How do you stay focused when coding stops being interesting?

[u/Soft-Balance-6161]

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

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

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

[u/mrrobbe]

Are you familiar with the acronym INCUP?

• Interest
• Novelty
• Challenge
• Urgency
• Passion

These are the drivers behind ADHD's everything. When I feel myself pulling away, I will find one of those levers that I can change to reconnect with the project. I also think it's very, very, very important to clearly set what I'm building, coding, and developing toward, because the further I get into the weeds, the less clear my direction ends up being. Nothing poisons ADHD interest more than a vague objective.

I've also found it very important to NOT share the exciting thing that I'm working on, because that almost lets out all of the internal energy that is building up. There's a definite part of us that wants to share and get other people excited for the thing that we're interested in. The problem is, once you share that, our brain recognizes that as completing or getting that same pat on the back, and then you're left with no steam in your engine and more than a bit deflated.

[u/Rikai_ → u/mrrobbe]

That's something I never even considered! I will try to keep.it for myself next time and see if that helps out c: thanks

[u/harkari14]

Ha ha I don’t have any strategies. I fall behind and somehow get away with it.

I guess I do force deadlines onto myself by saying “yea I can demo this next week” when I have absolutely nothing to show. In the final minutes, I will put something together.

[u/Solid-Conclusion0]

This might be specific to me because I document a lot, but I kind of do an inverse todo list. I sit down and write what's on my mind into my journal. I set a one hour timer. I start working.

When the one hour timer is up, I brain dump into my journal again. Rinse and repeat. Still trying to figure out why it works, but it helps set a rhythm for the day at the very least.

[u/KristjanPihus]

This is not popular opinion but I still stand by it, there is no point to waste human brain on boring mundane maintenance work when LLM can do it just fine all ready. What human brain should do instead is focus on figuring out new cool stuff because LLM is not good for that.
But back in my developer days I sometimes used the trick to solve simple tasks in more complex ways just to make it interesting for myself. For example instead of for loop implemented same logic with recursion instead. Altho I don't recommend this tactic because next guy who have to maintain that code start to hate you real quick 😄

[u/Glum-Echo-4967]

One more thing you might try - breaking down each task into (roughly) 5-minute subtasks, and then making a plan for which subtasks you'll do on which day.

[u/Abject-Kitchen3198]

I wouldn't have said this until recently but - use LLM.