Tag: ADHD Page 2 of 3

I am a procrastinator.

On August 12, 2016

I have always believed I was a procrastinator. I tend to put difficult tasks off until when they are due. I always believed it was the pressure of the deadline that forced me to complete the task. College gave me a series of structured deadlines to learn new things. Procrastination can also add undue stress onto your system. Over time it will make you feel like you’re stupid and can’t get anything done. ADHD and procrastination seem to go hand in hand as well.

I’m sort of done with procrastination. It sucks and I know I’m smarter than this.

This month I’m speaking at two conferences and giving two different talks. The first is on remote working (a “soft” topic) and the other on an introduction to RxSwift – a fairly complex programming topic. I’ve known I needed to prepare these talks for several months and I have been doing the work. The remote working talk went off well. The RxSwift talk is upcoming and I’m sweating it. I want the people at my talk to get something significant out of it and not walk away feeling something was missing or it was a waste of time. When I finally made this statement to myself I realized something significant:

It’s not procrastination – it’s a failure to start.

I didn’t dive into the demo project for the talk because I felt like an imposter. How could I give a talk about a topic I am not an expert in? The reality is I needed to dive into code to incrementally learn the topic better to give people a leg up on their first try at RxSwift. This fear of being an imposter kept making me lose focus on simple things and putting them off.

I seem to have an enhanced behavior of finding something else to do instead of the “real work” when I encounter mental resistance. Mental resistance can come from not knowing a subject or the task feeling remedial. I tend to find other things to do instead like opening up a Facebook tab or checking the 14 different Slack instances I’m in for new messages. I know it is time to step back and re-center myself when I notice that my brain starts derailing like this.

When you find yourself slipping on a task or unable to commit to get something done I suggest doing the following:

Break the task down into smaller bits and just get started on the first one. Just get started.
Walk away. Literally – walk. Exercise is my number one tool to combat attention and focus issues. Grab your headphones and take a short walk around your office or neighborhood. Don’t actively try to think about your problem at hand – just take in the different atmosphere. You’ll be surprised how often an idea comes to you seemingly randomly during this process.
Prevent the distraction by blocking the thing you’re using as a mental crutch. In my case it was logging out of Facebook and blocking the site on my machine. The behavior broke after several months on my work computer. If it’s something like wandering and cleaning your house, close your office door and leave a note to yourself to focus. Maybe try the Pomodoro Technique for 20 minute focus sessions.
If all else fails stop committing to things you can’t get done. You’re not a failure if you don’t have time or interest. Dig deep in your head to see what’s important to you and your future.

Sometimes we don’t have a choice and we just have to buckle down and get something done. Reward yourself. Check off that box and celebrate! Sometimes the little successes are more important than the big ones.

Just Get Started

By Aaron Douglas

On June 16, 2016

In Uncategorized

I tend to set myself up for defeat with how my brain works when trying to accomplish a task. I overthink things.

When I pull a task from my list of things to do a process starts in my head. I visualize the task and then try to figure out what the solution is and how it looks at the end. Smaller tasks with a clear goal seem to start just fine. Tasks that are a bit more nebulous or aren’t clear how to do everything end up stalling. I end up wasting time misdirecting myself so I don’t have to face the fact that I don’t have an immediate solution.

I also tend to misdirect myself with tasks that have a clear solution but aren’t terribly exciting. It takes a serious conscious effort for me to keep a grasp on things that tend to be mundane but are a part of my day.

While my focus on this post is generally around my job it applies to how I approach things with my personal life too. Unimportant or difficult tasks tend to get stalled and I will find myself doing other things (like cleaning, checking out Facebook, the weather…) just to not face the task at hand.

So … Just Start.

So how do I get over this fear of working on a task?

Just start.

just-start-crop

Sounds simple, right? It boils down to these things:

If this is a larger task admit you can’t see the end and just find the first small chunk you can work on. Smaller tasks are easier to finish and it lets your unconscious noodle on the entire project in the meantime.
Turn off the distractions and be cognizant of when you misdirect yourself. Try to figure out a pattern to what causes it and stop it before it happens.
If this a task that’s just not engaging or not exciting but its something you need to do, just start. Once you get moving and you prevent the misdirection you’ll finish and feel good.
Celebrate the finished tasks.

How Working Remote (Probably) Saved My Life

By Aaron Douglas

On March 25, 2016

In Uncategorized

Before Working Remote

In July 2013 I started working remote at Automattic working on the WordPress for iOS app. I was pretty happy with my life at that time and the transition to the new job was not for reasons of disliking my previous job. In fact I loved working for Red Arrow Labs in Milwaukee and it was incredibly hard leaving them. I only left Red Arrow because it felt like Automattic was my unicorn of jobs and I had stumbled upon it by sheer luck. It turns out that I really wasn’t entirely happy with how things were going in my life at the time even though the job was great.

I don’t believe single data points like body weight can gauge happiness. It is, however, an indicator of my overall health and satisfaction with my daily life. In 2010 I had dropped to 235lb/106kg without much effort except eliminating bad foods and walking around the neighborhood a lot. Life changed a bit and within three years I was back up to the 280lb/127kg range.

I was admitted to the ER in 2011 when my heart rhythm freaked me out. I was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation (aFib) which is when the electrical signals around your heart freak out. The major risk associated with aFib is stroke because while your heart is beating all weird blood has the chance to pool causing a clot to form. I ended up being put on two medications and regular checkups with an electrophysiologist. Something had to change.

Weight Loss Failures

I’ve learned over time that major self change only is successful when done in super small increments. Drastic short term changes, while satisfying to the impulse buyers in us, end up failing for myself because I miss the old way. Riding my new bike to work was a great success for me and made me feel really good – but it took a lot of effort. Instead of continuing with the biking to work I dissuaded myself by convincing myself it was too cold, or I had an early meeting and couldn’t be sweaty, or my knees hurt a little. Turns out I was doing too much too fast.

I didn’t really find out how to let myself be successful until I left my office job and starting working remote at Automattic. Almost immediately I realized I really did have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and couldn’t ignore it any longer. My level of success as an Automattician depended on me being able to focus and alter my environment to remove distractions. I immediately changed everything in my office and set up all these tools like using the Pomodoro Technique, notebooks, standing at my desk. I felt super successful at first but in the end none of these techniques helped because I got overwhelmed.

In October 2013 I realized I needed help. I ended up seeing a counselor who specializes in both substance abuse and ADD. She helped me work through some of the issues I was having with my attention and got me to realize how I was able to succeed in the past and why I was failing now. The nature of working in an office with the multitude of distractions worked in favor of the ADD. Removing those distractions made me entirely in charge of my workday and my brain spun out of control. For around four months I was on Vyvannse to help let me see how my brain could operate with the focus I was looking for. Ultimately I took myself off of the meds because of some behavioral changes that were too drastic of a change. What I discovered pretty quickly though is a daily regimen breaking things up into chunks made a big difference in my ability to do work.

Combating the Change Aversion

I started biking again mid 2012 after buying my first “real” bicycle made by Trek. I had no excuses any longer to biking – I finally had the comfortable seat, full range of gears, and a proper fit. I recorded all of my trips in RunKeeper for future analysis (like this post). I wanted to go for longer bike rides but excuses like being sweaty or its a bit chilly got in my way.

I started working out over my “lunch hour” to help break up the day. Your brain chemistry changes during exercise and I discovered it helped reset my thoughts. I found a bunch of great step aerobics videos on YouTube from Jenny Ford. A small investment in a step bench allowed me to work out right in my office with a minimal mental barrier. I can shower after I’m done and there is zero commute to the gym. Over time I went from one day a week to around three days.

As time has progressed I’ve mixed in riding my bicycle almost every day during the summer for an hour (roughly 15 miles) with exercising in my basement. On bad weather days I stick with the routine because I now consider exercise just a regular part of my day. I don’t need to overdo it to get benefits from it. For the last year I’ve been also using a treadmill under my desk walking on average of 6-10 miles a day. I absolutely love walking and working especially in the morning.

All of these changes to my exercise regimen happened super gradually. Any time I started something new I would come in at the ground level with no expectations of success. If I didn’t like something, I stopped doing it. There was no need to try to fool myself with doing something like just because it burned a lot of calories.

Automattic

Working remote is a big part of my success but the other part is specific to Automattic. A subset of us have banded together to encourage fitness routines and providing support when things go wrong. We have a Slack chat room dedicated to fitness that is full of awesome praise and discussions. RunKeeper friends from work also provide that boost of support when we have that tiny success finishing a workout. At our grand meetups every year we also encourage physical activities to connect us together doing something active and fun. Automattic even recently bought everyone a Fitbit device of their liking to let us be aware of our activity levels.

Before working at Automattic I always thought of fitness as a specific set of things – things like P90X and powdered drinks/supplements, talking about your current weight lifting levels and competition meant to boast not encourage. Turns out none of that is the truth here. We have a bunch of people doing weight lifting, Crossfit, and running but its all ego-free. We all have our own approach to fitness and no judgement is passed only encouragement. It’s super awesome.

Where I’m at Today

My weight has dropped to around 225lb/102kg and remained relatively plateaued over the past year. Recently I’ve mixed in weight/resistance every other day which I am really enjoying. My goal isn’t weight loss but rather increasing my focus with the side effect of increased stamina to do the fun things like biking or walking. With the weight loss and greatly improved active lifestyle I’ve been able to stop the aFib medications and just have biannual checkups with my electrophysiologist.

Having both the flexibility of working remote and the support of my coworkers going through similar challenges has helped a lot. I am a better person for combating the physical health issues and establishing a framework to counteract the ADD. While I don’t believe I’d really be dead today if I had continued on the path of the unchecked body weight, I do know I am healthier and much happier.

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Pinning Safari Tabs for Mental Focus

By Aaron Douglas

On December 1, 2015

In Uncategorized

Have you heard about pinning tabs in Safari? If you have Mac OS X El Capitan then you have Safari 9 which includes tab pinning. From Apple’s Support documentation:

Pin Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Gmail, or any other website you visit frequently throughout the day. Pinned Sites stay put on the left side of your tab bar so you can easily get to them at any time.

I frequently keep several tabs open on my work computer – the three Gmail instances I’m in and WordPress.com’s Reader. Battling with my attention requires me to analyze my behaviors and continuously adapt to prevent problems. I recently discovered I frequently flip back over to Safari to look for the unread count in the tab titles and will derail my current thought process to read the email. My solution? Pinned tabs.

Unpinned Stabby Tabs

As you can see I have an unread count in the far left Gmail instance. I’m driven to see what’s behind that (1). Now with the tabs pinned:

Pinned, Less Stabby Tabs

I know the email is still there and I’m super familiar with what order those tabs are in. The miracle though, is, I no longer see the title of the tab and am not driven to read the unread messages. When my mind has a moment to change course during the day, I’ll check my email.

Headphones & Attention

By Aaron Douglas

On November 12, 2015

In Uncategorized

When I worked in an office headphones were a requirement for me. I absolutely needed them to focus. I really don’t use headphones all that often anymore since I started working remote 2 1/2 years ago. Listening to music over decent speakers seemed to be enough. Lately I’m discovering I missed the power behind having the sound close to your head.

The past two weeks I’ve been using my headphones again to help with my attention & focus in the afternoons. My mornings start with using my treadmill under my desk to walk and work. Mid-day when I find my brain wandering, I stop working and do some sort of exercise. Now in the afternoons I’m finding putting on the noise-canceling headphones gives me the boost to wrap up the work for the day.

There’s something comforting with having the music close to your ears. I usually mix between the New EDM station on Rdio, a couple electronic stations on DI.fm and sometimes BPM on SiriusXM. Most music that has too many words doesn’t work too well for focus.

I’m still amazed after 30 months of working on dealing with ADHD I am still finding things to tweak. 🙂

Keeping Myself Organized Using Trello

By Aaron Douglas

On November 7, 2015

In Uncategorized

My system for helping keep my brain focused during the workday is a system of lists in a note-taking program like Evernote or Simplenote. Every time I encounter an e-mail, talk to a coworker about something, or get assigned a pull request to review I turn that into a checkbox item. If I don’t get to an item in a day, those empty checkbox items get moved to the next day (or week). The system isn’t without faults but it seems to work. The only issue with the checkboxes is they don’t portray status of longer-running tasks.

This next week I’m going to try something different with how I keep myself organized. For simple TODOs, I’ll still use checkbox items. For longer running tasks with different states to jump through I’m going to try using a personal Trello board. We use Trello at Automattic for some projects as well as at RayWenderlich.com for project tracking. I’ve done simple Kanban boards before but I think Trello might be what I’m missing. Their mobile app is pretty good as well which helps with things I think of while on the go.

I’ll report back after I get some time in with it!

The Fear of Missing Out

By Aaron Douglas

On August 12, 2015

In Uncategorized

Working for a 100% distributed company presents a number of benefits as well as challenges. One of those challenges is the fear of missing out or FoMO. It is a real thing.

The Fear of Missing Out is the emotional stress we can experience when we feel like things that should be important to us are occurring without our observance or involvement. Social media plays an important role in this as we experience other people’s involvement in activities that portray a perceived positive impact on their well-being. Even though we know that the world isn’t as rosy as is portrayed through these sites, we feel a tinge of jealous a number of times.

Boy that looks fun.

I can’t believe I didn’t go to that concert.

I wish I had x to do y with.

Working remote presents its own version of FoMO. The larger our company gets, the more communication channels exist. In Slack we have over 450 channels and a hoard of private blogs to communicate with. You simply cannot subscribe to every blog and channel without overloading your brain. The cost of not subscribing means you feel you’re missing out on something. How do you combat this?

We have a general rule that anything said in Slack is ephemeral. It’s searchable, yes, but unless you were pinged either directly or in a room, we can’t expect people to “catch up” on backchat when returning. More permanent things have to be documented on an internal blog if they are to be treated as such. People who should be made aware of the items that don’t belong to that team should be pinged in the post. The assumption is you should be following your team’s blog pretty closely.

This gives us the benefit to start unsubscribing to things. At some point one of these checks causes the balance to be made and information flows between barriers. You have to trust this happens. Once in a while you get surprised by a piece of information but you just roll with the punches.

The FoMO also happens when you’re in person with your coworkers. We have an annual get-together we call the Grand Meetup. We’re all at the same place at the same time for over a week. There is SO MUCH going on this week that you will miss things. You should miss things. There are so many people to meet, activities to participate in, and projects to work on that we can forget to sleep.

The fear is real. It will grip you. Remember to breathe, take a step back and trust that its okay if you don’t experience everything in life. Just don’t forget to look out your own window once in a while. 🙂

Featured image credit – https://www.flickr.com/photos/deathtogutenberg/15065313478/

Biggest Lie To Your ADHD Self

By Aaron Douglas

On July 15, 2015

In Uncategorized

Most of my journey the past couple of years with coping with attention problems is increasing my self-awareness. I am my own obstacle and I must hack my own consciousness to work the way I need it to.

It’s easy to slip into old habits and totally forget the tools you’ve put in place. All it takes is one of those well-known “ooh shiny” moments and you’re off track for an hour reading about nuclear testing instead of solving the problem for work.

One of the tools I use is keeping a log of things I’ve accomplished in the day/week. The log gives me a complete picture of what I’ve been able to focus on and lets me easily reflect on the past week. I tend to find the holes this way – places I’ve let tasks slip through. This seems to work much like the effect looking at photographs lets you recall and retain memories. The problem I have is I don’t remember to write things in the log all the time. Then I forget about the log.

I’ve discovered one of the biggest lies I keep telling myself even with all of these tools and practices. What is that lie?

I’ll get to it [the task] in a few minutes.

Yeah, it never happens. Ever. I always forget or something more important on the signal to noise ratio scale eclipses it. My goal is to stop letting this little lie derail me. If the task takes a few moments to complete, DO IT NOW.

My Signal-to-Noise Ratio

By Aaron Douglas

On May 5, 2015

In Uncategorized

I’ve mentioned before on this site and other places that I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and that I’ve been doing a lot to manage it. I didn’t really connect the dots until I started working remote for Automattic almost two years ago. It’s a continual process for me and I’m continuing to make adjustments over time to combat it. I have good days and I have bad days.

Medication

After I got diagnosed with ADHD by an accredited counselor and my primary physician, I started on medication to help. It was my goal at that point to not be on the meds long term but rather use them to show me where I could be. It’s hard to see the destination without an idea of where you’re going or even why you’re going.

The medications worked pretty quickly. Within the first week I started seeing things in life I always ignored. I went to a museum in Houston with family and discovered myself reading the signs around exhibits and actually taking in what I was seeing. It was amazing. Within a couple months I realized I wasn’t eating food regularly any more (it’s a common side effect) and my personality was changing too. We also increased the medication a few levels to figure out what was the right level to be at. I ended up taking myself off of the medication a bit earlier than I had wanted to originally but I could see the longer I was on it the harder it would be to come off. I wasn’t addicted per se but the clarity I got from it was hard to give up. Really hard.

Post-Medication

Since I’ve been off the medication I’ve been using the tools my counselor and I came up with to help with concentration and focus. Primarily its a mix of the following:

Exercise
Note taking
Music
Meditation
Mindfulness

Exercise

Being active is a huge part of the success with dealing with ADHD. Working at home gives me a ton of flexibility to include exercise in my daily routine. I’ll break up my day around noon with a bike ride, walk or step aerobics in my basement. Since February of this year I’ve been using a treadmill under my standing desk with some good results. I try to walk in the morning and afternoon and then stand in between. I find it gives me some different kind of focus than when just purely standing. I haven’t fully decided if I’m more successful with the treadmill desk but I am benefitting from the activity being more regular health-wise.

Note taking

Taking notes is a huge deal with ADHD. You have to leave yourself a reminder of where you left off on a task or else you will forget. Short notes are sometimes not even sufficient – a few words is sometimes not enough to remind you. It’s crazy how often I can forget to do something even hours later without a note. I haven’t found the perfect single place to leave notes so it’s a combination of sticky notes on my monitor, handwritten notes next to my keyboard and electronic notes in Evernote. I should boil it down to one place but I tire easily of a single solution and then stop using it.

Music

I’m not quite sure how I’d survive without music. I’ve been listening to electronic/trance/techno music since I was 12 years old when I discovered it allowed me to concentrate on tasks. Most electronic music (if there isn’t a lot of vocals) will busy the part of my brain that is trying to derail me. Working in a regular office environment you’d always find me with my headphones on. Working at home I’m using open speakers and I find that I don’t get the same effect. I actually don’t listen to music consistently throughout the day but when I find myself straining to finish a task, I find the right music to assist.

Meditation & Mindfulness

I should practice formal meditation more. Years ago I would set aside time to meditate and I enjoyed it. In the two years I’ve worked remote I’ve only done a full meditation exercise a handful of times. I tend to use short moments of meditation thought to help center myself when I feel like I’m going too many ways. Being mindful of yourself is a big help. Be aware of when you’re started to swerve off course and recognize the signs. Being on the treadmill desk is a little like meditation … it’s amazing how much around me sort of fades out when I’m walking and working.

The Noise

What it comes down to is you have to try to reduce or replace the noise in your head with something else. In radio engineering Signal to Noise Ratio is the amount of desired signal vs the background noise. You want more signal than noise otherwise your transmission isn’t effective. Signal is analogous to the task or idea you’re trying to focus on and the noise is everything else going on in your brain that’s trying to derail it. You have to find the ways that work for you to reduce the noise or improve the signal.

Much like radio engineers there are things you can do to improve signal and reduce noise – some of which I’ve mentioned. Everyone is different. For some the only thing that works is the medication – and it works well. Don’t be ashamed if you are on medication to help. There is such a negative stigma with taking medication for mental conditions which to me is crazy. Find what works for you! Don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t work down the road or if you fail with an experiment.

Walking While Working – Another Step For Focus

By Aaron Douglas

On February 24, 2015

In Uncategorized

Walking While You Work

I’m not going to link to any articles or research about the benefits of walking while you work. I’ve been standing at my desk since I started working at home and to me this is the next progression. I have ADHD and I’m always trying to find ways to hack my brain. I decided to get in on the treadmill desk game.

The First Steps

A couple months back I ended up buying a cheapie treadmill on Amazon to experiment with walking while working. I used it a couple of times with some success but I ultimately felt it didn’t provide much help for my focus. I kept doing research to determine what the issue was and spent time observing myself during a walking session with it. I was surprised it wasn’t obvious why I didn’t like this experiment.

Primarily the treadmill is too narrow for my clown-sized feet. Okay they’re not Krusty-sized but size 11 shoes are not terribly compatible with an 18″ belt. I frequently found myself walking off the belt and then getting jarred out of my concentration. The sides are also not raised up very much so there is no subtle guide for your feet to bump into if you’re not accurate.

I’m just under 230lb and while this is nearly 60lb less than when I started this journey for fitness, it’s apparently the edge for the treadmill at low speed. The motor needs to be a high torque type as slow walking is complete hell on a standard treadmill. I expected the thing to blow up and take my ankles with it in the process.

I didn’t want to spend a boatload of cash investing in a treadmill that I may or may not end up using. This was $200 with delivery and it served its purpose. The problem is I wanted to continue walking which meant I needed to find another larger treadmill or else I’d stop.

The Second Step

I’m sure you’ve noticed the step pun by now.

After some discussions with my coworkers and a bit of online research, I opted to get the LifeSpan TR1200-D3 unit. It’s the middle of the line and doesn’t come with the desk since I already have an UpDesk. My reasons behind picking this treadmill were:

LifeSpan Stats

The console unit has bluetooth and connects to my Mac to show the current steps. It also syncs with their online service which does suck but provides a record that’s usable enough.
It’s rated to be used for an average of six hours a day and is limited to 4mph or lower.
The unit comes with a shock absorbing frame to make my moobs the only thing that jiggle and bounce.

The one downside is that while it has wheels to move it around, it doesn’t have a safe way to lean it up against a wall. I’ve come up with a temporary solution using an old yoga mat but I want to make something a bit more secure.

Observances & Suggestions

After walking for a week I’ve already made a number of observations that I didn’t expect.

My original UpDesk tends to wobble when it’s fully raised up. I ended up buying 3″ casters for the feet a while back and those are barely high enough with the treadmill under it. Instead now I raised the keyboard up temporarily with a cardboard box. I find my wrists are now at the right angle for typing although with no wrist support my accuracy has taken a hit. Not leaning on the desk while I type does however have the benefit of not wiggling the screen. My monitor is on an arm and I have it tilted up while I’m on the treadmill.
I’m using Things to keep track of ideas/tasks I think of that I can’t do when walking. There are just some tasks that aren’t conducive while you’re walking (like testing apps on devices) and you need a reliable place to put those task reminders. I also like to stick with one task as a time while walking to prevent my brain from getting derailed. So far I’m happy with Things.
Don’t overwalk. When you get into something (like me typing up this post) it’s so easy to lose track of your steps. You will be sore the next day.
Get good shoes and don’t wear those anywhere except in your house or on the treadmill. Snow, dirt and dust will make your treadmill look ugly and harder to maintain.
Buy a good treadmill mat to go underneath if you’re on hardwood floors.
Even though LifeSpan tracks activity I’m still logging my walking activity with RunKeeper. I like the social component of RunKeeper and since it has all my exercise activity in it why not keep using it.

Next Steps

I’m just going to keep at this. I need to find the balance of walking time during the day vs productivity levels. Once I come up with a good solution to store the treadmill upright I believe finding this balance will be easier. I do not want to stop doing my normal exercise routine (step aerobics at home in the winter and also going to the gym) so I’ll have to be careful to not burn myself out. In the end I want this to be a good way to maintain focus and to help train my brain to be better at tasking.

I’ll keep posting about my experiences here!

Treadmill Walking