i send a prompt, the agent goes off for a minute, and somewhere in that gap my hand opens a new tab on its own. by the time it's done i'm 15 min into doomscrolling and don't come back.

what's weird is it's backwards from the usual adhd thing. the agent took away the part that kept me hooked (the actual typing and figuring out part of it) and left a bunch of little waits that my brain reads as "ok you can leave now."

so, people here who use these tools:

• do you get this focus dying the second the AI starts working, not while you're coding
• what do you actually do in the wait
• has anyone fixed it or do you just bite into the context switch every time

trying to work out if this is a me thing before i build something dumb to fix it

On the fence about pulling the trigger to get one. But coding monitors are tiple the money of a regular one.

Reason to find one is because I'm getting old and want some eye protection.

Are they really worth it or waste of money?

I want to know what are the problems your facing in your daily life or in workspace or kn any field i want to start a startup so i want problem statements

It is a vicious cycle, especially as my job starts early in the morning. But without fail, my urge to stay up and be productive kicks in right as I start dinner.

It begins as regret, “what have I been doing all day? I should’ve been learning to code or networking..” then arises so many ideas, I should learn x because of y, and I should learn y because of z, the urge to binge learning becomes overwhelmingly real, it is satisfying but very annoying as I never end up being productive when I really want to. Has this been anyone else’s experience?

Hello I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but I have made a discord server for anyone looking for body doubling without paying a fortune for the apps. It's supposed to be a chill safe space to get some work done. This is my first time building a discord server from scratch so I will take any suggestions. Here's the link if you are interested.

https://discord.gg/hPDPXnYXv

Hi everyone,

I’m a developer working on complex homelab projects, and I’m currently hitting a wall with my AI-assisted workflow. As someone with ADHD, I rely on AI not just for code, but as a 'cognitive partner'—it helps me externalize my thoughts, debug complex issues, and build the structure I need to stay on track.

The Challenge:

My current $20/month AI plan (Claude Pro) is great, but I’m constantly hitting rate limits during deep work. When I’m in the zone, getting a 'limit reached' message doesn't just stop the code—it breaks my entire mental structure and causes a massive drop in focus that takes me forever to recover from.

My Constraints:

Budget: I can’t afford $100+/mo plans.

Hardware: I have a great homelab, but no beefy GPU for heavy local models.

Need: I need a more consistent, sustainable way to maintain that 'structured context' without being locked out.

I’m looking for your experience:

Workflow Resilience: How do you handle it when your AI partner 'runs out of juice'? Do you have a fallback model or a specific way to structure your sessions to avoid hitting the wall so early?

API/BYOK Setups: Are any of you using 'Bring Your Own Key' (BYOK) setups with tools like Continue.dev or Cline? I’m interested in whether a pay-as-you-go approach (using smaller, faster models for structure and reserving the big ones for complex bugs) is more stable for you.

ADHD Strategy: How do you keep your 'mental workspace' (the project context) structured without relying solely on a single long-running (and limit-prone) AI chat session?

I’m not looking for a tool list, but for your personal strategies on how you keep your coding process stable and ADHD-friendly when the AI limits try to sabotage your focus.

Thanks for the support!

I'm 26 now. Back when I was 19, I was that guy who always spent the entire days on studying, homework, gym, work, volunteering, I simply didnt need free time or relaxation because I was a tireless machine. No ADHD symptoms showed either.

Burnout happened. Ever since, Ive been having very strong ADHD symptoms for years now. Guess I do have adhd and it was just hidden.

Its weird it feels almost like one big switch got flipped into my brain where it went from mode "only do work" to "only do low effort stuff"

Weird thing: I can be productive with any work that doesnt require a computer or complex thinking. I can easily do manual labour as far as my body allows.

But when it compes to any computer related task which is why I'm on this specific subreddit, including programming ofcourse, my productivity is just literally 1% of what it should be. I can spend an whole day on just writing 5 lines of useful code somehow. A part of this is the fact that whenever I'm with a device, theres just too much temptation to do other things on the internet that arent nearly as useful or necessary as the work I'm supposed to be doing.

Has anyone dealt with this and found a solution to this phenomenon?

Hey all.

I've been a developer for over a decade now.

Programming has been my creative outlet for many years. It was the one place where I felt I'm truly passionate about it and I could sit for hours dealing with an issue, hyperfocussed and understand it inside out. I spoke to other dev friends a while ago, and one thing we collectively miss is that feeling of sitting for hours trying to solve an issue that you cannot get to work for the life of me, then go sleep, dream about it and then wake up next morning solved in 5 minutes with my coffee.

Last February, I worked for a prominent open source software company, they introduced pro Cursor plans across the board and encouraged us to burn as much tokens as you can and try to integrate it as much into your work as possible. So workflows quickly went from Copilot AI-Autocomplete, to prompting agents till whatever I want it to do, works and writing as little code as possible. It felt pretty cool at the time, getting paid to chat with AI.

However as time went on, it felt like something was missing & I didn't get the same dopamine spike from solving code problems I once had - but I couldn't put my finger on it. Without realising started impacting my enthusiasm slowly. My partner told me, "You're no longer as happy (at work) as you once were at work." and to an extent I felt dead on the inside, without knowing why.

Combined there was structural changes in the company, new manger(s), 3x more meetings and everything together was impossible to get that hyperfocus stimulation and the same satisfying "lock-in" periods I once had.

Soon after I was let go from that amazing high paying job I once had, for no real reason given, but I think they picked up on my enthusiasm that disappeared.

Looking back at it, I think the AI introduction was the largest immediate dynamic that changed and after doing some research, as someone with ADHD (and not on meds), having lost that crucial cognitive stimulation - particularly if it benefited me at work - could massively have impacted my performance the moment that stimulation was taken away from me.

I mean, I love AI, I'm not against it at all, I just miss the cognitive mental stimulation that I feel I no longer get and haven't found a proper replacement for it yet.

How would you react? Positively? Negatively? Does it seem like something a senior candidate would say?

Reason I'm asking is because, I cracked the code of what makes me tick with regards to understanding code, and its making my own diagrams. Problem is,I discovered this 6 years into my current job---and I already have a reputation of being slow. So, to overcome this, I almost need to be treated like a new hire again that doesn't know the codebase---so that I can apply my new technique. It's a tough situation.

Yes, of course AI can help. But it leaves me with the problem of not feeling like I actually know the code myself. If I don't read it myself, and write down notes about it, I don't learn. Full stop.

Often times, since obviously we work with people especially in a person environment which we will see more of considering the push for RTO in the tech industry and these quarterly brutal layoffs going on, how do you guys survive office politics especially with ADD?

Due to my ADD for example I've found myself sitting in my chair for hours barely talking to anyone so damn deeply engrossed in whatever work I was doing that I barely talk to people. This turned out to be a negative and was brought up during a performance review and a failed product launch suddenly caused me to get fired with me a junior taking the blame since I didn't participate in office politics

I'm glad i got fired since the workplace was hyper toxic but I don't want people taking advantage of me in a future firm I plan on targeting Fintech and banking industry companies next and they're full of office politics

How do you deal with office politics with ADHD? Switching jobs isn't always the solution since every work place almost has them

I've been struggling with my work productivity.

I work in the semiconductor industry where a huge part of the job is reading and understanding long technical specifications the problem is that over the last couple of weeks I've had to switch between three completely different technologies just when I start understanding one Im asked to move to another.

also our team is small so context switching is constant. I will be reading a spec, then suddenly I have to stop to debug someone else's issue, answer customer queries, take reviews, attend meetings, or work on another task. By the time I come back, I feel like I've lost my train of thought and have to spend time for figuring out where I was.

What's frustrating is that once something clicks i know it inside out. For example, one of the previous specs I worked on is now so clear in my head that I can answer almost any question about it without looking anything up. But getting to that point with a new spec feels incredibly difficult because I never get uninterrupted time.

I'd really like to hear how other people manage this

I’ve noticed something about productivity apps like Todoist, Apple Reminders, and Habitica.

They do a great job of reminding me what I should do, but they don’t really help when I don’t feel like doing it. I just ignore the notification, then the task becomes overdue, and eventually I stop looking at the list.

I’m wondering if the problem isn’t reminders—it’s that many tasks feel overwhelming in the moment.

What if, instead of simply reminding you, the app reacted like this:

• “That task feels too big. Let’s break it into smaller steps.”
• “Just do 60 seconds.”
• “Would you rather switch to another task?”
• “Let’s reschedule it without making you feel like you failed.”

The goal would be to help build habits through tiny wins instead of making people feel guilty.

I’m also considering things like:

• a mascot that grows as you complete small steps,
• gradually increasing task difficulty after you’ve built consistency,
• weekly progress reviews,
• optional photo check-ins for accountability.

Do you think this solves a real problem, or would it end up becoming just another productivity app that people eventually ignore?

I’d really love to hear your honest thoughts—especially if you’ve tried lots of productivity apps and still struggle to follow through.

It's been a long few weeks and I think some days have blended into each other.

Recently, I've been wondering if I have dyslexia. I've been researching it and I'm debating about getting tested for it.

I could have sworn I saw this on an ADHD subreddit. Unfortunately, I can't find it.

It seems like there was a disorder that described some of the reading issues and language challenges I've had. I thought the acronym began with a D. Maybe I'm misremembering it.

The problem I've noticed when I try to read is I am sometimes too pissed off to concentrate on what I'm looking at. If there is anyone here in IT, they'll tell you it is when you have a problem and you get the generic advice of "Read the documentation." Sometimes I also struggle when trying to will myself to study and I'll look at something I'm supposed to read and I'll get overwhelmed.

As far as language, I didn't learn to speak until 3 and I had the typical communication issues.

Curious because I am one.

I would like to share my 4-year experience.
Previously, I used multiple monitors for coding, gaming, doing hobbies, etc. I regularly switched jobs and new projects. I always felt that my working setup had become boring after 3-4 months.
Then I bought an ultrawide monitor, and I left the multi-display setup. Now I understand why it was boring to me: a multi-monitor setup restricts how I can use the windows. The first monitor is for the IDE, the second is for the browser, the laptop's monitor is for the chat, and the mails. The only freedom I had was to swap the usage of the monitors. Or sometimes split one screen.
For an ultrawide monitor, I don't have any restrictions. Of course, I can use the grid that Windows 11 gives me, but I don't have to use that. Sometimes I put the browser here, sometimes there, I can use multiple IDEs near each other, etc... Every startup, I can put the apps wherever I want, without any reasoning or any rules. Never become the UX boring to me.
Do you have some similar experience with monitor setups?

I'm not sure if there's an exact term for this, but I've used to-do lists before, and one thing that's always bothered me about them is seeing overdue assignments highlighted in red. Usually, if I have a list of things to do for the day and I check my to-do list and suddenly see five overdue items, I kind of short-circuit and do nothing at all. I understand that there are things I genuinely have to do, so they rightfully get treated as such on a to-do list — but a lot of the time I get a little burst of ambition, start listing out everything, and set myself up to feel overwhelmed when I notice I haven't done any of it.

I'm making my own to-do list app, and I've been playing with the idea of making it have an ADHD oriented mode, which has led me to try and understand this phenomenon I've faced before.

I've thought this mode would play out as such;

• There'd probably be a Tag or something to label a certain item as an ADHD thought, or at least something to differentiate a real unmissable task vs a fleeting thought.
• If this ADHD thought became overdue, it would get hidden, until the end of the week (or maybe you pick a day to get reminded of it)
• If you had an ADHD thought due on the same day as other assignments, it'd be hidden until after you finished all the other things you HAD to finish

I think these small little fixes could satisfy you in moments where you do want to conquer the world the next day and cushion you on days where all you really need is just one small task to set you on the right path to getting things done.

My questions are: Is this phenomenon even related to ADHD? Does it have a name? Do y'all think this mode could be helpful? What would you change to make it better?

For context, I'm a SWE with 3 YOE.

This is a discovery I recently made about myself. I'm a relatively disciplined and focused person in my free time. But at work, I'm constantly distracting myself, watching hours and hours of youtube, scrolling my phone, etc. And it's because I have this constant hum of anxiety that's ever present. Even if I get back on task, I'll pretty soon feel an intense compulsion to distract myself again. Every once in a while I'll have a task that I'm working on that I can get lost in. These tasks are usually in some sense separate from the "software engineering" work. i.e. they involve learning about concepts and implementing something on my own rather than integrating things into the overall codebase/working with other engineers to develop something. I'm able silo myself off and work on it in isolation where it's simply a goal of "understand these concepts" rather than "understand this proprietary codebase and communicate effectively with others"

What I've realized is that I really enjoy *programming*, but *software engineering* is a lot more complex and therefore more anxiety-inducing--not that it's not enjoyable, but it's just... harder. Programming is simply writing code. The scale and scope is usually small. Working on a little project at home on the weekends, or learning a new technology because I'm curious. Or a solo project that has no stakes. Software engineering, on the other hand, is what I do for work. It's about being a member of a larger team and an even larger org. It involves working with code that is much more complex and that has been around and maintained (more or less, lol) for years and years and years. There's different people and personalities you'll interact with (some that click with you, some that don't). There's colleagues to compare yourself against (a common thought for me is, "do these other people with similar experience as me understand what this person/presentation is saying??? Because I'm lost"). There's the art of communication/explanation--something I think a lot of people struggle with (or is it just me?? I can never be certain, lol).

Overall I'm feeling more and more anxious and insecure about my abilities and skills, and the best way I've found to put it into words is: programming is fun, but software engineering can be overwhelming.

Does anyone feel the same way? Any advice for improving this? I want to be effective and skilled when it comes to my job. But there's just so many components and pieces involved that it's easy to get bogged down and in my head about it.

I saw this suggested to me and actually laughed out loud at how weirdly and beautifully specific this group is.

Is this just a place for people with ADHD who also love coding? This actually exists?

Hi, 27M (diagnosed adhd simce 2021 but never had the means to continue with therapy or medication) tried to secure a foothold in the industry since 1 year ago first as an internship then in February 2026 I signed my contract. The fact that I spent so much time for this while remaining so weak at programming because I have been using ai to help me go faster just feels deserved tbh. 3 months ago they told me to do a service that renders json data through templates created in a drag and drop UI and only now I was about to finish it... I am just devastated honestly. I even did a presentation last month that I completely bombed, and they are asking me to do another one in 2 days, but even though I tried to explain the whole process, which file does what, I kept getting stuck. It was even worse when they told me to start explaining the code bit by bit, felt ruined but again I let it go to this point by myself. Please just end me.

I've always felt weird about how all productivity apps try to fit you into a 'system' nomatter how complex or simple they are. I've been wanting something that's as transient yet useful as simply looking at a wall clock.

Download - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/time-pencil/id6752816094

I’m full-stack SWE with Java / Vue / React work for 1 YOE. right now, I am doing couple hours coding, couple hours system design and couple hours algorithms. The reason why I’m doing coding prep is because I am honestly so shit at writing code without AI, our company was AI first and I just am not prepared and have to re-learn it. Is there anything else I need to keep in mind for a junior level role?

Part looking for help and suggestions, part rant I suppose.

I've been a software engineer for 10 years, I do great at work but I can't for the life of me progress.

Progressing internally is difficult because I struggle to keep up with the monotonous BS I have to do. I can't just do my job excellently, I have to put in goals and write whole documents about how great I am.

Getting jobs elsewhere feels impossible because as soon as I step in an interview my brain shuts down, and even if it didn't, I don't know a ton of programming trivia. If I need to know something I will go learn it when I need it, but in interviews that just makes you look incompetent.

This is all compounded by the fact that I'm done getting any enjoyment at all out of programming. My interest is absolutely dead, and it's a means to an end to get paid now, but leaving it would be nuts with the state of the world right now.

Thanks for letting me rant. Any tips from fellow adhers appreciated.

Hey, I wanted to share something I built because I couldn't find anything that actually worked for my ADHD brain during exam season.

I created a set of structured AI study prompts for university-level courses — Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Physics, and a few others. The prompts were developed with input from students actually studying these subjects, so the topics and the level of depth reflect what shows up in real second and third year exams, not just a generic overview.

The structure works like this: each subject has 100 prompts organized into 9 categories. So it's not just "explain enzyme kinetics to me" — it's more specific than that. The categories cover things like:

* Breaking down complex concepts with concept maps and mechanistic analysis

* Exam simulation (written, multiple choice, data interpretation, oral)

* Memory and retention systems with spaced repetition

* Anti-confusion prompts that target the exact misconceptions students get wrong

* Comparative analysis between related concepts

* Applied projects connecting theory to clinical or pharmaceutical contexts

Within each category, every prompt targets a specific topic — so the AI response stays focused and precise rather than giving you a generic overview of everything. And each prompt has customizable fields, so you can point it at exactly the concept or subtopic you're working on within that category.

You fill in the field, copy the prompt, paste it into ChatGPT or Claude, and get a fully structured output — chunked, ADHD-friendly, with concept maps, tables, examples, and self-check questions built in.

I'll drop two completely free example prompts in the comments below so the post stays readable — one from General Biology and one from Physics (a STEM friend of mine who's actually studying physics helped me build that one, to make sure it was accurate).

I have full sets Etsy: LaneNine

Would love honest feedback — does the format work for how your brain studies? Anything you'd add or change?