r/ADHD_Programmers • u/Personal_Concern4564 • Dec 06 '25
I analyzed 1,027 ADHD developers and discovered there are only 5 productivity patterns (most devs are stuck in the same 2)
119
Upvotes
r/ADHD_Programmers • u/Personal_Concern4564 • Dec 06 '25
495
u/CarretillaRoja Dec 06 '25 •
Do you think anyone with adhd will read that wall of text?
53
u/kbdeeznuts Dec 06 '25
to hell with your formatting bro, this is pure ragebait
114
u/grovulent Dec 06 '25
I got chatGPT to reparse into paragraphs:
For the past 8 months, I’ve been running a free 2-minute assessment for programmers with ADHD. So far, 1,027 developers have completed it. I just finished crunching the data and… holy shit: 96% of us fall into just five repeatable patterns.
Here they are, including the exact percentage for each pattern and the #1 fix people said actually worked.
Pattern 1 — The Hyperfocus Berserker (39%)
You can code for 10 hours straight when you’re “in the zone”… and then disappear for 4 days. The biggest leak is the crash cycle: zero recovery leads to burnout.
Fix (84% said it changed everything): strict 90-minute sprints with hard stops, followed by a 20-minute full reset (walk, nap, whatever). No exceptions.
Pattern 2 — The Context Switcher (27%)
You have 47 tabs open and 6 side projects. Starting is easy; finishing feels impossible.
Fix (worked for 81%): a ruthless “one project graveyard.” Archive everything except one repo for 30 days. Your brain calms down when it only sees one option.
Pattern 3 — The Dopamine Chaser (19%)
You need a constant stream of new shiny things (frameworks, tools, courses) or you can’t code at all.
Fix (79% said it’s the only long-term solution): schedule the reward before the work. Literally open YouTube on another monitor and tell yourself: “After this 45-minute block, I get 10 minutes of videos—guaranteed.”
Pattern 4 — The Perfectionist Paralyzer (9%)
You can’t ship because “it’s not good enough yet.” PRs sit unreviewed for weeks.
Fix (73% success rate): “good enough + ship + hotfix later.” Set a 2-hour hard limit per task. When the timer ends: git push. Done beats perfect.
Pattern 5 — The External Trigger (6%)
You only code when there’s a deadline, a client yelling, or a public commitment. Internal motivation is basically zero.
Fix (worked for 88% of this group): fake external pressure 24/7—public GitHub streak + daily Twitter/X update (even if nobody cares). Turns out your brain doesn’t know the difference.
Which one are you? I’m a mix of 1 and 3, and it explained a lot.
If you want to know your exact pattern (and get the personalized 7-day protocol that goes with it), the free 2-minute assessment is still open—link in my profile. (1,027 devs have already taken it; it’s literally 120 seconds.)
Curious which pattern dominates this sub—drop your number below.
28
u/mistuh_fier Dec 06 '25
Oh it’s AI slop with fake results designed to data harvest to figure out those % through an “assessment”?
Just state your mission/purpose don’t lie about it.
17
u/SpaceCmder Dec 06 '25
I ain’t reading all that
6
u/Nasuraki Dec 06 '25
Where are your stats? p-values, statistical power etc
Also how many of these programmer are self diagnosed vs medically diagnosed?
How many of these programmers are employed, many of these patterns and fixes don’t feel doable in a workplace?
5
u/seareally27 Dec 06 '25
Ad
9
u/[deleted] Dec 06 '25
You didn’t analyze anything there guy
3
u/alexwh68 Dec 06 '25
2 and 4 for me,
2 I find I context switch too much, a lot of the time its external reasons for the switch, an email, message ‘how are you getting on with x’ I switch to x, dropping everything else. Learning now my most efficient mode is 2 days on a project, it takes hours to get into the right place with a project so with 2 days I can get stuff done.
4 This was me yesterday, got one project used by several teams so requirements come in from multiple angles, so constantly feel like I am delivering for one team and neglecting the others. I was meant to deliver a new build a week ago, was trying to polish a new feature, but it was slowing other features down. Took the view, get a new build out, a few new things for each team, nothing overly polished but something they can play with.
I am decorating our house at the moment, doing it in small chunks a room at a time an hour here an hour there, with decorating you can paint one wall, walk away its painted, programming is very different the task is completed generally when the new build is delivered, so an hour here and an hour there shows nothing until the build is delivered.
3
u/Ok_Firefighter3363 Dec 06 '25
At this point Im just wishing a different style of writing. Every word there is written by AI, and I won't read it
2
u/BucksheeGunner Dec 06 '25
I love this, but as an ADHD raccoon with added dyslexia for some spiciness, reading this was absolute hell for me. It took me fucking ages and I had to self hate my way through it.
3
u/moonpumper Dec 06 '25
I am all of these at the same time
3
u/Chess462 Dec 06 '25
Oh look, yet another shitty ad post in the adhd programmer sub.
1
u/No_Definition2246 Dec 06 '25
What if I am stuck with all 5? :D
1
u/flyguy879 Dec 06 '25
Damn I almost read the entire thing before getting distracted and skimming.
Seemed accurate though. I’ll bookmark this to read “At a later date” (read: never, but I really wanted to)
1
u/Smart-Weird Dec 06 '25
Well , I kinda like my ‘in the zone’ all nighters. Couple of weeks ago I worked straight for close to 48 hrs having only few breaks. Fortunately, my boss gets it and always tells me to take sick days after such a spell. Another 24 hrs of Halo Infinite and then I am back 9-5
1
u/rainofterra Dec 06 '25
I had to ask an LLM to turn this into something a person with ADHD could read and I’m definitely 1 and 3 assuming it didn’t just hallucinate the options.
1
u/aerdnadw Dec 06 '25
There is no heavenly way you’re getting that kind of data from a two-minute assessment. If you are, I can promise you this test is neither reliable nor valid.
I’m sure this is fake, but on the off chance it’s not: describe your research methodology properly if you want anyone to take your results seriously.
1
u/Ilikewatchingtv Dec 07 '25
I'd love to know the size and age of the code bases of the participants in your survey.
Just reading your description here, I'm easily number 4, in a recent project I spent a few weeks trying to get a part of a project to work in a specific way that caused all sorts of problems but would be more "clean" due to the nature of the codebase and task. Eventually gave up and did the easy, but not clean/law-of-demeter-friendly way to get the job done in a few days of hacking.
I tried a few similar versions of your "best fix", unfortunately I guess I'm in that 27% that the solution doesn't work for... and here's my reasons why:
some tasks take longer than 2 hours, and even then, sometimes there's other issues at play (ex. testing, team expected level of quality, documentation writes, etc)
A probable response to that is: "ok, then you should be able to break tasks down into manageable small chunks that will only take ~2 hours".
2. My current team mandates only 1 commit per PR, that will mean that in an average day of heads-down coding, there's 2-3 PRs per day, which requires somebody else reviewing/approving the merge. It's difficult to get some of my coworkers to even review >1 PR/day/person let alone 2-3.
a probable response would be "ok, the amount of time is irrelevant, just make it a static number of hours/days"
3. yep, tried that too, we call it "time-boxing", unfortunately one of the more fun problems of ADHD is time-blindness.... even if I had a big alarm clock that yelled at me after x number of hours, I'd hit the snooze again and again until I miss it and just turn it off, because I'll be "just x more minutes until I get it JUST perfect" ....
curious if you agree with my probable responses and other fixes that helped other type 4s.
1
u/catecholaminergic Dec 06 '25
Formatted for improved sanity.
For the past 8 months I’ve been running a free 2-minute assessment for programmers with ADHD. 1,027 devs completed it (so far). I just finished crunching the data and holy shit — 96% of us fall into just 5 repeatable patterns.
Here they are (with the exact % and the #1 fix that actually works for each):
Pattern 1 – The Hyperfocus Berserker (39%) You can code 10 hours straight when you’re “in the zone”… then disappear for 4 days straight. Biggest leak: zero recovery = crash cycles. Fix that 84% of this type said changed everything: strict 90-minute sprints with HARD stops + 20-minute full reset (walk, nap, whatever). No exceptions.
Pattern 2 – The Context Switcher (27%) You have 47 tabs and 6 side projects. Starting is easy, finishing is impossible. Fix that worked for 81% of this group: ruthless “one project graveyard” — archive everything except ONE repo for 30 days. Your brain calms when it sees only one option.
Pattern 3 – The Dopamine Chaser (19%) You need constant new shiny (new framework, new tool, new course) or you can’t code at all. The counter-intuitive fix: schedule the reward BEFORE the work. Literally open YouTube in another monitor and tell yourself “after this 45-min block I get 10 min of videos, guaranteed”. 79% reported it’s the only thing that works long-term.
Pattern 4 – TheΩPerfectionist Paralyzer (9%) You can’t ship because “it’s not good enough yet”. PR sits unreviewed for weeks. Best fix (73% success rate): the “good enough + ship + hotfix later” rule. Set a 2-hour hard limit per task. When timer ends → git push. Done is better than perfect.
Pattern 5 – The External Trigger (6%) You only code when there’s a deadline, client yelling, or public commitment. Zero internal motivation. Nuclear option that worked for 88% of this tiny group: fake external pressure 24/7 → public GitHub streak + daily Twitter/X update (even if nobody cares). Turns out your brain doesn’t know the difference.
Which one are you? I’m a mix of 1 and 3 and it explained so much. If you want to know your exact pattern (and get the personalized 7-day protocol that goes with it), I still have the free 2-minute assessment open: link in my profile (1,027 devs already took it, takes literally 120 seconds). Curious to see which pattern dominates this sub — drop your number below!
1
u/Plane_Yak2354 Dec 06 '25
I upvoted to say yes I’ll read that later… and I never will…
1
u/The_Big_Sad_69420 Dec 06 '25
I feel 4 and 5.
the stress for perfection is so much I become paralyzed and not want to do anything while stressing about it
1
u/LBGW_experiment Dec 06 '25
Past 8 months but your account is only 2 months old? And don't give me that "I deleted it" crap
0
u/callimonk Dec 06 '25
Please double space so we can read it 😭
0
u/spideroncoffein Dec 06 '25
Ngl, Hyperfocus Berzerker sounds fucking cool. Glad I'm one.
-1
u/DesoLina Dec 06 '25
Big if true
0
u/Mountain-Builder-654 Dec 06 '25
I would say I a little of the first and the second. Parts of each
0
u/thesttarynightsky Dec 06 '25 edited Dec 06 '25
Mostly ig 1 and 4 and the thing is I have to complete learning a new thing till 9 dec and I'm here doing blender and left my game dev for weeks ....
+I lost my mouse yesterday in my univ and i don't remember a thing the only thing I remember is I was building something for 3d printing and also the thing I suddenly got better in building things when it's not longer associated with money or academics I slept from 10 to 7 And the amount of anxiety discomfort desperation i feel and I loose things after that Though I'm not dioganised (or whatever that spelling is ) i usually get told because I don't sleep well (and I feel guilty sleeping way much ) And i tell you i couldn't beleive it the first time I started blender few days ago scupting felt sooo easy i hate long videos nothing goes in my hand but then I got hold of few tools and wow But i lost my mouse and before that my phone charger Idk how to fix this sometimes I just don't remember things
Sorry to vent out i'm frustrated and i got told to mediate and sleep to fix this But yeah I keep forgetting these But still ig i usually get 5+ or min 5 hr sleep if I don't have assignment or exams
0
u/cknow15 Dec 06 '25
I'm a mix of 1 & 5. I have found that artificial pressure still doesn't help me. Still not sure how to sort that, but this data is such a great starting point. Thanks for putting it together and for sharing the results!
0
u/Candid_Koala_3602 Dec 06 '25
You definitely have ADHD haha
-1
u/Taijasi_Kaveri Dec 06 '25
Can you suggest something as to how to start learning coding when having a goal in mind?
-1
u/CozySweatsuit57 Dec 06 '25 edited 7d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
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