As a fellow ADHD’er and soon remote worker could you share any ADHD specific tips to be successful?
I’m both excited and hesitant as Remote work should let me work when I’m productive more (ie evenings) with exercise and chores in the afternoon “deadzones”, etc. That and not spending energy masking in an office environment.
However there classic adhd problems to contend with like keeping schedule, etc. I also find I need people to stimulate me. I’ve been thinking of a coworker spot in addition to my home office.
Not the person you asked, but, ADHD/ADD covers quite a lot, and what works for some might have adverse effect for others. It's not uncommon to be extremely focused and productive on certain tasks, then struggle immensely with distractions and procrastination for other tasks. I say immensely, because this applies to some degree to everyone.
I too felt I was only productive during certain times and deadzones. But, it turns out, I just need to be left alone to focus. Which not only means not being disturbed by others, but also not so easily doing it myself by wanting to interact with others. If no one else is working, nothing to do but focus. This same effect made working in an office exhausting.
I now work 40%, exclusively remote, and I get more done than I did at 100%. Some weeks by a factor of 2. "How is that possible?", consider that under normal office hours, I would clock in-the-zone productive work to about 2-4 hours. Remote: 7-11 hours. A bad week at the office: 10 hours, two good days at home: 20 hours.
"Yeah, but that's just you sucking at working in an office environment". Indeed. And there are dozens of us. Dozens! A good manager should strive to get the best value out of their workers.
Thanks! That's helpful to hear and goes along with what I've been thinking about myself.
It seems to me that many ADHDers work better with a few intense focused periods / days per week with more off days. Unfortunately in an office setting its almost impossible to achieve.
I'm looking forward to (hopefully) being able to do more fun things on off days than spending so much energy trying to look or be productive in an office!
Maybe just me, but I actually find I have an easier time staying focused when I'm away from my desk with just my laptop.
Multiple screens are great, and sometimes I have good success for a while after going back to my desk with its nice big monitor and all that after I get into a flow on my laptop, but when I really need to focus and am having trouble, oddly enough, just walking to another room (or a coffee shop, or whatever) and sitting down with only my laptop often gives me a good kick-start.
Dunno why. I'd go with "multiple screens = distracting" except that I mostly focus on my main screen when I'm at my desk, so I don't think that's it. The change might just break distraction loops (ahem, visiting HN) or something. Or maybe I can't fool myself with "well, work stuff is up on the other monitor..." Not sure.
> Or maybe I can't fool myself with "well, work stuff is up on the other monitor..." Not sure.
Major downside of being creative and quick thinking... our brains are really good at tricking ourselves. ;)
I've been using a LG C2 42" OLED as a monitor combined with a lazy boy in my home office. It's been pretty nice! Though I totally feel the bit about taking a small screen to a cafe when I really need to focus.
I’m both excited and hesitant as Remote work should let me work when I’m productive more (ie evenings) with exercise and chores in the afternoon “deadzones”, etc. That and not spending energy masking in an office environment.
However there classic adhd problems to contend with like keeping schedule, etc. I also find I need people to stimulate me. I’ve been thinking of a coworker spot in addition to my home office.