Meds worked wonders for me, exercise also helps have a bit more energy.

The most important thing i wish i knew is that you’ll find something that works for you and it’ll be great, but it will eventually stop working for you. Thats ok, it’s a constant cycle where you’ll have to change your approach multiple times. Don’t get discouraged though, expect it and embrace it.

There’s a lot of really good pieces of advice here, so I don’t have a tone to add. But there’s a few things that could help and possibly be prepared for.

Be prepared for:

• Maybe having to try different meds before you find the right one. There’s stim and non-stim, and the individuals meds in each category can vary in their effects, so be sure to stick with it while finding the right one. It’s definitely worth it.

• Medication is amazing. It’s a game-changer. But it also doesn’t fix it. It helps with the dopamine and can help with energy and motivation, but a lot of the other issues are still there. I definitely still really struggle with switching tasks that require my brain to change states. That’s why you have to still lean on the tools you develop outside of meds to make your day-to-day easier. Someone posted the How to ADHD Youtube channel. I love her channel and she offers a lot of advice for developing these tools.

• Some days, even with medication, it’s just not there. I’m on a stimulant, so when I’m short on sleep, it doesn’t put me in peak performance that day. It gives me the energy to be normal, but I’m not high-functioning. And some days I sleep fine but I’m still not there and nothing gets done, and that’s fine. It’s okay to just have a day where the thing you do is recharge and do some self-care if you can afford the time.

• If you end up on Adderall, be warned it is sometimes difficult to get. Don’t tell your doctor this, but any time you have a day where you can skip a dose because nothing needs to be done, do it and save that pill. When you get new ones, rotate in the saved ones and put aside the same number of the new ones and try to have an emergency stock for the potential time when you have to wait for your meds. This only works for Stimulants and I do not recommend telling your doctor Non-stimulants require you to take it every day to work, but they’re also less likely to be in a shortage. Stimulants just work when they’re in your system, so skipping a dose won’t lose you any progress. Plus, Stims aren’t great for you long term and you’ll need to take breaks to reset your tolerance, so skipping doses can prolong their efficacy.

Things that could help:

• I’m not a developer, but I am an artist (when I have time), I work full l time, and I’m in school. My meds are in a great place, but that doesn’t mean there still aren’t days I just can’t get anything done. Yesterday I should have been working on a paper due this week, but I had a couple meetings and a doctor’s appointment. When those were done, my brain just didn’t have the remaining spoons to be creative enough to write a paper. But I was able to go over my research and make notes that will help make it easier when I do write it (Hopefully today).

And that’s my best advice. Breaking down every part of what needs to be done, like was also stated here. But also, categorize those into things you need a good brain day for and things that you can just type out, or do without having to engage your brain. Maybe you can’t code, but can you make plans for what you need to code? Write it out and have a plan in place for when your brain kicks in. Then, when it’s time to do it, there’s less in your way and you can probably do more.

• Also, lean into whatever your brain is willing to do at that time. I’m not always going to be in a space to really clean my house, so when I’m in that head-space, I go all out and clean like a motherfucker. If my brain ticks over and I’m in a writing space, I write all the things and get ahead on my work.

• Also, in planning, I find it helps to use a highlighter to color-code them (I keep them written down in multiple places, and on a digital calendar). Pink for most important or urgent, yellow for standard urgency and blue for no real deadline, but I do need it done. And put due-dates next to all of them. On my daily or weekly to-do list I write them out in order of due-dates so I can just do the one closest to the top that fits how I’m able to work.

Most importantly, I want to stress how important it is to find habits that work for you and keep it up after you get medicated. Most of the tools I use I developed over years of struggle before getting a diagnosis, and without them, even the meds wouldn’t be enough.

And that Youtube channel is genuinely great. She works hard to find the best information according to science and also recognizes that the same things don’t work for everyone (unlike so many ADHD self-help stuff out there) so she doesn’t offer THIS ONE TRICK TO FIX YOUR ADHD!!! She offers a variety of tools that have been shown to help so you can find the one(s) that help you.

Meds made the difference for me. I would have liked a career as a dev, but wasn’t able to because I was undiagnosed and had no idea what was wrong. After my dx and starting meds (in my 40s), I’m finally able to sit down and read documentation and do the work. I hope that helps you.

I think of my ADHD brain like a computer with three little cores (as opposed to one big core), shitloads of cache and barely any RAM.

Using three cores on the same thing is harder than using one core and the same is true for my brain. But if you do have something that works well with it, it works really well.

Lots of cache mean I can quickly pick up topics and do well with them as long as they fit the cache. If there’s too much to fit in the cache, normal people can just put that into RAM and pick it back up later without problems.

But my lack of RAM means I can’t keep a lot of tasks in my head that I’m not actively working on. And what does a computer do when it’s out of RAM? That’s right, it writes the RAM to a hard drive so it can pick it up later when it’s needed. So I do the same thing. If there’s a lot on my mind that isn’t useful right now , I write it down and actively tell myself to forget it and trust the list.

If I don’t do that, my RAM will get filled up very quickly and I get into this weird state of ADHD paralysis where I don’t get anything done and feel stressed out about it.

Recognizing when that happens and using this simple tool has helped me a lot already. And it’s important to take the 5 minutes to do this instead of trying to do your work if you see it isn’t working.

Another thing that helps me a lot is tight deadlines. On stuff that should be be done yesterday, I usually have no trouble focusing. The same is true for prod being broken. I can drop everything and go full steam ahead for 4 hours straight when it happens. I used to just procrastinate until that happened and when I actually didn’t have enough time to do it properly, I’d be able to focus.

Now that I found out about my ADHD, I’m trying to build myself a situation where this plays out to my favor instead of leading to super-stressed all-nighters. That means regularly (almost daily) talking to my boss about my tasks and having her set micro-deadlines. The important takeaway for me is that setting my own deadlines doesn’t work. Like not at all. I need someone else to hold me accountable and it becomes easy.

One more thing that works well for me is pair programming. If I can explain what I’m doing to someone else or work on someone else’s problem, time just flies. Even if it’s just five minutes of walking around and helping people with little things, it gives me a lot of energy.

But I also don’t work from home even though I could because having colleagues around me helps me focus, so I’m not sure if that would also help you.