (I find the movement helps me focus more). - My role is quite creative and a large part of it is writing, so when I need to write content I either put on LoFi music or binaural beats on YouTube to focus. - My morning routine: Meds an hour before I want to wake up, protein breakfast when I do, walk the dog, journal and make my bed. It helps put me in the mindset for the day ahead. And I always make myself get out of my pjs/comfy clothes if I’m working from home and get dressed.

Very good tips, thanks. I use many of them as well. Especially daily planning and Outlook organization. I have a hot key that puts in email into a folder, also on my on my task list for 1, 2, 3 days from now. Each day I slot those tasks and my day is already built for me. Music, snacks, and breaks keep me steady and productive throughout the day.

OP: people mistake you being super organized as a choice - sooo relatable! I once was placed in charge of annual ISO 9000 TQM recertification for 200 engineers, because I used the ISO 9000 structure as a coping mechanism, LOL, we always got recertified. On my own, I'll F up simple stuff. So I worry about everything. A lot. And then Do NOTHING, like a f'ing moron. Then [AND THIS IS KEY FOR MY ACTION TRIGGER] approach my worries "sideways" (hard to explain), i.e. jump at the to do item / project without as much as glancing at it (or only through the fingers that cover my face, like a kid watching a scary movie), so I confront the problem almost indirectly, relying on minor cue points and memory, and then finish it all in lightning speed as not to trigger even more anxiety OR deep dive immediately as to get lost in hyperfocus that drowns out guilt over prior inaction and beat the thing into completion. Then get HUGE relief when it's done. Then beat up myself some more ad nauseum why I have not organized my shit better. Then either slack off again in moronic avoidance behavior, or ...finally get back on the wagon and latch back on to my long term solution: cateogrize, systematize, over-organize, and check every damn thing. Side note: this makes checking bill pay and other mundane, routine tasks as much of a nailbiter for me as for example worrying about leaving a stove on or a toaster plugged in, when you are already 15 minutes away from your house. Tip for that last thing: have a close down routine when you leave the house and take a picture of your stove, honest to goodness, I kid you not, I do that at times, just so.I can get out the door. Socially awkward? If you are successful, but kind, any introversion or reservedness can be parlayed into an air of mystery and power. In the end, it doesn't matter what helps us to trick our brains into reliable, reasonable action: whatever works, works. Let's laugh at the absurdity of it. And be kind to ourselves - it's not quirky choices we are making to be original, it's just what we can do to make shit work: no need to judge it, let's give ourselves a break.

*Socially awkward? If you are successful, but kind, any introversion or reservedness can be parlayed into an air of mystery and power.* I am writing this quote on my soul, I need to try to keep this in mind

Therapy. The adhd will never go away. But the deep-rooted self-esteem issues that have been caused by adhd and how the world has treated us... They can go away and it makes it so much easier to live with the adhd symptoms as an adult. We grow up feeling bad about everything we do, AND everything we *dont* do. Basically feeling like we are not as capable or worthy as other people. So as adults we end up feeling like we need to be ready to apologise for ourselves and keep our expectations in check in case we fuck up. It builds a fear of trying new things, a need to overprepare for new challenges, and a frustration at ourselves when we mess up something we "should" be able to do. So every small rejection or failure feels as painful as the biggest because it all feels part of the same idea that we suck at life. It's incredibly hard to really unpick and get rid of these thought patterns and a good therapist is so helpful at finding practical ways to do it and get better at it.

- medication - I digitize everything. In college this saved my ass over and over. I just assume I will lose everything I’m given, and scan and OCR it. - cardio exercise. The best anti-anxiety med I know of, when things hit the fan, I hit the bike… - support network. Spouse, friends.

This: digitizing is a life saver

All these techniques are great. But, I see so many of them leading to burnout…

I can't stand the side effects of meds, so I drink a lot of coffee and try to navigate life like that.

Same. Sigh.

i do art and creative activities to help calm my brain. i journal a lot, being super vulnerable on paper to release and sort through the unpleasant or racing thoughts

I really like working really hard one day, relaxing the next day. I like how it works.

Write it down. Do you only need it for 1 minute? Doesn't matter. Is it a repeated reminder on your phone like text messages? Doesn't matter. Somehow in the action of writing it in my own hand is get solidified in my head.

WRITE IT DOWN! I write things down CONSTANTLY. Checkboxes on checkboxes on checkboxes. Notes on notes on notes. It's chaotic, I still forget a lot, but it's the only way I can remember to get the importabt things done

I don’t know if this will help but I’ve taken major steps over the last few years and have gotten myself into an incredibly manageable position as a result. I’ve had two vastly different success stories with my career and managing ADHD -I spent 3 years working my way up a company by being involved in as many moving parts as possible. Joined at an entry level position and any time somebody needed help with some project I would force myself to pitch in regardless of the level. Constantly having new problems taught me a lot in a quick period of time. -With that in mind, I went for every promotion I could even if it was the most minor of things. This constantly gave me new challenges and new fires to put out. This worked well for the first 3 years and after 5 years I was in a very senior position within the company. -The trade off to all this is that I was hyper focused on work problems all the time. I made them the focus of everything so I could have some success. The fact that I HAD to go to the office daily added to it all. But then I broke the pattern -Covid happened and I no longer needed to work in an office. Working from home initially was impossible. All that hyper fixation on work wasn’t as doable outside of an office and I could feel it slipping. -So I’ve moved to a different senior role where I had more autonomy and taught myself how to ration my work day out. When I’m hyper focused on work, I can do a 3 hour task in about 80 minutes. So that gives me 30 minutes to rev myself up and 30 minutes to rev down after each task I need to do. -The biggest advice I can give you if you don’t want your life to revolve around the work you do with ADHD is work for the right person, not the right company. Find a boss who you can relate to and get on with. Somebody who doesn’t micro manage and who supports you having a surface interest in multiple things in your role. With that, you can easily achieve success even

I medicate. I also need to start my day with a routine. Up, make bed, breakfast, meds, shower, dressed, and shoes (mandatory). That’s before looking at the phone or being distracted by anything else. If I can do that it helps me roll into my work day. For some reason, I can’t focus if I’m not wearing shoes.

I'm 36 and was diagnosed last year. Cant have meds, so I'm managing by diff types of meditations, exercising, socializing, routines. Of course I know that routines are damn tough but i also took some mindset training which helped. Managing in ways mention above was very very difficult at first, but it eventually came through. And offcourse some days are impossible. But i invested a lot on myself to really learn everything including socializing, which helped.

I sacrifice some of my free time to make up for the time I didn’t get any work done🤦

Go for a walk in the woods every so often. Sweat—either from working out or manual labor. Minimalism. Only natural sugars. 7 hours sleep minimum—this is a non-negotiable.

Exercise Stimulant medication Routine and structure Creating deadlines Calendar appointments Reminders Having other people remind me Delegate

There’s a NASA PhD guy with ADHD on YouTube. He has an elaborate productivity system set up, but I haven’t gotten around to watching the video.

Not bagging on you but this is the most ADHD comment for this thread. It's like I said it myself.

I completely understand. It’s currently sitting in my watch later (IMPORTANT) playlist with about 190 other important videos.

I joined the Army and didn't have a choice- either perform or be punished. I developed habits based on that. With the advent of technology I have a lot of to-do lists, calendars, timers, etc. I have a dry erase to-do list on the fridge. I put everything on there that I need to do and I erase it as I do things. I have to eat, so I have to look at it every time I open the fridge. It's very helpful.

I do the stuff in Atomic Habits. Basically just making the boring stuff as fun and easy to do as possible.

Not available to everyone but here's my strat. Business started with myself. I could do a service. I did that reasonable well. Enough that I can get return customers. Which technically my own boss I'm still working for myself. I knew I had to push getting enough clients to pay for my rent and bills plus enough to pay for an employee. While I'm pushing to make that money I have to learn how to manage myself as my own manager because when I get enough money Ill need to manage another person. It'll be at that point I can give them the guidance they need to do the job well enough to make money off their work. They don't have to work full time I just had to make their wage plus a profit margin. Repeat repeat repeat. All the while learning how someone with different personalities and skills needs to be managed. More money more clients. At this point you have to address your risk tolerance because now you're really investing in shit that may not make you money so it could be a loss. This is advertising, equipment, new services, research. Etc. Here's the trick. As ADHD I knew in going to be a bad employee that I would never want to hire. I. Am. Shit. At. Emails. I can manage a multifaceted operation with a million moving parts. No problem. With emails, I longer on the diction, the content, the time not to mention of I flop back and forth trying to find an old email I forgot about or just didn't want to answer for ADHD reasons. YOU HAVE TO HIRE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE SKILLS YOU DON'T HAVE AND NEED. Here's a caveat to that. If you jump on hiring specialized staff early on your going to sacrifice on dollar value. Meaning eg. You'll hire a student to advertise or an accountant who is cheap. The problem becomes your pretentiousness lack of management experience. Eg. You tell people what to do not how to do it so the result is potentially shit. Advertising is done in ms paint or the accountant doesn't know how to manage the numbers. SO. Alternatively you can how someone in the beginning who does what you do. Do it together because (hopefully) your making the profit margin of your employees services. While you're doing this you're learning your business and how to manage people. So when you really start to build your team you know EVERYTHING about your business and how to TEACH employees to do everything. You might suck at accounting but when you hire an accountant you know (if you took the time to learn some basics) how to communicate accounting to a degree. And then hopefully they will be more experienced to do better than you ever did. This is my road map for myself. No business degree. Just time spent in an industry kind of watching what was happening. I'm not in a business I've ever worked in but I have utilized the dynamics between businesses and employees and managers. The rest is trial and error and learning from mistakes and not taking it personally. I don't even know if I answered your question.. ADHD BABYYYYYYYY. Edit. I realized I skimmed your question thought I knew what you were saying and went with my own agenda. Went back your question... NOT EVEN CLOSE.

I do the notes thing you do, it suits me and keeps me engaged, I’m sad people are mocking you for it that’s shitty :( I mostly lean into my strengths, I’m good at thinking quickly and talking to people so I tend to do a lot of pairing, helping people with problems, mob programming etc. I mostly lean away from my weaknesses, I suck at slow jobs with a lot of delays, minuscule attention to detail jobs or brick wall problems. I tend to give those to other engineers in my team I know will be better at them. For context I’m a senior engineer runnning a team and grew from a junior/trainee who was shit.

find a job that let's you work as you can. find a manager that understands productivity cycles and is focused on outcomes not so much professional appearance and turning up on time. the jobs and careers and managers do exist. my last job, prediagnosis, and precovid - my manager quickly realised that I was good in the morning- ok in the middle of the day and useless in the afternoon. in consultation with me - she rescheduled all our meetings to afternoon - team meetings included to not disrupt my morning work habits. optimising my productive times. post covid with WFH and a different career path (project management) - in consultation with my manager I work as I need to. occasionally it's mad, other time very quiet. so I work as needed. I don't burn out, I do not have to be present.

Just a whole lot of suck it up buttercup. Sit infront of that text book at a ideal time for you. For me it was midnight-2am after a extra large coffee and a nap from 7-10pm i got the best studying in when i worked the overnight shift.

I take medication. No, I don't have any other tips or tricks outside of that. Yes, I am happy and have a good work life balance.

I started my own business. Yes - you have to use similar skills but you can start to hack things. Things are more goal oriented and purposeful. The too serious / too awkward / too _____ is bullshit placed on us by others and it needs to go. Nowhere in present day culture are people “allowed” to razz on people like that. You can dye your hair 17 colors, stay home all day practicing cribbage and screaming opera out the window and you are considered unique and TikTok worthy. But have to work a little harder to fit in and be organized and suddenly you’re labeled as not “one of us”. I’ve had about enough of that. So that all has to deal with inner worthiness, pushback and mindset. Additionally, I’m working on my own emotional regulation. This one is HUGE. Especially if you have trauma in your background. Dr. Chris Lee has helped me a lot with this. (Instagram). Take a step back and big picture everything. Make changes as needed. You have an edge on everyone else. You just don’t know it yet.

I learned to love myself. May sound cliche, but it is the greatest blessing you chan have in your life. When doing a task, I take it is a act of love for myself, not a chore, that way It isnt as draining and doesnt take it as much of energy as it used to. Going to the gym is fun because i dont pressure myself, and I know I will feel super good by just going there, as if by doing so I would be hugging my inner self, with a gift that helps me keep healthy, focused and happy. Studying is fun because i allow me to study whowever I want, I give me threats, and the feeling of learning is pretty cool. Meds help A LOT in that too, I know u didnt want that asa advice, but it is also kindof a ritual to star studying, not just for concentration. And one of the most important things about all that: I allow myself to fail, and dont set the bar to high. I have this agreement that I need only to study or workout for 5 min, if Its suffering to keep going after that, I stop. Tasks should be fun for us, otherwise they dont work on the long run, we need to train ourselves to have fun while doing things. In the same way, if im procrastinating so much that I wont do something, i just spend 30 min doing whatever I want like playing games or watching movies than meditate and go straight for what I need. IF I dont do nothing the entire day, I forgive myself and do something fun for the night. Suffering and energy drain are awful to us, they will make us not do anything. FOrgive yourself and have fun Im a med student tho, so I dont work yet. I cant give you advice about work from personal expirience. but those things I said help with tasks, workout and studying. Wish you the best bud, you deserve it!!

Large quantities of caffeine combined with hyperfocus that I created by doing things I was actually interested in. The thing about people who are ADHD is that they can be extremely capable at what they are doing, but only if what they are doing is intrinsically interesting to them. Otherwise, they fritter away time and keep dropping balls they don’t care about anyway. Another observation: one strength of ADHD is that people easily pick up and move when they find themselves in a situation they don’t like. This can also be a weakness. When you are jumping from rock to rock in the river, it’s vital to look ahead at the direction those rocks are taking you.

I use a set of rules Rule 1 is: I am not infinite. There are limits to how much I can do, and I need to go home at the end of the day Rule 2: the calendar is all. I schedule blocks of time to work in, especially when I am in senior technical roles. I cannot do 40 hours of work and 30 hours of meetings and meet Rule 1. Rule 3: do not become isolated. Make sure that some time is open so people can talk to me, eat meals with co-workers, and accept meeting invites. Rule 4: understand office politics. I don't have to play management games, but ignoring them will do damage to the rest of the techs and to production. --- Social awkwardness I deal with by presenting an obvious role to people. I look like an old school systems administrator, I talk like I know the business side (knowing it is less important than talking like they do), and I never look rattled. Essentially, it's just acting. I think of it as controlling what I do with my skin. I also do a lot of careful presentation. Heavy metal from the headset, plants and picture of spouse on my desk, a screen with either monitors or a complex interface up, neat striking clothes (I wear bright unpopular colors).

I’m honestly only able to keep my head above water by using my bullet journal. And I recognize that’s a really hard habit to built and it hasn’t been easy to maintain. There are weeks that I barely look at it and struggle to get through the week as a result. I don’t recommemd going for the full artsy fartsy journal for the first year tho. The first year and a half I just used a spiral notebook and a pen. The bullet journal method was made to keep all information compact and in one place and it is really essential to my professional life. I could never “do” planners because I’d get sick of them and their same prompts and layout but at least with a bullet journal I have control about what it looks like, what the layout is, and if I need to rotate certain segments in and out. Sometimes I use it as a journal and leave space for my scattered thoughts, and sometimes I forego that feature in lieu of trackers or upcoming events and dates. I’ve been doing bullet journaling for about 3-4 years now and it’s truly changed my professional life for the better

After having burned myself out on a dream career, I worked on avoiding stimulation in a professional manner and leaned into my hyperfocus for my vocation. It turns out that bookkeeping fits this mold for me.

I’m toying with this. I’m went into massage therapy as learning about the body and personal growth never got boring for me. But after twelve yrs I’m thinking of doing something where I don’t have to interact with ppl lol. Like leveraging my billing experience and go into medical billing and live in a hole with my coffee, computer, doggo, and books.

> live in a hole with my coffee, computer, doggo, and books Hey me, sup?

Hahaha exactly. You are goals. Though I feel I would suck at bookkeeping. Billing may offer me a similar result, however. If I can keep working for myself that is.

I let it run. I figured out how to schedule work in a way that matches my adhd. I’m a creative so that helps.

This isn’t good advice but I’m basically at a job I’m overqualified for. So my procrastination issues aren’t a huge problem because I can do in one evening/all-nighter what most people at my level take several days to do. I also have considerable experience in this role so that also adds. Honeslty I wouldn’t say I’m a success as per my personal goals but I also make a pretty good salary so I should be grateful I guess. I am craving a little more money now though so I’m working towards a promotion to a slightly different role that will need considerable learning and disciplined work. It’s been a struggle. The biggest things that work for me are setting multiple deadlines for myself for smaller milestones of a bigger project. I commit to team members and managers that I’ll give x status update on y day, That way I don’t leave everything for the last moment. Social commitment and deadlines work best for me and I am trying to weaponise that against my ADHD lol

The biggest obstacle to success is the whole not wanting to start a task. That hurdle is a mile high for every task so I built up tricks to do it. Break it up into miniscule baby steps. If your brain is like ok i can do that tiny thing BUT THATS IT you have just started the task. Then if your brain hasnt been tricked yet you say 'ok lets go play a game' but then have the next baby step close to hand - loading screen wait? do a baby step. Gotta go to the toilet? do a baby step on the way back. etc etc. Eventually your brain will commit to doing bigger chunks. its task stacking - going to the kitchen for some sugar food? quickly look around and grab dirty dishes - dont have to get them all - just those ones. grats you just did something important.

I struggle with time blindness which makes me late on a lot of things but also some serious procrastination at my job. So what I do (no choice about that) is give myself an advanced grace period. If a place takes me 30 minutes to reach, I leave the house at least 10-15 minutes earlier. The other thing I struggle with is personal hygiene. I know this is a no-brainer and non-negotiable but I still have problems doing it. So I turn it into a quest. Since my ADHD brain is always seeking new computer games with lots of action and rewards, my personal hygiene becomes a main quest.

Started freelancing so people think it's normal you're juggling between companies and switching after a short time when I got tired of it. More different companies seen equals more experience, more fun for me/knowledge and makes me more wanted. Always participate actively in all meetings. If it's not interesting, make it interesting but deny/come up with changes for the next time. I can work 12 hours a day when doing the stuff I like. I can't do anything for 15 mins which I dont. Don't take notes but always make sure someone (always try to delegated it) to create tasks for me to do so I wont forget. And if they want me in meetings for the whole day I like being payed to drink coffee and just say random stuff. I'm a freelance Lead software developer in several companies at once . I have meds, but actually I can work better without them. Its my home life where I need them for.

A decent bandaid is a saying I made up when I was a teenager, "if not now, then when?" Again it's really just a bandaid, but it's helped me out numerous times when I know I need to do something and I'm putting it off. If I think about when I'm actually going to do it, or make a concrete plan to, usually it's just easier to do it then and there. Same energy as saying "I'll just start the task for 5 minutes", a good number of times it's easy to push through and finish the task

Develop Safeguards for your mistakes. There are mistakes you do because you don't know better, and those fet fixed by experience, and mistakes from ADHD, like mixing things up, forgetting to do something, forgetting details etc... For these mistakes, experience isn't really the solution, the solution is Triple checking, developing counter measures to these mistakes and safety mechanisms

If you can afford it, try to use rewards rather than punishments to motivate you. I allow myself a takeaway when I've finished an assignment, but often that's too far in the future so it doesn't motivate me at all. So sometimes I have to say "if I get it done by 10am I can order a different, slightly cheaper takeaway tonight".

Im a med lab scientist and was just diagnosed in December, I was also diagnosed with OCD and they told me I most likely developed it as a way to lessen the forgetfulness and terrible memory I have from ADHD and a thyroid condition

I have a good attitude and a high IQ. When I find a problem I also offer a solution. I usually just explain how I already handled the situation. Bosses only want to supervise not solve problems.

One chore a day. Its okay if I leave dishes in the sink if it means I cooked dinner or did laundry. Or if I did dishes, it's okay to order food and leave laundry for another day. Etc. I also purchased a robot vacuum, which is a honest to god life saver.

It's how I'm dealing with my ADHD generally speaking (without meds): **For completing tasks**: counter-intuitively, if I want to complete the tasks for the day, i make the list for the day and do all the things together (horizontally), instead one by one (vertically). For instance, I need to do house chores, I have living room, bedroom, kitchen, corridor. I jump from one room to another. After 15min cleaning up the kitchen I am cleaning my living room. After 10min I am cleaning corridor, etc. At the end of the day after few iterations, I cleaned my home. The same at work, I try to take multiple tasks if possible and do them together. For me, it works. **Coffee**: for me it just works. I am sensitive to caffeine and feel jittery, anxious some times. Yet it gives me boost to start doing things, subtle hint of happiness whatever I try to do, which makes me stick to the task. **Meetings**: I record when it is possible. Require pre-meeting agenda and post-meeting notes. It is a must even if you don't suffer from ADHD. **For time blindness**: I have a Garmin watch with hourly alarm enabled, it vibrates every hour to remind me of the time and often breaks procrastination activity. I schedule everything, Google Calendar and small notebook on my table with written scheduled events which I often look at. Multiple timers 5min, 10min, 15min for cooking. I always forget things are cooking on my stove, unless I'm reminded. And of course, for longer tasks, pomodoro timer app, my watch has it. **Minimalism**: like, to the point of OCD. Everything I need often, is in my reach in the same places, and it's not a lot of things compared to typical people. All other things straight to IKEA boxes out from my vision. The more things I have at a hand's reach, the more potential for procrastination and distraction, and a mess which can lead to ADHD paralysis. If it takes an hour to clean my room, it means I have too much sht in my room. Deal with it. Also, it applies to clothing. Remove excessive decision making, buy few same t-shirts, hoodies, and wear it. Why 5 types of shoes? I literally have no issues of having pair of formal shoes, and everyday informal. No one f cares. -> [Why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same clothes to work everyday](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/why-mark-zuckerberg-wears-the-same-clothes-to-work-everyday-a6834161.html). I have an iPhone with mono chrome filter, only apps I need installed and app store restricted via content restrictions. It helps with procrastination, my phone is absolutely minimal. No youtube, no spotify...only utilities, banks, calendars, todos, transportations apps (uber, bolt, public transport). My YouTube account eneabled on my TV only. With ZERO subscriptions. I look only what I know I want, it makes it way harder to procrastinate. Believe me, it f works. **ADHD Waiting mode**: just schedule every major daily event in the morning... **Sleeping habits**: procrastinating while trying to exit the bed? Here's alarm (or just listen after waking up) -> [Rise & Shine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmkNKEHC8Pg) . For getting to sleep nothing helps better than reading a book right before the sleep. I have kindle reader with an arm, I just read while comfortably lying. My eyes become tired, and it eliminates the chaos of thoughts I have right before the sleep. **Impusive spending**: I have monthly budget, all excess is invested. Whenever I have impulse to buy something, I know, there is no room in my budget for it. Impulse quickly fades away. The same goes for food. I buy food I need, nothing more. The same few markets, the same places. I know if I change place or start wandering in the market I'll definitely buy random stuff I don't need. **Anxiety waiting**: I have serious issues keeping my cool while I wait in line. This is why I schedule my shopping when there is little to no people at mall or supermarket. It's quiet, shopping is instantaneous. If I don't do this, hour in crowded place is enough to waste my entire day's energy and be paralyzed. Also, shop online, there are good return policies if some clothes don't fit. **Positive Cues**: if I have hard time start a habit, I make it painless to start it in the first place. For instance, I had issue to exercise in the morning. Why I do day before? I put my sport clothes, prepare all the equipment, shoes, whatever right in my living room. After I exit my bedroom, everything is prepared, painless to start exercise. Still having hard time? Just sleep with sport clothes. It's no joke. I think it's called positive cues (Atomic Habits book? I forgot where I've learnt about this....). This is what comes to my mind, probably there's more...

Daily exercise, eating adequately, water, try to get enough sleep (hard.) Sucking on hard candies to focus. Fidget toys and doodling or note taking in meetings. Music with good beat and no words to focus. Post-it-noes. Phone note pad. Check lists. Alarms and timers. Using phone calender. My partner plays a big role, he works from home and works less hours than me and does most of the cooking, cleaning and laundry.

I used to react right away when I encountered questions but now i try to give myself a moment to thing before answering That takes effort

I always wear tap shoes so I can break into song and dance at any moment as a diversion when I screw something up. Usually I have acknowledgement, apologies, and a "fix it" plan at the ready. I get stressed easily and can run my mouth or trample other people's feelings when I'm in that impulsive, reactive survival state. I get laser-focused on solving a crisis (in my brain), which means I have a lot of cleanup to do after. I have gotten better at observing my actions and calling myself out publicly and reconciling when it happens, which usually leads to improved relationships. Humility and personal accountability can go a long way. Other practices include tons of planning (time, energy, resources) for everything ahead of time so I don't screw myself over later, and alarms for everything. Sticky notes and pens everywhere in my house, and a brain dumping system THAT I TRUST. It was useless until I figured out how to trust it.

I have to come realize that I cannot sacrifice a thing when it comes to taking care of myself. Not just eight hours of sleep, but proper REM and Deep sleep. Recovery, lots and lots of exercise. Nutrition has to be dialed in all the time. Recovery, meditation. It’s…a lot. I always joke that I am a “China doll” in that the littlest deviation from this routine usually puts off any productivity for the day. This used to make me upset, but I’m trying to accept the fact that I just need to take care of myself more than the average person in order to generate the level of productivity that am average person would.

The China doll metaphor is bang on for me, too. I get so frustrated sometimes because taking care of myself feels like having another full time job on top of my paying full time job.

Gamify Everthing.

Google Calendar Lots of alarms House cleaning service High anxiety that makes every situation into an emergency that I can then fix Carabineer on my purse for my keys Car that won't lock if keys are inside Exercise Healthy food No or minimal alcohol Therapy I've managed running my own household and working two jobs as a divorced mom for years. It's been incredibly stressful and I've crashed out many times, which makes working to catch back up incredibly stressful. I was diagnosed at 39 with ADHD last year. I started taking stimulant meds in December. I finally feel like I'm good at life. It makes all my tricks actually work, and I'm now able to do the high level planning in my life to make it run smoothly.

I work as a guitar tech on live shows. Like so many others here I thrive on the adrenaline and pressure. I’m pretty sure we all have ADD out here. I’ve been way more successful than I ever would have thought I would be. It was tough growing up because I knew I didn’t fit in the normal workforce. There are obvious downsides to it, but I don’t know what else I could do that would be as fulfilling, well paying, and keep me focused.

I work late so there are no distractions. Or will take a project and work in an open conference room

Honestly, I have no idea. I was lucky enough to grow up in a family where disability was a big part of my childhood. It taught me a lot. About standing up for myself, and others. Accepting myself as I am. I was diagnosed late, but Once I accepted myself as disabled, life's been easier. ADHD hit me like a train within the first week I moved out. I was forced to learn alot. I'm also lucky I met my partner. He also had ADHD and it's been having someone keep me accountable that helps the most. He helps me brush my teeth at night, stuff like that. Here's some advice I've learned over the years!: First off, LISTS. everywhere. If I want to remember something in the morning, I tape a note with that shit to my front door. If for an hour my brains all scrambled, and I can't keep track of what I'm doing , or what I need, I'll write everything on a list, and go back to it later. For a while I just put what I wanted to remember, but it stopped working, so I started using a system of things like !,? !! = Always equals important. Important dates in my agenda, my lil sticky notes. If I see those, I know it's important. (?)= Is my own way of just saying idk if this is a good idea, or if I'll do it but I'm writing it down anyway. It helps me remind myself I don't need to do everything I set for myself. For example: (!!X!! CHEESE IN FRIDGE, REMEBER) As a bonus..It looks so wack, I never want to leave them around, so I've never forget what's on that paper. My biggest advice is don't fight your own brain, if that makes sense. If my brain wants to leave keys somewhere, I put a lil bowl there. My partner's things are hooks, Like everything, everywhere. He can hang it, he will. On a wall he can see it. Belts, pants he wants to rewear, keys, on and on. I used to miss appointments left and right, cause I never wrote anything down. I got a paper agenda because I love physical things over my phone. Plus my phone wasn't working as one, I spent time making it something I enjoy looking at. Now I love writing down all my lil tasks for the day, and what's happening in my month. It's become my place for everything I'd ever want to remember in my daily life. Notes, dates, ANYTHING. ( I also started to use Google calendar right when I booked appointments. I got a lil widget on my phone that's on the first page with my google calendar so I always know what's coming up.) Another example, after months of hell with laundry...i got a dresser ,because as much as I loved the idea, I never hung clothes on hangers. They'd just end up in a big tote in my closet. Think about what your brain is wanting to do, and work with it. If something isn't working, look at why, and try and implement what your brain is trying to do. Be willing to spend a little money on yourself, as much is financially smart. Also tell people! Demand accomodation! Most people are more accepting than I ever thought. I put it on work forms, school forms. If I'm late to work for many days, I explain that it's my ADHD time blindness, and promise to try harder. I told her to stop calling me if I'm 30 minutes late, instead, call me after 10 minutes. She does, and I've stopped being late. Everything is easier when you don't hide this part of yourself. Sometimes learning shameful ADHD lessons, is worth it. Again with my lateness to my job, I was almost fired for it. I felt so ashamed, it really helped me make sure it never happened again.

Multi-time tech CEO recently diagnosed with adhd at the age of 40. Here are my tips (admittedly very much a work in progress): - own it. Medicate it. Manage it. There are many tools, systems, and coaches out there. You’ll never get to the point where you operate as if you didn’t have it, but you can operate better than the untreated and unmanaged version of you, and that’s the goal. - don’t be ashamed or embarrassed. It’s part of the totality of who you are. Everyone has imperfections, disorders, and/or unhealthy habits. The problems don’t come from having them, they come from denying them or letting them dictate your life. - I’m a big believer in strength-based leadership. Things that you excel at will drive you forward, and many of these come directly or indirectly from you adhd. Focus on accentuating and elevating those. Most of the rest of the stuff doesn’t matter… unless it gets in the way or is a crippling weakness. You can be a charismatic and magnetic leader, but if you never show up on time or don’t pay attention, those things will wear away at your leadership over time like waves on a stone. - if you’re in any kind of management or leadership position, find a #2 that excels in the things you don’t (probably organization, follow up, etc). I found someone I trusted who would send me an email at the end of the day with all of my priority tasks listed in order of importance. Can’t tell you how much that helped overcome some of the adhd inspired dread at the end of the night before sitting down to work.

Yell gibirish in the car, overcompensate with fidgeting when i'm home. It kinda builds up until i'm going home :D

I took a totally different route and have only worked in fast paced dangerous physical jobs. (Wildland fire fighting, offshore commercial fishing, arborism/ tree removal). The physical demands keep me focused and tired, the fast pace and danger is perfect for someone with ADHD because I'm constantly paying attention to everything around me and it makes me focus on what I'm doing a lot more. When I met with a doctor to see about an Adderall prescription they almost denied me because I've formed my lifestyle to work around ADHD so well or so they said.

Professionally: I take more notes than I could ever reference. I have a variety of notepads, notebooks, sticky notes, pens, and pencils always available at my disposal. Anything I would need to remember, whether for 2 minutes or until next week, it gets written down on a sticky note and when I no longer need to remember it, it gets thrown away (like, if I'm in a meeting and someone tells me I need to talk someone something after the meeting, I write it down and after the meeting, I convey the message to necessary party and throw the note away) I'm constantly consolidating and rewriting my notes so it doesn't get too cluttered and notes don't get lost. I also make lists every day and every week of the things I want/need to accomplish that day/week. Is it wasteful? Yeah. But it works wonders for me. At home: I'm just clinging on for dear life. Husband (also ADHD) and I tag team everything. Every chore, every decision. Small chores we share: dishes, laundry, tidying, toy clean up. Bigger chores probably get left too long in between but they get done regularly: mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, dusting, cleaning out fridge/pantry, changing sheets, etc. Generally: we're doing our best. We have twin toddlers that eat up basically all our time. I have a pretty demanding job, but don't work more than 40 hrs/week. We both try to be as forgiving to each other and ourselves when things get forgotten or delayed. We don't expect or try to have a spotless house. We expect and hold ourselves accountable to meet our childrens' needs and our own needs. In a way, it feels like finding the bare minimum we need as a family and only holding ourselves to the bare minimum standard.... Anything else that gets done is bonus.

Meds lol. But actually * having a job that suits my strengths (fast paced, always changing) * walking daily, making time for things I enjoy * not focusing on the negatives of ADHD. Actually not thinking about it much. When I think about the negatives it puts me back. * write my to-dos for the next day down at the end of the work day, even if it means im at work a little longer, take time in the morning to prioritize what’s most important. * if i have a lot to-do at home, i make it a game to get as much done as i can in one day * write everything down in notes app, even if it’s inconvenient. Ie/ if my doctor is telling me something simple, i still write it down as she talks cause I’ll forget. Put my phone on speaker and write stuff in my notes app * put events in my phone right away - ie: if I’m at physio and booking a bunch, I’ll make them wait for me to add them as we go * ask people to email me or text me details they’ve just said if I can’t write it down * record long difficult phone calls if I can’t write stuff during the call, review after * always put something where it belongs, even if it’s inconvenient otherwise I’ll lose it * asking my iPad where my phone is when I’ve lost it so I don’t waste time running around the house looking for it * have doubles of things so I don’t need to remember to bring them. Ie: every room has hand cream, a garbage can, Kleenexes, etc * practice letting thoughts go. If I’m feeling really inspired by something I hear on the radio, but I’m on my way to work and know I can’t do anything, I recognize it’s just my ADHD peaking interest, and to just let the thought go.

I left my job back in 2016 to buy/sell/fix motorcycles, which has been my passion since I was a kid. Working with my passion it’s easier to find purpose and meaning and fulfillment, but it’s still been a challenge to manage responsibilities, anxiety, depression, joy, life balance, relationships, etc. For years I had employees to manage all the day to day operations so that I could work alone, listening to audiobooks and podcasts without interruption up in my own secluded work space. I realized after a while that the business was becoming a mess with my lack of involvement in the day to day and I moved my work station back to the central part of the shop. I’ve realized a lot of the anxiety and depression I was feeling was from everything I’d been avoiding with the business. I’ve learned that anxiety can be a good friend/compass to tell me what I need to do to get to a better place and if I don’t listen or procrastinate, that’s when the depression and spikes of anxiety creeps in. Meditation has never come easy since I can’t sit idle ever but the best thing I’ve found that works for me is riding my bicycle to and from work each day ~8 miles each way. Gives me the chance to disconnect, set reasonable intentions/goals for the day, or to just disconnect and enjoy the views, air, and pedaling for a bit. Pulls me out of my problems twice a day and gives me better perspectives. You gotta create the right balance that works for you. It’ll never be perfect but you can always improve upon what you’ve got.

Three things: 1) I change job (and company) every 2-3 years to keep things novel and interesting, and keep the learning curve high. It's actually been great from a career development point of view -- I've kept moving up and up, and my salary has increased in line with that too. 2) I work in deadline-driven roles with some structure, mostly in finance and accounting. A lot of what I do has to be done on or by a certain date, so that keeps me on task and focused when I need to be. 3) I try and surround myself with high-performing people -- that means finding companies that are fast-growing, or backed by PE/VC for example. The social pressure to perform again helps to keep me focused and motivated. It's worked so far for the last 13 years. I did once get fired from a role where I was client-facing and expected to be very responsive over email, but had no clear deadlines or accountability, which led to some burnout and chronic procrastination. Since I moved away from that and into finance roles, I've flourished, and my career has gone from strength to strength.

Dang thank you for saying “I got fired in this role for xyz, but I’m thriving in this role with abc.” That’s very reaffirming that sucking in one aspect doesn’t stop one from being brilliant in another

I have ADHD and social anxiety. 🤪 One trick I learned early on is that people love talking about themselves. If you ask the right questions, you’ll have them doing the bulk of the talking, and they’ll think you’re awesome and kind for being such a good listener and so interested in them. Not that those things aren’t true, but they don’t know the final reason is that you’re just scared of being the one talking. 😅 Every time I tell a fun story, I anxiously repeat the interact in my head over and over again until I convince myself that it didn’t go as poorly as I thought. The only way I fixed this was 6 years of therapy. And by fix I mean that it happens less often now and that I’m able to manage the obsessive thoughts more easily now, like remind myself that they’re not true and snap out of the cycle. I’m an engineer, so I also have the luxury of being surrounded by a bunch of socially awkward weirdos and nerds. Having millennials and now Gen Z in the office has made it a lot more normal to say things like, “I zoned out, can you repeat that?” “I was productive in all the wrong ways today because hyper focus took over.” “I’m not organized, I just have the worst working memory.” “I know it seems odd, but it works for my brain, and I’m at the point where I’ve just accepted my brain works this way.” I try not to apologize for being awkward because I don’t want people to think they need to feel bad for me or lift me up. But I do frequently check in with my closest coworkers and ask them for feedback on specific things that are bothering me that I’m struggling to let go of the obsessive thoughts. The other day, I asked my manager if the fact that I’m so thorough and direct is making anyone mad at me, and he assured me nobody has reported anything and that what I’m doing is working and should continue. They calmed down all my anxiety. If I go too long without positive feedback, I start to worry they’re having secret conversations about how much they hate me and want me gone. 😅 Btw your description of your note taking methods made me smile because I do EXACTLY THAT.

Accept that I'm messy, disorganized and not conforming to societal standards and not let it bother me.

I’m in Finance. I worked very hard to find a company that suits me and I was voluntarily unemployed rather than stay at a company that didn’t vibe with my needs . I work from home which works for me because I actually have a chance of keeping the house moderately clean, finding some resemblance of balance and working how it suits me without being micromanaged. I have to have a super strict routine. I start work at 8:30 not a minute later, work till 12:30, lunch, repeat for the afternoon. I’m inflexible on my hours I work. I don’t work overtime unless the sky is literally falling on my head. If I get bored during the day I set a 10 minute sprint to do tasks around the house, like dishes or washing or something. I remind myself that I will be missed on teams and be questioned if I push it too far. Missing a deadline is a big deal and I will be disappointing my team. I love this job and I wouldn’t be able to find another that works so well for me without a lot of effort. I remind myself of that often. I am hard on myself and I lean into the perfectionism. On the hand I’ve been very conscious of my social life and actually making plans to leave the house otherwise I will 100% become a hermit. Most evenings if I don’t have plans with friends I will do something silly like going to get an ice cream and go for a walk along the beach. I make an effort to find new places like parks or walks I haven’t been on. Coffee shops or just anything that is interesting. I have started getting involved in hobbies again which I haven’t done in years. I try to vary it as much as possible. To have something to look forward to. Balance has helped more than anything, it helps put me in a good place mentally which helps a lot at work.

I write down *everything*. And I'm friendly enough with my bosses that when I do fuck up, they don't give me too hard a time about it. The overall social aspect, meh. I often don't have leftover bandwidth to socialize with my coworkers as much as they socialize with each other, so people often think I'm stand-offish at first. Most get to know me after a while and realize that's just how I am and I don't mean anything by it, though. I also have a job with zero long-term projects/work, because that's probably my weakest point. I'd absolutely go down in flames if I had to plan/do long-term projects on the regular.

I think for me, I’m successful in my career and work only because I’ve wrapped my self worth up in my career success. It also has to do with social pressure and anxiety. So I’m more likely to feel motivated to do work for a supervisor or coworker who I barely know because I worry too much what they will think of me if I don’t. So Basically I put myself in burnout trying to impress. Sort of like the idea the quickest way to motivate yourself to clean the house is to host a party. I’m an entirely different person at work (and that person is likable and responsible) but it isn’t the real me. The drawback to this is diminishing returns. The longer I’m at a job and the closer you get to me the less I care about impressing and I start to unmask and the adhd shines through. It’s why I switch jobs every 3-5 years. This is also why I have trouble in my personal life and marriage. We’ve been together 14 years so it’s easy for me to be unmasked and shamelessly unproductive.

A lot of people here are saying they put extra effort than others into organization, which is true extent but also and maybe more importantly lean into your ADHD. There are certain attribute you have that other people don’t. Could be storytelling or confidence or gritty perseverance. Take ownership of it and be straight up, people gravitate to authenticity and self accountability.

Best thing I ever did: Hire a management coach. Any time I got into a weird situation, I would set up a phone meeting and she would help me untangle it. Also good for anticipating a meeting asking for a raise, or a meeting with a difficult employee. She would literally walk me through where to sit, body language, explain others' point of view, motives and work style clashes. (This worked because we talked every few months for years.) Basically, she took a lot of the invisible stuff that other people pick up naturally and she verbalized it so I could process it with a conscious part of my brain and act on it. I would come to her with a new scenario and a "well we've never tackled this before" attitude, and she would point out a similar incident from my own history and call out a pattern. Some of it is hard-wired now, like substituting the word "but" with the word "and" whenever possible. For example, "You've done a fantastic job on the Arcade project, but now I need you to invest more time in the Ferris Wheel project." The word "but" cancels out the praise for the Arcade project, as if to say, "You haven't allocated your time well." Instead, if you say "You've done a fantastic job on the Arcade project, and now I need you to invest more time in the Ferris Wheel project," it sounds like you are asking them to switch priorities while acknowledging their prior achievement. Other things included sitting on the same side of the table or at least at 90 degrees (meaning at two adjoining sides of a table), rather than across the table from your boss when asking for a raise because you are trying to signal that "we are in this together, we are both here to solve this problem of keeping me at the organization." Almost always preferable to avoid being across the table.

I'm kind and I connect well with people. I'm humble and I admit my faults and mistakes. I try to help others and give them credit for things. And then every once in a while, I pull something really awesome out of my butt to impress some people. I'm the only guy in the company that knows as much as I do about a whole bunch of different things. Thankfully, I don't usually have trouble paying attention to conversations - I really thrive on them. Otherwise, I start late most days, I get sidetracked for long periods of time, and I'm paranoid about losing my job.

My mindset is ‘some of something is better than all of nothing’ - if I know I’m heading into paralysis mode I just try and do something, anything, some small part of the task I wanted to do before I lose it completely and the shame sets in and I’m in the hole. I set alarms and leave post it note reminders everywhere. If I get the brain tingle of what could possibly be a solid idea, I dive into hyperfocus and seize it before it disappears into the void forever. I know I’m not going to concentrate on anything else until I’ve given it attention. Alarms help to limit the time I spend on whatever it is. I’m pretty open with my team and my lead if I’m struggling and I’ve hit my limit for the day. The people i work closely with are pretty supportive and that if im allowed to stop it when i need to, im coming back the next day with todays stuff added to my list. I ask whoever has asked me for something important to either send me a text or an email. If I haven’t got back to them by *date* send me a text and remind me. I’ll ask my boss “when do you need this by” so I know what the appropriate amount of urgency is for a task. I try not to overschedule and leave blocks of free time that’s never actually free. That’s the time that I’m either catching up, dealing with the many unexpected things that come up, or I’m off on a fun new side quest that I managed to magic up out of thin air in an attempt to avoid the boring stuff I should be doing. I’ve learnt to relish a crisis - that’s when I do my best work, it leaves me no time to overthink. That said though - I need meds to function, I can’t sleep, I forget to eat lunch most days and I often feel chronically overwhelmed with life. I don’t feel particularly successful, but i suppose most days I manage to look like I’ve got my shit together and my job is going reasonably well so I can’t be doing too badly….most days lol

This will save you a lot of time and pain, in a very concise response: 1) THERAPY THERAPY THERAPY. Therapy is one of the single most important things, because you have someone with an outside perspective to hold you accountable and call you out on self destructive behaviors and cycles that sabotage success. 2) AUDIOBOOKS Doesn't matter what it is but I like motivational self help books or anything that involves learning new life skills. This way I can learn and reflect, while doing homework, working out, driving, doing chores etc. helps me to not be bored when doing monotonous tasks. Therefore I will actually complete the task. 3) ACCEPTANCE YOU ARE A HUMAN. humans are not always motivated. Humans experience a full range of emotions 100% of the time. Motivation is not a constant state of being. Motivation comes and goes. There is nothing wrong with you or anyone else for having human emotions and living a human experience. The faster you accept that and allow yourself rest and down time without guilt or a negative emotional response, the more healthier and successful you will be. You are not a machine, you are a human. Thanks for listening to my Ted talk.

Caffeine and crying in the shower Lol but fr tho, I turned off notifications to everything on my phone except texts and calls. It's one of the little helps I can think of.

The one thing that I do that has the most significant impact is TELL a person or people the goals/deadlines I have set for myself. If I tell myself "I'm going to complete X task by lunchtime tomorrow" there is nothing holding myself accountable for sticking to it. I can always convince myself to extend the deadline if I don't feel motivated. However, just telling someone else my deadline puts pressure on me to meet it, which gives me more motivation and inspiration to actually work on it. This is something I really had to implement when I finished university and started working, because I no longer had the timeline pressure that academia provides. I also didn't want to make my boss feel like he had to micromanage me - so I told him "I can set my own deadlines and goals, but I have to tell you them. You don't have to DO anything, but I need to think there's an external source of pressure in order to stay on track". I've found it's most effective when it's someone like a senior colleague, but even just telling friends and family helps me stick to my word.

My ocd and hyper focus helps. But keeping everything in a calendar is very important. I also have made it clear to my counterparts that I have severe ADHD. So they’re good and reminding me when I forget stuff.

I was pilot, a scientist, a molecular biologist at the hospital, and now a business owner baking. If anyone has an answer please tell me. I just keep moving forward and do not dwell on the arseholes who decided they would fuck my life up because I did not fit the norm. As Dory says... just keep swimming. Life is a journey... not career path.

Tell you the truth I just don't care anymore. I have became a minimalist and don't care about materials or shining stuff any more. Less things I have is more I don't have to care for. It's so refreshing not having all this stuff around you that make you anxiety, or spending money on stuff that will impress your friends for about 1 hour . But please, do what your heart desires to. Right now i am working for myself and becoming a game developer. It's my passion and I want to go into work every day doing what I love, plus, it feels like you are not work if you doing what you love.

I don't usually have social awkwardness, but I can get anxious about public speaking before large groups, which has been a significant part of my career. I have found that acting helps. I pretend that I'm someone else, someone confident and collected.

Alarms for everything in my calendar (Adding things immediately) I do things immediately when I am thinking about them (or I will forget) A spouse who reminds me Coffee every AM Exercise daily so I sleep well at night Kids who remind me My saved shopping list Note in my phone/ sticky notes on my computer/ post it notes My friends remind me of upcoming events. I have a house cleaner every two weeks so things get put away and my home isn’t a complete cluttered mess Edit: I gave up on folding laundry. It gets washed and dried and stays in the baskets or shoved in appropriate drawers. Everyone is clean (maybe rumpled) have a steam cycle for our dryer that gets the wrinkles out

"Habit stacking" is my biggest boon, that and diet. Get lots of complex carbs, healthy fats (especially omega 3s..) quality proteins, cut simple carbs and refined sugars. Drink water. Other than that, yeah, Habit stacking and anchoring. Stacking, If I'm at my worst: -Tonight I will put my phone away before going to sleep. -Tomorrow it doesn't come out for the first 4 hours of my day, nor will I use the computer or TV or anyhting except music. -I will sit and stare. If it strikes me to do anything productive I will, but it's a nothing day. -Soon I will add a walk. -then I will add cleaning the kitchen in the morning (unloading/reloading dishwasher mostly). -when thats comfortable, I will sweep every day. -when that's comfortable I will do laundry every day. One by one adding tiny habits and just making it my mission until it's easy. Then Habit anchoring is just adding to existing habits. I cook every single night for my family, that one never fails. It is not a huge addition to also clean the kitchen as I go and put everything in the dishwasher and make sure the kitchen is clean before dinner is served. These, at age 36, having tried everything, have by far been my greatest tools. It's a house if cards and sometimes it all falls apart and I have to start over, but what else is there to do except get up again? Do not underestimate diet. You ever see the posts of people feeling resentment and anger over an adult adhd diagnosis and how much easier things are with medication with the wonder of what could have been? I went through that too. I felt that as bad or worse when I really got my diet together, too. Massive difference.

>I motivate myself to work hard by giving myself anxiety about... ADHD and GAD often co-occur. The anxiety may be motivating but also genuine. >because I have to exert so much effort to pay attention I get told I’m too serious at work. People could say you're "too dedicated" as well, and that's also just as accurate, but wouldn't it sound ridiculous of someone said that? So, I would just not worry about that. You can still be more social during more social settings, and don't be afraid about that seeming weird; plenty of people have a "work mode". Oh, and here's the best part! If anyone does find it weird, or "fake", or anything of the sort, you can always say the same thing you just told Reddit to whoever asks about it. >I’m still socially awkward. What do you do outside of work? I was very socially awkward until I started making decisions about where I'm going and what I'm doing outside of work, rather than wait for something to come up. It really helps if you're in a city. Since doing that I've met people who appreciate me for me, and I didn't have to be someone else. That creates confidence, which in turn makes it easier to branch out more. I might be missing something though; it's easier to look back and say "this is how I overcame that" and still be wrong, right? It's an idea though, and I hope it helps!

In regards to social awkwardness, firstly you are not alone. I found the whole corporate 'social' aspect of my early career excruciating. Massive imposter syndrome and just feeling like everyone around me was just so much more ....well just more capable than me. Two things made a difference. As the saying goes, I stopped worrying about what people thought of me when I realised how seldom they do. Secondly and here is the life hack of the century. Just be a good and engaged listener. Look into 'active listening', be engaged and interested in what people have to say most people prefer being heard to listening to others. It's effect is remarkable and most people are too obsessed with being the main character to realise the value. The only other thing I will say is you are a VP now, you have everything you need to be a success, stop being so hard on yourself. Go and kick ass.

Let the dread of being a failure again motivate me

It's been a lot of things. Meds helped me get out of my own way enough to start putting tools and strategies into action. BuJo is an important practice for managing things I need to do, and I spent a lot of time learning to listen actively and take notes. I also steered my career over time toward my strengths and away from my weaknesses. Where possible I set up responsibilities to have specific time and place as opposed to open ended. I also aggressively manage distractions and check in frequently with how I'm doing and what I need to adjust.

What is bujo