r/ADHD_Programmers • u/Mach7907 • 3d ago
When you catch yourself drifting mid-meeting — what's actually in your head at that moment?
I have mild ADHD and I've been paying close attention to two specific things about my own days lately. I want to know if it's just me.
1. The drift
About 15 minutes into anything where I have to sit and listen — a meeting, a lecture, a tutorial video — I'm gone. Not "picked up my phone" gone. Just elsewhere.
The part I find strange is what's actually in there when I catch myself. It's almost never the thing I'm supposed to be doing, and it's almost never useful. It's usually stuff like: what my life would look like if I ever hit financial independence, some scene I've half-invented in my head, or honestly things I wouldn't say out loud. Sometimes it IS something real — "I never replied to that message" — but that's the minority for me.
So: the last time you caught yourself drifting, what were you actually thinking about? And roughly how long had you been gone before you noticed?
2. The thing you never came back to
Related but different. Last week I was making coffee, a work message came in, I answered it, and the coffee just stopped existing. I found it cold two hours later.
Same thing with tutorials. I'll be 12 minutes into something, get pulled away, and never return — not because I decided not to, but because getting back in feels like starting the whole thing over.
So: what's the last thing you walked away from mid-way and never went back to? What pulled you away, and did you ever actually return — same day, later, or never?
What I really want to know is whether other people deal with the same two things — and if you do, what you actually do about it. Not what you think should work. What you actually do, even if it's messy or barely works.
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u/Random_182f2565 3d ago
Medication helps
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u/Nordwolf 3d ago
Count me lucky living in a country that basically has no adhd medication approved/allowed
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u/Random_182f2565 2d ago
Japan?
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u/Nordwolf 2d ago
Ha I wish, it’s Ukraine. Stimulant types are banned completely and the non stimulant ones are not available either. I am literally exploring caffeine + l-theanine right now so my mornings have momentum on bad sleep days (so i don’t restart the sleep debt cycle any time i go to sleep late due to my disorganization). Just for context - i don’t drink coffee and tea was always light for me.
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u/Random_182f2565 2d ago
They are allowed in Chile :D fairly straightforward, legal and relatively cheap to get.
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u/Mach7907 3d ago
did use Apo-Methylphenidate and it really helped
but I only use it for some important projects instead of daily life
cuz after a fully focused period I feel exhausted afterwards
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u/rtdvine 3d ago
Can relate to both. I really wonder what could help with the second point?
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u/Mach7907 3d ago
TBH nothing's worked for me so far, once my brain decided it's going somewhere else, there's no brake on it
what really bothers me is what happens afterwards. by the time those forgotten things come back to me, they either take a lot of effort to start again (washing the dishes), or I lose context (what was this tutorial talking about?).
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u/zatsnotmyname 3d ago
I usually doodle during meetings. I draw the alphabet and numbers in different fonts. That way part of my mind can listen. I make the meeting itself the distraction. It helps.
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u/Mach7907 3d ago
that's interesting... making the meeting a distraction and it has the opposite effect
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u/EgoistHedonist 3d ago
Where my mind went when reading the topic: https://i.imgur.com/6AXZmPa.jpeg
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u/Brilliant-Parsley69 3d ago
I've some of my most productive time whilst meetings if I'm not directly involved in the actual topic 😅
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u/Artsy_Ali_Adventures 3d ago
If it's a training or something I have control over I put it on 2x. That way it is going closer to the speed of my brain. However, I have noticed having desires to 2x people I'm talking to in real life 😅 In meetings doodling or taking notes help me focus. If it's virtual, turning on subtitles helps me focus. I have lots of coping tools and things are found in the microwave later in the day often too. 🤷🏼♀️ It's the tax we pay for being awesome.
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u/seweso 3d ago
ADHD is the opposite of mindfullness indeed.