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Ask HN: How do ADHD people cope on here?
342 points by WhackyIdeas on Jan 23, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 319 comments
I love HN. I check it out basically for hours every day, for the past 5 years or so.

But, HN is utter hell too… it’s worse than my addiction to The Guardian.

I see so many topics I’m interested in, so many cool projects, so I bookmark them. Then I see more and bookmark them too. There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. It’s a severely frustrating and depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and disappointment.

But I’m totally addicted because there’s just so much new.

Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook about HN?




> There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

One of the key features of ADHD is a never-ending list of things to do. Edward M. Hallowell (who wrote "Driven to Distraction") remarks that perhaps it is the most characteristic feature of ADHD.

Previously, browser crashes saved my sanity— killing dozens of open tabs with fascinating articles.

Now I try to let it go. In a Zen/stoic way, knowing that nothing will happen if I don't read something. This list is an illusion, as there are orders of magnitude more exciting stuff on the Internet.

Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I add to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT with the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find it again, I know where it is". So I have a cake and eat it too - no "wall of links of shame", and no anxiety that I might have lost a life-changing link.


I've found asking myself "why am I doing what I'm doing" helps - I stop midway in comments and delete them because I realize there's nothing to gain for myself or others. Helps me with overeating as well, am I doing this because I'm hungry or bored? It doesn't have to be a classicly productive answer "it's fun" is clearly a good reason, but a nudge towards positive actions helps me personally.

I understand some will find this hard though, and am not suggesting it's a fix if you have ADHD.


Thanks for pushing through on this comment - have the same loop too, almost deleted this one… cheers and good luck out there


"why am I doing what I'm doing" - this! As someone struggling myself, asking this question often helps


I created a username "someoneiswrongontheinternet" to remind myself of this very thing: https://xkcd.com/386/


Yeah, this is definitely how I ended up dealing with it too. I just replaced my computer as the motherboard failed and hadn't setup sync on chrome. I have 1000s of links I no longer have access to and haven't missed them once in 3 months.

File and forget is incredibly effective when you have ADHD. There are just too many things that are "interesting" that you'll never have time to do anything about.

Just write it down (or an equivalent) so your brain can stop worrying about it. You'll find in a few weeks time the things that didn't actually matter are gone.

When I was having anxiety problems it was also an extremely effective way of getting out of the circular thinking loop. Write down all your worries on a new tab in Notepad++. All the worries stopped circulating. When I might occasionally look at that tab in a month or two's time. usually I didn't even care about any of those things anymore. Even though they'd all been thought obsessing distractions a couple of months earlier.

And lists, lists, lists. I'm at my most happiest when every day I create a short-ish to-do list for work and a list for home and throw it away at the start of the next day. I try and keep it below 7-8 things, in reality I often get 3-5 done. I fall out of the habit fairly frequently, and that's often when I start feeling overwhelmed.

Plus exercise, exercise, exercise. If I haven't exercised for more than about 5 days, I start becoming a right asshole who gets anxious about the most ridiculous things.


stores this thread on three different devices for later reading because it's interesting but there are more important things to do before getting there


painfully relatable


> You'll find in a few weeks time the things that didn't actually matter are gone.

What gets me mad sometimes is that when I work on something and hit a road block, then I remember I found an article about it a year or so ago and I definitely saved it. I just have no idea how to find it.

I have not looked, but I wonder if there is an indexing tool that would also do an OCR on screenshots, PDFs etc. in the local filesystem and then had some advanced querying.


I run a script daily that fetches my chrome history and creates a daily web log file in my Obsidian.

Daily, all links are fetched (as part of a larger web search product I'm working on). I can search this, but mostly i don't bother.

I will soon add semantic search and see if there's any magic to be found in my data exhaust.

Truth is I'm forced to spend my days googling dull problems and reading vaguely interesting articles.

No deep work for me at the moment


Don’t suppose you have the script in a shareable form? That sounds pretty useful!


https://gist.github.com/crucialfelix/e53eb81ab07db618e36afb0...

  # summarize yesterday
  python summarize_day.py
  # summarize a day (3 month chrome history limit)
  python summarize_day.py --date 2023-01-12
  # summarize the last 90 days
  python summarize_day.py --days 90


Yes! Search is an incredibly important tool.

I have recently started using Zotero, which can create offline copies of saved webpages and papers. You can then search their contents.

Last week I bookmarked Yacy, which is a search engine and which seems to allow you to define your own web index. However, I haven't gotten around to seeing how it really works...


I rely heavily on an Apple Shortcut that I made which saves an offline copy of a webpage (just the text and images) and stashes it in Notes. Great for refreshing myself on a topic I read about months ago but hasn't become relevant until the current moment.


Now I try to let it go

That's really the essence of what there is to it, in my opinion and experience at least. But: I only could start doing that when I was in my thirties. Before that my brain just wasn't up for it. Whereas when I now think about many of the things I did back then, especially the clinging to objects/bookmarks, I can fully see how useless and even ridiculous they were. Life is really better when you can just stop caring. Though it is also pretty hard to do. I know still sometimes feel pain about things I intentionally got rid of even though I know if I'd have them I would not actually use them. Goes to show the kind of tricks a brain can play.


> My brain just wasn’t up for it

could be an ADHD-anonymous meeting slogan. I can definitely commiserate with this notion.


I'll second this. Zen and stoicism saved my sanity towards the end of the 2010s and through the pandemic.

For me it's not so much about the infinite list, because I've always had many thousands of tabs open and surf so much that there's no way I could ever bookmark everything (since the mid-90s).

It's actually about the opportunity cost of distraction and finally work itself. Beyond a certain level of experience and mastery (perhaps 10 years), no job has enough variety to satisfy the ADHD mind. We all become Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad: manning a parking booth that could be fully automated while we secretly plot ways to escape and "get real work done". Which is the central theme of movies like The Matrix.

The only thing that finally brought me out of burnout back to living was to realize that life is both a pointless game and the most sacred thing there is. Meaning that once I turned off my inner monologue completely and finally just observed, I found gratitude for all of creation through non-attachment.

Applied to HN specifically, it might help to step back from the rational and look at it holistically. You and I might be missing out, but the whole world is learning and growing together. We're part of a higher consciousness now, a virtual mind overlaid on us that will transcend us before 20 years is out and we enter the New Age. These are the memoirs of Gaia (insert deity of choice here).


> Previously, browser crashes saved my sanity— killing dozens of open tabs with fascinating articles.

Laughed so hard reading that. I should one day write the browser self destruct count down extension. Crashes as a service You can delay the shut down by describing what you think you are doing. This makes for a wonderful journal worth of stupid most embarrassing shit mixed with lies. Remember to use a strong password.


I've been using the new ARC browser. It erases your "temporary" tabs after a preset time with no activity. It "archives" the tabs and they're very easy to find if you need them again.

I currently have it set to 24 hours. It has been game changing for me.


When I no longer see any titles on my tabs, I just close my eyes and hit CTRL+W for a bit, then open and see what I am left with. If there is still to much, I repeat until I am left with just a few tabs. It's painful, but after 30 seconds I forget I did that.


Now I try to let it go. In a Zen/stoic way, knowing that nothing will happen if I don't read something.

Wha?!

I download every movie and book I can. The more rare the better. I know, deep in my heart, they must be saved from dead torrent links.

Even deeper nestled in the depths of my endlessly deep heart, I know that if there is a disaster, that government agency which tracks all, knows this, and I am on a list.

A list to be saved!

"Grab that guy and his raids", and so on. If nuclear war happens, save the leaders, the scientists, and that damned geek.

Sure, they could break that triple ciphered encryption, even with the custom callback to a helmet + a reading of my tranquil brainwaves, but why risk a bazillion hours of video, text, and OSS source code on that?

Instead, snag me and my stuff they will, plague, zombies, war, etc.

But if I stop collecting, if I stop organizing!? I hear the conversation.

"Who's on the media snag list", but as my name is to be spoken, "Oh.. he stopped downloading" and No!, I am left to burn and die.

How do you stand it?


Ah a fellow archiver - don't listen to them! We must preserve at all costs!

I wish you abundant storage redundancy.


Keep fighting the good fight my man!


I wrote a simple browser extension that has an option to save all option tabs to a file. Every once in a while, when my computer is suffering and I feel a weight, I save the tabs and close them all, and start again.

I literally feel a weight lift off my shoulders when I do this. It's become a joyous event. Though it only takes a few weeks before I have to do it again, it's ok.

I can look up closed tabs in the files, though I've rarely needed to do that.

One day, when I have a bit of time, and a kind soul on HN suggests a docker repo to me that provides a good endpoint for relating/clustering documents, I can put together a way to navigate all these tabs that over time were considered important to me.

Sure, there are websites that do this, but this way, I don't have to worry about being profiled, sites going down, etc.


Can't edit any more, but I meant "all open tabs."


> Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I add to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT with the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find it again, I know where it is".

I can really vouch for this approach, at least for the never-ending list of things I want to do.

I should disclaimer this by stating that I have been diagnosed with ADHD but people around me and myself have been doubting it since. (My doctor has also questioned their judgement on many occations but hasn't backpedaled just yet). What I'm trying to say is YMMV.

On Android, a simple app which helps me tons is Linkbox (find it in F-Droid), its basically a fancy database (+ search) with 3 attributes: Name, URL and Category. I wish it had more attention as I really love it and I find that, even if I don't completely read an item (or even just completely blindly), I add it to the app and its there forever. I've actually come back to ideas on many occasions and never felt that feeling of regret, if anything its actually empowered me!


> "write it down"

Writing a summary of whatever I read helps a lot. It's handy to reference it later, it's more searchable, and connecting with whatever I read/watched makes it easier to put it down for now. It's especially useful if I do it while I'm reading/watching, because it helps to focus. Duh :)


I add it to the Chrome reading list. That satisfies me enough to close the tab. Next time I have some free time I just pick a random article from the list and read it. A lot of the time I'm no longer excited about it anyway.


Not only have I experienced this crash phenomenon in browser form like you, I also experienced it in life form! I unexpectedly became a dad, which was a chaotic enough “moment” that I lost track of everything. I was not prepared for this. All my lists and systems came “crashing” down and I found myself at first lost… then free.

I deliberately saved myself using the baby as a “mental excuse” to be ok with “clearing my list” completely. I then put therapy at the top of my new list.

Now I have a much more solid handle on my ADHD (which is important when you have a kiddo).


I second the recommendation for Pinboard. I rarely ever revisit bookmarked pages (and don’t expect to), but every once in a while this pays off big time.

I can also highly recommend a clipboard manager (I use Paste with a high history limit), which is kinda like a second short term memory. The most profound effect this has for me is lowered stress. Once I‘ve committed something to the clipboard, I know that I‘ll be able to recover it. I think that it also makes me more productive.


Several other people mentioned the "file away" open tabs approach (but not necessarily try to go back to them). I'm a big fan of the One Tab extension for this: https://www.one-tab.com/ for this task. I have it in both my browsers FF (personal) and Chrome (work), and I have history of interesting stuff from HN from years back. I don't plan on ever going back to all those links, but it helps to save them to avoid FOMO.

I also have a script[1] for cleaning up my Desktop (which gets filled by various files I download). It puts all the contents into a date-named folder, in subfolders based on file extension.

[1] https://gist.github.com/ivanistheone/9daa23ae2a7abb472cb2


Agree with everything here. I was liberated when I started to meditate, and even having concentration levels of just 5 seconds was a true revelation.

Also the write it down is so amazing. In meetings and while doing research I keep notes and lists for days, that I may never return to. But it’s active listening and studying even at a (seemingly) slow pace that keeps me going.


This comment resonates with me. I've been working on accepting the idea that I'll never do all the things I want to, and that's a good thing.

If you, dear reader, have ADHD that presents like mine does, try to find peace in that you'll never ever be bored. Nah, we'll never see all of these wonderful ideas to completion, but the ones that stick are the most important anyways.


> Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I add to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT with the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find it again, I know where it is". So I have a cake and eat it too - no "wall of links of shame", and no anxiety that I might have lost a life-changing link.

That's what I do too and it works well. I've changed the system I use to track the content (currently I'm storing interesting things I may want to read later in Zotero, and some also in Safari's Reading List).

What I like about this is that I can save something for later even if, despite finding it interesting, I either don't have the time or the mental energy to read it now, and also that I have a nearly-endless list of things to go through if I'm ever bored, stuck, etc.


+1 on a bookmarking system you can trust.

A few years ago I wrote a simple bookmarking service for personal use, and I don't know if it's the (barebone) tagging system, or the fact that it's not bound to a particular device or account, but since then the HN-induced FOMO I have when there is an interesting article or discussion is dispelled the moment I save it using that particular service.

It doesn't of course have to be self-made or even self-hosted, but your bookmarking service just need to be trustworthy enough (as in, you know you'll be able to quickly find an article again in the future, even on another device) for the stress-relieving magic to actually happen.

(Disclaimer: I only suspect I have ADHD, I don't have a formal diagnostic)


Currently, and for some time now, if your browser crashes, just open it back up and hit ctrl-shift-t (may differ between os and browser) - it will bring back all of the old urls (not the state, but the urls at least). Works for firefox and chromishs browsers.


For me:

(1) Recognize that if I'm struggling to focus, I'm probably either (a) not interested in what I'm doing or (b) have too much on my plate.

(2) If I'm struggling to focus day after day, find something else to do.

(3) If I have too much on my plate, insist that my employer lighten the load or, once again, find something else to do.

It's not easy. Taken to its logical conclusion, I'm suggesting quitting jobs that aren't interesting or demand too much multitasking in favour of those that are mostly interesting and allow you to do one thing at a time.

That's sooooo much easier said than done.

But for me, it's the only thing that works. Yes, I meditate, keep studious notes and lists, make use of project management software, take my medication... and all of that definitely helps. But it's not enough. I've found there's no solution to getting me to be productive in a job I hate, am not interested in, or demands too much and sets me up for failure. There's not enough medication or self-help in the world for that.

How much time I spend on HN is a great barometer for it. If I find myself struggling to stay off HN and do the task in front of me, I have to first look at myself and see if I'm doing all the things I know that help. And if those things aren't enough, then I know the problem is the job. And jobs don't change. Only people do.

So if your job sucks, find a new one as soon as possible. That's what I usually do, anyway.


>allow you to do one thing at a time

Yep, this is why I chose truck driving as a job. I am looking to change out of it now after 12 years, but there's no short list of 'one thing at a time'jobs, and the ADHD has prevented me from learning programming so far.

Regarding OP's question, when the tab counter on Firefox turns to infinity, I check the last ten tabs for anything really important, then take a deep breath and 'Close All Tabs'


May I interest you the most potent dopamine kick for us with adhd?

Build it, run it.

For iOS development, that means rubbing the ink off of Cmd+R, Python in PyCharm is Ctrl+R, bash is uparrow+enter…

The feeling of extreme frustration when things don’t compile and run, met quickly behind a rush of “hell yeah!” dopamine when things work - is an adhd brain’s white powder.

However, keep in mind that over time, business success will mean not finding the next thing to battle with or to learn - it will be implementing what you know quickly towards a customer aim. There’s a pit of despair if one doesn’t keep an eye out for that.


Can confirm.

I was the typical “well-functioning, kinda smart” ADHD-kid, who got trash grades, to many of my peers surprise.

I was too busy tinkering with electronic music production, which I guess has a similar profile to coding, in regards to instant feedback dopamine hits.

Then I got into javascript at some point.

Last year I actively chose to go back to school to study web development. Top grades now and I am super excited to go to school every day.

Highly recommendable.


I've never more clearly understood why I love lisp.


Can you elaborate on this: "ADHD has prevented me from learning programming"?


I don't have an ADHD diagnosis, but I have some suspicions.

I find I want to be doing things. Those things must be immediately (or very quickly at least) and consistently rewarding, or I'll stop. That much is, as far as I've found in the last few decades, an unchangeable fact.

That pretty much rules out studying.

You can learn by doing things too, obviously, but the early stages of learning programming are either sensible small steps (hello world, what's a function, etc etc) or gigantic unrealistic moon-of-an-exoplanet-shot projects (I'm going to build the next World of Warcraft by myself by next weekend).

The sensible small steps are exciting and give the doing things successfully rush at first, but that goes away fast and you need more.

You do hello world (wow I made the computer do something!). Learn how to use some conditions (wow I made the computer decide something!). Learn about libraries (wow so I can just stitch a bunch of these together and build the next Big App!). Start working on your big idea, quickly realise you're not going to be getting the success hits fast enough. Do something else "for a bit" and never touch your project again.

I'm fairly sure the only reason I managed to learn to code was that my first job in tech support was both easy and boring, and automating parts of that job was more fun than actually doing the job. Productive things become much easier when they're procrastination from something less fun.

It's taken me ten years, but I'm finally at the point now where I've built up a big enough skillset that I can take on projects that I'm interested in, and make progress fast enough that I get my fix and can stick with them.


Yep, pretty much all of this.

There is also the part where the machine I sit down at to attempt to learn programming also happens to be the same machine where I do banking, budgeting, YouTube, Reddit, HN, porn, gaming, socialising, falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes etc. etc.

There are lots of distractions for the distractable mind.

>Productive things become much easier when they're procrastination from something less fun.

QFT.


Yeah... I thought ADHD is a almost a requirement for programmers.


I feel there are 2 main types: ADHD and the other type that we need to respect and be kind to. I suppose there is a gamut of sub-types in-between. Come and enter the "realm" of developers!


I thought that icon up there in the top right just said 99, never questioned why...


I'm convinced that multi-tasking leads to brain damage over time.


Kinda like WFH, this varies a lot from people to people. Well, I don't know about the damage part, but definitely, for some of us, intense multitasking leads to cognitive decline (it was reversed for me hence why I said "I don't know about the damage part")

I spent a few years working on a Support team, at least a couple of those years managing that team, and part of my job involved being interruptible with a very short response time, on several different channels (I mean email, IM, phone, etc.)

I liked that job as I met great people and learned a lot, but the moment I was able to shift into a more focused position (within the same company) I felt a great relief, an improvement in my quality of life, and a recovery of my cognitive skills. At that same company, I had (had because I no longer work there, we're still friends of course) a great friend, someone whom I know since we were 16 (We're 44 now), and he's the exact opposite and took the opposite path: He started off doing dev work, focusing on just a few tasks at a time, but it didn't work for him (even though he was amazing at his job) and ended up loving working as a support engineer. He thrives in an environment where he gets interrupted multiple times per hour (!!) during his work day, with no impact at all on his cognitive skills. In fact, not only is he a great problem solver, while dealing with multiple problems in parallel (and the interruptions include having to jump on a screen-sharing session without warning, something I can't tell you how much I feared and despised when I had to do that job!), he can tell you by heart the numbers of all the tickets he's working on, including their description and context. And I don't mean while working, I mean over beers at a meetup ...

The one thing we both agree on is that we love WFH and would never, ever go back to an office (he's been WFH pretty much all his life, while I've been doing that for 15 years now). And just as that is the case for us, I also know personally people who don't like WFH and need to go to an office every day in order to be productive and to feel a human connection with their coworkers.


Is your friend in support engineering truly being interrupted however? I think it has a lot to do with stack depth. Working on task A, then being interrupted to work on task B only to be interrupted again to work on task C is the source of brain damage - particularly for those who care about being productive.


Yeah, he's working in an intense context-switching environment. Also, since he's a very senior team member he gets interrupted frequently for escalations or just for short help requests.

The context-switching is what killed me when I did that, and he actually does enjoy it, as crazy as it sounds!


Well, I guess it is a good thing that there is more than one type of brain out there!


"The cost of an interruption is not just the time it takes, but that it breaks the time on either side in half. You probably only have to interrupt someone a couple times a day before they're unable to work on hard problems at all." -- PG


I (of course) think of it like multi-tasking in a computer. The machine needs to capture the context (stack and registers) associated with one task in order to switch to another. However, for a human this context can be enormous. Depending on the task, it is possible that one will never get back to the state of understanding that they had at an earlier point if working on a particularly complex thing - just the right combination of caffeine, sleep, motivation (more accurately gumption if you have read ZAMM), etc.


The ZAMM reference is spot on to me. The moment I used to get an interruption (typically an incoming call, but not only that), what happened to me was just what Pirsig describe of the gumption leaving you like air from a baloon, psssst.

I eventually got into 'the zone' and I was actually quite good at figuring out problems with little context, but my gumption was gone nevertheless, and I was useless for whatever thing I was working on before the interruption for mostly the rest of the day.


Yes, I think it is the most important software engineering book by far.


information overload is real for sure, but if you can strike that balance between being educated/informed, and also disconnecting/meditating/etc., then it's net-positive.

prioritization and setting time limits/routines/schedules is key here imo.


> I've found there's no solution to getting me to be productive in a job I hate, am not interested in, or demands too much and sets me up for failure

I can deal with the first and last, but the second is impossible.

If your job bores me I just cannot do it.


With ADHD, a single HN post could have me following source material and child nodes up to 5-6 layers deep.

Once the time-blindness wears off, the anxiety sets in you realize hours have passed and outstanding work is due soon.

What sort of worked:

- Blocking web sites during work hours (SelfControl for MacOS and NextDNS for devices)

What did work:

- Consistent sleep schedule (10PM)

- Mindfulness meditation in the morning

- Getting physically active in the morning

- Working in a different environment

What helped on top of that:

- Getting prescribed for ADHD medication

- Professional counseling from a therapist

- Dealing with what’s causing your anxiety (or depression)


That basically describes my schedule and my habits.

One important thing to add to that: an online diet. I have The Guardian, Reddit, and a ton of other distracting content blocked on all devices (hosts files, NextDNS, etc).


> Working in a different environment

By this, do you mean working in a different physical environment from where you relax? Or continuously changing your work environment? Or something else?


semi-public spaces where you aren't isolated, like co-working offices.

if that's not feasible, a service like FocusMate in your home office.


this is a solid framework for coping/lifestyle modifications for ADHD.

I'll add nutrition to the list.

And for me personally: time-restricted eating/intermittent fasting (water fasts were not good for me, but time-restricted eating/staying in a 'fasted state' is)


Pi Hole with my own blocklist. That is, I block all of my problem sites, then let someone else set my pihole password and then I delete my ssh key off the server.

Then on the phone, remove all apps that allows consumption (social media, games, readers, youtube, even the browser). Debloat it with adb too. Switch off all notification except for your main chat app (like whatsapp) and alarms. If still too distracting, set the screen to monochrome. Do not allow your phone to enter your bedroom & charge in another room.

Same with laptops/tv, keep them out of the bedroom.

For series, movies & games, have a set window per week/month to watch/play, do not endlessly play when Idle. Give your brain something intentional to do.

Avoid pornography as it can hook an adhd brain to the max and destroy your attention span.

Avoid caffeine if you can, drink more water, go bed earlier - it all adds up.

You basically have to change your relationship with the computers/internet and not allow yourself to consume/browse without intent or a clear goal. The internet is basically crack for our brains, so avoid it as much as possible.

Get some physical exercise and/or sunlight, once a day. Something as simple as stretching for 15 minutes makes a huge difference.

Remember that your brain WANTS stuff to do, it will generate an endless stream of crap to do if you don't learn to focus it. The internet is just the easiest way for it keep busy if you don't use it.


I completely disagree about caffeine. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-does-caffeine-affect-people...

"if you don't learn to focus it." this is nonsensical and harmful


Is the long term consumption of caffeine really a good idea?

I would expect the tolerance build up to negate the positive effects fairly quickly. Most people that need to have their coffee in the morning are NOT more awake than a non-coffee drinker but need the coffee to just reach their normal baseline.

So you would need higher and higher dosages to see any positive effects and at that point you get nasty side-effects like heart racing and insomnia.


Some of the effects of caffeine are subject to diminishing with tolerance, others are not.

People develop tolerance at different rates, and it depends on dose and usage pattern, etc. It's not hard to use caffeine a lot and never develop a strong tolerance. (Probably not true for everyone, And it's a different story if you've already been drinking multiple cups of coffee every day for decades).

There's some really fascinating research on caffeine use out there, highly recommend that rabbit hole for the interested.


Caffeine isn't heroin: tolerance plateaus after a few weeks of drinking coffee daily.

> nasty side-effects like heart racing and insomnia

I've been drinking coffee daily for two decades now and haven't ever experienced heart racing, nor insomnia if I limit my consumption to the A.M.

People do process caffeine wildly differently through. I apparently have genes that make me not very sensitive to caffeine at all, but I know this isn't true for everyone.


Once upon a time I could drink a full pot of coffee every morning and feel fine. Now a single caffeinated (sugar-free) soda makes me feel terrible: racing heart, anxiety, shakiness. I've tried exposing myself to more caffeine to get used to it again. No dice. Bodies are weird.


Depends on the person. Caffeine is a mixed bag for people with adhd and related disorders. If wasn't, we'd all just be taking caffeine pills and call it a day, yet we don't. It does work in some cases, specifically if you throttle your intake so you don't build up tolerance and use it intermittently.

And you can learn to focus your adhd traits and exploit them.


If you combine intermittent caffeine use with an intentional time-bound task, yes, very powerful combo.

Using caffeine as part of a routine and the binging youtube for 6 hours, unbounded time is a nightmare, esp if your days are blurred and you do it weeks at a time. You are basically then just shotgunning your mind further.


What doesn't mix for me is caffeine and Focalin. When I'm not on Focalin, I can drink caffeine in moderation and feel fine. A single cup of coffee when I'm on Focalin, and I'm going to get so much less quality sleep that I feel like a wet dishrag in the morning.


Agree with locking down sites/apps - if you find your hands just start auto typing addresses in the toolbar as a coping mechanism for dopamine hits then lock up the problem sites and throw away the key. Set the redirect to something to try to queue you/remind you why you have it blocked (e.g a webpage with a quote). Leechblock is a good in browser alternative if you are on a work pc without access to pihole (e.g. through vpn etc) - you can set password and throw it away.

I would also add to all of this if you have the ability to work in person with your screen visible it may help you to keep on track if you feel pressure of being "caught" slacking. Research "body doubling" multiple approaches to this.

Above might seem extreme but some tricks like this can help you use your other psychological traits as a stick against your adhd trait (because we all know the carrot only lasts temporarily).


This seems like a very puritanical viewpoint. So much so, that it's a little peculiar and almost feels like a caricature. A life of avoidance does not help an ADHD brain, and the idea that your brain wants stuff to do is not the case at all. You will burn out very quickly going down that path. You'll get much further just taking a few times a day to slow your thoughts via meditation or engaging in a passive activity that allows constructive mind-wandering.

Hell, I'd even recommend medicating over locking your whole life down and living in fear of your own brain.


Unless you have it you don't know what it feels like. This sort of generic advice is useless when you're awake in bed at 8:30 AM, still trying to sleep from last night but you can't because you can't physically stop yourself from doom scrolling on your phone.

The only thing that really works is an unbreakable commitment device, make it so that the only thing you can do in any given situation is the right thing.


I do have it, so the rest of your highly presumptive comment became moot after the first sentence.


Everyone who doesn't have it talks about it more or less like the way you did, "oh... why don't they just learn to control it like me instead of having all these rules".

My comment is highly presumptive because your comment was extremely stereotypical of people who make light of it, maybe stop using words like 'puritanical' when describing what works for other people. Your impairments might be light to non-existent, doesn't mean mine are.


Once again, you're being presumptive. I have a rather severe case of ADHD co-morbid with PTSD, and nothing that I've stated as a solution is easy. If anything, it requires more discipline than simply cutting out temptations. You will need to learn to recognize when "it's time" and step away to re-calibrate. This requires knowing oneself and being transparent about your problems with others.

The routes described prior are extremely puritanical, and if you don't see that, I am sorry that you are stuck wielding such repressive methods. They will be more of a detriment in the long run, as you realize that they do nothing to address your thought patterns. I am speaking from experience, as that doesn't seem to have been made clear.


First, sorry. I was probably needlessly aggressive, I've heard similar words from everyone around me all my life and I may have assumed you were being similarly dismissive and gotten a bit angry.

I'm not saying you have to use commitment devices forever, but it's a great starting point. When one is deep into their faulty harmful behaviors, it's hard to have the mental energy to practice mindfulness and take a step back and exercise any sort of control over one's impulses. Maybe nine of out of ten times you may be successful in practicing mindfulness, but commitment devices[0] help you prevent that 1/10 from blowing your entire day up(or even week), precisely because they don't depend on your mental state at all. They let you precommit and make good decision for your future self when you are in a good state of mind, so you won't completely spiral down when you're in a bad state of mind. It's just another tool in the toolbox for dealing with ADHD.

[0] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Commitment_device


With that, I do agree. I encourage my peers to pull "hard stops" when they find that they are entrenched in their habits. For me, it was dropping social media, putting the "procrastination" timer on my HN profile, etc. But I always caution that if one doesn't gradually reintroduce the situations in which they struggled before, they will not have actually improved, just hidden themselves from failure.

I'm likewise sorry if I came off as dismissive, as that was never my goal. I was more concerned than anything. I am aware that a great deal of people downplay the impact of living with ADHD, and that can cause no end to frustration. This very thing led to me dropping out of college. However, I'd also like my easily-distracted brethren to see how they are empowered by their disability as well, and my goals were more to that end.


You guys can stop fighting. ADHD is an broad label for what is becoming increasingly obvious are separate conditions, and I think they are up to at least 2 different types and then a third with mixed symptoms of both.

What works for someone else may not work for you and vice versa, that's okay, it doesn't have to turn into you two being condescending assholes to each other or accusing the other of faking ADHD.

The question was how you personally deal with your ADHD and they answered with what they do personally to deal with their ADHD, stop shitting all over them and talking down to them for being on topic. If you wanna give constructive advice you can do without being a jerk about it.


You lecturing anybody on being a condescending asshole is like the pot calling the kettle black. Any air of condescension in my tone never amounted to being retaliatory at most, as with this comment, so goodbye and consider your time wasted.


Time wasted would be an accurate assessment so I won't bother continuing this discussion, you have yourself a nice night and/or day.


I think some people need to go very puritanical to survive and to succeed in the modern world with its almost-constant easy access to entertainments, distractions and mental stimulations.

I'm probably one of them. And the meds I have tried typically prescribed for ADHD have done more harm than good. Specifically I've tried Ritalin, Adderal and modafinil.

Actually that is not true: modafinil did more good than harm, and the other 2 weren't significantly harmful (because I was smart enough to stop taking them as soon as I noticed they didn't help on net).

But the point is that modafinil didn't help me with the problem we are discussing here. (Modafinil reduces the amount of REM sleep I get, even if I take it in the morning, and my trying modafinil is what caused me to notice that reducing my REM sleep would be a good idea, which motivated me to find a better non-drug way to reduce REM sleep, after which I had no use for modafinil.)


I'm not denying that some people have a harder time than others, but to restrict an ADHD brain is not unlike repressing a child. The "distractions" are only distractions to an orderly system - it does not imply that your brain is inherently disorderly, only that it doesn't mesh with the order defined by our society. Learning to reconcile the gap between your natural strengths as an ADHD individual and those needed to make it in the modern world will work far better than trying to shoehorn yourself into a set of rules that your brain refuses to comply with. Living without fulfillment will only further muddy the ADHD mind.

Medicine is a shortcut to that, but as you've already noted, it's a huge undertaking of trial-and-error, and may only amount to a transitory solution. Nonetheless, if it carries you forward even a little, it's a worthwhile endeavor.


You describe it as "living without fulfillment", but if the average internet-connect white-collar Western person stopped all consumption of video entertainment, news and non goal-direct use of the web and the smartphone, then after adjustment period of a month or so, I suspect that the remaining pleasures in their lives would become more fulfilling with the result that their average level of fulfillment would be about the same as it currently is.

I think that that is just how the human motivational system works: there is a set point, and if for example I get hit by a car and lose the use of my legs, my life gets much suckier for a while, but a month or so after I have settled in to being paralyzed (i.e., I have gained enough experience with it to have a practical understanding or knowledge-grounded-in-lived-experience of all the significant new constraints on my life) I will be about as happy or as miserable as I am now.

Would you agree with my theory of the set point?

If so, what I am missing? I don't see anything wrong or irrational about the manner of living described in the original comment that you disagreed with, namely,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34487431


> stopped all consumption of video entertainment, news and non goal-direct use of the web and the smartphone, then after adjustment period of a month or so, I suspect that the remaining pleasures in their lives would become more fulfilling with the result that their average level of fulfillment would be about the same as it currently is.

I wholly agree with this, as I've done it myself, but nothing about this requires treating oneself like they are "born in sin". This whole idea of "I'm a broken person so I must live a curtailed life" is lifted straight from Puritan ideals. In fact, a lot of American culture carries the tinge of Puritanism still, as if it's the only solution against the Wests' hedonistic level of distractions.

The reality is that a bit of self-examination can help one monitor the ebb and flow of their attention, and maximize it for effectiveness. Putting guard rails on every corner of your life will likewise limit the positive elements of having a wandering mind. As a good autistic friend of mine put it: "my disability is my superpower". He doesn't hide away in his room out of fear that his poor social skills will offend someone.


Not puritanical-intended at all.

The point being, remove all the stuff from your environment that hammers the brain 24/7, become a bit calmer, then use your newly freed minutes for intentional time-bound actions.

The way we all live is not normal to begin with.


I agree with your point here, but your methodology seems very strict. Almost to the point of self-defeat, because turning to a distraction and finding it isn't there isn't improved attention, only distraction with more steps. I do hope you find your balance, and whatever gets you there is your own, but having grown up under the same approach you're describing, I can attest to the likelihood of an eventual collapse.


>having grown up under the same approach you're describing, I can attest to the likelihood of an eventual collapse.

These words are what got me finally (after having read the other 7 comments by you in this thread) to understand the reason for your participation in this discussion -- what you are driving at. Thank you.


disagree on caffeine, which has shown to have neuroprotective effects, and also enhance neuroplasticity.

and the dopamine/norepinephrine release helps focus/motivation/concentration.

coffee is not for me, a bit too jittery/anxious unless I hit the perfect dose ... but Yerba Mate tea has been a gamechanger.


I'm 72 and retired. A blessing and a curse. I spend a lot of time ferreting out obscure facts on obscure topics and pursuing and commenting on social issues on web sites and to elected officials. I can't stand online videos or podcasts as the transmit information too slowly. I prefer to read and think about issues or concepts being presented. I have thousands of books in my house. I have thousands of bookmarks that I continually re-categorize. When I interact with people (which my wife, a nurse, forces me to do as a mental health measure) topics come up that I feel compelled to research and provide a report on later. This need to know, this feeling of missing out is exhausting. I have to force myself away from the computer and relocate myself physically somewhere where there is no access to the internet. My eyesight is failing me which is a blessing as I find it frustrating to use my mobile to look up things on the internet and instead actually use it for what it was originally designed to do - handle phone calls. Drugs just put me in a contemplative state that makes the browsing just that more dopamine rewarding. Therapy has been frustrating - primarily for the therapist - as I bring far too much information to sessions in order to "share". I've come to accept this state of existence and do my best to time manage the impact and not let the compulsion overwhelm other aspects of my life. My growing existential realization that the end of life is closer than the beginning provides an incentive to experience other things besides the internet as it may be the last time I experience that other thing. My advice to younger people with ADHD is to force yourself away from the compulsion. Very hard I know. You need to recognize and internalize that it's simply not possible to absorb everything we, as a species, are creating. The rewards for actually experiencing life far out weigh the rewards from simply reading about it.


  My advice to younger people with ADHD is to force yourself away from the compulsion. Very hard I know. You need to recognize and internalize
This is the first part of the Stoic, and habit breaking, approach.

The second part is to ignore your rationalization in favor of indulging yourself “just this once,” which might be just as hard as the first part.

One thing I try is to move away from the distraction and attempt to reset my brain to focus on the what’s important.


good point about the paradox between drugs + dopamine hits from browsing. completely agree there.


"Poorly". I spent a few days writing down everything that I clicked on, read, commented on, etc, and how much time I spent doing it. After that horror, well, I just kept doing it without tracking it, same as I've done the past many decades.

The short solution is a very simple system. Pick 3 specific goals for your year, or your quarter, and before you bookmark/click/read/etc, ask yourself whether that is going to move you forward in a big way toward accomplishing one of those goals. If not, you skip it. It's Pareto Principle in a sense, and it applies to most everything. If you're tempted to "yes but" or other complications, recognize that you're sabotaging yourself and quit it.

Abstinence is the other answer, but that doesn't help generate functional adaptations.

GIGO. 90% of everything, very much including HN, is garbage.


Unlike almost everything else, HN has a "noprocrast" setting in your profile which you can use to constrain the time you spend on it.


Whoa, I'd missed that every other time I'd looked at my profile.

Thanks for pointing it out!


What works for me:

- reminding myself that my fear of missing out is misleading. Grounding myself in work and specific interests. Nothing bad will happen if I miss a hot new JS framework.

- that clears space for more introspection. Observing myself, what I spend time on exactly here, how and why.

- then, deprioritizing new shiny unimportant things from HN in my mind; I still look at new things outside my niche, but I try to prioritize looking at HN posts closer to my interests. It's also good because some of HN comments look deep and insightful, but are not actually accurate or objective. It takes some pre-existing knowledge to be able to tell that.

- sorting through the tabs, moving important ones to the left, to be able to close a ton of tabs on the right in one go without hesitation when needed. Tree Style Tabs for Firefox helps me make rabbit holes visually obvious and undig myself from them.

- getting into a habit of more self-awareness of why I spend time here, "do I get anything meaningful from this time?". If not, time spent in comments would be better spent reading the actual article or docs for this new thing.

- getting "no HN" time, when I consider even visiting it a bad thing (not in a shameful way, just "here we go again"). Practicing switching attention to something else, even if it's something silly (and hopefully not too engineered for grabbing my attention).


I'm going to tell you what worked for me, with the explicit caveat that it may not work for you and/or you may not find it palatable.

I use browser extensions to timegate the time spent in websites that I know hit me in my weak spots and tend to send me into time-wasting sessions that I have nothing to show for. There's Stayfocusd and Leechblock, and probably other alternatives.

This worked for a few years, but it stopped. I tried rectifying that with no consistent success, there's no amount of calendar reminders / pomodoros or external triggers that helped beyond the initial novelty.

I tried medication, currently on Concerta XR 36mg, and it has made a world of difference. It's not a superpower but it does enable me to notice the distraction spirals I can get myself into and I can now break them.

I still have to use the same support systems I used before though. It's not a miracle cure, it just "adds" willpower to my toolbox.


> I still have to use the same support systems I used before though. It's not a miracle cure, it just "adds" willpower to my toolbox.

It switched all those support systems from kinda work and absolutely necessary to kinda necessary and absolutely work.


Ugh, wish it was easier to get hold of ADHD meds (or even a diagnosis) here in the UK. I've got it, well aware I have and have avoided even attempting to go to the GP to get medicated as from what I can see the wait times go into the years.

Is it 'worth it'? I.E is your life noticably beter for being medicated for it?


I'll chime in with personal experience as well, I've been diagnosed with severe ADHD at 25 (about a year ago) and starting on meds (Concerta 18 -> 36 -> 36 with ocassional 18 boost during the day) has been trully life changing, many of the organisational methods I've tried in the past and failed miserably have finally started to make sense.

It's not a super drug that magically fixes everything, it just moves stuff closer into realm of possibility, I sometimes still procrastinate, now with lazer sharp focus into the thing I'm procrastinating with, so it still takes a lot of discipline to begin doing productive things, but once I do I no longer have to continously fight myself to keep at it.

As per side effects, I don't really have any, the only thing I have noticed is that I have to choose the dosage carefully, as it flactuates a lot, some days I can get by on 18mg, some days 36+18 feels as if I haven't taken anything, as I'm told it is very personal and you have to find your rhythm with it.

As a bonus, despite getting enough sleep, I also have been drowsy during the day for as long as I remember and it was always difficult to fight through it (excessive amounts of sugar and energy drinks in my case). Concerta has fixed that instantly.


I have been on Ritalin for 5 years when I was a teenager. The side effects are strong, the benefits are weak. Side effects:

* After eating I do not feel full. Never. There is a feeling of "my stomach starts to hurt, there is hardly any place left". * I am scared of the dark, I remember all the horror movie snippets I have seen in my life

The side effects still reside today

Benefit:

* After getting off Ritalin, my marks in school dropped by half a grade. Which is not that much, I still ranked best of class.

It was a good decision for my personal development to drop Ritalin.


I tried modafinil a few times. I was never diagnosed with ADHD but I was describing to a friend basically exactly what OP said, mixed in with a lack of focus @ work. He suggested I try modafinil and gave me a bunch of his stash (along with some stronger things I wasn't as keen on). Taking some before I hopped on the tram meant it had started to take effect around the time I sat down and started work, and I felt remarkably more motivated and focussed during the following ~8 hours or so. It's a bit of a game-changer. I felt a little bit like the day whizzed past, and had a bit of trouble sleeping afterwards so I was sure never to use it more than a couple of days out of any given week.

I think it's of questionable legality here, but if you can get a doctor to prescribe it legally it's well worth looking into.


Does the UK have private doctors? If the public system has endless wait times, can you pay $$$ to a doctor to see them quicker privately instead? (Assuming one has $$$ to spend - I acknowledge not everyone does, and the people who would gain the most tangible benefit from a psychiatric diagnosis are often the people least likely to have the $$$ to pay for one.)


It does, I did a bit of digging after posting and it looks like you can get your GP to refer you to a private practice, pay them and then switch back to the GP once you've been diagnosed and started medication.

So it looks like theres an initial cost to get going but it takes the wait time down from ~3 years to around 6 weeks. Think I might need to call my GP and get started, I've been putting this off way too long.


You don't need to have a GP referral. I didn't. Just go with a private psychiatrist that specializes in ADHD and you can get diagnosed.


completely agree about therapy being labeled a panacea...probably a narrative created by psychiatrists/therapists themselves.

and it's kind of a paradox, because I've learned far more from the Internet/educating myself online, to become more self-aware and change my lifestyle drastically, more to the Puritanical side as many mentioned above (but not all the way).

so it's that paradox I struggle with: disconnecting from the internet is healthy for ADD, but the knowledge/hacks/tweaks gained from it has helped far more than medication/therapy ever did.


You can get equal benefits from meds and coaching, but it's relatively effortless to benefit from coaching with meds. The first time I took a stimulant, it kicked in basically immediately and suddenly nothing was difficult except coping with not having done it earlier.


are you considering any long term effects of meds? or are you using them topically? how are your cognitive effects while on meds?


There's no real long-term dependence. Going off the meds just returns me to my natural, dysfunctional self. I don't usually do that because it's disruptive without benefit.

The first type I tried happened to be right for me, so I didn't experience any negative effects. I did experiment with dose, though. Getting it right just feels like being more awake, which is how I describe the ability to choose where I hold my focus.


> There's no real long-term dependence.

I think this varies highly from person to person. As someone who takes one to two days off a week, when possible, I must say I get some pretty brutal withdrawal side-effects.

None of the side-effects are really dangerous or life-threatening by any means, but they are still somewhat disabling. I've been taking my medication for about 8 years now, and I am starting to feel like the medication:

1. Has drastically diminished it positive returns

2. Is starting to take more away from me than it's giving back

Not sure, what other option I'll move to, but I do not have many of them left since I have tried almost all the various stimulant formulations multiple times minus Desoxyn.


I think that rollercoaster is why you're not supposed to take days off. Maybe try a non-stimulant if you can wait a month for it to start working?


> Is it 'worth it'? I.E is your life noticably beter for being medicated for it?

Yes, absolutely.


Thanks for this. I ended up going down a rabbit hole after my post and found out that we now have something called 'Right to Choose' which is where you can ask your GP to refer you to a private practice.

From reading the ADHDUK subreddit it turns out it takes it down to under 6 weeks. Think I need to call my GP and have a conversation.


I concur. I am super conscious of what I consume, and was very apprehensive, but a few months on dex got me and my business back on track.


I was reluctant to as well, it's part of the "why don't you just focus" narrative we've heard for years. My therapist said, "You're a gamer, why do you want to play life on hard mode when most people are on normal mode?"


The years pass anyway, so why not get the process started like right now?


You're right, I've kinda been in a bit of denial about it to be honest. That needs to change.


> it’s worse than my addiction to The Guardian.

It's not :) Compared to other sites, HN is quite a healthy place. News are anxiogenic, and Twitter is as toxic as it gets.

Moderation makes a good job of keeping the place sane, and even if it's just reading the headlines and comments, at least we kind of know what's going in the tech world.


Wasting the one non-renewable resource that we possess (time) is a problem, no matter which comforting delusion we use to justify it.


Only waste if it's defined as such. People get to decide how "bad" spending time doing things is for themselves.


Too much of our lives are in a reactive state -- responding to events rather than being proactive. Thats a good survival mechanism -- but it causes anxiety by overanalyzing, rather than living in the moment. I think limits and boundaries are important -- but its too easy to let emotions carry us away. Rationality is only one facet of human behavior.


I've been diagnosed with ADHD but was told my ASD (Asperger's, but the docs can't call it that anymore) "masks" it because my urge to systematize everything means I can make use of much of my information hoarding (either for work or recreation). I don't want to celebrate these conditions, but I also think I wouldn't be as productive in my current field of endeavor without them working in tandem.. and I certainly wouldn't be as good as I am at the NYT crossword! ;-)


I set "noprocrast" in my profile: maxvisit=30 and minaway=360 (just upped from 120). So 30 mins for looking at the frontpage links and writing a comment if I want to. Then 6 hours where I'm reminded that I'm opening HN on an impulse.

For the links, anything that is a 5-10 min read I'll do on the spot. I try to be mindful with more involved content (long post, video, tutorial,...): I save the link in my inbox file with a small description of the content for reference or to read during a break – or never.

Looking at my inbox, I often delete links without opening them because, in hindsight, I saved them to have something (anything) to read. It's the same as opening the fridge multiple times and lowering your expectations each time until you find good enough food. By setting noprocrast, you put a time lock on your imaginary fridge to stop you from mindless snacking.


Medication helps. Lifestyle hasn't changed too much - I still have endless to-do lists, bookmarks, things I need to get to, but medication has helped me in the sense that it doesn't all feel overwhelming at every single moment, anymore. Days feel easier to manage.


lifestyle -- fitness/nutrition/meditating/prioritization, has helped 100x more than medication ever did. was on meds from age 12-20, everything under the sun, and they were net-negative for me. but that's just me. everyone is diff, with so many underlying factors to why our brains operate the way they do. just glad we have this community to discuss it. never had this when I was growing up.


This mirrors my experience too, help from medication is useful to build necessary behavioral changes.


Is fixing your HN habit really going to improve your life, or will you find a similar escape from reality to latch onto instead?

I think you'll get much more out of addressing the core problem -- I don't know what that is for you, but with therapy you may find out. See a good psychologist who is experienced with ADHD.


> I think you'll get much more out of addressing the core problem -- I don't know what that is for you, but with therapy you may find out. See a good psychologist who is experienced with ADHD.

How do you know that the OP hasn’t tried that already?

“Therapy” is not the panacea many people make it out to be. If it works for you, great-but others are not guaranteed to have the same success. And poor results are not necessarily because the therapist wasn’t “good” or “experienced” enough-even with the best therapists one can still have poor outcomes, and that isn’t necessarily the fault of the client either, psychotherapy has its inherent limitations, and no therapy can be 100% effective


At the same time, therapy is not the failure that many people make it out to be. If it failed for you, ok, but others are not guaranteed to have the same failure.

It is a tool. It works well for people whose problems fall nicely into the toolkits that the therapy industry has evolved to treat. If this is run-of-the-mill ADHD, it can help. If it is something else, it might not.

Therapy can also peel away layers of problems. If you have a slew of problems, maybe therapy won't solve everything, but it will help you identify a few problems that you can fix, easing the burden to find other tools to solve the other problems. Some problems also have a multiplying effect on each other, so a partial solve of your concerns may make the rest livable.

I'd say if someone truly wants to improve their life, it is worth trying the tools available to them. If they work, great - if not, try something else.


It's not either-or :) And it might help someone else who hasn't tried therapy.

And here's a very interesting talk about effectiveness of said therapy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z37i8-FnAh8


I cope with various strategies:

- Mobile is always disconnected. I have a few moments per day I check my WhatsApp and other apps, just like you would actively check mail in the old days. People get used to the fact that I'm not a quick responder.

- I use 2 machines, a work laptop and a home desktop. On work laptop never check socials or news. On real quiet days I might check HN on my work laptop but that's an exception.

- For work, I try to find real challenges. Even when fixing a little UI bug, try to understand completely, read a best practice, try to optimize it or design a cleaner solution. I discovered being distracted is also boredom and having no focus. Making even simple tasks more challenging makes it less likely to search distraction.

- Get out of your head some times, for me it's indoor bouldering twice a week but there are many other activities. You need a balance :)


I hear you and am right with you—-I recently spent the weekend trimming out Safari on my iPad from 500 tabs (mostly from HN articles) down to 20, and I’m already back up to about 75. And yep, super-frustrating to feel like there’s all these cool ideas and projects and sites out there and all I’m doing is reading and marking them for later.

One thing that helped was accepting that bookmarking it was just a way of putting it down for now, and that I always have the option to come back to it. That doesn’t happen often, but pruning back all those tabs did remind me of a couple things I’d marked that I wound up doing things with. And then on a regular basis I’ll run into a problem and think, “Wait, I think I marked a site in Raindrop about this…aha! There it is.” So storing those marks (as long as they’re searchable!) still has benefit without immediate action, which helps me not leave them open (although I’m still wrestling with it…).

Meanwhile, the act of browsing all those interesting reads and looking at those projects is beneficial in its own right even if I do nothing else but read and bookmark. By reading and absorbing all those different ideas, I make it far more likely that when I’m working on projects at work or talking with other people, my brain will pull those random articles together and make a connection or a reference that’s useful.

A friend of mine likes to call herself the “corporate bumblebee”, gathering bits from one project and connecting it to other projects like a bumblebee spreading pollen. Think of reading HN as being a tech bumblebee: you’re gathering the pollen that you can later give to other people.


Click on your profile link in the top right.

Set "noprocrast" to yes, "maxvisit" to 30 and "minaway" to 1000.

You'll basically get one 30-minute session per day that way, before the site kicks you out.

For funsies, I recommend setting "showdead" to yes too. Get some really weird unhinged shit, mostly from this one guy who keeps blaming the world's problems on the Jews.


> But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. It’s a severely frustrating and depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and disappointment.

This really rings true with me. The excitement of the new project, and then the crushing realisation that I can't trust myself to put in the work to build it. Rinse and repeat.

I have no answers, but to say you're not alone. I do build things, sometimes.


I see something on HN and I get inspired. It sparks many ideas in my head and I start planning a project in my mind.

But I don't write it down. Nor do I bookmark anything. I don't use bookmarks at all, frankly.

I know I don't have the time to start any new personal projects.

So I think about it, and then let it go.

I think this only reflects the jumpy disjointed nature of my brain. Things come and go, and that's okay.


I feel like reading HN daily has given me more opportunities than anything I've ever done for my career (and my general general love for tech). I recurrently apply things to my job that I've picked up reading the amazing articles people post here.

>There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

I just read them. I take my time to go through them :-). Every day for the past, I don't know, five years or so, my first hour in the morning is dedicated to reading about things I like on HN. That certainly kept the flame and the passion for tech going, otherwise it would become just a job (and if you're like me, you know how much that sucks).


Number one strategy for people with ADHD is migrate to jobs where there is a lot of variety and complexity and things are changing all the time and lots of new interesting things to look into.

The maturity part which I struggle with is how to convert my curiosity into forward motion.

I believe that if you have ADHD you have to act like you are playing a different D&D character class than everyone else. You win by being your character and doing the things that character type needs to do.

I personally like to walk around aimlessly for hours lost in thought. If I can’t walk and have to be stuck indoors I can’t stop but keep researching.


> Number one strategy for people with ADHD is migrate to jobs where there is a lot of variety and complexity and things are changing all the time and lots of new interesting things to look into.

Feels like you can never specialize with this approach, but maybe you become an excellent manager of a complex machine?


Somethings that helped me.

1. I realised the hard way that you can't focus on too many things at the same time.

2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive results.

3. Focus on areas you have circle of competence in.

4. I struggle with abstract ideas, and jump to projects without thinking the details, scoping abstract ideas and writing down concrete POA helps in completing things.

5. Working hard on staying loyal to my resolutions. I took a resolution last month to write a book on rust for beginners. I constantly hold this thought every day in my head. It helps a lot in making progress and saying no to distractions.


> 2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive results.

This worked really well for me until I actually settled in with a long term partner, who was rightfully frustrated when I'd try to cut out some of the daily responsibilities that are required to be a good roommate and partner.

When you're single you have a lot more freedom to squirrel away for a while on a problem, but it's a tremendously selfish thing to do when your life is intertwined with another person who depends on you to juggle your daily obligations like everyone else.


Discipline. Perhaps a harsh answer but it's true.

Some are self controlled enough to remind themselves HN is a dangerous time sucking rabbit hole as soon as they see the homepage. They close the tab instantly.

Others require browser plugin or DNS level intervention because their self-control is not strong enough - yet.

Personally I have a my medication bottle _next to my monitor_ as a visual reminder. My ultimate goal is to accomplish the same tasks with zero medical assistance, and I acknowledge this might be a long journey finding out what works for me.


I have a bookmarks list of "cool projects that I'll probably never do". That prevents me from fixating and gives me the peace of mind that it's not "gone forever" in case I ever want to refer to it again. Tags help semi-organize the list.

Similarly a "Maybe Someday" list or a list that contains ideas for projects or tasks or wishes, but I tend to cull this list every month or so.

Both of these things help me to reduce overwhelm of the multitude of awesome stuff I could be doing, but I'm so overwhelmed by choice that I don't do anything.

Using a timer or a blocker may also help you. Or as others have already pointed out the "noprocast" setting is an option on HN.

Realizing when I was entering the "time-blindness tunnel" has been the single most tool for me. At that point I would ask myself what was going on emotionally. This was aided by a website blocker that redirected to a page that just had the question: "What are you feeling emotionally and physically right now? Why did you want to go that website?"

I've learned to identify triggers that get me sucked in and by limiting my access to certain services/websites I've been able to waste less time.


On Brave I use "StayFocused" and set a maximum time per day. For YouTube etc. there are similar tools as well. Restricting access works best for me. Also, let someone else manage your password for these tools, otherwise you just change the settings when you feel a strong urge to visit HN even when you set daily time is over.

Whit bookmarks, ideas and others, I keep track of them and once in a while filter. If I did not look at a bookmarked page in the last 3 weeks I will probably not in the future (unless it is a source for work or a hobby project). You might know this principle with items in your house.

On a side note, please be aware that the described problems can be symptoms of ADHD but are common in people without (like me) as well and are, to some degree, normal. If you look at the problem biased to ADHD you might miss underlying causes that are not ADHD related like lack of sleep or exercise, nutrition, anxiety etc. I am saying this as I spent my early 20s diagnosed with a disorder and overlooked base causes for my problems through the lens of this disorder and chasing solutions for issues that were not the route causes of my problems. I am NOT saying that ADHD is not the cause but sharing a personal experience. , and I have a relative with ADHD, so I see the struggle.


Here's what works for me.

1. Start the day by mentally going over goals, and figuring out what I need to do.

2. Use _simple_ project management SW (like Trello, Notepad, Kanban boards) to keep track of what's going on and what's coming. The dopamine hit marking tasks "Done" is usually enough to keep me motivated.

3. Allocate time for off-task activities, like reading random interesting articles, YouTube, etc. This can be 10-15 min breaks throughout the day, and only after completing the current task. After that, actually shut down distracting apps/pages.

That's enough most of the time. If it's not...

4. Switch to a different (work-related) task for a while.

5. If really stuck, ask for help in chat. (I work remotely, so the ability to self-motivate is really important) The process of talking through a problem usually helps me focus on it.

6. If I catch myself procrastinating too much, I invoke a "boss personality". You know how we act differently around different people/situations? Those are mini personalities. I have one that tells me: "Dude, get your s--t together! People are counting on you."

7. The fear of having to look for a different job! :)

I find that developing good habits and schedules really helps me.


> I love HN. I check it out basically for hours every day, for the past 5 years or so.

been there done that

> But, HN is utter hell too… it’s worse than my addiction to The Guardian.

For me it was spiegel.de ... since age of 16. I'm now in my late 30s. They helped me get a grip on it by introducing paid content. Given that I don't even like their quality of journalism that much since more than a decade. I mostly go there to annoy myself. Yeah, I guess for ADHD stricken minds that counts as entertainment.

> I see so many topics I’m interested in, so many cool projects, so I bookmark them. Then I see more and bookmark them too. There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

I never really got into bookmarking. I just open lots of tabs and read through them. Then I forget about it and sooner or later I close the browser. Of course I don't start new sessions where I left off for a reason.

> But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. It’s a severely frustrating and depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and disappointment.

That's life. If you think about it - time and its investment is always linear for a single person while knowledge is created exponentially ... so, even if you'd live forever you couldn't get a hold on it.

> But I’m totally addicted because there’s just so much new.

And so much old!

> Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook about HN?

Well - meditation - zen meditation - breath meditation - that's what helps me. Nothing else. It's this with devotion or misery.


What you're describing sounds more like Internet addiction.


Two things,

a) I categorize patterns of discussions that return again and again on here and they slowly become less stimulating until I stop looking. Most internet sites present the same information again and again, it doesn't satisfy anymore.

b) I get annoyed, say something disagreeable and wisely take break from internet commentary and reading until I've moved on from whatever was annoying me. It can take months.

Working with your hands on real life objects helps a lot too. You no longer desire to follow thoughts into addictive loops when it also hurts your body at the same time.

For example, following a youtube video tutorial on repairing bicycles and cars, makes it plainly evident that you have to choose your battles, come up with creative solutions for your own environment and suffer some scars to actually follow through on your stimulating thoughts. Your back will hurt, you will find rusty bolts you can't move no matter how much you think it and have to let go of hyperfocusing on one solution and reframe your headspace.

The internet and computing has a very low physical cost to participating in stimulating thoughts. Be wary of that fact.


Idk if this will help or make it worse (because now you will spend time searching your history), but I hope it helps..........

I don't bookmark anything anymore because my browser's autocomplete is so good at finding what I need and lasts like 2 years. If I don't need to retrieve it within that time (and obviously retrieving it will reset that interval), I probably will never need it. And if something is SO important that I want to save it forever then I will have shared it with enough friends that I can search our conversation histories to find things. This almost failed me once because I forgot who I linked one thing to but within a couple days I remembered and linked it to several more people.

I guess in this case for the TRULY important things I should probably bookmark but well YMMV. I haven't had an actual problem with this. And the trust in the system stops me from obsessive record-keeping.

(I guess I should add that I do use some websites' built-in save functions, sometimes, but tbh they're pretty write-only, and I only really click them a couple times as a novelty)


I tried meds and they were helpful in a way but had major tradeoffs.

Modafinil would make me hyper-focused but would blunt my emotions, cause terrible anxiety. Impossible to relax. I did it everyday for two years (unwise -- should take breaks or stop taking them on weekends. It doesn't necessarily improve cognition but improves focus mainly.

Now I take a Ritalin-like chemical -- its much more manageable than Modafinil but makes me less social-- a little more anxious but its tolerable. The dose-range you have to get right -- and take breaks for your body to recover. Stimulants can cause harmful side-effects mask fatigue/sleep deprivation suppress your appetite, cause weight-loss and have psychiatric effects.

In a 9-5 it helps you grind through tasks but its not sustainable to do it too frequently. I think 4 times max a week would be doable -- you have to be mindful to take care of your body and mind when using it. Productivity is only one part of life -- other parts of your health are important as well.


Oh hey, this is me, too! I'll have to read the comments, let's bookmark this...

Or, as I like to do, just keep the browser tab open. I'm currently at 3 Firefox windows with 10 to 100 tabs each. And at the and of the longest tab list, there is that "restore session" tab I've been meaning to get to month ago...


Distractions usually happen when you’re not satisfied with the other things in front of you. Of course nothing is black and white, but that’s what I’ve found.

I wrote a book on ADHD that quite a few HN users enjoyed: https://adhdpro.xyz/


Wow, that book looked interesting. I just ordered it from Amazon kindle. Hopefully I will read it (and not procrastinate or be distracted from reading it)


It is not about HN or The Guardian. Something new always excites our mind and we get addicted to finding something new, something exciting each day.

The first thing is to realize this addiction to escape the present in the form of looking for new information.

Write about it everyday. Slowly, learn to discipline your mind. Make a habit to sit in silence, doing literally nothing for half an hour or so.

One thing you can tell yourself everyday is that every time you do something that is not highly relevant for your wellbeing, you will have less energy or focus for things that actually are.

From there on you can ask yourself, how relevant and useful it is to spend time on HN for your well being or for your experience of life.

Again, it is not about HN, humans find it very hard to face the plain everyday life against the sugary new information. We want it more and more.


Alt account of long time HN reader/user here:

But I admit that with my life circumstances (adhd, coming from a non wealthy family) and choices (active Christian, more than twice as many kids as the average around here) there will never be time.

I deal with it all by storing it in raindrop (used to be pinboard.in but I finally got utterly fed up).

I also have a bullet journal (ok, Logseq these days) where I have pages for each project and when I see something relevant I can paste a reference to it there.

Finally and most importantly I am realistic and I just admit it is not going to happen. That's life unless you are even more lucky than me. We can still dream though. My grandfather kept the blueprints for his retirement project (a boat he had designed for himself while being a boatbuilder as a young man) until he died, even if I think he realized before retirement it wasn't going to happen. He just made the best out of it.

I have realized already so I bookmark stuff just in case and to get it off my mind and then I very consciously make the things I need to do my hobbies.

I.e. at the moments my hobbies are:

- getting better in <tech I use at work>

- home repairs (drywall painting atm, but I have added a half way finished cobblestone path around my house and a tool shed, later made wall mounted cabinets for the new garage from leftovers etc etc)

- other repairs (clothes, toys, bikes)

- cooking (good, healthy meals that my wife and children will actually eat - on a budget)

- negotiations (bank, employer etc - I have a reasonably good economy but it needs to stay that way)

- fundraising for the church (I think one of the best way to find great and reliable friends is to volunteer for causes you believe in)

Also maybe interesting:

I felt had an almost crippling addiction to HN, then since late February last year I have barely read HN because of Ukraine.


>I felt had an almost crippling addiction to HN, then since late February last year I have barely read HN

Can you say more? How did the invasion of Ukraine cause the ending of your HN addiction?


Yep, by replacing it with another :-/

I've been hunting disinformation, spreading information and hope and support, donated, tried to raise awareness with politicians and newspapers, that kind of stuff.

Got a severe back pain last fall that set in whenever I touched Twitter last fall, and scaled back, then scaled up again.

Now I need to take a break. Will still pray and donate if possible, but while 11 months on the information war frontlines is a lot of fun it is unpaid and mentally taxing comes on top of normal responsibilities and in addition you get to see and understand in your heart a lot of pain.

Luckily things are moving in the right direction now. Now even the leopards will be sent to roam the steppes of the east.

(Do I care about the Russians? Yes, unlike many others, yes. Thats the second reason why Ukraine needs to win before more of them are sent into the meat grinder.)


I make it a rule to build the interesting thing, then the brain realizes it's harder than just fantazising about it and leaves me alone.


Yes, this is helpful to me too. I still sometimes get stuck in a loop of starting projects but the reality of how hard actually building something from scratch knocks me down.


you don't have to finish it, you can even give the half finished projects away to someone who enjoys having them - sell as art or something


This is actually an interesting idea

If I was picking it up I'd want a docker or similar so I could just start hacking


I think I have some sort of weird ADHD combined with a stoic outlook. I want to see all the new, shiny things, but I also understand that I can't, and nothing bad happens if I don't, so I accept that I'll just miss some things.


I agree. I think it is necessary to accept (as in 5 steps of acceptance) that is not possible to process all the shiny things. Keeping bookmarks and not closing tabs thus indicates an early phase off the acceptance process, probably denial.


While I don't deny existence of mental challenges like ADHD, anxiety/depression, IMHO these conditions are overdiagnosed and overprescribed by medical establishment.

I'm a bit neurodivergent myself, although it comes with advantages, it also comes with things that make other parts of life harder. Humans are humans at the end -- not a DSM-5 citation.

But modern media is somewhat designed to be addictive to generate ads and revenue -- endless content and scrolling, links...Im referring to news sites but social media is way way worse...

Acceptance is good advise -- I think each person is capable of adapting and learning to function on a high-level.


The book four thousand weeks by oliver burkeman or even just reading through his news letters is helpful to understand a different approach to time management and a philosophy of accepting finitute, I understand your issue, I am the same, but I think the freedom comes from understanding that you cannot win, you cannot find a solution to your question, there is just too much and always will be too much for you to do or that you could do and that is okay. Once you come to terms with that, it allows you to stop trying to do everything or follow every interesting path and get to work on something worthwhile.


I'm kind of surprised to see Oliver Burkeman mentioned so far down in the comments, but from personal experience this is the right thinking process.

What has worked well for me is Mark Forster's AutoFocus method, which is very similar (one long list where you pick what you feel like doing and re-enter if the task is not finished). This article explains it best: https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/behavior/autofocus-...

One benefit that I appreciated the most is that it allows you to trust yourself and your feelings. It puts you in touch with your inner self. it's kind of subtle in the sense that you only realize it after using the system for a few weeks.

Most existing time and work management systems work off of the assumption that you cannot trust yourself and that you're a lazy person or a procrastinator.


I am getting to this post now because I only consume this website through https://hackernewsletter.com which allows me to feel up to date on things but also not have the constant need to open the site. I then work my way through the newsletter over the week, reading the things that seem important. The thing about a lot of tech news is that it all feels important but it really isn't. The newsletter helps me manage that. I consume all my tech news through newsletter like an old timey newpaper.


i don't want to sound like a shill but stimulants definitely help. if you really have ADHD at least try them once it will significantly improve your quality of life and help u overcome the impairment.


Yup. The meds help. It was a big improvement from less then barely functional to moderately functional.


Various people react in various fashion. Sometimes it's a struggle to find meds that you will respond well to, and sometimes you may just end up disappointed.

Nevertheless, they do help a lot of people, so it's definitely worth giving a try.


The most recent thing I've done is make my phone a whole lot less distracting. I used this guide:

https://whatifididnt.com/blog/iphone-dumb-phone/

I kept one of my note taking tools, voice memos, and bank apps. I still haven't reinstalled a web browser or email. It's been a little over a week.

I wasn't on HN all weekend, where normally I would have been checking it throughout the day. It not being at my finger tips has been positive so far.


I have to keep my phone next to me for 2FA, MFA while working. What workaround can I use to not have my phone in a different room while working?


If the issue is notifications, iOS focus modes have a great deal of flexibility and can also be activated by Actions.


I still have all my work auth stuff on my phone.

If I really wanted to take it farther, I could put in a request for a company-owned smart phone that I could keep by my desk for just that purpose.


If you have an iPhone put it into grayscale mode. I promise your screen usage will drop by half if you can keep it enabled.


Easier said than done, but repurposing an old phone or getting a cheap one for work might help.


How do I manage? with the help of assistive tools. Calendars, timers, reminders, alarms. They all contribute to the ability to get something done. You also need to learn techniques to help control the emotions that are involved with the procrastination you face. The good news is you can improve. The bad news is, if you have ADHD, you'll probably never be at the same level of someone who doesn't suffer from it.

My comment history offers other advice and suggestions for ADHD. It's a long struggle but it's worth it.


Your comment history looks really interesting! Bookmarked for later.


If you haven't see it already, set noprocrast on your profile page.


I’m not sure it’s ADHD. It seems that you just enjoy reading about interesting things and fantasising about doing them yourself - but you don’t enjoy ACTUALLY doing them. Every creative field is full of people like that. These are the people who’ve been talking about writing that novel for the past 15 years. Or „painters” who paint one picture a year. I don’t think it’s neccessarily a medical condition - just a character trait. I know I am mostly like that.


> I’m not sure it’s ADHD. I don't think OP meant because this happens to him, he has ADHD. He just wanted to know how other with ADHD deal with this situation.


I also compulsively[?] bookmark things to get to them "later" but I think this is just something that stems from how ephemeral the web can be. I've started trying to regularly send my massive set of bookmarked links to a selfhosted ArchiveBox instance to preserve the content. Haven't figured out search yet, but I'm looking at Yacy and possibly Elastic. I cobsider it a personal knowledge base. It's reassuring to know that the feeling of "oh, I saw this! or read about that!" or "yes there was this project posted that solved this problem..." and know you can find it again with very little effort even if the original has long vanished.

As for coping with ADHD in general... the tack I'm taking lately is to just embrace the mundane. "Mundane excellence" is kind of the mantra. I'll do outrageous things to avoid the mundane business of everyday life and work, but it causes a lot of problems and discomfort. But it actually tends to feel rewarding to engage with it over avoiding it. The whole frustrating "thing I put off for months just took ten minutes at 5% effort to just do"... I don't know. It all remains a challenge, despite medication.


There is a mindset where each bookmark is an implicit obligation, and they of course pile up faster than you can go back and peruse them to your satisfaction, so this understandably leads to an unpleasant feeling of unfulfillable obligation.

After getting into all the second brain stuff and trying out quite a few ways of organizing this kind of information, I've started to think very carefully about what sort of implicit commitment I'm making when I write something down. I use a system of tags for things I need to look at later in some way, and I almost never tag links, but I often search back through them to find something particular that comes to mind, and I'm glad I store them.

Maybe you would have success reorienting your perspective to feel like "just" bookmarking is enough, such that there's not an implicit responsibility to come back and do something particular with the bookmarks? Or if you want that responsibility, that you can have one kind of bookmark that you're "just" saving, and another kind that you are okay committing to review?

Then it might become clearer just by the size of the folders if you're "assigning" yourself an impossible amount of work.


For me it's more about balancing the opportunity cost of possibly not knowing this one important fact with the pain that is realizing how much of the stuff I am actually failing to get back to in the end.

So I usually try to answer these questions for me:

1. What is the probability I will actually read it?

2. How much benefit is actually contained within the information the article might provide?

3. How much stress will I experience when I realize I am not catching up?

If I am honest on most of the things on HN score rather low on 1+2 but medium on 3. I can make the conscious decision that the trade-off is not worth it for me.

Combine that with a rule that either I will read it now or it's not important enough and usually I can browse through the comments a little bit trying to siphon the gist of an article in a couple minutes and failing that I will just move on.

Apart form that it has also helped is realizing that I absolutely loathe reading any long form articles. Even if I am really interested in the topic, I just cannot concentrate long enough to read any technical long form article that contains any form of 'fluff' in the writing. I started to hate reading these kinds of articles more and more.


Bookmarks are for being able to quickly retrieve something that you have already read and mostly absorbed for future reference. They aren't a to do list. Even if they were, a to do list is not a universal constant. Highly engaged people will likely have things on their lists that last their while lives - your "todays" to do list is something structured by priority. Continue at will.


I don't bookmark anything interesting anymore. If I get inspired to look at something again, I search for it.


Yeah. I have several levels of "things I will never get around to":

1. I keep a tab open for a few days until I have 200 tabs open. I then bulk save them using OneTab and never look at that either.

2. Things I want to remain in my gaze goes in my bookmark toolbar until it scrolls off the end and is never seen again

3. I occasionally use regular bookmarks and have come to accept the fact that I never look at them (although it does give them a bump in the address bar autocomplete which sometimes helps)

So - all of this is basically a sop and deep down I've just made peace with the fact that I never return to most of these things. I figure if it's important enough I'll just remember it and search for it.


I resist doing any of that in the first place because it's just giving in to an unhealthy habit. The time and attention I spent cataloging was supposed to be for something else.


This is the quickest way I can get round indecision.

Do I need this? Not sure... One click to stop worrying about it and move on.

I certainly strive to do no cataloguing or sorting of this stuff. That was an early valuable lesson I learned (even before getting diagnosed)


The click is cataloging.


You are technically correct.


What's important is that it's reinforcing a bad habit.


The "bad habit" is poor impulse control and failure to control focus. That's something that is so central to ADHD that all I can ever really hope to do is mitigate it.

Sometimes having 50 tabs open is a sign that I'm distracted and sometimes it's a sign up being really productive. All I can hope to do is make sure that the needle swings to the latter more often than the former and that I have a good strategy to recover when it doesn't.


I was coached+medicated out of doing the same thing.


I've come down to admitting to myself that there's a "now" pile and a "never" pile. Sometimes, the never pile items can graduate to now, but those events are often random or born from unforeseeable external events.

Projects that are not on my current short list of "need to know" things are added to the pile (added to Pocket with a tag of "checkthisout"), and I've decided to stop making myself feel badly for the list of things I never got to looking at.

Items that fall into into the "now" column are added to a separate text-based list that I actively look at and work thorough when I find myself with extra time.

What's truly "extra" time and not just time that should be spent on chores or honest-to-god downtime is an entirely different conversation.


Turn on the noprocrast feature. Rather than bookmark, just upvote; you can view your old upvotes later (https://news.ycombinator.com/upvoted?id=WhackyIdeas).

Also remember that there is no reason to feel sad for not getting to things. Because as long as you are alive, there will always be another thing waiting for you. It's an infinite highway with a piece of cake every mile. Missed the last one? Don't worry, another one's coming up. Half-finished one and need to move on? Don't worry, more cake ahead. The biggest problem you'll have is not being able to eat it all... but if you tried, you'd probably explode... The noprocrast feature is your diet. :)


I use a Reading List and file away anything interesting and then immediately close the tab. When I have time, I can go back and review all the things. In truth, I don't read most of them, but filing them away makes me comfortable to move on. If your browser doesn't have a Reading List, there are myriad extensions, you can also use Pocket, or even Evernote's web clipper. Use a couple of key tags - don't go overboard on tagging.

I also just focus on article content and ignore comments on all sites. Anyone can make a comment on a site, and there's no clear indication of authoritative comments vs amateur opinion, so they're largely a waste of time - there are lots of good comments, for sure, but I just don't have the time to wade through looking for them.


Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"


ADHD is a disorder that affects people of all ages.

Yes, children do not have the executive function (and therefore attention span) of an adult. As children get older their executive improves and they get better at self-regulation. Adults with ADHD have limited executive function, just like children. Imagine putting an 8-year-old behind the wheel of a car. It wouldn't be surprising if they got into a wreck. That same level of inattention in an adult when driving is one of the risks of ADHD.

The stakes are much higher when you're in school. Missed homework and test scores can go on for years without huge knock on effects. If you constantly miss things at work? You get fired! Then you have real adult problems staring you in the face, like rent and bills and spouses.

> I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

Of all the things you said, this is the most dangerous. Please learn more about ADHD before you dismiss it as non-existent.


I'm physically incapable of just closing open tabs. I must be spending good few weeks every year just closing tabs, if I'd add up the time spending it. Everything is so interesting, everything spikes interest in something else, which adds more tabs, it is taking me about an hour to close 40-50, and when I have less than 20 tabs open on my browser, - I feel a sense of pride and achievement.

I have to constantly limit myself, to constantly stand on my own neck to not get sweeped up by something interesting, the behavior of someone struggling with addiction comes to mind. And there's no legal Adderall in my country. It's hell.


I definitely get it about the constant bookmarking. There are often really good comments on HN, so I began saving the good ones in my Logseq journal. I save a ton of stuff in my Twitter bookmarks as well.

The key is to regularly re-visit these bookmarks and clean them up. For me it means categorizing these saved threads and comments under a specific theme. Maybe I'll write a blog post about it once I've arranged those ideas together. Even if I don't, the act of acting on those bookmarks reduces mental clutter.

Be sure to time-box it though. There's nothing more frustrating than opening up Twitter to review some old bookmarks and then getting distracted in the organization+deletion cycle for 45 mins.


Not knowing how things relate to one another can be frustrating. I suggest learning Category Theory to gain a sense of balance. Ingesting knowledge without an outlet is not a healthy practice. Use what you learn. To know and not to do - is not to know.


Is this symptom unique to ADHD? I certainly accumulate hundreds of open tabs of things I want to come back to and research, but I don't have the other characteristic symptoms of ADHD.

I use a browser plugin that lets me create markdown highlights from websites and I copy them into my Logseq system. I tag them and then, when I want to dive in and do something about a topic, I go to that topic and there are all my notes from hundreds of websites I've found interesting over the years.

Maybe the difference between my experience of this and the ADHD one is that I enjoy the times I get to sit down, dive deep, read the sites, and make the notes, but people with ADHD have trouble with that stage?


Use the obsessive phases, find a topic that is overlapping with your obsessions and cram every new obsession into that project. Yes, it leads to cluttered projects, but suddenly you are that developer driving that open source project in mono-mode.


I have adhd and have been taking adderall for more than a decade (wow I just now realized it’s been that long). Ultimately, I’ve learned to just stay vigilant with my attention. I try to manage my brain the way I manage my kids hah. Direction and control but plenty of freedom and independence mixed in too. It’s a balance that is rarely ever perfect though.

Btw, I have a bookmark folder named “interesting” that has maybe 100 links and growing. I don’t think ive read the content for any one of those links to the end. However, reading the list and remembering why I found it interesting in the first place is satisfying


I find that bc I have to manage my kids, I can't manage my brain as well. Ever go through this?


I'm in a similar position, but have also learned that I can't do everything all at once. If I see something I'm interested, of course I bookmark it, but I prioritize the projects/ideas I feel would be useful in the short term vs long term.

Then I let em go for a little while before doubling back. Once I have some free time, I'll take a shot at one of em. It's important to avoid overwhelming yourself. It's okay to let things simmer for a while before you come back to them, or even forget about them entirely and "re-discover" the things you've already read later on.


99% of all content I find interesting is added to Pocket for future reading. This gives me a relative peace of mind that I can return to all that when I feel like it, without actually doing it now. From time to time I browse Pocket to choose something to read. Once every few months I go into consumption mode for a day or two when I go through hundreds of articles (in some cases by just archiving). The time a piece of content stays in Pocket limbo helps me to distance myself from the joy of stumbling upon the content, which in effect allows me to focus on reading just the more interesting pieces.


Stayfocusd chrome extension for sites that are trouble during working hours.

I've started to implement the advice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL6qRIJZ_Y albeit too early to tell. He's pretty well credentialed though, so I trust on average the advice is good (but specifically for each individual YMMV)

One of his best points is dont act like or prescribe yourself ADHD solutions until you have a true diagnosis by an expert. Losing focus and distractions is commonplace for all people today, not just ADHD folks.


Reading HN via an RSS reader on my phone has helped my ADHD. Using the Feeder app I can skim headlines, find ones that interest me, pin them for coming back to later and bookmark for saving for posterity. Feeder lets me bulk mark posts as read so that I don't have to see old posts again. Navigating RSS feeds from my phone not my computer means I separate work and procrastination more effectively.

https://gitlab.com/spacecowboy/Feeder


I do white noise on headphones, help me focus for many many hours, YouTube is full of that, get some good mix of vacuum machines, hair dryer noise on multiple tabs, play around with what works best for you - try to look for a moment where it makes you feel goosebumps aka when you hit some kind of "resonance" then keep that playing and try to focus - don't fight the "noise" instead try to embrace it let it flow thru you and time will kinda cease to exist and work will get miraculously done :D


In general I usually just disconnect from the Internet when I need to get stuff done. Phone goes in a drawer too. It's very relaxing.

Realistically, most of "news" isn't actually stuff that's happened, but just opinion and speculation. The remaining fraction will reach you if it's important.

I've also found that most of my procrastination is from not knowing what to do next and sort of hopping back and forth between things I think needs to be done, so something like GTD or just a todo.txt-file has been amazing.


This app: https://selfcontrolapp.com/

I don't quite know how it works, but it allows me to setup a website block list that I can't get around. I'm sure if I really tried I could figure out what it changed and get around the block, but 1) then it would defeat the purpose and 2) that takes effort that I don't want to spend.

Then I put my phone in the other room, and voila! 95% of my distractions are out the window.


Implement a FIFO based bookmarking scheme that deletes bookmarks >3mnths old, if it's not on your mind for longer than 3 months you'll probably never care to read it.


I have an 8 hour quota for the time I can spend in a week reading 'news' and use leechblock to enforce it.

I don't read anything on my phone, only on a desktop or my laptop. When I open one of these 'news' links, there's a tiny countdown timer showing me the time left this week. Once the timer runs out, all tabs close and that's it, done for the week.

I'm forced to be conscious of the time spent, so I read fast and am very picky about what I read.


I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but I've been trying to reduce distractions for a long time and the one thing that was extremely effective for me was going to the office and taking a desk in a busy region with my back against interior rather than the windows, this made my monitors visible to everyone. The constant feeling of being judged made it impossible to get distracted and I was extremely productive when I was at the office.


Huh, interesting. Whenever I tried this I just felt anxious and retreated into my phone.

I suppose it depends on the type of work though. I could see this working well for the more mindless, grindier tasks, but this seems kind of awful for a task that requires some concentrated thought and creativity.


It might also be my mind naturally fitting in with the crowd when I see everyone focused on their task. The anxiety is odd though. Do you hate crowds?


I actually love crowds, and work just fine in coffee shops, but don't enjoy the perception of being watched as I work.


If glancing at the subject and bookmarking to later seldom go back to it allows you to move on, is that a problem?

Just like you don't have to and cannot read every book in your lifespan, you can't read every blog post. Your bookmarks doesn't have to be your todo list.

You might like Pocket or similar. Pocket specifically can sort your bookmarked articles in various ways, including popularity on the service, or just let it sit there knowing you have the possibility.


It's hard and took me a lot of time to just accept this is how I am. I also been doing a lot of bookmarks, screenshots, notes and what not. Most of the time I never actually return to them and even if I wanted to most likely I get distracted before I even get to it.

I just go with whatever I get the moments of focus with and I learned to work in a completely non linear way, so that the chaos I have eventually turns into something that works.


I don't think I have ADHD but I created a shaarli clone (https://gitlab.com/sodimel/share-links/) in order to be able to store, share and retrieve all the interesting link (the act of sharing interesting links happens more frequently now that I have a dedicated tool to store/retrieve them) :P


Right now I have 100 tabs open, many of which are HN posts or links from HN posts that I still want to check back on. That's down from the low 200's a week ago. Once a week, before I read more HN, I go through my tabs and either read it and close it, save it for next time, or say "realistically I will not get to this within the next year due to (other projects I want more)." and close the tab.


Badly, I've had some trouble maintaining employment in the past because at times it's just hard for me to start something. It's bad. I've been able to break some parts of the pattern, for instance I can manage to exercise daily now - but there are times where I wonder if I'll ever be able to cram enough productivity into a given day to really measurably improve as an engineer.


I stopped bookmarking long ago. I almost never read bookmarks, and if I still bookmark something, and never return to it, I don't feel any guilt. Such the way it is.

I, however, still sad that I don't have energy and not bright enough to do quantum computing research (I am trying, but my applications to Xanadu, CERN and LANL were rejected), and many other things. FOMO is inevitable.

But letting things go is inevitable, too.


I go to HN to seek distraction on purpose; if I'm busy enough with work and able to concentrate on it I probably wouldn't bother as much.

But I think everyone will find something to do with their brain when it's understimulated, and HN and its wealth of interesting things is a big source of stimulation.

I've got little else to add that others haven't already mentioned though.


I use a blocker extension in my browser that blocks X sites between certain hours of the day, including HN. If I wanted to, I could go override it but 95% of the time I don't.

I also use a blocker app on my phone and it's more jarring to get that angry background and "You tried to go to X app Y times today".


Fear of missing out, FOMO.

The simple fact is, humanity is producing more content than you can consume, even if you dedicated every moment of your life to consuming it.

So stop dedicating every moment of your life to bookmarking things you plan to consume. You won't.

Trust that cream rises to the top, check the front page, read as many articles as you can, then forget about the rest. That's all anyone can do.


Using RSS bot in slack, i recently added a subscription to HN. In Slack, i can skim through various articles while scrolling and open only those i want to read right away. Since it's url is already in slack i don't have to bookmark it. And Just because it's in slack doesn't mean i have to read it right away. So, for now it's working out good.


I haven't managed my ADHD very well in the last 2 years, my life is becoming a nightmare. But HN is less and less of a factor, I think my interests have somewhat diverged and I don't click that much anymore. Also, very often I see interesting stuff on the front page of HN that I have seen before somewhere else, which is probably not a good sign.


I accept that I'm not a polymath or genius. But I used to think I was supposed to be keeping up with everything in every field.


I just accept it as a part of life.

Read about interesting things, do more research, learn about the subject, read about something new and learn about that instead.

Learning about a variety of topics isn't a bad thing, a thirst for knowledge is good. Sure I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge on one or two topics, but I know a lot of things about a broad range of topics


I don't have ADHD. But I do have a bad Guardian habit, and I spend a lot of time following HN links (I have time to spare). Most of the things I want to do never get onto a todo list, because I don't want to clutter my list of important things to do, which I try to restrict to no more than three items.

I doubt it's about ADHD, mate.


Having a habit of reading the Guardian is bad.


I've on and off had problems with similar since early Slashdot years. Very ADHD.

A few years ago I realized I have more important things to do. I log on here when I can, but i'm fine with missing things.

Sure; there's so much I'll never come back to, but whatever. That's just life. I look for recurring patterns, not individual items.


I like to joke that my dream is to one day be able to afford my own free time.

But you’re better off being excited about a lot and only having time for a little than the alternative. Getting excited about this stuff is the key to success in the field. That endless desire to learn is critical in a field where you need to constantly learn everyday.


I don't see any issues with what you've described. If I were you I'd challenge the interpretation that not reading every single thing you find interesting is a bad thing.

The fact is there will always be too much for anyone to do. It might help to think about the issue you're having like how you think about FOMO.


I feel you. There’s so much good stuff out there.

But you’re only capable of handling so much. You’re under no obligation to process every piece of information you think you might like, and moreover - you shouldn’t. You’d be setting yourself up for disappointment.

The way I work is I acknowledge my limits and follow my gut. Sounds vague but that’s what I got.


no, there is so much crap out there - just learn to ignore it


At the expense of missing some subset of posts, my default bookmark for HN filters out posts that have less than 100 points. It helps reduce the number of things I look into.

https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100


I completely relate. One thing that has helped me is to employ the following workflow:

1. Use the "Add to reading list" feature in Safari.

2. Reward myself*

3. Before bed, I use a TTS** app to listen to those articles.

*Important step to give yourself a hit of dopamine, however small. The lack of which is the reason for not being able to control this impulsivity in the first place.

**Text to speech


What do you do to reward yourself in step 2?


I only check during the morning while my adderall is kicking in and I don't go past the first page. This allows me to go as deep as I want and do some exploring still, but with limits. It's just taken practice over the years because I could easily burn through hundreds of pages on reddit / hn easily.


Just set aside a specific time to check the things that are interesting. Say, during lunch for 30 mins or carve out a 1 hour block where you just read.

5 hours a day seems excessive and a waste of time. How do you get anything else done? You can build a million dollar business in 5 hours a day compound over time.


Regarding HN in particular, I use https://hckrnews.com/ with "top 10" visible to reduce the amount of things I need to check. If that's too much, subscribe to https://hackernewsletter.com/ and don't consume content on the main HN website.

Realizing the we have finite time and cognition is key to help us accept and reduce what we consume and what we like.


Medication to make your brain less dysfunctional and psychoeducation to learn how ADHD affects you and about tools and techniques to manage yourself better.

There's tonnes to learn and to discover about yourself. The more you know, the better you can focus your actions to achieve your goals.


Are you medicated? One of my boys has ADHD and it was life changing. When I was a kid ADD as they called it then was highly stigmatized because the meds turned you into a zombie, it's not the case anymore. Basically zero side effects other than appetite loss during lunch.


Isn't ADHD medication basically amphetamine? I experimented when I was younger and it wasn't nice stuff. Couldn't sleep properly afterwards, and loos of appetite (I am already pretty skinny).


There are I think three classes of meds now. I don't recall the specifics but they try you on the non-stimulant one first which for us didn't do anything.

My son takes Concerta which is an extended release drug that basically gives you the minimum viable amount over the course of about 8 hours. By late afternoon it's gone, but it gets him through school just fine. He eats a huge breakfast and dinner so his mostly ignored lunches aren't an issue. No problems with sleep and he's definitely not "high" while taking it. It just balances him out to where he should be.


It's concerning to me that children are being medicated with drugs that don't offer a cure in this way. Did you ever try getting him to meditate or some other non-pharmaceutical intervention and nutrition? You child though, it's up to you as a parent to do what you think is best.


You're addicted due to a deficiency in your reward pathways. Stop beating yourself up. You have no impulse control.

You can not control these things with will power any more than a dog can will its way to human.

Self accept, get medication for the dopamine issue, stop beating yourself up, go slow.


For starters, I use https://hckrnews.com/ and filter it down to the top ten articles.

Like many people with ADHD, I have a tendency to hyper-focus on things, and if I don't have something that I'm focused on I tend to get depressed. Over the years (a lot of years, self-awareness is not a strong suit), I've become more familiar with my patterns and tried to accommodate them and make healthy choices.

It's easy for me to hyper-focus on a series of novels and devour them and not feel too guilty (this is better for sleep). When I'm hyper-focused on a development project or a work problem, it tends to disrupt my sleep patterns more. When stuff like that happens I try to make a lot of notes about the things intruding on my thoughts, so that I can put them to rest for the night and not feel like I need to address them now.

Similarly, if a subject is really interesting and I don't want to lose track of it, I'll save all of the articles in Pocket and know that I can revisit the subject.

Lastly: I have kids and they do not care what you are interested in right now. They're great at pulling me away from what I'm absorbed in.


HN weekly mailing list (only sends the top 100 articles of the week), or noprocrast settings.


I visit the HN site very rarely. I mostly see HN links via the Panda browser plugin. I open stories I'm interested in, which then leads to tab hell, but that is at least a defined list I can work through vs. the infinite scroll problem. YMMV.


If you missed it, I think a lot of the discussion in this thread will be interesting for you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34272834


> Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook about HN?

No, that's pretty much spot on for everything. 1) See shiny/interesting/cool/usefull thing 2) start making notes 3) possibly even start 4) go to step one.


Would you really be happier if you actually set out to do every idea you come up with?

Just keep on collecting bookmarks and wait for the day when a truly good idea comes along, one which you had been anticipating and preparing for all along.


Person with ADHD is overstimulated constantly bc every single bookmark is equally super important. It's hell =D


Problem here is people with ADHD lacks behavior inhibition thus leading to distraction spiral, for me medications help with this helping me to filter out nice but low priority stuff.


Instead of bookmarking stuff that you would never later read, start relying on HN search. And coming soon would be better 'search' capabilities via ChatGPT ...


Yep, I struggle.

Things I've done.

1. Delete my account, change /etc/hosts or use OpenDNS and block it. 2. Restrict it to one device and only for 1 hour a day. 3. Sign up for a digest email from another service and only use that.


100% about the digest. https://www.hndigest.com I set it to arrive at 9PM daily (nice feature!) and spend 30 minutes to an hour browsing the top 20 (another customizable feature). I don't visit any other time of day.


Didn't know I had ADHD until I read this. Were you officially diagnosed?


You probably don't have ADHD!

Or more precisely, whether you would get a diagnosis of ADHD if you consulted the appropriate specialist is probably irrelevant to your life.

You are one of the many people who have repeatedly derived pleasure from visiting HN. It is natural for humans to get pleasure from learning new things and getting fresh perspectives from other humans.

And HN is easy and comfortable and very safe. There is nothing at risk: your visit to HN will not end in pain such as the pain of trying hard to achieve a goal important to you and failing. Yes, understanding the implications of something you learned here can require mental effort, and mental effort is painful (at least momentarily), but the mental effort is discretionary: if you choose not to make the effort, the consequences (namely, having a less accurate model of reality than you would have had if you had made the effort) are far away and minor.

Things that are pleasurable and require no effort (and no danger or risk) are bad for people. Specifically it screws up the system in the brain for motivation, drive and reward. Indulge enough in these effortless risk-less pleasures and your motivation becomes weakened such that even if you go cold turkey on the pleasure, it takes weeks and weeks for you to regain the natural human ability to remain motivated by things that require sustained effort, pain and patience.

Actually it is worse than that because pleasure causes reinforcement of the sequence of actions that led up to the pleasure. Suppose for example that you make a mental move in your mind along the lines of, "my situation is hopeless; I'm stuck, and there is no way out," while you are interacting with a web browser. Suppose further that your next move (while in this state of nihilism) is to type "news.yc" in the location bar, then 30 seconds or 60 seconds later you notice a story or a comment on HN that explains some aspect of reality that has been confusing you and nagging at you for years. Your discovery of the explanation is pleasurable (and should be pleasurable). So far so good (you learned something) but pleasure reinforces the mental moves you made that led up to the pleasure, including the nihilistic move. If that nihilistic move gets reinforced enough times in this way, it can take years to correct the problem.

The point is that most of society is probably dealing with this problem. It's not that you have a mental disorder. Well, I don't know you: maybe you do have a mental disorder (ADHD or otherwise) making your problem with HN worse than it would be if you did not have a disorder. But people with a mental disorder have the same mental architecture for motivation as the rest of us, so I have to believe that they should control and pay attention to their participation in effortless risk-less pleasures as strictly as the rest of us should.

Some pleasures are better than others: for example, it is better to get pleasure from learning things than from harming other people (and at least some of the pleasure people get from video games is the pleasure in harming simulated people). But even a good pleasure can be a problem when a person has essentially unlimited access to it; when it does not cost anything and carries essentially no risk; when there is no painful effort or patient waiting between the moment the person decides to pursue the pleasure and when the pleasure comes.


> But people with a mental disorder have the same mental architecture for motivation as the rest of us

You may want to read up on that actually.


Here's an argument for my assertion:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Cyj6wQLW6SeF6aGLy/the-psycho...

Let's see your link or rebuttal.


I recommend reading any actual research on ADHD instead - you'll find out that motivation deficit and executive dysfunction are pretty much its defining aspects, and that it's not quite about seeking "effortless risk-less pleasures".

For example:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9066661/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3010326/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626918/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170216105919.h...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1744-9081-1-8

Even got you one directly related to this thread:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01651...

There's plenty of popsci too around the phrase "interest-based nervous system":

https://www.additudemag.com/secrets-of-the-adhd-brain/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/optimized/202107/the...


I use HN Digest and get an email with the top 20 (the number is configurable) stories from the previous day in my email each morning. I stay relatively up to date with less distraction.


If it'd take longer than 5 minutes or so to read the article I chuck it into Instapaper.

From there I've got my instapaper feed in my RSS reader, I'll give them a read whenever I've got a spare moment.


Came here to say the same thing. Instapaper working so seamlessly with this site means I can read cool articles in bed, on my Kindle, later.


That is a wise method, thank you so much! There are tabs I want to read in my array of open tabs - which I don't get simply because in few moments I need to scroll to them, I get distracted by some other tab!


If you find it difficult to cope on your own, I recommend seeking Therapy, and getting diagnosed as well. It helped me a lot.

I always believe that a professional's opinion is better than anything you could find here.


We need to stop pretending HN is not part of the problem. Every time I see someone say they quit Facebook or Twitter on HN I chuckle. It's like announcing you quit smoking while shooting heroin.


I run an instance of yacy where I index pages that I would otherwise bookmark.

It prevents the infinite mega list forming and if you ever do need the knowledge then it has full text search and you can find it again.


No formal diagnosis here, beyond doctor's suggesting ADHD for my poor grades in elementary school.

I use Nicorette at work when I really need to focus, and I try to keep a consistent sleep schedule.


- Constantly reminding myself to get back to work

- Deep house music in headphones, sad ones help focus

- Tomato timer

- Edging, which releases dopamine and helps you focus.

I don't take amphetamines because they just make me sleepy, in a bizare twist.


> Edging, which releases dopamine and helps you focus

Hopefully you work from home.


I have become really good at being stealthy during Zoom meetings. Nobody suspects anything.


Even if I remove all the obvious distractions, it still is much harder to read a long text on a monitor that it os on paper. So I just print the documents I have to read.


I have to block HN and Reddit during the work day. My problem is that I take just a second to check HN while something compiles and then an hour later I'm still reading.


Somewhat luckily/unluckily my job sometimes needs me to raid my references to come up with positions on niche topics.

Probably not that healthy really. Like a hoarder with happy clients


My current strategy:

- Don't read all the comments - Write a quick reply if I feel I must - If I find myself googling to fact check my comments then just close all the windows.


you are a much wiser person than myself, then.


Specifically relating to browsing:

Just use a website blocker, plenty about. I use Cold Turkey (mentioned in another thread the other day), but there are others.


you can be addicted to the guardian? i have read the grauniad since i was 18 or so, thus for over 50 years. there are perhaps two or three articles in the average day that might be worth reading, plus the new word game that i got 100% on today (supercriticality) but that only takes me 20 mins or so. what can you find there to interest you so much?


I don't know if it helps but noprocrast (in HN settings) and Leechblock (browser extension) are the only way I stay employed.


Honestly, I wonder whether I should be here at all.

Like, this site is like cigarettes.


take a huge breath and close the tab

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.havabee.br...


yea i feel exactly the same. i just open a billion tabs, and use a mix of saving to pocket and onetab - onetab is the best, i rarely go back and check it, but it makes closing tabs feel a lot easier


I use Notion.so and if I find an interesting article I put them on a list.


Find a job you truly love and allow it to take all your attention.


It's hard to want to do that when 90% of the news on here is how all our jobs are going to be automated by AI :)


Make a lot of bookmarks and never revisit them unfortunately


Meditation to develop single-point concentration.


I don’t. I’m just waiting to get fired and die.


I get prescribed with an ADHD medication.


Yes, this is very much a thing for me.


use onetab - i rarely go back and check it but it makes closing tabs down feel a hell of a lot easier


Give a try to aderall or drx amf :)


noprocrast mate.

Go into your HN profile settings and implement it now if you haven't already.


Drugs.


Indeed. Not necessarily the drugs everybody thinks though.

Zolpidem (5mg taken in the morning when you are well-rested) apparently does magic - totally nails ADHD. I have never been nearly this alive, present (attentive, mindful), concentrated, non-lazy for the whole day. Better than anything (I have experimented with almost everything in light doses) to enhance my day.

I suspect ADHD has something to do with GABA deficiency/insensitivity.


Have you been taking it long-term? I see that it's only recommended for short-term usage.


No, I haven't and don't plan to take it regularly/long-term. I also don't use it the way it is meant to be used (as a sleep aid).

I also don't drive (at all - this is Ok in the EU). Don't try daytime zolpidem if you do - even the theoretical risk is too much because you are not risking health issues, you are risking death in such a case, also of random innocent people.

Oh, by the way, I probably should have mentioned this for sake of potential reproducibility: I currently am on the daily piracetam + lion's mane + vitamins&minerals stack and I also took royal jelly the days I experimented with zolpidem. Perhaps zolpidem wouldn't cure ADHD and would just make me sleepy if taken alone (the substances mentioned didn't have such an anti-ADHD effect without zolpidem though).


Fellow ADHS person here - it's an addiction, it's not funny and it's close to a personal hell depending how worse it is.

If you can go offline and don't read HN or other news on the internet do it. It doesn't matter. Practice ignoring it. Turn off the internet - not forever but long enough every day that you realize in what situation you are in.

Why I'm saying such harsch things?

Because you (and me) are bullshitting ourselves here - we are consuming news, articles and comments and looking for some insights or new information but we can't link it to existing knowledge mostly or get sidetracked and lose control of our own directions, things to do because these are probably dull, difficult or boring and have consequences - so they cause anxiety - and it's easier and mostly automatic behavior to run away from them and just fill your head with random tidbits on here. I'm not saying this site is bad - don't get me wrong - it's just that reading for hours here every day will do you no good and won't improve anything.

What to do instead?

ADHD is all about executive dysfunction and working on improving things there can have a huge impact - medication might help but is no panacea - stress, anxiety, outright fear can also cause this behavior and make it worse (at least for me).

If you are in education or school go offline, go the lab, go to the lectures, meet other poeple in real life and work with them, this helps me a lot - take a pen and paper and work on problem sets or meet with other students - go from reading/consuming to writing/creating - make a shedule and be gently to yourself because you totally ignore it - but exercise getting better at it - exercise itself also helps, so does settings time-limits like stop working on something at a time, pomodoro technique and things like that.

This won't work very well or at all depending how deep you are in the trouble but if you catch yourself drifting away be gentle to yourself and practice taking control again.

Work torwards mastering yourself and what is in front of you, you may think it's not as cool or important but that is probably very likely wrong - do interact offline with real people, solve real problems and don't run away from it - face your shortcomings and failures and learn from them or at least avoid running away from your reality.

You need to learn to be honest with yourself and work torwards tackling realistic work in small pieces for things to improve. Going into writing/creating mode helps and also slows you down and puts real problems in front of you that are worth solving (or ditch the project because you had wrong ideas about that)

And be gentle to yourself it's okay to do gown the rabbit hole once in a while.


i think i feel the same way

piling up browser tabs like dishes in the sink

(no solutions here)


i don't, but it all seems to work out anyways


Bookmarking this comment section for later. Thanks OP!


Rittalin helps


I was a psychotherapists for over 25 years working with children and families.

I don't see the the relevence of this question.

I do not see any links with saving bookmarks and ADHD. I too save hundreds of bookmarks and do not have ADHD! Isn't this just normal human bevaiour? Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with your daily functioning! Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with MY daily functioning!

You say: But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. BUT, "I will never ever" comment is unreasonable and unrealistic, the real reality is? that you can do all the things in your brain!

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"


I was a psychotherapists for over 25 years working with children and families.

I don't see the the relevence of this question.

Isn't ADHD called attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Though Hyperactivity was dropped from the DSM-3 in 1980 and reinstated in 1996.

I do not see any links with saving bookmarks and ADHD. I too save hundreds of bookmarks and do not have ADHD! Isn't this just normal human bevaiour? Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with your daily functioning! Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with MY daily functioning!

You say: But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. BUT, "I will never ever" comment is unreasonable and unrealistic, the real reality is? that you can do all the things in your brain!

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"


I was a psychotherapists for over 25 years working with children and families.

I don't see the the relevence of this question.

Isn't ADHD called attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Though Hyperactivity was dropped from the DSM-3 in 1980 and reinstated in 1996.

I do not see any links with saving bookmarks and ADHD. I too save hundreds of bookmarks and do not have ADHD! Isn't this just normal human bevaiour? Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with your daily functioning! Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with MY daily functioning!

You say: But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. BUT, "I will never ever" comment is unreasonable and unrealistic, the real reality is? that you can do all the things in your brain!

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"


For HN addiction in particular, hckrnews.com (not affiliated) helps a lot. It only shows top 10-20 for each day, reducing noise.


Not ADHD⁰ but I have similar issues with HN and similar. This usually results in a great many open tabs, different ones in different places¹, spread over numerous browser windows where applicable. I need a better way to manage it all but what currently happens is:

* Anything not being immediately looked at is shovelled to a different desktop to help keep focus. Tabs on phones are move to this desktop on one of the other machines.

* When browser memory use starts to climb it is time for a pruning session. Things that I don't really remember usually weren't that significant and are just dropped. Other get filed with notes in my collection of “possible projects/playthings” text files that are kept on a server accessible to all my devices⁴. This can take some time as I usually get distracted and end up climbing back down the rabbit-holes that resulted in some of those open tabs in the first place…

* I've started actively trying to be “evil” with myself and controlling the amount of time I'm here. This sometimes means passing up on links in favour of others, or just opening the tab but not looking at it until later (if I don't end up having time later this either gets closed or moved to that dumping ground desktop). If something is relevant to particular projects or idea groups the links (source and HN thread) go directly into the relevant project text files, skipping further attention/triage, to be looked at in more detail in that mythical future time that I properly look into said project(s) again.

I used to use a mind-mapping tool to keep the lists of lists of related lists of lists & notes together, but that became unwieldy so went back to tetx files. I've tried or just looked at various apps² and not spotted anything that matches what I want. A couple of those many project files concern writing my own tool to manage my brain-dumps, or at least a tool to help index/search the lists/notes as they are currently stored.

Occasional lost windows full of tabs due to browser crashes that have had no lasting effect on my life should probably be a sign that I should just stop caring to a large extent, but that is never going to happen!

----

[0] unless I am but undiagnosed!

[1] home main PC, laptop, phone, work machine, old phone that I haven't decommissioned yet as moving the FirstDirect banking app over is a PITA, old phone I use for work as I refuse to have Teams & other work stuff on personal devices

[2] like OneNote, keep and various FOSS options – Keep sometimes acts as a temporary³ dumping ground for things on their way to the text files

[3] though not temporary enough, I have too much in there ATM

[4] and, or course, backed up & historied along with other work, not actually in proper source control like I almost certainly should⁵, but at least in backups that allow access to older versions

[5] yet another not-on-going project being to rationalise how I store and backup everything.


I use hckrnews.com and only visit periodically.


TIL there's another interface to hacker news


As with others, "poorly", though I've made some attempts.

I keep my principle mobile device (an e-ink tablet) free of virtually all authenticated services. (An articles-clipping app is the one exception). I can read HN, but cannot engage from that device specifically.

I'll also try to turn off WiFi at least when possible.

HN as an article-filtering tool works well. Combining that with Algolia Search's time-bounded search, you can filter by the most popular stories of the past week, month, or year, which can be an interesting further restriction by entering a blank search:

Week: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=fal...>

Month: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...>

Year: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...>

As always, "popular" isn't a synonym for "best", though it is a reasonable proxy.

You can also of course search for specific topics or people of interest, though here story search is often less useful than comment search, for which matches tend to be more likely and relevant. Note that comment votes were removed from publicly-exposed data ... a long time ago? Apparently 2011: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595605>, though I thought it was more recent.

You can also visit "past" which will show previous days' posts, after the voting has largely settled. Again, this tends to filter out lower-quality content.

Otherwise:

- I'm trying to read or at least skim the article before reading comments, though that's one of those "observed in the breach" pledges...

- Recognise that comment quality on HN, whilst higher than most other significant online sites ... is still fairly poor relative to more curated sources, and there's a great deal of partisanship and ignorance (myself included) in discussion.

- "You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to", a/k/a "Someone is wrong on the Internet" <https://xkcd.com/386>.

- The HN Hivemind itself tends to glom on to specific topics and ideas more readily than others. I'm reminded of this every time I review my own submissions --- the stuff I'd really like to see take off rarely does, though there are occasional exceptions. It's usually either throwaway or predictable submissions which do get attention. (The submission queue is fickle, there is the Second-Chance Pool ("Pool": <https://news.ycombinator.com/pool>) to which you can both submit and peruse usually higher-quality / less immediately catnippy articles.)

- Time-boxing is underappreciated. Recognise what role HN does play in your life, and admit it at times but only in a limited fashion. You have 24 hours in a day, and probably about 2--4 hours per day which you can tightly focus on intellectual content. You're going to need to allocate that to work, personal matters, and general distraction. "Eat the frog first", put your most important tasks earlier in the day. (Much of this comes from David Allen's Getting Things Done.)

- I've also tried to apply a "BOTI" principle to what I encounter. That's "best of the interval", where "interval" is day, week, month, year, etc. I'll try to capture what seem both at the time and on later reflection to be the most significant articles, books, ideas, etc., I've encountered. This is partially reflected in the Algolia tips above, though I'll also keep a local list (bookmarks folder for "BOTI-Jan-2023", say, or a save-to-ePub EinkBro compilation on my e-book reader). There's the question then of whether or not that material actually was as compelling as thought at the time, and of course, the challenge of actually reading what I've archived. But it's at least an effort at organisation.

That said: the struggle is real and constant.


[flagged]


They never said it did, nor was there any implication that they were.

This post was a question about how other people with similar issues manage it. I don't see how you read otherwise.




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