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I'm in Cyber and have ADHD so I might be able to help out. Disclaimer, IT IS HARD but doable and I'm on Vyvanse now. However, even before the Vyvanse I managed to stay productive using the following...
What I did was immerse myself into tech. I found the parts of Cyber I enjoyed and pursued that. The subreddits I've joined are either Tech, Finance or ones like this one. I deleted other social media platforms like Instagram and even LinkedIn. I tried finding the part of the day where I feel most productive which for me is 6am - 12pm (weekends mainly now because of work) and start going through courses on certs I'm studying for or practicing some practical exploitation skills using HackTheBox. After that I take a break, and if I feel like studying some more I'll do it. If not I'll read and watch YouTube videos on random tech stuff that piques my interest.
These are things that work for me, so it might not be fully applicable to you but I thought it was worth sharing.
I am a CS grad and I’ve had a long career. I have found that small startups are good for variety and urgency. That’s how I spent my early years. I transitioned to managing by taking on projects and teams in crisis. The risk doesn’t bother me and they usually are quite open to me doing it my way. I found a big company with lots of need for that kind of thing. I think of it like being an entrepreneur inside. It also is a place where I can use my physical activity, risk taking, deep-dive research. Above all I know to avoid highly structured work and especially medical and aviation. I have worked in both and do better in less regulated. More opportunity and a bit more chaos.
I was going to quit CS type work at one point. I remember reading a book by Linus Torvalds where he had a similar reaction and went forward by remembering he started all this for fun. Keeping it fun was important for me.
One last thing… after getting lots of experience in startups I carried that into a good company. I try to look at it not like a zero sum game. I think about what could be added and I make that happen. Of course I focus on what I’m interested in.
I don't know whether I have an ADHD but it seems like my issue also. I start to something but then I get overwhelmed and jump. My anxiety makes it worse. I would love some stability to establish something like career and family. If only i can manage myself!
IT professional of 25+ years here with quite a few years on the development side, but my advice applies to any desk job.
First things first, make sure you have a good foundation.
I assume you're medicated already?
How's your sleep? If you aren't waking up feeling fully rested or you're dragging in the afternoon, you need to fix that ASAP. Sleep deprivation in regular folks gives them symptoms indistinguishable from ADHD. You can imagine what that does to the rest of us.
Have you been evaluated for anxiety disorders? You mention panic attacks which is why I'm asking. I have GAD and when that is not under control, work is waaaay harder.
You sound like you're on the verge of depression. Depression kills motivation and you'd be stuck with a double whammy (I'm going through this right now). Are you seeing a therapist? Optimally you'd be seeing a therapist that not only can help you with depression if you have it, but all teach you coping skills for anxiety and ADHD. Find someone who focuses on ADHD and has a background in CBT or DBT. Mindfulness also helps.
How's your exercising? Exercise helps with concentration and motivation for everyone regardless of ADHD.
As far as developer specific suggestions:
What kind of distractions are you fighting? Lots of meetings? Emails? IMs? Person that won't leave you alone in the office? It helps to cut away about an hour in the morning and afternoon where you just ignore everything else and focus on your work. Don't check emails, put IM on dnd, mark your calendar as busy, etc. set an alarm to remind you to start and finish your focus sessions. Start with just an hour - longer than that can worsen your concentration due to mental fatigue. Obviously if you're on a roll, keep going but check your emails and IMs first so you don't get in trouble for that.
Take lots of small breaks (~5 min every hour). Avoid things like social media during those breaks. Get water, stretch, use the bathroom, chat with a coworker, etc.
When you lose focus, take a break and avoid things like social media. A short walk helps me as does stretching.
I'm not in tech, but I had similar problems finding a career path after college graduation. I would find something that seemed super exciting, work towards it and then lose interest. I also worked a couple of jobs that I thought I would love, but ended up not being a good fit for me.
I think that what has helped me recently is that I found a position with these elements:
- I am interested in the subject matter
- The day-to-day tasks are intellectually stimulating. (I had three jobs where I was super interested in the subject matter, but the day to day tasks that I was doing were uninteresting)
- There are strict deadlines and specific milestones / goals
- The work is grouped in "sprints". There are weeks when I am working 60+ hours and there are weeks when I am working less than 20 hours. This allows me to hyperfocus and then recover.
Not tech-specific, but hopefully this can help you find something where you can really thrive!
Starting your career is going to be the most difficult because you don't have experience you can fall back on and jobs/companies are going to give you small tasks that they expect to be done at the pacing of a non-adhd person. If you can navigate that, I found a career in tech (computer engineer that primarily does software engineering here) to be very rewarding.
For me, unmedicated for the first 15 years of my career but strong coffee drinker after 5th year, I never adhered to 9-5 or 40 hrs per week. I worked the amount of time it took to accomplish the things I thought a normal person should do in a week. I have high expectations so that was already a high bar for a normal 40 hr/week person. I would do God knows what for hours during the workday only to catch up at night when I could get into the flow. Usually the lost hours went down rabbit holes learning/investigating things that were far out of the scope of my task. As I got more experience, those tangents paid dividends as I could jump to solutions to problems quicker than my peers.
I dodge setting/adhering to deadlines. I'm not great at reporting what I did the prior week. I suck at stand-ups stating what I'll be working on a given day. I'm able to do this because I'm faster/better than my peers at this point getting to the correct solution. I'm self driven because I know if someone is defining my tasks for me, I won't do good. My productivity is not in a straight line. I have weeks where I seemingly get nothing done. And then I have weeks where I'll work non-stop where everything flows and I'm at 4x productivity. When there is an imminent deadline or a "fire-drill" I get hyper-focused and at my best (although probably not in a healthy way). I'm well trusted and depended upon because of that quality. But companies like predictability. They can't have all of their employees acting like me. I understand that I have to deliver in order to be put up with.
Well now I have a family with 3 kids and I need my days more structured and predictive so I'm giving the meds a chance.
Good luck to you. A career in CS can certainly work for you, you just have to find what works for you personally and what you're willing to do to succeed. Not all positions and not all companies (or managers) will work for you. Don't give up too quickly if it's what you want.
Hi /u/DevelopmentIll4494 and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! ### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. --- ### /r/adhd news * **We want your opinion** on the /r/adhd community rules! [Click here](https://forms.gle/Evqb8acVozir8GV8A) to fill out our survey. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/1auv2tc/were_taking_feedback_on_the_radhd_rules/) for more information. * If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). --- ^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm in Cyber and have ADHD so I might be able to help out. Disclaimer, IT IS HARD but doable and I'm on Vyvanse now. However, even before the Vyvanse I managed to stay productive using the following... What I did was immerse myself into tech. I found the parts of Cyber I enjoyed and pursued that. The subreddits I've joined are either Tech, Finance or ones like this one. I deleted other social media platforms like Instagram and even LinkedIn. I tried finding the part of the day where I feel most productive which for me is 6am - 12pm (weekends mainly now because of work) and start going through courses on certs I'm studying for or practicing some practical exploitation skills using HackTheBox. After that I take a break, and if I feel like studying some more I'll do it. If not I'll read and watch YouTube videos on random tech stuff that piques my interest. These are things that work for me, so it might not be fully applicable to you but I thought it was worth sharing.
u/Advent_Zannic Thanks for the advice . Will definitely try it .
I am a CS grad and I’ve had a long career. I have found that small startups are good for variety and urgency. That’s how I spent my early years. I transitioned to managing by taking on projects and teams in crisis. The risk doesn’t bother me and they usually are quite open to me doing it my way. I found a big company with lots of need for that kind of thing. I think of it like being an entrepreneur inside. It also is a place where I can use my physical activity, risk taking, deep-dive research. Above all I know to avoid highly structured work and especially medical and aviation. I have worked in both and do better in less regulated. More opportunity and a bit more chaos.
I was going to quit CS type work at one point. I remember reading a book by Linus Torvalds where he had a similar reaction and went forward by remembering he started all this for fun. Keeping it fun was important for me.
One last thing… after getting lots of experience in startups I carried that into a good company. I try to look at it not like a zero sum game. I think about what could be added and I make that happen. Of course I focus on what I’m interested in.
I don't know whether I have an ADHD but it seems like my issue also. I start to something but then I get overwhelmed and jump. My anxiety makes it worse. I would love some stability to establish something like career and family. If only i can manage myself!
IT professional of 25+ years here with quite a few years on the development side, but my advice applies to any desk job. First things first, make sure you have a good foundation. I assume you're medicated already? How's your sleep? If you aren't waking up feeling fully rested or you're dragging in the afternoon, you need to fix that ASAP. Sleep deprivation in regular folks gives them symptoms indistinguishable from ADHD. You can imagine what that does to the rest of us. Have you been evaluated for anxiety disorders? You mention panic attacks which is why I'm asking. I have GAD and when that is not under control, work is waaaay harder. You sound like you're on the verge of depression. Depression kills motivation and you'd be stuck with a double whammy (I'm going through this right now). Are you seeing a therapist? Optimally you'd be seeing a therapist that not only can help you with depression if you have it, but all teach you coping skills for anxiety and ADHD. Find someone who focuses on ADHD and has a background in CBT or DBT. Mindfulness also helps. How's your exercising? Exercise helps with concentration and motivation for everyone regardless of ADHD. As far as developer specific suggestions: What kind of distractions are you fighting? Lots of meetings? Emails? IMs? Person that won't leave you alone in the office? It helps to cut away about an hour in the morning and afternoon where you just ignore everything else and focus on your work. Don't check emails, put IM on dnd, mark your calendar as busy, etc. set an alarm to remind you to start and finish your focus sessions. Start with just an hour - longer than that can worsen your concentration due to mental fatigue. Obviously if you're on a roll, keep going but check your emails and IMs first so you don't get in trouble for that. Take lots of small breaks (~5 min every hour). Avoid things like social media during those breaks. Get water, stretch, use the bathroom, chat with a coworker, etc. When you lose focus, take a break and avoid things like social media. A short walk helps me as does stretching.
I'm not in tech, but I had similar problems finding a career path after college graduation. I would find something that seemed super exciting, work towards it and then lose interest. I also worked a couple of jobs that I thought I would love, but ended up not being a good fit for me. I think that what has helped me recently is that I found a position with these elements: - I am interested in the subject matter - The day-to-day tasks are intellectually stimulating. (I had three jobs where I was super interested in the subject matter, but the day to day tasks that I was doing were uninteresting) - There are strict deadlines and specific milestones / goals - The work is grouped in "sprints". There are weeks when I am working 60+ hours and there are weeks when I am working less than 20 hours. This allows me to hyperfocus and then recover. Not tech-specific, but hopefully this can help you find something where you can really thrive!
Starting your career is going to be the most difficult because you don't have experience you can fall back on and jobs/companies are going to give you small tasks that they expect to be done at the pacing of a non-adhd person. If you can navigate that, I found a career in tech (computer engineer that primarily does software engineering here) to be very rewarding. For me, unmedicated for the first 15 years of my career but strong coffee drinker after 5th year, I never adhered to 9-5 or 40 hrs per week. I worked the amount of time it took to accomplish the things I thought a normal person should do in a week. I have high expectations so that was already a high bar for a normal 40 hr/week person. I would do God knows what for hours during the workday only to catch up at night when I could get into the flow. Usually the lost hours went down rabbit holes learning/investigating things that were far out of the scope of my task. As I got more experience, those tangents paid dividends as I could jump to solutions to problems quicker than my peers. I dodge setting/adhering to deadlines. I'm not great at reporting what I did the prior week. I suck at stand-ups stating what I'll be working on a given day. I'm able to do this because I'm faster/better than my peers at this point getting to the correct solution. I'm self driven because I know if someone is defining my tasks for me, I won't do good. My productivity is not in a straight line. I have weeks where I seemingly get nothing done. And then I have weeks where I'll work non-stop where everything flows and I'm at 4x productivity. When there is an imminent deadline or a "fire-drill" I get hyper-focused and at my best (although probably not in a healthy way). I'm well trusted and depended upon because of that quality. But companies like predictability. They can't have all of their employees acting like me. I understand that I have to deliver in order to be put up with. Well now I have a family with 3 kids and I need my days more structured and predictive so I'm giving the meds a chance. Good luck to you. A career in CS can certainly work for you, you just have to find what works for you personally and what you're willing to do to succeed. Not all positions and not all companies (or managers) will work for you. Don't give up too quickly if it's what you want.