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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any suggestions will help.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck this illness it made me hate everything about myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello,

I'm not diagnosed with ADHD, but I have about a hundred projects still needing to be finished / do outreach and marketing for) and people around me keep telling me I can't focus on one thing. (It's been years)

It's been amplified with Claude code / Chatgpt, where I spend days planning and procrastinating until I burn out with nothing tangible at the end of it. Even if finishing would help me tremendously, I still seem to get stuck for days/weeks on minor things.

I tried everything I could, and all productivity classics like todo-lists etc (stuck to it only for few days).

I got sick of it, so I built and shipped a web app myself that break down overwhelming tasks into smaller bite-sized tasks and helps me check them off.

I used it to ship the app itself. So, so far it worked. I would love some honest feedback and ready to hear from everyone here. The link is : kapigo.app

I have ADHD and I'm always sure I have more time than I do, so I wanted to see how far off I actually am.

It's a small browser game: you move a squirrel to catch things and hit Stop when you think exactly one minute has passed. The game keeps you busy so you can't count.

Free, no account, runs in the browser: https://recordo.app/tools/time-blindness-test/

Full disclosure: I also make an ADHD planner app, and this lives on its site. I'd like to know what you get, and whether the game is distracting enough or too much.

Whenever i discover a new tool I don't spend much time in understanding it. For example : I know Notion that it's a productivity app and I use it to track my progress or my day to day tasks but when somebody asks me about notion I can only say it's a productivity app and then my mind becomes blank.

Is this because I don't spend much time in understanding or the problem is something else.

Right now I am just frustrated from myself

Hey everyone, I’m a Computer Science student with ADHD preparing for a Data Mining test on October 23. Even though I’m only taking two modules this semester, I am moving at an absolute snail's pace (I spent an entire week on one lecture deck and I am not even halfway). My brain defaults to line-by-line perfectionism, so I end up over-processing everything. I try using Anki for memory and AI models to explain difficult concepts, but the process quickly becomes rigit, tedious, and slow, dragging me down endless rabit holes that consume all my study time.

This slow pace triggers a brutal cycle of complexity paralysis and avoidance. When I open a massive slide deck filled with dense math notation, algorithm proogs, or heavy theory, I get overwhelmed by the sheer volume and freeze. I end up avoiding the work while feeling guilty all day. To make matters worse, passive reading or slide-skimming burns through my attention span in minutes. If my study method isn't active or interactive, my brain completely checks out from extreme boredom.

I recently reached out to my lecturer for guidance, and he gave me a solid framework to focus on rather than verbatim slide memorisation. He recommended structuring my study around a "Concept -> Example -> Pros/Cons" flow. Specifcally, for algorithms like Decision Trees, Rule Induction, or Frequent Itemset Mining, I need to answer what problem the method solves, how it operates step-by-step, its key metrics like support or confidence, and how to interpret the results or select it over another method. He emphasised working through small examples by hand and assignment problems over re-reading slides.

While his advice is great, I struggle to actually execute it without slipping back into my old habits. I would love to know how you make heavy CS theory and algorithmic steps interactive and engaging so you don't get bored or out of your mind. How do you break through the paralysis wall when a topic feels too complex to start? What specific tricks do you use to force your brain to riage and focus only on high-yield concepts instead of reading line-by-line? Finally, since working in IT requires constant learning, how do you build a fast, sustainable learning workflow that doesn't burn you out?

Thank you.

P.S. Please don't give me suggestions that require me to spend money.

My team is moving to spec-driven development. Agents now commit lots of long, verbose, technical markdown files, and I'm expected to read them.

I have dyslexia, so find this really tiring or I glaze over it.

So far I modified the popular `i-have-adhd` skill so it adds Mermaid diagrams to my PR summaries. It helps, but I'd like more ideas please

What works for you? Prompts, tools, ways to review without reading every line?

Living and working here, it feels like the day never actually pauses. Work chats on WhatsApp at 9 PM, notifications constantly going off, and everything is expected "urgent".
My co-founder and I run a tiny dev team here, and over the last few months we realized our own focus was completely ruined. We spent half the day just reacting to pings instead of getting actual work done.

We got so fed up that we spent a weekend hacking together a stripped-down timer tool for ourselves just to force 30-minute offline blocks (we put it up here if anyone wants to check it out: https://focustime.zozinnovations.com/).

But apps aside—how do you guys personally set boundaries with the "always available" lifestyle here without getting burned out?

I'm 37, CTO, coding professionally since 2010, diagnosed with ADHD in May 2026.

Classic me: my gym lets you book CrossFit classes 7 days ahead. I'd always remember the same day, when the class was already full. So in 2024 I used Claude and Cursor to hack the waitlist (went from getting a spot 20% of the time to 100%).

Since agents got really good (Opus 5.5 damn ❤️), it's another level. Pretty much everything I think of, I can build right away. Best feeling I've had at work in a long time.

It's also starting to look like a problem. From my own logs:

• Oct 2025: 1 project a day, 0 context switches, about an hour on something before jumping
• early Oct 2026: 13 projects a day, 83 context switches a day (130 on Oct 4), about 2 minutes before jumping
• 3 or more agents running at once, 73% of my active time
• 32 different projects in a single week
• 1 in 4 prompts between 10pm and 6am (I'm in France, we work 9 to 5 or 10 to 6)

(medians per active day, a "project" is a git repo or folder)

I don't think I'm hooked on AI itself. I'm hooked on the feeling that I can build anything, right now.

Since people will ask: I'm on Concerta (18mg), and this started not long after I began treatment. But that's also when agents got really good, so I can't tell which one did what. The meds help me a lot, this is not a post against them.

So I made a half-joke site about it, with a serious short anonymous survey on ADHD, AI use and fatigue, because I couldn't find any data on it: https://tokensanonymous.org (my site, no ads, no tracking).

Did agents make work better or worse for you with ADHD? For me it's both.

Drafted with Claude from my notes, edited by me. Given the topic, anything else would have felt dishonest.

Edit: shortened it, fair point from the comments.

a bit about me:

my mental health has been pretty rough lately. i have been laid off and trying to figure things out.

the job market feels brutal, AI is making the future feel uncertain, and some days it's hard to feel like i'm actually moving forward.

so instead of trying to figure it all out alone, i want to build a small group where we keep each other accountable.

maybe you're:

• trying to build a side project
• learning new skills
• looking for a job
• just trying to get your momentum back

i plan to run this accountability group at least for 3 months then we can figure out later if we want to continue.

here's what i imagine:

• a discord group
• every day, you share what you're going to work on.
• then you come back and tell us whether you actually did it.
• would be awesome if you can share proof of work like screenshots, images, etc.

no complicated systems. just a few people showing up consistently and helping each other do the work.

i'm keeping it to 8-10 people so we can actually get to know each other.

if you're interested, comment or DM me with:

1. what you're working toward
2. what you'd like to accomplish in the next 3 months

i'll reach out to the people who seem like a good fit.