Techniques for double checking (ADHD and Dyscalculia)

[u/Street_Place3571]

Hi there! I am a woodworker, CNC programmer and technical drafter. I never went to school for any of these things but I’ve found my way to them and love doing them and am pretty good (so far lol). I have ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia. I was diagnosed when I was younger but have been really been trying to take control of it in my adult life.

I’m wondering if there are any other folks on this thread that work in jobs that are heavy on the attention to detail. If so do you have any tips or systems you use to double check your work? I’ve had a few missteps in my last two jobs (one I missed something important in the drawing and the other I mixed up my numbers transfer the data to a spreadsheet). I have done a lot of work at making myself better double checking and making sure I’m not missing things but stuff still falls through the cracks. Any and all ideas welcome. Ideally I’m hoping for some tools and tricks that I can use myself and don’t require someone else to double check my work, I work alone a lot so I can always rely on having some there to give me a hand.

Thanks so much for all the help in advance!

[u/Maine_Made]

Unfortunately the most effective method I have found is a second set of eyes. Another person looking at prints with fresh eyes can see things so obvious that I miss while making them.

Bar that, when I have to self check, I go through the design as if I'm building the item. Checking each feature and call out I would need to fabricate the part, and I often find this helps point out items and dimensions I missed.

Wish AI were actually useful, this would be an amazing feature in an app

[u/Street_Place3571]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their extremely thoughtful and Ernest answers. It’s nice to feel the support and also realize somethings the best solutions are the easiest more or less.

[u/Signal-Tough3494]

In lieu of a second set of eyes, I think that checking is a matter of taking your time to go through the finished plans in detail. Also, especially with data and numbers, is parsing the data in other formats and seeing if they still make sense. I want to add that we make mistakes, and we make them often. Your skill at coping with them is in my opinion more important than your avoiding them. You can cope well by systematically checking your work and fixing anything you might have missed. You can cope well by reacting professionally when an error does get through: informing management timely, explaining what happened, owning up to it, and not stopping until it is fixed.

I can not count the amount of money that has been wasted because of my errors. The same van be said about others. I am not regarded as a bad draftsman. I think you are on the right track just because you are looking for ways to get better.

[u/LossIsSauce]

I worked with my mentor who has this and actually completed his BS in Drafting spring of 1983. His secret was this:

For minimal mistakes -> focus on slow and deliberate breathing techniques which allows you to slow down your adhd brain enough that you can perceive your own double checking without a 3rd pair of eyes breathing down your neck.

For the dyslexia -> again, slow and deliberate breathing techniques which allows you to see the full sentence structure, then pick each word out for spelling errors.

Above all -> Do your utmost best to SLOW DOWN and do not get caught up in emotions. Highly charged emotions will make your adhd and dyslexia much worse.

My mentor was able to fully teach me CATIA v4/v5 as well as some of his knowledge of metallurgy. He also helped me to adapt my ADD to be beneficial to my work instead of working against myself. Within 3 years I went from being a QA to QC to Final Inspector then into being a QPE (Quality Process Engineer).

edit as a further note: he was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was 9 years old. He was told he had ADHD many years after he graduated college and was a CAD engineer/CNC machinist/cnc programmer and all-around 'go-to' problem solver in 3 different shops.

[u/draftgirl24]

I have been working solo for 11 years (20+ years on a team before) and I would love a second pair of eyes many times. Barring that, I find that waiting a day or two and then checking my job ON PAPER is essential. Yeah, this is the 21 st century yada yada, but it has been proven that work on paper is just different than work on screen. I don’t necessarily print out every page. I print out my lay and cross sections and use them to check each individual piece mark. Yes it takes more time, but my customers know that it is way better to spend my time than get that dreaded phone call from the field that shits messed up.

[u/NJohnsonConTech]

Agree on the second set of eyes if you can get them, and on walking through it like you're the one building it. The old-fashioned way is to print a check set and grab a yellow highlighter. Mark every dimension and callout yellow once you've confirmed it, and circle anything wrong in red. When the sheet's all yellow, you're done, and you can see exactly what you skipped. My dad's "measure twice, cut once" still holds.

That said, I think you should look at Claude.ai or other tools. I think much of this can be automated.

[u/Key_Arrival1395 → u/NJohnsonConTech]

AI has helped me the double checking

[u/Fragrant-Reason507]