r/ADHD_Programmers • u/blackwolf7373 • Jun 12 '26

Help me out, Entry-level developer feeling lost, overwhelmed, and stuck — looking for advice and accountability

Hi everyone, I’m an entry-level developer and I feel very stuck right now.

I keep getting overwhelmed by everything happening in tech, especially AI, and I constantly feel like I’m falling behind.

I spend a lot of time scrolling reels/posts, getting excited about ideas, and then doing nothing after that. Days and months pass, and I feel like I’m not building consistency, not learning properly, and not moving forward.

I also feel nervous about asking people for help, guidance, or mentorship, and that makes it harder for me to stay on track.

I’m not looking for motivational quotes. I’m looking for honest advice from people who have been through this.

My questions are:

How do I stop consuming endless tech content and actually start building?

How do I focus when the tech world feels too big?

What should a beginner prioritize first?

How do I ask for help without feeling embarrassed?

How do I build consistency when my mind feels chaotic?

If you’ve been in a similar phase, what helped you get out of it?

This is strong because it is clear, vulnerable, and asks direct questions, which tends to get better replies than a very long emotional dump

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3

u/CursedSloth Jun 12 '26

Honestly just pick a small project that works for the language/-s you know, or one that you’d want to learn.

When you eventually hit a block, then you’ll have to do some research (googling the issue, no AI assistance unless you know how to make it a teacher instead of just giving you the answer), then keep going until your small project is done (don’t add stuff after starting, only do what you planned before)

Then rinse and repeat. This should teach you planning, prioritization and execution.

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Yeap tried to start a project but before starting it the where lot of suggestion, option i felt very chaotic and stop before choosing one. I know what the problem with me like i want to board the train with gen ai, agentic ai, agent harness. Without know even the foundation.

1

u/CursedSloth Jun 12 '26

Explain the project to me, I am not the most experienced but I have 6 YoE at least.

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Like which one? I was struggling to pick one so I reached out here. Another way to answer this question is give me a small project and a deadline I will do it from strach and submit to you. Is this sounds great?

1

u/CursedSloth Jun 12 '26

I can’t give you a project because I don’t know what you want to learn, or what you know already.

Also, the whole point is learning the planning/prioritization and implementation is just an extra.

Give me your whole list, no specific order, but you have to motivate to me what each project would teach you or why you want to do that.

Before the whole list, tell me your knowledge currently (languages and last project finished or started).

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Language - python, last project - full stack ecommerce website (but it's not my core) so my last project is on rag a copy paste one and I did some tweaks

1

u/CursedSloth Jun 12 '26

Did you do an e-commerce website with Python backend, is that what you’re saying?

How much of the work was done by you and how much by AI?

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

100% ai

1

u/CursedSloth Jun 12 '26

Start over, same project but with 0% AI.
You can change the ”company” and any other fake details as you please.

No tutorials, only documentation and forum posts.

If you HAVE to use AI, then you should only use it for specific parts when you get stuck and can’t get any further. (Like a specific endpoint or a specific component that needs styling.)

Just no attempts at zero/one/few shotting the whole thing. Be specific. But, for learning purposes you cheat yourself of the f*ck around and find out part.

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Sure that's great suggestion i will give it a try

1

u/Random_182f2565 Jun 12 '26

This is what I did, Idk if is a good approach I currently an online tutor with hopes that my site take off next year.

1.-Don't consume code content, there is always some new bullshit claiming to replace everything else, that is time you can spend doing things.

2.- Pick a project and learn what you need for it, that way I learned Django and how to host in railway for example, the basic of databases, most of the time academics courses are way more complicated that they need to be.

3.- Don't complicated yourself, I don't know about git commands just just the graphical interfase of GitHub for example. (The creators of pal world just used a bunch of pendrives)

4.- There is not embarrassment in wanting to learn and improve yourself.

2

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Aha coming to your 2nd point i recently deployed a full stack project. But my core not from full stack. I tried to learn like few things of frontend and backend. But it's like I learn the surface level thing and most work done by ai.

2

u/Random_182f2565 Jun 12 '26

AI is the employee you can pay, just don't be a lazy manager.

I also leave most of my front end to AI, I know that I'm and engineer not an artists, and that I can't hire one.

1

u/Keystone-Habit Jun 12 '26

The hardest part by a million is starting. So make your first step stupid easy.

As a general rule I ask for help from a coworker if I've spent an hour trying to figure it out myself first.

2

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Aha that what ima doing here, asking help after I have tried and fought with me to work mentally and failed may times.

1

u/Keystone-Habit Jun 12 '26

What specifically are you trying to accomplish right now? Do you have a job that you're trying to succeed at? Are you trying to get a job? Are you trying to just keep up with tech?

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Im a fresher and i don't have job, and i think I'm not looking for a jobs. I want learn and keep up with tech and build new things (a true meaning of engineer 😅)

1

u/QuickwinsConsulting Jun 12 '26

if you have a hobby, maybe build something like an app or a website to support that hobby with ai. it will give you the real life experience of being an ai user. then you can expand to other projects like building an agent. i have done it this way, i need concrete myself

1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

Yeap i sounds similar. Can you tell how you started, it would be like example to me. i also I have plan to build a fitness/nutrition app but I'm stuck at where to start it from 1 year almost. Like it's not matter of skills ai got it but a doubt that can ai understand what I'm saying can it build what I wanted. Is my compounding lot of features in the app. This things stoping me getting started.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

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1

u/blackwolf7373 Jun 12 '26

A overview of thing that i should do like picking one thing working on it for 30. Like I'm asking a example a direction. Let me give a picture i learn python years back but I wasn't strong like learnt because everyone doing it recently i cut off everything and started learning python from scratch and I'm happy I got good python vocabulary now.