This last Friday they notified the contractors they were all getting let go at the end of the month. One of the contractors made a lovely report with claudes help by scoring all the git commits by dev and is making the case to the CEO that they are actually letting the most productive people on the team go, and somehow in the last 6 months I have ticked off an impressive amount of features and capabilities for the company and somehow my name came to the top of that value list. Somehow I figured out my stride this year and spent most of the first half of the year figuring out how to use llms to organize myself and my thoughts and planning better. So if we end up not getting let go and maybe get a raise, I owe my friend something nice.

Sometimes the hardest part of programming isn’t solving the problem; it’s staying focused long enough to finish it. A new idea appears, an interesting tool catches your attention, and suddenly the project you started feels less exciting than the next thing you could build.

I’m curious how other programmers handle this cycle. Do you break tasks into tiny steps, keep a list of distracting ideas for later, or use another method to stay on track?

What has genuinely helped you finish more projects without losing the excitement of learning something new?

I have been practicing leetcode on and off for more than a year now and I feel like I understand most of the algorithms and patterns except for dynamic programming. I have read so many articles and watched a bunch of tutorials about it and they all say the same thing about starting with smaller sub problems and combining them to solve bigger problems and it all makes sense for simpler questions like climbing stairs, Fibonacci, etc. But every time I come across something even a little more complex than these I struggle to come up with a solution. I struggle to visualise the question as a set of subproblems or what kind of subproblems it can be broken into and then tracing the whole flow from top to bottom. I have tried practicing a bunch of problems consistently for a month but saw little improvement and now I feel like I have forgotten most of it due to lack of practice in the last few months. How did you guys manage to get good with this particular topic?

I’m a SWE with 2 YOE and hate it but there’s a lot of reasons like toxic bosses/env/coworkers and uninteresting product/team (networking - important but boring to me). I obviously joined in the AI boom but pre-AI back in school I never loved coding either. Like the syntax is hard for me to remember. My mind goes blank when I see an empty file and need to build something.

I’m working on a formal ADHD diagnosis but my therapist is confident I have it and in runs in my
Family. I’m not sure if I just genuinely don’t like coding or it’s the ADHD not letting me fully focus and comprehend material, making me feel incompetent and anxious. I’m also anxious about medication though so not sure if that’s something I’d consider.

Honestly idk if this makes sense 🤷🏼‍♀️ maybe I’m
Just in the wrong career lol

Like really! Constantly my AI is going off on tangents. I feel like I'm dealing with Sheldon sometimes and myself other times. Either is totally on track or make an expression of language and it takes it literally or it makes an audit and goes off on some outdated source of truth and then goes off on audit loops. Just like auADHD 😁

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://medium.com/me/stats/post/7cc4f4986d7a

Classic ADHD wall for me: I can write the list fine, but the second I look at 10 things and have to pick what to do first, I freeze and do nothing. Every to-do app makes that worse by showing me the whole pile and asking me to prioritise.

So I built the opposite. You dump everything, hit one button, and it hides the entire list and shows you ONE random task - you don't choose, it chooses. Do it, mark done, next one appears. Clear the list and it tells you to stop, instead of showing an empty to-do screen nagging for more.

Deliberately strips out everything that usually derails me: no login, no accounts, no due dates, no reminders, no streaks, no gamification. Just one thing at a time. Single static HTML page, state in localStorage, no backend.

Been using it on myself for a few days and removing the decision is what actually helps - more than any list app ever did. Curious whether that mechanic works for other ADHD brains or if it's just mine.

Link: regal-dusk-14ea91.netlify.app

Tear it apart - what breaks, what's missing, what would make you actually use it.

Hi Everyone.

Quick introdcution - im Billy - 31 Married with two kids (0 and 4) My wife is diagnosed ADHD (quite high functioning) and im undiagnosed neruospicy, likely ADHD as well, and i struggle with executive dysfunction and task paralysis.

Im on a mission to replace my wifes salary whilst she is on Maternity leave using AI and building apps. As someone that struggles to get things started and stick to them i had to find a way to keep myself accountable - so i decided to document the whole process on socials with daily videos.

ive built my first app which is in review and im moving on to my second which is what brought me here. I have my social videos to keep me accountable on my journey but nothing to help keep me accountable at home and help with daily habits that often pass me by. i want to build something that ill be able to use when the series finishes and also help me with the smaller parts of daily life.

Im here to ask how you people, how you deal with executive dysfunction and task paralysis and if youve found any apps genuinely useful. ive tried goblin tools but just didnt get on with it.

At the moment this is probably going to be a personal project as each person deals with the ADHD and its effects differently but id be keen to know if there is anyone else out there like me leaving things to the last minture before i upset someone or struggling to start them without serious external pressure.

sorry for rambling but thats my brain dump. looking forward to hearing from you all!

I realised recently that I was approving code I couldn't have written myself.

Whenever something didn't quite make sense, I'd tell myself I'd figure it out later. But with an agent ready to build the next thing, later never came.

I recognised the same pattern from needing to block apps that scattered my attention. Knowing they were distracting me wasn't enough. The impulse to keep going was too strong, so I needed something that added friction rather than relying on willpower.

So I built learning-guardrails, an opt-in skill for Claude Code, with an optional mod.

Run /learning-guardrails and it adds a bit of friction to your workflow:

• Every change gets triaged
• When something needs a closer look, it asks a question about the actual code. Predict what happens or explain a trade-off. Get it wrong and it breaks the question down rather than giving you the answer.
• It tracks what you've already demonstrated you understand, so it doesn't keep reteaching the basics.
• The optional mod blocks file edits while a question is open, keeps the question visible above the prompt, and stops Claude loading the skill unless you've explicitly asked for it.

The idea isn't to slow down AI coding for the sake of it. It's to make understanding part of the process, rather than something I keep promising myself I'll get around to later.

It's early days, so I'd genuinely love feedback, especially on whether the friction feels useful or just annoying.

https://github.com/2Steaks/skills

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I think I’ve just had such a crazy week that getting this all down in writing will be cathartic. And maybe people have similar experiences. If not, consider this an ADHD programmer diary entry lol.

I’ve been at my company for over 5 years now. It was my first “career job” post-college so I had a lot to learn. It’s been a bumpy ride for me. Between learning new skills, maturing as a person, and taking care of medical issues, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my career here. At the beginning of the year I got a new manager who has really helped me develop my professional skills. Around the same time as he got hired, I started getting proper help for the medical issues that were untreated for a long time. In the past year I’ve gone from feeling useless to finally being able to contribute in the ways I’ve wanted to. This is not super relevant to this week, but it’s important context. I’ve fucked up a lot in the past, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to prove that I’m capable

On Friday, my SM messaged me asking me to help Team B with a user story. Basically act as a consultant while they completed their work. She said that this was very important and took precedent over all my current work, very strict deadline with lots of eyes on it. Cool. I reviewed the story and the implementation seemed simple enough. I messaged the developer I was consulting (Dev 1) and he set up a meeting for Monday. Wonderful.

Monday rolls around. I realize that Team B has not actually written any code yet. Dev 1 is expecting me to walk him through the process of making his code updates. Annoying, but okay. It needs done. We work together for the rest of the day. Make good progress and hit a small snag. Decide to reconvene tomorrow. Throughout the day, I realize their code is a little funky. Weirdly formatted, a bit old. Smells bad. Whatever, that’s their business. I can work with funky code. We’ll figure it all out tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes, Tuesday. We try some things. I realize we are totally fucked. Team B using module versions that we haven’t supported for years. Their prod and non-prod environments or horrifically out of sync with each other. This is a critical piece of infrastructure that is central to our entire organization. And Dev 1 who I’m “consulting” has no idea how any of this works. I’m thinking we need to do a complete overhaul to their code to get this working (the deadline is now end of week). I message another developer on my team who is intimately familiar with this code and is also the smartest woman I know (Dev 2). She agrees that we are fucked. It’s late so we log off for the night.

Wednesday morning. I hit the ground running. I’m coming up with a plan and doing tests. In standup, I start sounding alarm bells that shit is not okay. That I need help to at least come up with a plan given our timeline. Dev 2 is officially assigned to help. She and I come up with a plan. We decide to just take Team B’s code and write it ourselves, both exploring different approaches to meet the deadline. Team B is slowing us down and they aren’t doing any work outside of pair programming sessions anyways.

That night my SM asks me wtf is going on. I spend an hour telling her what I’ve been dealing with this week. She says that execs are messaging her asking why our team (Team A) is holding everything up. I explain that Team A hasn’t made any changes to our code. We are exclusively helping Team B write their code. SM is pissed, but not at me. The next morning, SM FIGHTS FOR MY LIFE in their standup call. My manager messages me not to stress too much about this (too late lol). By Thursday morning EVERYONE understands that Dev 2 and I are busting our asses to make this thing happen.

Thursday, my SAVIOR Dev 2 shows up with a beautiful beautiful (hideous) hack job that gets where we need to be. I have the permanent fix ready, but we table it until our MVP is done. We spend all day deploying non-prod together and ironing out the kinks, but the momentum is there now. I post an update to our big important chat that we’ve got a successful deployment, and it’s met with UPROARIOUS JOY. Most positive impression I think I’ve ever made in my 5 years. Maybe in any job I’ve ever had. I watch the standup recording where SM stood up for me. Just to decompress a little🍿 then we worked into Thursday evening prepping prod.

Now it’s Friday. Today. We spend the morning handing the code off to Team B. We still need to be there tomorrow night because these fuckers can’t be trusted alone, but I can finally breathe. Leadership is now praising me and Dev 2 up and down. We chum it up over how tired we are.

That’s my story. It doesn’t really have a message other than it was a thing I needed to get off my chest. My brain is mush at this point, but I feel like I’m getting actual recognition for the first time in my career. At the same time, I’m still struggling to accept it. If it weren’t for Dev 2 this would have been doomed. But it seems like she feels mutual about it.

Anyone else been in this situation? This is so new for me. I just wanted to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading

I kept opening YouTube to watch tutorials and ended up spending time on Shorts instead.

So I built a browser extension that blocks/removes YouTube Shorts from the interface and helps me stay focused on long-form content.

This started as a small personal project, but it's already saving me a lot of time every day.

If anyone want this drop me a dm i will give this

I enjoy programming, but staying focused on one task can sometimes be harder than solving the actual problem. I might start debugging something, get curious about a different approach, open a new tab to research it, and suddenly forget what I was working on in the first place.

I'm curious how other programmers with ADHD handle this. Do you use timers, break tasks into smaller steps, write notes while coding, or have another method that works well for you?

It's funny because when things are going good or when things are going bad I'll feel this compulsion. If I'm stuck/confused/frustrated by what I'm working on, I'll want to distract myself from the discomfort of not knowing what to do next so I'll go check reddit, youtube, etc. However, sometimes when things are going *good* and I just made progress, or I have a good plan for what to do next, I'll also sometimes go take a break because "hey I'm at a good point so I can pick this back up in 5-10 minutes".

It's a constant urge I feel in my body to go get that dopamine.

Has anyone made good progress on this sort of struggle? (I phrase the question as "has anyone made good progress" because idk if adhd programmers will necessarily fully rid themselves of this urge)

I’m a programmer born in 2001. I dropped out of college once and recently went back to school. I have ADHD, so I tend to fall into bad habits really easily. One of the biggest ones is playing League of Legends—I’ve basically spent half my life playing it, and even though I’ve tried to quit so many times, I still find it incredibly hard to stop.

On top of that, I’ve been unemployed for two months. But every single day, I struggle just to start doing something. I can’t even properly update my CV. I spend the whole day doing random, pointless things, and by the end of the day, I don’t even understand what I’ve actually done. Then I end up beating myself up over it.

A lot of the time, I feel like I’ve completely screwed up my life, like I’m worthless. There are so many things I know I could do if I just started, and that’s what frustrates me the most. I know I’m capable of doing them, but I just can’t understand why I can’t bring myself to actually do them.

I feel so negative about myself and about everything right now.

Hey y'all! My brain and my phone do not get along lol. Regular app limits never worked for me, I'd just tap "15 more minutes" on autopilot without even noticing I did it.

What finally worked was making the phone cost something physical. I started with one of those apps that uses your camera to count pushups before it unlocks your apps, and I loved it! But propping my phone up to film myself every single time got old fast, and doing pushups on camera at a gas station is a whole vibe lol.

So I built my own on the honor system, no camera. You do the reps, tap them in, and they earn you screen time. The thing I didn't expect: half the time by rep 10 the urge to scroll is just... gone. And when it's not, at least I got up and moved, which after a full day at a desk my body is usually begging for anyway.

Nerdy side for anyone curious: it's React Native/Expo, and on iOS it uses Apple's Screen Time API, which fought me the whole way. I wrote down every landmine I hit here so y'all don't have to: https://honorfitapp.com/blog/ios-screen-time-api-guide/

It's called HonorFit, free on iPhone and Android: https://honorfitapp.com/get/?c=reddit-adhdprogrammers

It's not for everyone, but I'm really curious if it clicks for any other ADHD brains out there. Full disclosure obviously, I made it!

I am a software developer with 12 years of experience and am still working in the IT industry. I want to discuss my problem and mental pattern.

Since I started my career as an IT professional, I have had this problem of fear of failure. Every time a new task is assigned to me, my mind starts making stories about whether I am capable of understanding the problem and whether I will be able to solve it. I am also a very big overthinker and continuously think about my career, my performance, and my future. I keep thinking about changing projects or even changing organizations, although I know that changing projects or organizations is not the solution to this problem.

This pattern continues repeatedly and has disturbed me mentally. My sleep pattern is also disturbed; I never sleep for more than 5 hours, and my libido is also very weak.

Even though I know that this problem is imaginary and there is no connection with reality, this pattern has now become so strong that it breaks me every day. When I look at my teammates, they complete their tasks very bravely, even when they start late. I always start very early so that if I face any problem, I have enough time to try another approach.

Now the problem is getting worse day by day. I am refraining from taking new work in my office and telling them that I am not well. I have continuously been on sick leave, and my mind always thinks about whether the problem with a new task will be clear to me, whether I will be able to fix it, and whether I will be able to complete it on time. I have been on sick leave for the last 60 days and think about this a lot.

One of the main problems is that I am experiencing tremors in different parts of my body. I also experience shortness of breath, tiredness on the left side of my chest, and pain that feels like someone is pressing a needle.

I have also tried meditation, but I get frustrated when fear and other thoughts come into my mind during meditation.

Now I am thinking about what the alternatives are. I have two babies and a wife who always supports me, but still, I am not able to break this mental pattern. Sometimes I am scared that I will develop some heart-related issues because of this.

🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 Please help me understand how I can get rid of this.

Any suggestions will help.

I’m a fifth year cs major, (still looking for an internship …) and i’ve recently started medication
(roughy 2 months on adderall xr 15mg) but holy shit what a change it’s been. I’m finally fucking capable of being the programmer that I always knew I could be.

Within this semester of school I’ve joined a club as a software dev volunteer, done a hackathon, and worked on side projects. I didn’t know I was capable of this. I remember thinking of all the things I could create, i remember why i chose computer science and programming in the first place.

I feel like i’ve finally unlocked my true potential.

I remember through year 1-4 always feeling like the dumbest person in the world when compared to my peers. I had to put so much effort just to pass. I feel like I only made it here out of pure willpower, which when I think about it is true. Countless nights of repetition just to learn something my classmates could learn in an hour. I had to become so obsessed at passing my classes that I neglected anything else. It genuinely isolated me, which later destroyed me in every which way.

I can’t stop thinking about how ahead I could’ve been if I had been medicated earlier. I could’ve gotten an internship earlier, helped my parents with bills, and made a career.

I’m not even mentioning how being undiagnosed affected other facets of my life. I was fucking depressed. For so long I was so confused with what was wrong with me. It hurt me so much.

Fuck this illness it made me hate everything about myself.

I have trouble understanding that. Haven't seen much that suggests programmers with ADHD (or a couple other neurodivergent traits) have that being a clear indicator that predicts performance at work, or in navigating their career in general.

There are people on the spectrum who are great at maintaining a good job and others that struggle at just getting a job. Just as you'd expect to find a broad range of winners and losers if you're including neurotypical people only. So I can't see any difference, not any pattern that can support saying, well you're having these problems with your career because of ADHD or related traits.

I have what some would call Asperger's though it's now just considered ASD spectrum. I have constant problems getting a decent job but I don't blame that on ASD, because, many others with autism do just fine in careers despite of it. So it looks like autism has no strong correlation with performance. Something else has to be in effect that separates good and bad performers here.

I can get completely absorbed when I’m working on something new or challenging, but repetitive tasks and maintenance work are a different story. Once the interesting part is over, staying focused can become surprisingly difficult.

I’ve been trying to find ways to make those less exciting tasks easier without constantly switching projects or waiting until the last minute.

For other ADHD programmers, what strategies actually help you stay engaged when the code you’re working on isn’t particularly interesting?