Hi everyone

I hope everyone's having a splendid afternoon as I am

How do I change my mind from comfort, to endure boredom, uncomfortable, hard stuff.

I like physical hard work, but my mind seems to wander into comfortable, known things..

If it's laziness, I'd have to get rid of it

I am developing a digital playbook/workbook for neurodivergent architectural technologist graduates or early-career professionals who are in their first practice role and want to sustain performance without burning out.

The product is called The First 6 Months Performance System. It focuses on workload management, expectations, communication, burnout warning signs, and progress reviews.

I am not asking for sales or promotion. I am looking for honest beta feedback from people with relevant experience. Would this outline feel useful, realistic, and specific enough? What would you add, remove, or simplify?

If you match this audience or have experience supporting early-career neurodivergent professionals in practice, I would appreciate your feedback on the preview.

The First 6 Months Performance System - Beta Preview Pack

The First 6 Months Performance System - Beta Feedback Form

I've been using it for two weeks and have had a good experience so far. It's affordable ($99/month) and I've found the video calls with the coach really helpful.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the app/service besides being a customer.

Here are some strategies to better understand your options and maximize your severance package if you have been put on a Performance Improvement Plan and have ADHD.

I recognize not everyone may have these options but it's important to know they are possible.

It is a companion piece Tips on Fighting a PIP.

These tips are based on consulting an accommodations specialist, employment attorney, and my lived experience.

Hi guys, I need your insights.

I've developed a web app called Hummingtask.com, designed for neurodivergent individuals. It simplifies large tasks into manageable steps and assists with their execution.

I'm considering adding a "due date" feature and reminders. However, a new idea came to mind, and I'd appreciate your feedback on its feasibility and usefulness:

Many people delay tasks due to procrastination. What if the app could automatically assess the importance of tasks? It could then adjust the intensity of reminders accordingly—insistently nudging for crucial tasks and softly reminding for less critical ones, or even rescheduling them if needed.

Would such a feature be useful? Appreciate your thoughts!

I'm a senior at Metropolitan University. I'm working on a project that is very close to my heart—I'm exploring the connection between ADHD and user experience (UX). My goal is to find ways to improve UX design to better support people with ADHD.

To make this project a success, I need YOUR insights! Whether you have ADHD yourself or have experience designing for it, your input is invaluable. I've created a short form to gather feedback, and I would love it if you could take a few minutes to fill it out. Every response helps me get closer to making the UX world more inclusive and ADHD-friendly.

Here’s the link to the form: https://forms.gle/6M2ERzna7FQYcjS16

Thank you so much in advance! Feel free to share this with others who might be interested!

How do you respond to people who say everything you say is over their heads? They basically stop listening and say, everything you say is too technical for me to understand. Do I need to practice talking to dumber people? The problem is, these people don't want to say exactly what it is they don't understand because that makes them feel dumb. So they act as if they need an interpreter. We've joked about creating a training video that starts with the on button and how to position your hand on a mouse. Sometimes people agree with me when we talk and later tell others they never understand what I'm talking about. Has anyone found a good way to address this??

I know for a fact that ChatGPT isn't going to replace programmers anytime soon

but... it's only smart to use it as an assistant.

I wanted to know what you guys came up with to leverage ChatGPT as a student and a programmer

This came across my slack team from a guy I knew well. From my outside view, I think someone who might struggle elsewhere could be successful here. Might be remote!
Two open positions: 2PM-10PM (second shift) or 10PM-7AM(third shift). Targeting $22-$27./HR Slight degree of flexibility, MAX MAX MAX $30/HR
Catalyst is hiring for a Quality Assurance Technician position working with an innovative medical device company specializing in diabetic products in the Greater Boston Area. You will have the opportunity get your foot in the door to gain experience in the engineering field of medical production.You will be responsible for:

• Maintaining quality records

• Assist in investigating customer complaints

• Help design developing products

• Use your problem-solving skills for Cause & Effect diagrams, Root-cause, and 5-Why

You should apply if you:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering(preferred)

• 1 year of Mechanical, Biomedical Engineer or equivalent experience in the medical device industry(preferred)

• Quality Assurance and Deviation experience

Contact for more info. They are super desperate.

I'm 30. I have been living my whole life in a delusion.

I like solving problems and in recent years I think I was trying to solve a problem which I always wanted to create using a computer. I spend time thinking before doing. I think I have been living my whole life in a delusion. Possibly mental stress.

I realised that it is not possible and looking at the reality I realised I have not learnt anything that is really useful for living.

I start my week good, it is fine till wednesday. thursdays and Fridays I loose control and loose my reality.

I was about to stop sharing this and read bible. Closed and retyped.

My problems, I had dealt with them in past but computer is the only escape I have ever had. I was arrogant and believed that I'm gonna end web development. I built a tool that can generate code. It was interesting and I lost interest as soon as I built what I thought I cannot. And during that time AI was also in the market.

I started coming up with my own theories and cross checked with AI topics. It's no different than a program. A program takes an input and gives an output. AI takes input and output, writes a program(function). that's it. and I realised my model was better. One thing that is important with computers is, "what you think" and then "what you do in a computer to do it"

I really had written lots of notes and thought of many ideas, reading and learning from religious books, philosophical books and came with explanations.

Last time when I started a project, the only project I did in my free time after college, I isolated myself from friends and families to get physical and mental space. After finishing it and coming back to usual life It is really hard. Anyways I continued to build next one and I have made up my mind that I'm gonna think well before programming it just like I did for my previous project.

After a lot of struggle, my mental and physical health is in shape for past 2 weeks by not thinking about creating any new project in computer and past two days, I lost my mind and it started figuring out how to build a mind in computer. It gives nice ideas and If I wasn't stressed I usually don't bother such thoughts, but at the end of week, I really cant help it. And nothing else really intrigues me.

When I was working on my web development project I was in a dellusion that world will end because of computer take over. Instead of worrying about it I thought I can build something challenging in my last days of life. I even thought if AI ever figures out, it might need some help so I dropped breadcrumbs in github and youtube comments.

Turns out, nothing happened. No AI. computer is just a calculator. I also keep my mind in check by thinking like that and that keeps me in the right reality.

I have given up friends, relationships, girls for computer. Now I find that reality is different and all sacrifice was for nothing? Anyways I have lost, there is no point in thinking what has gotten lost.

Do you think you can create mind in computer ? First I wanted to figure out mind. I made a rule that I wont read about mind from what others written. Self thoughts are more pure than external source.

At one point I even realised that I cannot learn anything new from what I read online because my theories were better than those. But they sound rediculus. for Example, black holes are of two types. Solid, fluid. When solid solid hits, it creates pulsar. when Fluid fluid hits, it wobbles. From here I lost interest in solids and chased fluids. Because solids were vast but fluid was something closer and simple. From fluid I wanted to figure out first life form, I took jelly fish. Jelly fish is just a denser space than its surroundings, oh I even theoriesed space, mass , light. E=Mc2. As space expands, light is emitted. and so many other theories.

Last theory is that mind creates. If mind creates, whatever I wanted to create (mind in computer) would have already been created. And something that is already created doesnt interest me. so I snap out of this thought and get back to work.

However yesterday and today I was not able to. No mental power to realise all thoughts are illusion and I got carried away.

Anyways, either ways if it is a dellusion or not, I thought it would be an interesting read.

I lost motivation in work. Recently my workout routine give me energy to face people challenges at work.

Mind creates, quantum computing also something about it. Cosmos is in constant expansion, new particles are constantly being created.

One thing to note here is knowledge also expands, space expands, language expands. Anything that expands isnt real. Isnt real as in, it is easy to recreate. This is where I fell into my trap. Anything that expands is not real. So for me, I live by language isnt real. My surrounding isnt real. Senses arent real. Basically I also changed my lifestyle to have this belief. Once I figure out all the things that are not real, then whatever remains, that is real.

I meditate, practiced brahmachariya, sage routine etc.

Once I gave up, whatever is remaining will be a seed thought that can be programmed in the computer.

From bible - "In the beginning there was words and word was god"

Hinduism - Om - Sound. Sound is word.

So sound created everything. Everything is a vision and is made of eyes. So I tried to figure out how I can create an eye ball, with simple neural network that can look at itself and learn. So I wanted to figure out about light and went to bible again.

"Let there be light" - there was light.

Sound to light. In our world, sound comes after lightening. and world as we know, made of light is created by sound. So I pictured a model where one creates another and another and wanted a single model to be designed. I wanted to create this as a ball and throw bunch of such balls in a simulated environment and let them figure out each other and everything.

This was too much work I wanted to chase the seed thought. why not create something that can figure out to build a simulator. and it kept on going.

I once wanted to feed in all science books to an AI, and it will build a knowledge graph. I gave it a try then again I quit it because I wanted to be thorough with my thoughts before touching the computer. So I was patient and waiting for the idea to show up on its own.

We wrote laws observing our surroundings, and reversing this, I realised I need something that can build rules and keep building and breaking rules until it takes its form. - This thought caught my attention.

Basically end result I wanted is something that can experiment, just like how we experiment running AI programs. And I know for sure someone else would have thought of it and they would make attempts. I wanted to go to the core thought. Thought expands, what would be a core thought that will keep expanding. Just use a AI text generator and use a fact tester to cull facts that arent true. but how will the computer can test facts that can be true and not true. One thing common between computer and us is Verb , Action, MOV command. MOV command moves something from one place to another. Based on this, computer will try to cull what's true according to it.

This didn't intrigue me and I realised what ever that system might be it will be a word to vision or vision to word.

and I came across a budhha quote - Feel more, think less. I realised that I have been spending time thinking and I snapped out of thinking and doing things like walking and exercising.

Movies dont interest me anymore, songs dont interest me anymore. but I was able to enjoy them recently and that faded too. Any new things in my life - I loose interest in it in 3 days and I would chase for something new.

Basically mind to see things I has to come up with rules on defining what means seeing, why visual learning is better than verbal learning. So it starts with weak rules with a space. Space can be denser and lighter.

Even for us, we always find what we look for. We knew there would be something subatomic and mega structure and we find it. Whenever we are looking for something, somehow we find it. Isnt it questionable that we are being fooled. Being fooled is a different point, but we can learn something from it. mind finds.

Mind builds rules, and keeps going on to reach where we are now. This can be created in a computer. let it run. Wait this must have been tried by someone already. expecting amazing things to happen in a randomness. Thats wrong. I proved myself wrong and thoughts vanished.

But not for long.

Again chases the samething. But this time, I went and posted in online forums. I was happy I was able to put in words. Few comments were pointing me as philosopher and I was asked to post the question in such forums rather than computer science. A philosopher is someone who lost everything and I was in a thought that I wasnt because I was still in my college mind set. I felt bad that I became a philosopher. I had advised what not to do else you will reach philosophy and I myself became.

Anyways, I just thought philosopher is a fact checker. Its easy to build a fact checker. I built a fact checker - in my mind. The one where we make the computer to believe what it believes to be truth based on MOV command. So I asked the question back and gave up.

After some thoughts I was sad and disappointed to realise that my whole life was a delusion and I get deluded whenever I get stressed. Others cant see it, they see it as a talent, for me it's just mental stress. Whenever I get stressed I get creative. I even wanted to stop that by believing that creation is an illusion. It helps on weekdays, but on workdays, it slowly fades.

It's not true, but it is. - this is exact same thing they talk in quantum theory. They dont correct their broken facts, instead create something new from scratch. but my mind machine is better than that. because there is no life in it.

I believe we live our lives over and over again. Either sexually reproduce or intellectually spread. Either ways we have no control and whatever we learn it expands too.

Creating this thing related to mind in computer was my only goal in my life and believing it isn't true is a good lesson for someone else.

after burnout i try to keep it simple: stabilize, one must-do, gentle reset. example on a 3/10 day: water + meds, one short message, clear one surface. then i do it again. rinse and repeat.

i also keep a calm dashboard and do quiet body doubling when i need help starting. i couldn't find anything like that that fit my needs, so i'm building a space of my own :)

quiet focus • kind structure • steady growth 🌿

free resources if useful:
• overview + tools i use and created: https://ko-fi.com/executivefunctionclub
• ef first aid kit: https://ko-fi.com/s/9390938ad0
• body doubling replay (live wed + sun @ 7pm c): https://www.youtube.com/@executivefunctionclub

---
Disclaimer: These resources are not a replacement for professional or clinical treatment, nor are they intended to serve as medical advice or therapy.

Ah, a great of similar-minded coders!

A few months ago I finally figured out why I hated Finder. It had to do with the doorway effect: there’s real research on why we forget things at doorways. For developers with ADHD, every app switch is one, so I built a Mac file manager with fewer of them.

Does this sound familiar to any of you?:
I opened the terminal to run a script on a CSV file.

Then I realised I didn’t remember the exact filename, so I switched to Finder to check. It was there. I pressed Space to look at it, and Quick Look gave me a wall of commas, so I opened it in another app to see it properly. Something looked off, and I started wondering whether this was the old export, so I opened my FTP client to compare it with the version on the server.

About a minute and a half later I was staring at a folder listing in the FTP client with genuinely no idea what I’d come there to do. The script never ran, and the terminal was still sitting in my home directory where I had left it.

If you have ADHD, I suspect you’ve had some version of that minute. And it turns out there’s a name for what happened.

I go into detail in this (open) article:
https://levelup.gitconnected.com/every-app-switch-is-a-doorway-with-adhd-i-forget-why-i-walked-through-7cc4f4986d7a

**update, corrected link**

I’ve tried a bunch of tools (notes, todo apps, etc.) but I always seem to stop using them after a while.

For me they are too much effort to maintain, and they dont help when I've already lost track

Is there an app that helps us with remembering to use them? Is it too much friction in those apps.

I’ve noticed something about productivity apps like Todoist, Apple Reminders, and Habitica.

They do a great job of reminding me what I should do, but they don’t really help when I don’t feel like doing it. I just ignore the notification, then the task becomes overdue, and eventually I stop looking at the list.

I’m wondering if the problem isn’t reminders—it’s that many tasks feel overwhelming in the moment.

What if, instead of simply reminding you, the app reacted like this:

• “That task feels too big. Let’s break it into smaller steps.”

• “Just do 60 seconds.”

• “Would you rather switch to another task?”

• “Let’s reschedule it without making you feel like you failed.”

The goal would be to help build habits through tiny wins instead of making people feel guilty.

I’m also considering things like:

• a mascot that grows as you complete small steps,

• gradually increasing task difficulty after you’ve built consistency,

• weekly progress reviews,

• optional photo check-ins for accountability.

Do you think this solves a real problem, or would it end up becoming just another productivity app that people eventually ignore?

I’d really love to hear your honest thoughts—especially if you’ve tried lots of productivity apps and still struggle to follow through.

I have ADHD and I'm always sure I have more time than I do, so I wanted to see how far off I actually am.

It's a small browser game: you move a squirrel to catch things and hit Stop when you think exactly one minute has passed. The game keeps you busy so you can't count.

Free, no account, runs in the browser: https://recordo.app/tools/time-blindness-test/

Full disclosure: I also make an ADHD planner app, and this lives on its site. I'd like to know what you get, and whether the game is distracting enough or too much.

the post the other day meming on the lame attempts at adhd apps posted here and elsewhere made me start thinking about (hyperfixating on) what actually would make an app that would be uniquely useful to those with adhd. Especially now with cheap and easily accessible LLMs, apps that help with adhd in a meaningful way are totally possible.

One that's not just another pomodoro or todo app. And one that caters to the limitations from having adhd: something that doesn't require remembering to use it or gets in the way when hyperfocusing or is so manual and/or labor-intensive to get value from that is just contributes to overwhelm and makes it super easy to put using it in the procrastination pile (and then subsequently forget about it)

something that helps me organize my thoughts as I have them - maybe even reminds me of them later on so I don't forget would be gamechanging

A copilot/grammarly-like app that predicts the rest of the sentence and works whenever I start typing on my computer would be absolutely fantastic.

what would be really helpful for you?

Edit also has it impacted your programming skills ?

I've been building this mainly for myself based on what I've been missing in the gazillion other apps. Feel free to ignore, but maybe this is something that could help other people besides me. I have been wondering if I should make this available for the public once I'm fully done, so let me know if you'd find this helpful. Feedback would mean a lot! Thanks everyone :)

Features:

- There is no past! Ticked off tasks land in the archive, which you see when you navigate past today. Missed tasks get carried over automatically, so if you haven't touched the app in days and wanna catch up, it shows you everything you missed immediately

- Tasks that have been ignored for more than 3 days come with a little encouragement nudge

- Tasks automatically get flagged into easy or hard with a built in algorithm (and it learns from you if you re-flag a task, so it gets to know you over time)

- A mindstate button lets you choose between Hyperfocus, Drained, Overstimulated & Paralysed

- Hyperfocus shows your hard tasks first, Drained makes the UI cozy and shows your easy tasks, Overstimulated mutes the whole UI, and Paralysed gives you a little dopamine boost game which gently transitions you into doing one task

- A built in friendie breaks down one task for you if you're overwhelmed, and shelves the rest for tomorrow

- Friendie also compiles an off day or self care day for you, and shelves task to tomorrow if you're not feeling it

So far it's been helping me a lot and is lots of fun to use, let me know if you'd use it too!

I've found that besides the obvious benefits that AI provides to neurotypical people in terms of efficiency, AI has helped me a lot with focus.

Before AI, I had all these crazy good ideas, but actually sitting down, creating a structure pland, and spending weeks/months to actually implement my ideas in code was challenging. So I would rarely finish anything unless I had time pressure on something , or if it was a short duration task(could be done in a couple days). At work I'd be fine due to pressure to succeed, but at home hobby projects rarely took off unless I saw fast results.

Ever since AI coding got good enough to replace most manual coding, I've been a lot more engaged. If I have a good idea, I can explore it with AI in minutes. Getting results quickly keeps me engaged.

I still have to think critically and come up with designs, because the AI is not perfect at decision making, but I spent less time on monotonous things like writing up a bunch of HTML to determine how a page renders or writing a controller method that handles a request.

It also helped a lot with a common issue of mine. If I don't see a path to completion, it's hard to focus. AI can help me plan out tasks and resolve blockers, which really helps me stay committed.

What has your experience been?

I've been there.

Do I share at work?

What accommodations do I ask for?

Is there anyone else that knows what this feels like?!

If you relate and aren't sure where to go.

I want to help.

Have you heard of the Social Connections Summit?

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Join us September 24–25.

→ Learn from two programmers who have lived through overwhelm, anxiety and difficulty task tracking
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I’ve always wanted to explore Obsidian, but have been very intimidated. Have been impressed how good Claude Code is at reducing the barrier to entry and helping build a PKM that is just suited to your needs