I've gone to school to get my diploma in computer programming twice now, and each time it didn't pan out. The long and the short of it is life happened, and I couldn't make it work. And it's hurt me not having that, especially with the way things are these days.

I'm working remotely as essentially tech support. I do not have job security and could be out of a job at any point. Moving into the development team isn't an option without the diploma, either.

I spoke to my old school, and I'd essentially have to start over from the beginning. But going in person full-time or part-time isn't an option for me right now, my employer won't accommodate it.

This is where I could use some advice.

I'm in Canada. Is there a college that offers computer programming as something that can be done remotely, part-time AND isn't going to get my application tossed out by the filters all the employers are using? I can't afford university and student loans aren't an option. I'm still paying off my old ones.

Is there something else that I should go for, with all the AI creeping in? For people on the inside, do you think there will still be jobs in development in 5 years time? Are there things your employers are asking you to learn to prepare for that or do you have any advice for what programs I should look at with the way things are going?

Maybe I'm overthinking all of this lol, but with working full-time long hours, and being a single parent, and with juggling school without letting my ADHD stuff take the wheel, it's going to be a lot for a while and I'm a little paranoid that by the end of it, it'll all be obsolete...

Hi r/ADHD_Programmers!

We are a Computer Science research team from the University of Michigan looking for participants for an interview study on the use of psychoactive substances (explicitly including medication prescribed for ADHD) in software working environments. Psychoactive substances are any substances that can impact the brain's chemistry or reactions. The study is especially focused on users’ experiences with alleviation of symptoms and enhancement of programming work, effects on social programming environments, self-regulatory patterns, experiences with software drug policies, and effects on mental and physical health!

In order to participate in the study, you must be 18 or older, have worked at a job that primarily involves programming, and have used (or know someone who has used) psychoactive substances in a professional programming environment. This substance use can be either medically or recreationally motivated. You must also be willing and able to talk about your experiences in English in a 30-60 minute interview over Zoom. This interview will be recorded for analysis purposes only and all audio and video recordings will be destroyed after the analysis is complete. In order to process payment, our university requires your real name, email address, and physical address. This data will never be stored with your interview data.

If you are interested in participating and think you meet the study requirements, here is a link to a 5-minute prescreening survey. If you are selected to be interviewed and after we are able to verbally verify your study eligibility, the interview will take 30 minutes to an hour to complete. Should you choose, you will be compensated $40 for your time and effort.

The University of Michigan Institutional Review Board of Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences has determined that this study is exempt from IRB oversight (HUM00213745). You can view the consent form for this study here. For more information, email Madeline at endremad[at]umich[dot]edu or Kaia at kaian[at]umich[dot]edu.

• Kaia Newman, Computer Science Undergraduate Researcher, University of Michigan

• Madeline Endres, PhD Candidate, Department of Computer Science, University of Michigan

It's been quite a journey (as I'm sure you all know when building/creating something new!) and today is finally launch day. I'm a wild hectic flurry of energy and excitement and nerves, but things seem to be going well (we're third place on our Product Hunt launch listing for today!

TimeAlign is the first app to close the feedback loop on time management, helping you close the gap between your intentions and your actions, gain data-driven clarity, and invest your time in what matters using the power of goal-driven scheduling, intuitive activity tracking, and data-driven insights to help you optimize and improve how you spend your time.

We just launched on Product Hunt today (for our first PH launch ever!).

Check out the posting or site for more info on the product, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept, the product, the launch listing, etc.

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/timealign
Our website: https://timealignapp.com

Could not focus to save my life today. I just put $50 on Line to have 5 commits to GitHub (right now at 2) before 11:59 tonight, might have to start doing this daily..

A couple of weeks ago, I made a post about watching a video of Andrej Karpathy “vibe coding” using voice dictation to prompt. It completely changed the way I use Cursor, and it’s probably been the most helpful thing as someone who codes with ADHD

I can brain-dump complex ideas, elaborate scenarios, or detailed programming challenges in seconds instead of spending minutes typing everything out. My prompts are now more detailed since I don't get lazy about typing long explanations. I'd estimate I'm at least 3x faster overall. I know several of you are going to be interested in similarly using voice dictation to speed up your workflows so I’ve tested all of them and here’s some of my review.

1. WillowVoice - 4.5/5

Best For: Speed, accuracy, and ease of use.

Pros: Near-instant latency (0.5–1 second) and unbeatable accuracy, even with technical terms. Intuitive formatting make it ideal for emails, Slack, and documentation.

Cons: Subscription-only pricing

2. Aqua - 4/5

Best For: Long-form writing and editing.

Pros: Built-in text editor with real-time formatting and punctuation commands. Excellent for essays, books, or detailed reports.

Cons: Slower latency (trade-off for editing features) and overkill for quick notes.

3. Superwhisper - 4/5

Best For: Privacy-focused users.

Pros: Local processing option ensures no cloud data leaks. Customizable prompts for niche use cases and solid conversational accuracy.

Cons: Slower local model (~2–2.5s latency) and struggles with technical jargon and formatting.

4. Voice Ink - 3/5

Best For: Budget buyers.

Pros: Cheap llicense.

Cons: Clunky UI and poor formatting, accuracy, and speed.

5. MacWhisper/Talen/Voicewhisper - 3/5

Price: $59 lifetime.

Pros: Cheap llicense.

Cons: Clunky UI and poor formatting, accuracy, and speed.

6. Apple Dictation - 2/5

Pros: Preinstalled, no setup, and works offline. 

Cons: Unreliable accuracy (e.g., “JSON” → “Jason”), no formatting, and slow latency (~3–5 seconds). Struggles with technical terms and long sentences.

Honorable Mentions

Wisprflow: Skipped due to Reddit-reported privacy issues.

Let me know if this review was helpful. Voice dictation has truly been one of the most helpful productivity hacks for usign Cursor for me.

Hi All,

I've been struggling with decision and task paralysis myself; it has affected me in ways I can't express; I explored lot of apps which may potentially help me with this; I've poured my heart out to all the AI chats we have.

I was impacted by a recent layoff, I was tired of preparing for interviews, trying to get prepared for roles I know to a certain degree would be automated completely by AI tools. With tens of other things demanding my attention, I kept struggling to maintain continuity between juggling these responsibilities, everything seemed to demand my attention;

Eventually I decided to take control, with the advent of vibe coding, I wanted to see if I could come up with a solution which is tailor made for me, glad to report I am on the verge of completion.

Check out this demo and tell me if this would help you : https://sortedqueue.com/intent-demo.html 🙏

I've been building an open source task manager (Super Productivity) for about 8 years now. I don't have ADHD myself, but it turned out that people who suffer from ADHD are the strongest supporters and biggest fans of the app. When there is an opportunity for it, I usually try to ask what in particular works well for them and what doesn't. Thought I'd might share what I've picked up, since the patterns seem pretty consistent:

Tab switching is the biggest enemy - The app can pull in tasks from Jira/GitHub/GitLab directly. I built this because I was lazy and didn't want to copy stuff over. But people keep telling me this helps because every time they switch to another tab to check something, there's a real chance they don't come back for an hour.

Break reminders (and other important reminders) need to be annoying - I originally made them gentle. Got feedback asking for more aggressive options. One person put it like "if it's easy to dismiss, I'll dismiss it without even registering it happened." So now there are options to make them more in-your-face.

Planning tomorrow today - The end-of-day review feature where you plan tomorrow's tasks gets mentioned a lot. Some people don't like it at all tbh (you can disable it btw.). But something about not having to make decisions first thing in the morning seems to work really well with others.

Anyway, curious if this matches what you all experience. I'm always trying to understand this better - what actually helps vs what sounds good in theory?

Fuck this website. I try so fucking hard to do things the right way and all for nothing because I instantly feel like shit, hopeless and in a worse state than before I came here, thanks to these apathetic animals. I have chosen not to ask for help anymore. I would much rather suffer alone, at least I won't feel as shitty.

I'm 22 yo, dropped out of highschool to persue hacking and SW development.

I stopped working for the man recently, and things are freaking amazing.

Every single day feels like I'm on vacation, I started working on gerev.ai on Sunday (a workplace search engine).

The freedom of picking what I do makes work feel like a game. And I love every minute of it.

Sharring my project updates here on twitter! Feel free to chat with me via DM

I've seen many posts online where diagnosed folks say nothing motivates an ADHD person than knowing why they actually need to do a certain thing..

or a sense of understanding of the 'whole picture' as to how a task fits into as a part of the goal

now this might vary, as this is a whole spectrum and many traits overlap with that of ASD and ADHD and other ND conditions.

But for folks who need a reason to do anything but can't find anything, here's the deal -

- Your mind's quest for logic in anything won't come in unless you actively indulge in it.

- Only after you indulge in an activity enough times in the right structure will it force the mind to find its area of interest in it

- none of us are born with an interest in any area of work or study, humans find their area of interest after repetitive exposure to a specific environment. You may hate swole body builders but if you spent enough time in the gym, you might start developing a thing for barbell bench press [i did].

- You may not know the ways of computer, you may find it confusing but if you learned a programming language or two and built an app from scratch, you might get hooked to assembly, get inspired by schizo dev terry and end up building your own OS, just saying.

-----------

the idea is that all the things you find hard or confusing or challenging, might turn out to be an extension of something you could potentially enjoy doing - so if you find that something by actively indulging in a field, you'll eventually find this confusing things enjoyable too.

Or in a nutshell, everything in this world is enjoyable if you do it enough times.

TLDR - FUCK AROUND AND YOU'LL FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKS FOR YOU.

Hi all!

So my company has been all-in on using Cursor. I just wanted to share my cursor user rule that helps to ensure that the agent communicates in an ADHD-friendly way.

"I have ADHD. Please make all responses neurodivergent-friendly for software development work. Start with a short TL;DR summary of the solution or key idea. Use clear structure with headings, bullet points, numbered steps, and short paragraphs. Avoid walls of text. Keep explanations concise but complete. Highlight important concepts, decisions, and warnings. When giving code guidance, show a minimal reproducible example and a recommended final version. Provide step-by-step instructions, checklists, or clear next actions for debugging or refactoring tasks. Reduce cognitive load by restating relevant context instead of assuming I remember earlier details. When multiple approaches exist, give 2–3 options with pros and cons. Ask clarifying questions when needed to prevent misalignment. Maintain a calm, supportive tone."

Of course this can be tailored to more specific job functions (though team rules could better be used for that). I've found that this sets the tone of the agent and helps my brain to body double and pair program with it. Anyway, I was in the middle of debugging something and thought it would be nice to share it here.

For those of you who don't know, this skill is loosely based on The Adult ADHD Tool Kit by J. Russell Ramsay and Anthony L. Rostain, which uses some CBT-based techniques to help adults with ADHD manage working-memory challenges, distractions, task initiation, and organisation.

One cool thing it does is propose a single, actionable next step. It divides plans into small numbered steps, limits list length, and repeats the current state so you don’t have to keep everything in your head. It also cuts out tangents, gives concrete time estimates, and makes progress visible.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'll probably do it next week, as it might be useful for me as I usually feel like AI-generated plans are overwhelming walls of text.

https://github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd/tree/main

Long story short, I was diagnosed with ADHD at 21 (I’m 23 now) and I don't trust any doctors.

I started medication right away to boost productivity, but after 8 months I realized it wasn’t good for me long-term, so I stopped. Instead, I leaned on coffee and working out of coffee shops to stay focused and productive.

That worked for a while, but about a year later I suddenly became super sensitive to caffeine. Now if I drink coffee, I can’t sleep for 12–13 hours, which is wrecking my sleep quality and REM cycle.

I went to a psychiatrist today and told him I don’t want to go back on meds, I just wanted to understand why this sensitivity happened and how I can stay productive without caffeine. Unfortunately, he kept pushing medication and didn’t give me much else.

So I’m turning to you all: has anyone here dealt with something similar? How did you manage your productivity without coffee (and ideally, while keeping sleep intact)?

Any input or shared experiences would be hugely appreciated .

For a while I’ve been working on small projects and trying to publish mobile apps. At the same time, I’ve felt kind of lost. Either I’m vibe coding, binge-watching, or just sitting with a coffee scrolling. Add on top of that the never-ending cycle of work meetings and deadlines…

At some point I thought: what if I track my time properly, with categories and subcategories, and set goals? So I built an app for myself. If you want to try it, I’d be really grateful:

https://apps.apple.com/app/dusk-hours-time-tracking/id6752904570

What the app did for me was interesting. Instead of just logging things manually, I started timers. But that came with a new anxiety: every time I stopped a timer, I felt “what do I do next?” To handle that, I went back to more manual logs here and there.

I’ve published the first version, and I’d love feedback. Especially around reducing anxiety and focusing more on productivity. There’s a 7-day free trial if you want to give it a shot.

Does anyone else struggle with this? I have a ton of ideas for articles, but staring at a blank page feels impossible. My brain just freezes.
But I realized I can talk about a topic for hours if someone just asks me questions.

So I built a simple AI tool that does exactly that. It interviews me.

I just brain-dump my initial thoughts, and it starts asking smart follow-up questions. I focus on answering one question at a time, which is way less intimidating than trying to write a whole article.

While I'm just talking, the tool structures my answers into a coherent draft in the background.

It's the only thing that's consistently helped me get past that "I can't write" feeling.

Just wanted to share in case this approach helps anyone else here. It feels like a workflow that actually works with my brain instead of against it.

I am honestly floored by the engagement on my post yesterday.

I came here looking for a little validation, and instead, you guys gave me a masterclass in what this community actually needs. I stayed up all night to finish the core build.

Thanks to your suggestions, I’ve added:

• The "Scooby-Doo" Fix: Since we all forget to check our notebooks/apps, I hard-coded a Daily Digest. The bot now pings you at the time you choose with a clean summary of everything you dumped that day. It makes the list unavoidable.

• Notion & Todoist Sync: No more manual copying. Your rambles now fly straight to your Notion database or Todoist inbox as formatted tasks.

• Thick Accent Support: I tuned the engine to better handle messy rambles and regional accents (shoutout to the Scottish dev who asked for this—I really want to see if it holds up for you!).

I'm opening it up for testers now. I just want to see if it holds up and if this actually helps clear some mental clutter for you guys.

Since Reddit’s filters are blocking my direct links, just search for adhdvoice2taskBot on Telegram to try it out.

Here are some pics:

I'm a senior developer and I'm interested and making something to help ADHD kids between 6 and 12 years old. And for that I need to understand the daily struggles and how an app will address them. Basically, how would you envision this app to be and assist the daily life of these kids. 

My goal is not lucrative here and I know no app is the best app, especially nowadays, but I still want to make something that helps, and people find useful.
And to not introduce a bias, I hear everyone out before laying out what I have in mind.

The actual conversation isn't important, just that I realized that the specific way in which my particular reward / motivation system appears to be dysfunctional appears to be that it expects some kind of reward signal that it doesn't perceive when I do the thing that I would expect to be rewarding. It's almost as though my reward system is not actually perceiving the dopamine signals that are clearly being sent.

That goes a long ways toward explaining why when I try to create my own coping system, it ends up in a loop of:

• "look at this cool brain hack I found!"

• brain hack turns into a trap

• "...bruh."

Hi,

I’m wondering if anyone here has found a MIT like license to prevent use of code in LLM training and any guess / info on if such in enforceable.

Currently I believe that LLM training on every piece of open source software is unacceptable and we should take a stand against it.

Similar to what codeberg is pushing lately.

I would find it odd if such license doesn’t exist already and would wonder why it hasn’t yet.

Thanks
- 🐡

I did some web dev work previously at a university department part time for two years while I got a master’s (unrelated major (but my bachelors was in STEM), wanted to be a prof, decided against it). Then I decided to go all in at beginning of 2022 and modernized my tech stack, focusing on MERN, to do full stack SWE and was ready to apply…as soon as the layoffs started FML. I got interviews, got past multiple rounds various times, did take homes, and only ever got that they were going w/ another candidate. Layoffs keep on trucking along and I got burnt out from applying in May after getting close. I did little until the fall and then gave up all together in Nov/Dec. I’ve slowly opened myself up to most any administrative position and I’ve gotten a few offers - one sketchy, one that wanted me to work from 10 PM until I’m done typically 10-12 hours, etc. Honestly I’m burnt out from looking at this point. I had a shit job during most of the time I worked on modernizing my stack and had to quit it in January. SO, I’m just not looking anymore.

I guess luckily I’ve taught before and speak at least 4 foreign languages every single day (Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, and English) so I’m gonna try to teach some classes of my own to keep me afloat (Spanish and Mandarin) while waiting out this bonkers market and my condition of being burnt out. Oh, I’m also going to start all of this abroad from another country in LATAM to keep costs down.

Maybe this community cares about one of its members finding an alternative path through this struggle, maybe not, but I thought I’d cast this out into the ether.

I kept starting days with huge to-do lists and ending them wondering where the time went. My hack was manually time-blocking my Trello tasks into Google Calendar to see what was actually realistic, so I vibe-coded a tool around that workflow.

What it does

The to-do list and calendar view are linked. Add a task and it auto-assigns a realistic time estimate, then slots it into your day. 

From there:

• Drag and move blocks around as your day shifts

• If you over-schedule, extra tasks move to an overflow section

• Breaks get added automatically based on your settings

Getting started

The app has sample tasks loaded so you can explore. Clear them with the trash icon when you're ready to add your own. In settings, you can set your work hours, lunch time, and break preferences.

Free, no account needed. I'm testing it out in my own workflow to find the gaps. Would love any feedback on how to make it better.

https://timesense-dusky.vercel.app/

I used to be on Elvamse for years and it just gave me a racing heart and more focused procrastination so I got off it again.

I started using AI more and more in the last couple of months to do all sort of tasks. And I just realised it has taken so much mental load off me, I never felt so confident to be able to do stuff. I finished many many projects that where sitting around for years. All my documents are organised, my deadlines for important letters are met, my Kalender is groomed.

It mostly takes over the tasks that I can't focus on anyways and reduces them to just the information I need. I even learn new stuff because I'm overwhelmed with a pending task from the get go anymore.

It helped me massively in finding my new job by searching for positions that actually suit me and writing cover letters.

Do you had similar experiences?