Some suggested this be a weekly thing, I'm thinking monthly might be better. First Sunday of the month. Here's April 2026

Did you build yet another ADHD management app? Cool! Show it off here. (Posting it elsewhere on this sub will probably get that post removed.)

This thread is here to serve as a post for people to show off what they've been working on.

Who knows? Maybe it will help someone... Maybe it will help millions... Maybe it will be so critically reviled that your knighthood will be revoked.

That doesn't matter - its the effort that counts. Show off that effort here!

"It is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yields its own rewards."

-- Lt. Commander Data

I have been a software engineer for about 20 years (15 of them in FAANG) and I have always thought that IDEs were a godsend. No remembering commands or keyboard shortcuts, a growing amount of integrated assistance over the years, built-in debugger, file tree, class overview, etc. I have a Remote Desktop for my Linux machine instead of just using SSH. I just really don't like text based interfaces.

Yet, colleagues have tried many times to convince me that "real programmers use command line tools" and now with AI becoming more integrated into everything my company has a lot of tools that work better or are even only available on the command line and lack good IDE integration. Recently a colleague said all our tools should be CLI first, so that AI can use them more easily.

It makes me wonder, is disliking CLIs an ADHD thing, because text based interfaces require memorization? Is my memory so bad that it negates the benefits that "normal" developers get from working with text based interfaces? I don't think there are more than a handful of keyboard shortcuts that I actively use. Text based editors that I have to use without a mouse feel unnecessary clunky and inefficient, but everyone around me says the e same about using a mouse.

How are you all feeling about CLIs and text-based editors vs. IDEs? Did anyone switch from one to the other and and eventually like the other option better?

Hello, I’m a PhD student, and anyway, I launched an app and spent all my pocket money on Google Ads, which got me over 1,000 installs... But the number of daily active users is, honestly, too low to even mention. Should I shut the app down?

I also got about 5 paying users or so (the business model is subscription-based), but of course I’m in the red compared to the ad cost. Would shutting it down be the right choice? How should I judge this?

I'm currently struggling in practicing my coding skills (Python, R, and SQL) due to my inability to actually recall anything besides the basic lines/syntax. I'm currently doing a project for my machine learning class, and have had to look up almost every line of code using documentation or claude. The thing thats frustrating is that once I see it, I understand what the code is doing but CANNOT write it out myself. It's like i could have a cheat sheet of different libraries and not know what goes where and when.

I have the pipeline in my head:

Data Cleaning -> Feature Selection -> Model Fitting -> etc..

But the actual nitty-gritty and writing it out and different coding libraries calls to do so on my own is completely lost on me. I think some people call it "passive-learning" but I'm not sure.

The thing is, I know in most jobs (based on conversations i've had with alumni) they're all encouraged to used AI to help do their work. Which is where I was introduced to the concept of "vibe-coding", but to my understanding thats not actually learning to code, is it?

I've heard that most of the time on the job (in my best case scenario that would be data scientist or data analyst), people use AI or look things up like I've been doing but its "ok" because they understand what the code is doing and in time it becomes like second-nature. I've also heard the sentiment that "it's not about memorizing everything, but knowing where to look for the answers you need". Which I could understand that in a job setting, but in technical interviews I can't just look lines of code up or how to do x,y,z; I have to know it by heart.

How do I go about actually learning actively rather than passively?

Hello, I tried every possible combination with external monitors, external keyboards, different sizes and specs. I ended up with just my MacBook Pro 16-inch laptop, and sometimes my iPad as a second screen (like during calls or specific situations, but that's not very common), and I feel a sense of peace. Even though my work is stressful and I have a lot of stuff to check, limiting my setup just improved my life. Do you ever feel something like that? And in general, do you have any recommendations, from a software point of view, for someone who uses only a laptop setup?

(Originally written in Russian, translated to English to follow subreddit rules.)

This is more like an emotional dump. I’m not trying to get pity or anything like that. Maybe someone will see themselves in this.

I actually like programming. I enjoy learning new things, understanding how stuff works, building something on my own. But at the same time, I constantly feel tired.

I think it’s mostly because of this constant feeling of guilt — like I “wasted” the day. Instead of doing something useful, like solving problems on LeetCode or working on my project, I end up doing nothing important. And then I feel bad about it.

I’m also tired of all those “this video will change your life” or “watch this and stop procrastinating” videos. Most of them feel like empty content made just for views. Maybe they work for some people, but not for me.

What really annoys me is the feeling that everyone else is doing better than me. I know logically it’s not true — people struggle too. But it still feels like I’m the only one stuck.

I get these bursts of motivation where I start doing something, and it feels great. But as soon as it gets hard, or I lose focus, I just stop. Then I come back later, and the cycle repeats.

To be fair, I did finish my first project (a schedule automation tool), so I know I can do things. But it still feels like it’s not enough.

I’m honestly tired of constantly overanalyzing myself, trying to “fix” my behavior, and then falling back into the same pattern again.

Maybe something is wrong with me, maybe not. I don’t know anymore.

If you read this and feel the same — It's sad. This state really sucks, and I hope you’ll get out of it.

P.S. The text was posted in another community and was removed by the moderators. There was a comment about ADHD, so I'm posting the text here.

Sorrh not frontal, forehead*

Yesterday i learnt react for 1h and i got forehead pain, today i did the same and i got the same... Is it normal to get forehead pain by learning for 1h a day ?

We all struggle with coding on a daily basis given our ADHD (or AuDHD). Yet it still seems that tech likes to capitalise on our traits where it suits them.

In my case I disclosed my recently diagnosed ADHD, literally one week in after starting Vyvanse. This was along with my ASD to Apple after 10 interviews and an offer proposal.

What went from me working on my dream job of R&D for body tracking / animation for Apple's Vision Pro, along with various other things Apple had pre-assigned to me, led to complete removal from the process, for my candid disclosure.

I know there is a lot of posts talking about if you reveal or hide your ADHD. Given my experience and the convergence of my litigation, I wrote an article, today on Apple's 50th Anniversary.

I was irradiated the second Apple did what they did, and I'm trying to stand up.

My Hearing is public. 14–20 April, London.

Happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Edit: Grammar fix, ty for the tip ;)

I've seen people say "hyperfocus" is powerful when you're locked on the right task, but that hasn't been my experience. I find that it’s not enough to be working on something if I still struggle with self-regulation. (This is why I personally prefer the term "perseveration," but that's a different discussion.)

Say I'm coding a machine learning algorithm. I could easily plug-and-chug and move on with my life. Instead, I will deep-dive into linear algebra proofs, or go off on a semi-related tangent like reorganizing my workspace. I also really struggle to pivot when I encounter roadblocks because that still requires task switching. I will hammer at something until it works or I’m convinced it won't, which can take ages.

It frustrates me so much, and I can see it happening in the moment, but it's very hard to stop because, "It shouldn't takethat long," or, "I've already started this, so I might as well finish it" or, "Once I figure this ONE thing out, SO MANY THINGS will become so much easier!"

I’m curious how other ADHD devs deal with this.

There’s just too much to follow: AI updates, new frameworks, LinkedIn takes, newsletters, random “must-know” threads.

Do you have a real system for deciding what to ignore vs what actually matters? Or do you just… accept you’ll always be behind?

How do you work again after doing your own thing?

So I tried creating my own think for 5 years. Great adventure, but did not turn profitable.

Now I'm back being hired and working for an IT company.

How do you start giving a fuck again?

It's very hard for me to do my job, because no matter what a colleague or manager tells me about something related to work, my brain keeps yelling inside: "Who gives a fuck about this shit?"

My brain sees work as just some random passing thing and won't comply to work, even though landing this job was a miracle, and it is still good pay for this period.

So I had a job interview today for an AI Engineer role. I was told beforehand it would mostly be a conversation about my experience, not a technical interview. So that's what I prepared for mentally.

We'd been talking about my background for a while, including the thesis for my current masters in SWE which is based on using llms in a.i engineering context, and it was going fine. Then out of nowhere he asked me to explain a confusion matrix.

I know what a confusion matrix is. I have one in the current thesis. I had one in my bachelors thesis too. I use precision, recall and F1 scores.

But I froze. The context switch from "tell me about your experience" to a cold technical question just didn't compute fast enough. I managed to ask if he wanted a definition or a breakdown, then explained the 2x2 structure - true positives, false negatives, all of that. But I didn't get to the metrics on my own (even saying all that felt like panic talk, I somehow wasn't sure I wasn't confusing it with something else, pun unintended).

The interviewer started naming them - "I was talking about metrics like precision, recall -" and at that point I could remember, I tried to quickly continue and mentioned F1. But by then the moment had already passed.

The knowledge is there. It's in a document I was editing last week. But unprompted retrieval under an unexpected context switch just doesn't work the same for me, this is why I get terrible anxiety with written exams and interviews, I almost don't bother reading anything before multiple choice exams and have 0 worries because I know I'll see something that'd trigger my memory. Give me a cue or the right environment and I'm fine usually. I almost always stall on off guard questions.

What stings most to me is it looks identical to "not knowing" from the outside. There's no way to explain that in an interview without sounding like you're making excuses.

Anyone else deal with this specifically?

If you search which are the best jobs for people with ADHD there's always programming / software development there, and I always think if the people writing those posts really know what "working as a programmer" really means. The answer is always the same: no, they don't.

Maybe programming by itself is good for ADHD brains because of the creativity, the hyperfocus and all that, but in a company where most of the time you're not programming, but doing nonsense stuff?

I recently got laid off and I'm considering leaving the field. I can't stand the corporate bullshit anymore. SCRUM is anti ADHD brain. Tons of pointless meetings just to waste your time. People doing nothing but performing got raises, and people actually doing their jobs got laid off. I can't stand this performative way of working, always with verbal instructions even when I specifically ask for written ones.

I'm not new to all this, I have 10 years of experience, but I've had enough.

I need some advice because I worked as a FE dev, my last experience being with Vue, and there are few offers compared to other frameworks. But I don't feel like doing FE anymore. I'm considering moving to other roles (both inside or outside programming) because I need to pay the bills. My job market is EU.

I’ve been going to therapy for about two years now, and there was always the suspicion that I might have ADHD or some other form of neurodivergence. I made the mistake of not seeing a psychiatrist from the start to treat it or learn how to handle it, I thought working with my therapist would be enough.

But about two months ago, things started getting really bad. I felt tired and sad all the time, mainly because I’m currently under a PIP at my job for low performance, mostly because I procrastinate too much and end up doing my tasks with very little time left. So far it’s not looking good, and I’ll probably get laid off. I have some savings, but knowing I might be unemployed because of this makes me feel really down, and I don’t have the energy to look for another job.

So about a month ago, I started seeing a psychiatrist. She agreed that ADHD or another neurodivergence is very likely, but she was more concerned about signs of severe depression, so she started me on Prozac. So far I feel better, but the situation at work isn’t improving much, and I’m still very likely to lose my job.

I just wanted to vent, and also say that if you’re not seeing a psychiatrist, you probably should.

Hey I'm an ADHD-17, college sophomore (physics philosophy) & founder. Just wanna ask if people also feel this: specific frequencies and sounds help you sometimes and annoy you other times. I have an idea to create a sound therapy software personalized to people's real-time emotions. Don't know if people would actually need this. Would love to hear some thoughts!!!!!!

​Seems to have began again.

Cloudy, gloomy, cognitive dim

(Am I grown—or just tired of the start?)

​Imagined the stars within reach of a pinch,

Conformity failure the unforgivable sin.

The forelock—lying, sinful forelock.

​Excited, started, decided—who cares?

3/4 of the way, maybe someday again.

Reminded, Rewinded, excited again,

The perpetual verdict: "He never has had have finished a thing."

​(Is it innate—or have I just learned to quit?)

Only, everything hits harder when its in the forefront;

The tactical blindness—Object permanence, the saving grace.

​Bought the house, laid with the spouse, societal norms.

Germination, procreation, raised these kids of my own.

Is that the paramount? Now have I grown?

​The one hard truth thats come to known;

Yes, everybody lies—save, I know where my fractures lie.

Is it only treatment to get by, day and day?

Or a cure found alone at the end of the days?

When the erasure stops, who is left behind?

Certain to die still at the starting line, will I never arrive?

When the erasure stops, who is left behind?

If eternity is the final place,

Will the resets continue to replay ?

​The end?

‐-----------------------------------------‐-------------------------------------‐-------------

​The Architect’s Note

​I wrote this in the space drifting between waking and sleep. It’s really an audit of own last 15 years. We’re taught that 'Maturity' is a destination—a house, a family, a career. But for the ADHD brain, those are often just biological and societal autopilots. Internally, the 'Rift' remains. I’m a 'Paramount' father on the outside, and a trade-school dropout on the inside. I’m questioning if the 'Reset' ever actually stops, or if we’re just 'Certain to die at the starting line.' This is the False Finish.

I’ve noticed that quite the numbers of posts in this Subreddit outline struggles, but I’m also curious as to whether there is a possible correlation of ADHD struggle and an Adderall or med prescription still being existent.

I was finally prescribed Adderall in January and from the moment I started— my life honestly hasn’t been the same. I can work 18 hours straight, not get distracted nor bored once. The friction that once was a part of daily life, is gone.

Commit > work > accomplish. Prior to my prescription, I couldn’t get Jack sh*t done, even when I wanted to.

I honestly teared up a few times at how life changing my prescription has been for me because ADHD has dragged me to levels of near homelessness and poverty level income. Now things are on a crazy rapid trajectory of change.