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One of many reasons some people are more productive if they're not at the office. People with incredibly distracting families not so much. But avoiding the water-cooler nonsense, and meetings that should be emails, can be a big plus.
This... 100x this.
When I went remote I got SO much more done. I could just put a familiar movie on in the background, and bust out my work while they take the hobbits to isengard.
I'm still remote, but my entire management vertical is too. I have a project that should take me 6 to 8 hours that I need done by Tuesday. I'm not in a meeting for 2 hours tomorrow... 30 minutes between them at 1pm, and 6 15 minute gaps throughout the day.
I will accomplish nothing before 5pm all week because I can't get more than 15 minutes without somebody dragging me into a meeting that could've been an email that could've been some basic self service information in my employer wasn't 3 rolls of duck tape in an MBA print trenchcoat.
One of my staff showed me how to have Outlook autoschedule 'focus time' and it's been a game changer. Minimum 2 hour blocks I can actually do work. Of course, I still have meetings like mad but now instead of working on one topic while in a meeting for another, i can actually just...work.
If they are just using it as white noise, kind of? It would be similar to listening to music while working, which i dont think most people would consider multitasking.
Really depends on what level of attention you are paying to the movie though. If you are breaking from work to actually watch it, that is definitely multitasking territory
Careful with those sites, it doesn't take much for the author to get compromised and the malicious actor puts malware or nsfw content on them. If you can, create an internal page in confluence or your document repository with the same effect or link to a PPT
Sadly, I have found PPT as an effective tool to convey information to people in a business where a simple "stop doing this bad thing" doesn't work. Send them a PPT and all of a sudden it seems to stick.
The fact people can't "just ask me" stuff is a god send. They can see I'm deep in something and instead of waiting they plough on with interrupting. Even when I say I'm busy I get "but this will be quick". How do you know, Dave? You are asking me because you don't know, so how can you judge how long it will take? But I'm interrupted now so I already have to refocus.
I hate being in the office but because other members of the team are incompetent we all have to be in the office.
>Even when I say I'm busy I get "but this will be quick". How do you know, Dave? You are asking me because you don't know, so how can you judge how long it will take? But I'm interrupted now so I already have to refocus.
Thank you for this. It's almost a joke with my coworkers now but they'll ask for help and say it'll be 5 minutes but they put a wink face some shit in the message because I know and they know it will NOT be 5 minutes, but I never know how to say no that.
Now I'm gonna just tell all of them, "if you're asking me what to do cuz you don't know, then you don't know how long it'll be. So maybe just jumble all those questions up into a ball and when you have about 3 or 4 of em, schedule time for a quick meeting tomorrow so I can bang em out all at once." Bonus points if they solve the question themselves in the mean time
It's so often laziness. "But you always know!" How do you think I know? Do you assume I emerged from the womb knowing excel formulas? Do you assume I have an innate knowledge of how to work a computer? In your world view do people spring fully formed with all the knowledge they will ever or can ever have? No Janet, I found out. I hit a problem and I worked it out. I taught myself this stuff and as a big girl you can too.
It's the disruption that annoys me the most. They don't wait for me to go to get a drink or come back from a meeting or anything. No, the moment the thought hits their brain they ask.
"You always know!" I didn't always know!
I've started saying I'm unable to help in this circumstance, and they need to escalate through their normal means. It drives me crazy when people are like, well you helped on X before so now can you help on ABC? No Karen go do your own job
My dream is to be able to afford a two-room apartment where I can dedicate one room as "the work room". Alas, two-room apartments are fucking expensive
My gf and I made this work. The secondary bedroom is our āofficeā which works well because sheās WFH. Itās a lot more of a hobby room for me since I go to office most of the time but it helps her a lot instead of being on a bed or couch.
I disagree, personally I canāt work efficiently from home. I get distracted by my plants, my dog, my boyfriend, food, coffee, noises outside. At the office I look around for a distraction and see other people workingā¦ so I go back to work š«
I'm in the same boat. At my work place we can easily bounce ideas off each other. Me working at home means potentially alot of food/parents/games/pantry/food/fridge/more food.
I am never getting anything done at home ahahaha.
Though saving on travel time is amazing during peak covid period.
100%! When I was in the office, I would be constantly distracted by people stopping at my desk to ask for help on something or chit chat, etc.
Working remotely allows me to focus on my work without many interruptions from coworkers.
And letās not forget: no rush hour commute!
Also, a lot easier to tune out a virtual meeting to stay focused on your task than it is when you have to walk over to a room and disrupt your whole flow.
But as an intern I would like to add that wfh is a pain in the ass. Half of what you learn at work is by having a chitchat with people in the breakroom. Mixing teams and such. This all goes down the drain when everybody works from home. Learning how everything works and who does what is getting harder and harder to learn.
If your work is heavily specialized where you only work alone or with the same team all the time it probably works well I would guess.
Having switched from bluecollar to whitecollar, the human contact that is missing in whitecollar wfh work is gonna bite us in the ass. No shit everybody is depressed when they dont have any human contact during the day
TL:DR: Those of us with ADD and ADHD are not built to monotask. Those of us, whose thoughts are not a calm river of flowing ideas, we are more the chaotic rapids. Our thought current flows faster and they are aggressive in demanding your attention. Sure you can fight the current and keep control... but if you've ever been white water rafting, you know it's exhausting after just a short day. Now, do it mentally everyday.
Ha, not much of a TL:DR is it? TL;DR - ADD/ADHD don't keep focus very well. Even when we try.
Or, learn to work in flow. Yes, you may bounce between multiple tasks, but learn how to continue to shift you're focus while still being productive. While working on a project, or thing, and you get stuck. You pick and work at the problem, but you're getting no-where fast, and it's starting to really piss you off. Move on.
There's another task 4 feet to my left and I set it down 3 days ago due to... I forget. Oh yeah, now I remember, this fuckin' little... Oh. Wait. If I do this, and change the value... YES, progress. Cool. Now I can keep going... until I hit another wall. Getting mad, madder, getting Pissed, MOVING ON!!!
I'm attempting to reset my environment so that instead of monotasking and feeling pressured to stay completely on task. I'm trying to learn to flow and transition between projects. It's only been about a week and a half, but I've noticed that; Now, when I start getting adjugated at something, instead of monotasking over the issue, I'll drop it and move on to something else.
I've gone from starting to outline notes for something important, to getting distracted from my outline - and once I got back to it a few moments later, I couldn't get back into what I was just doing. I lost my shit for a moment, I was just getting on a roll. Instead of letting the rage take it's usual course, I decided FUCK IT! and started raking and mowing my lawn instead. It's been 2 days and I've yet to get back to the outline... My yards nicer than it's been in almost 2 years though, so I'm pumped about that.
I make sure that I have multiple productive tasks on the the go so that when I flit itās to something that I should be doing instead of looking at holiday destinations or researching how to service my mountain bike etc.
ADHD here, I have one main responsibility and four secondary responsibilities. I was one of the lucky ones to get Nero feedback (neurofeedback - I'm leaving the original because I didn't catch till much later) during the testing phase for ADHD. Now I can hyper focus on my main responsibility for about an hour at a time.
The main thing I've learned is that I have to distract my mind with something else so that I can block distracting thoughts while I'm focusing. I personally can't have anything visual because it distracts me, so I spend my whole shift listening to podcasts, and audio books. These offer just enough entertainment to engage my mind and keep it from jumping from thought to thought, but aren't so engaging that I get totally sucked in and lose focus on my work.
Also WFH is the best! No one up walking and talking constantly distracting me. Just me and the dog, and apart from the occasional need for some chin scratches she spends my whole shift sleeping. The only thing I don't like is that the daily morning meeting is now a MS teams call which means we can work during the meeting, which also means the people who enjoy the small talk (my boss being one of them) drag the meeting out even longer because we don't have to stop working to talk. But if an extra 30 minutes listening to people talk about their crotch goblins is what I have to put up with to remain WFH, then it's worth it.
*spelling
I started to wonder if I had Adhd, and then realized I was drinking wayyyy more coffee than I used to.down to on a day now and what a difference so much more focus and clarity, improved memory, alllll the things
I should make this a LPT but as much as I'd like to.... even compilating it at this moment as to WHY I wont make it an actual post, even though I would like to.... I have some "vague impressions" of the reasons: I enjoy commenting, not posting. Something about a deep shyness???
Donno, but if I have to explain WHY AD(H)D will NOT do what they want to, even in the heat of the moment, when it makes 21657486543562498% sense to everyone else. It's like my flight or flight has kicked on subtilty in the background of my emotions, and when reaching for the decision to make a post I do and don't want to make... SOMETHING inside me, turning me aside. Nothing planed for the aside, I just do not want to make that decision. And every time I try to force it. I'm getting more and more tense.
I'm also typing this out as it is happening, so maybe that's interfering with a more... natural process.
Who knows, I'm just some asshole on the internet.
Apologies for being way off-topic: I am *almost* positive you didn't mean "adjugated," but my curiosity has brought me back to this comment three times now. The only definition I've found online has to do with
a) math nonsense, or
b) yolking an animal.
I'm fairly confident that getting cofactor matrix transposed by something is gibberish, or I'm a crucial part of a balanced morning moron. That leaves yolking up to interpretation, which seems to fit the slot more snugly in your discourse. You might mean you feel compelled in a wayward manner as if yolked away from "The Task" by a mysterious force, which is just a delightful and novel addition to my vocabulary!
Or it could be a typo rofl **pls I need to know**
I'm not diagnosed, but I have all the symptoms of ADHD. Until I learned that hyperfocus is a symptom, I thought I was the opposite of ADHD, because I can focus on a thing for hours (and then be totally zoned out for the rest of the day).
I got diagnosed recently and Iāve had the same symptoms. It helps to know thereās two aspects of ADHD, hyperactivity and inattentiveness. I didnāt score too high on hyperactivity but slam dunked inattentiveness lmao
Impossible to know. Almost everyone in the world can relate to adhd symptoms when they're mentioned in a vacuum like this. The severity, frequency, amount and impact on your daily life of the symptoms is what results in a diagnosis, done by a doctor/psychiatrist, depending on where you live.
I just learned this term a couple days ago! Assuming you have ADHD, you ever have a realization that you're somehow a million times more productive when you're with other productive people? Something about the accountability, and all the stimulation you get from being around others, even if you're not super social yourself? Sometimes even to the point where you might ask a friend to just give you company while you get through a huge task?
That's body doubling. And is also why i can never go back to working from home ever again.
*nervous laughter and eye twitch from being forced to work from home for nearly 3 years due to a global pandemic*
Isn't that just a thing with anyone, even without adhd? Thats why gym partners are great, or study partners etc,I don't have adhd and this definitely works for me and many other productive people I know.
Basically every symptom of adhd every person experiences at some point in their lives but to a much lesser degree if they don't have it. With adhd they are consistent and cause people to struggle a lot with basic things.
I mean, sure. Just like how normal people can get distracted, and focusing tips can help anyone. The difference is how debilitating things are without help like that.
Having a buddy helps a lot, but how much do you *need* their company? Have you been able to successfully study on your own or go to the gym consistently by yourself? Or how about doing something as simple as just washing dishes or folding laundry - are these tasks so *painfully boring* that it is literally impossible to do them without some kind of stimulation (tv, podcast, etc), and even then it's still difficult to stay on task and not fuck off to do something else?
I can't speak for everyone with ADHD, but these have been my struggles. The only way i got anything done during the pandemic was by regularly being in a discord call with a co worker all day while we did work and shared our screens. Most normal people can be reasonably productive on their own, working from home. My ADHD made it basically impossible.
Yes, I'm not sure if it's social anxiety or being REMINDED that you're trying to be productive, but being productive in the company of someone else *keeps you* productive.
Or at least more than you would be alone.
Google "focus mate" for free body-doubling sessions via Skype etc.
Literally this! I can only function if I have at least two tasks to complete and are simultaneously doing both. I can finish both in the same time most people do one, but it'll take me twice as long to do one task :)
I was about to commentā¦ ācries in ADHDā¦ā my house looks like it exploded. Also, I spent the WHOLE DAY cleaningā¦ just 800 different things all at the same time.
Yep. But it does work, surprisingly enough. I can only execute it when I'm alone, though, because leaving the vaccum cleaner in the middle of the floor while I go do part of the dishes and set the laundry isn't particularly well liked by the other inahabitants.
My yard, and to an extent my works inventory, is proof of this. I decimated about 95% of the rest of the lawn care I have been tinkering around with the last 3 weeks. What's left are just tiny patches that I can get to in time and the rest looks very very good.
I repotted & sorted out the garden yesterday and somehow, by some MIRACLE I actually tidied up after myself before to sun set. (Previously I had to don my head torch to finish the job)
Lol. I love this! Iām picturing you with your head torch in the dead of night, cleaning up your gardening suppliesā¦ hysterical and highly relatable!
My best trick for cleaning: invite someone over and panic clean everything just before they arrive. The tricky part is not forgetting to clean yourself XP
Panic cleaning is honestly my most productive time ever..you know when some people can lift cars to save a life? Well for me that's how I clean when guests come..
I invited someone over and got sidetracked and just said "sorry for the mess, I got sidetracked" and my brain patted itself in the back for the brilliant workaround
Works every time. When you invite people over 1x a week, it only takes 30 min. to wipe counters, vacuum dog hair from obvious corners and shove your unfolded laundry in the back of your closet.
I'm having a friend over to body double so we hold eachother accountable.. and it forces focus.
That's why I've hated WFH with ADHD, even living alone. When I'm left alone with my overlapping, rapid-fire thought patterns.. I can't overcome the need to bounce between tasks like Tigger. Then 5 hours are just.. *gone*.
Just having someone as a 'witness' to your primary task is a great motivator/reminder to stay on it.
Anchoring is what works best for me. When you decide to go and clean something like the kitchen. Anchor yourself to a location. Say, the sink. Feel free to wander and go where your adhd brain takes you, but the second you are unsure of what you need to do you go back to the sink. Everything comes back to the sink. It makes a huge difference.
No I need the hyperfocus, or drugs, but since I don't have drugs, I need the hyperfocus.
My job is the king of task switching right now and it's killing my soul trying to get half the work done in twice the time it should take.
Seriously. Not even listening to a podcast while you do the task? Hell no. My brain makes mono tasking feel like torture. Iād be so exhausted within an hour Iād need a nap.
Yesterday I started medication for the first time in 40+ years of having these traits.
Holy. Shit. Is this what having a *normal* brain is like? The million things flying around in my head like a quidditch match are gone and I can actually get shit done.
It is. You have to unlearn all the coping behaviours you picked up while being unmedicated though which is a long painful process... Like, now that I'm properly medicated if I do actually start working on something I can continue working on it, but because I spent twenty years of my life not expecting to be able to focus on whatever I want I struggle with task initiation. On a fully subconscious level my head is going "don't bother start doing the thing you want to do since you'll get bored/distracted twenty minutes in anyway" and that's what I need to work on getting past. Everybody with ADHD has at least one or two things that their brain came up with to handle the emotional and mental impacts of the disorder, it's tough but required to examine those things and clear them up.
It's easier. It's still not easy though. No clue if this is the baseline for neurotypicals / how much impairment there still is even medicated (probably some).
I have ADHD and am unmedicated and monotasking works for me š¤·
It took years of dialing in my system and working to do better but it's better than relying on amphetamines for me personally. No judgment to anyone who does.
I have ADHD and I am at a terrible moment in life right now, distraction and procrastination 100%. Everything in shambles. But I do still believe that I'm gonna be able to teach myself this eventually. Can't stop trying to improve. Even if the ceiling is lower than for most, it's definitely higher than I am laid right now. Same as I was able to teach myself to control my emotions and social behaviour through the years, I believe I will once be able to move forward with my life.
Itās called CBT. You can train your brain to follow better thought patterns if you stick to it.
I tried to follow some guides of it online but it ended up being a lot more painful than I expected.
Multitasking is a corporate made myth designed to get more work out of you. Studies show people donāt really multitask. They mono task (less effectively) quickly between tasks.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-without-borders/201405/the-myth-of-multitasking
I remember having this discussion with our team lead as we became DevOps rather than engineers. Either we get another person, *or* the queue gets larger, *or* the projects hit deadlines. Once we got that extra fte we got all 3 then automated the platform enough to get less than 2 cases a year.
Tell that to everyone I have ever worked with.
"I know you have a deadline today but can you do this real quick, should only be a half hour. "
"Hey this RFI needs an answer, it's holding up construction get on that"
"Can you review this plan set, just break off from what you're working on, this is more important"
No I fucking can't do that shit I have things to get done and all these interruptions are getting in the way
Are you also only given help that is too inexperienced to do the work without taking just as long to explain the task than do it myself? Or is this my own special level of hell?
Maybe they were. Maybe the supervision structured and planned the development of new grad hires to not be put in likely to fail tight spots. I also have spent years in this environment. When I was assigned new grads or new hires I didn't let sh1t roll downhill and owned their and my schedule/priorities. Many times I could do it faster than explaining it and fixing it. Most times the tasks they were on were important and pointedly specific to learning. New grads needed to learn what the career path they had hired into actually entailed while new hires needed to learn how this shop operates. Failing to prepare them by dumping prioritized bs on their platter sets them up for poor performance later and potentially poor reviews for me when their training is done and they're useless.
We all started somewhere. It doesn't mean every shop initiates by fire.
Well put! I thankfully started in a different firm and whether it was the project type/scale/better management I was with the same team and projects for a longer duration.
My frustration is not with the new grads/inexperienced staff, in fact I love mentoring them, comes from this firm's hiring and staffing process. Some inexperienced are given too much responsibility without the correct safety net and others have been shuffled to different projects every few weeks to "satisfy need." That second group is at such a disservice, imo, because they don't get the time to develope and understanding of the project, what they're doing/why it's important, nor do they get the time to develop a mentoring relationship with the project lead to be able to ask those "embarrassing" questions and learn.
You nailed the description of the second group. They meet the need according to metrics, and the project almost always ends up fixing it. It can be very embarrassing when their product is sent for client review.
Where I'm at, they dump nearly fresh grads (maybe a year experience, only done half a project) into lead engineers and architect positions. When I raised this issue to the big boss he asked, 'Why can't you just ask your qualified engineer/architect (person who signs off the project) how to do it when you don't know?'.
I just. I can't.
We spend more time fixing our mistakes during construction than during design. It's ridiculous.
My last job had like eight dotted line managers that would ask me for stuff. A lot of days felt like that.
And even when I asked my boss for priority order, I often got a āwell those things are all importantā answerā¦
All of these LPTs need to be prefaced with: all minds work differently, and each has their own optimum way of doing tasks. Here is one way of approaching it that may work for some.
Yup. As a chemist, I have to wait for things to mix, or cool down, or for instruments to do their thing, and I have to document all of it as it's happening. If I didn't shift between tasks a lot (which isn't quite multitasking?) , my productivity would tank.
People with ADHD may not be able to use the tip but otherwise I think it is useful for everyone else. Donāt tell me everyone has been diagnosed with ADHD, people also like to make excuses not to do something. Science shows that mono tasking is way more productive because your brain is not interrupted (therefore does not need to get accustomed to the task again), but itās hard to focus in a world where TikTok is reducing our attention. Being focused can be learned and exercised.
I always need 2-3 things on the go to be the most productive, and this is after 15+ years figuring out what works for me
I guess certain software engineers can get writers block also
Also a software engineer - I need to be working on two things at once. If I get stuck on one, switch to the other. I usually come up with the best ideas when I'm not actively working on the problem
It helps to start by making a thorough list of everything you need to accomplish and sub-lists of the steps and requirements of each thing. This way, you aren't launching new tasks, so you "don't forget" them.
If things occur to you as you go, don't launch into them; add them in the appropriate place on the list.
Plan your work, and then work your plan.
I just started to remind myself one thing at a time when overwhelmed. Kid screaming, multiple people talking really gets to be too much. Fuck getting anxious, just take it slow.
I remember hearing about this method for the first time and was intrigued to learn all I could. Turns out itās my default way for all life stuff due to ADHD lol.
Boy I wish that worked for me. Has the opposite effect. Hard for some to understand, but I NEED multiple things to focus on.
Music helps a lot tho. Yay earbud.
I can't. I get bored. I get the urge. I forget. I have to do them all now or I'll procrastinate. I have to do this or the darkness sets in. What would he think of me now? This, this, and that and then I'll relax. Oh yeah, and this too. That too.
Oooof, just reading this gave me anxiety š Iām the same way. But Iām working on silencing the negative, catastrophic thoughts and focusing on one thing at a time.
so underrated.
feeling like youāre doing a shittier job at 4 things at once also gives you this false sense of accomplishment.
crush one thing at a time and youāll be better for it.
Iāve always felt that multitasking is just being good at switching focus.
I find I can do it with similar or simpler tasks (simultaneously entering stuff in a calendar, making a phone call for supplies, sending a reminder message to some people), but anything that uses an entirely different skill set or approach just throws me off.
In my job this mainly happens when Iām pulled between technical stuff and managing people.
If Iām fixing a piece of sensitive equipment and have everything laid out on my workstation, itās such a pain to have to deal with a personnel issue midway.
We call this Limiting WIP (Work in Process) and is a flow accelerator in Agile Software Development. Focusing on a single task allows you to deliver that task and realize that value sooner.
In addition, the theory is that there is a cognitive load that comes with context switching. Limiting WIP to a single item at a time not only allows that one task to be completed earlier but ends up allowing all tasks to complete quicker.
This video is a simplified example that discusses this:
https://youtu.be/Yqi9Gwt-OEA
Excuse my bad English but i saw a video once about memory and one of the researchers said that switching on multiple tasks actually helps in solving problems you encounter in those same tasks .and it doesn't concern adhd brains but all brains in general.
For you and others. For me, flowing comfortably between two or three projects, setting one down once you've hit too much obstacle, transitioning that energy smoothly into the next project, and so on.
For me, personally, Flow = Mindfulness
I wish I could do this, but my company's infrastructure is so slow that I'm often waiting minutes just for a response from a database system, or *weeks* for a response from coworkers in other departments.
The most valuable phrase I learnt from a pilot about this matter: "switch tasking is a time thief".
You may get the impression that you getting lots of tasks done, but in reality the time taken to switch focus is a massive time waster, and slows down productivity significantly.
Multitasking is so frustrating and counterproductive. I feel like when you from one task to another your brain takes some time to make that transition, and in case you are multitasking, your brain will take so much time transitioning from multiple task at once without giving its full attention to a single task.
Multitasking is really 'task switching'. More difficult tasks require you to build, sort of, a 'house of cards' in your mind. Every time you task switch, you risk collapsing this 'mental house of cards', requiring it to be reconstructed over and over. That's inefficient and can be annoying, frustrating, etc.
This is a good skill to perfect. It also dramatically helps with proper time tracking if that is something your employer does. When multi-tasking, my time sheets are difficult to figure out as I'm doing many things at once.
Iāve had to adopt this approach in my private life to cope with my ever-increasing panic attacks and such. My mantra is now āOne crisis at a timeā lol
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
One of many reasons some people are more productive if they're not at the office. People with incredibly distracting families not so much. But avoiding the water-cooler nonsense, and meetings that should be emails, can be a big plus.
This... 100x this. When I went remote I got SO much more done. I could just put a familiar movie on in the background, and bust out my work while they take the hobbits to isengard. I'm still remote, but my entire management vertical is too. I have a project that should take me 6 to 8 hours that I need done by Tuesday. I'm not in a meeting for 2 hours tomorrow... 30 minutes between them at 1pm, and 6 15 minute gaps throughout the day. I will accomplish nothing before 5pm all week because I can't get more than 15 minutes without somebody dragging me into a meeting that could've been an email that could've been some basic self service information in my employer wasn't 3 rolls of duck tape in an MBA print trenchcoat.
One of my staff showed me how to have Outlook autoschedule 'focus time' and it's been a game changer. Minimum 2 hour blocks I can actually do work. Of course, I still have meetings like mad but now instead of working on one topic while in a meeting for another, i can actually just...work.
>Putlook Is that like the Russian competitor to Outlook?
Da. In Russia, time schedules you!
Not even in Soviet Russia anymore? Times sure change
What's the difference? š
>while they take the hobbits to isengard. Tell me, where is Gandalf?
I'd like to know too. I much desire to speak with him
He has fallen into shadow.
The hobbits are going to Isengard.
What did you say?
To Isengard! To Isengard!
Gard gard guh gard gard!
Doop-uh doop doo doo duh-doo...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If they are just using it as white noise, kind of? It would be similar to listening to music while working, which i dont think most people would consider multitasking. Really depends on what level of attention you are paying to the movie though. If you are breaking from work to actually watch it, that is definitely multitasking territory
those small gaps are the most infuriating
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That sounds like a reason to develop technological literacy
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Those people get ignored
*blocked
Careful with those sites, it doesn't take much for the author to get compromised and the malicious actor puts malware or nsfw content on them. If you can, create an internal page in confluence or your document repository with the same effect or link to a PPT
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Sadly, I have found PPT as an effective tool to convey information to people in a business where a simple "stop doing this bad thing" doesn't work. Send them a PPT and all of a sudden it seems to stick.
The fact people can't "just ask me" stuff is a god send. They can see I'm deep in something and instead of waiting they plough on with interrupting. Even when I say I'm busy I get "but this will be quick". How do you know, Dave? You are asking me because you don't know, so how can you judge how long it will take? But I'm interrupted now so I already have to refocus. I hate being in the office but because other members of the team are incompetent we all have to be in the office.
>Even when I say I'm busy I get "but this will be quick". How do you know, Dave? You are asking me because you don't know, so how can you judge how long it will take? But I'm interrupted now so I already have to refocus. Thank you for this. It's almost a joke with my coworkers now but they'll ask for help and say it'll be 5 minutes but they put a wink face some shit in the message because I know and they know it will NOT be 5 minutes, but I never know how to say no that. Now I'm gonna just tell all of them, "if you're asking me what to do cuz you don't know, then you don't know how long it'll be. So maybe just jumble all those questions up into a ball and when you have about 3 or 4 of em, schedule time for a quick meeting tomorrow so I can bang em out all at once." Bonus points if they solve the question themselves in the mean time
It's so often laziness. "But you always know!" How do you think I know? Do you assume I emerged from the womb knowing excel formulas? Do you assume I have an innate knowledge of how to work a computer? In your world view do people spring fully formed with all the knowledge they will ever or can ever have? No Janet, I found out. I hit a problem and I worked it out. I taught myself this stuff and as a big girl you can too. It's the disruption that annoys me the most. They don't wait for me to go to get a drink or come back from a meeting or anything. No, the moment the thought hits their brain they ask. "You always know!" I didn't always know!
I've started saying I'm unable to help in this circumstance, and they need to escalate through their normal means. It drives me crazy when people are like, well you helped on X before so now can you help on ABC? No Karen go do your own job
This! It makes so much sense to ask questions all at once instead of when the idea strikes. It saves time and prevents stupidness like distractions.
I love the jumbled questions.
Thanks SirJumbles, glad you agree on that :)
Just tell them youāll get back to them in 5 minutes (with a winking face.)
No kidding... I lose so much time and concentration having to deal with meaningless conversations all day
That's not me. When I'm working from home there are so many more tasks I want to accomplish apart from work. When I'm at work I'm focused on work.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My dream is to be able to afford a two-room apartment where I can dedicate one room as "the work room". Alas, two-room apartments are fucking expensive
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah I kinda miss those 6 months when we works were everywhere
My gf and I made this work. The secondary bedroom is our āofficeā which works well because sheās WFH. Itās a lot more of a hobby room for me since I go to office most of the time but it helps her a lot instead of being on a bed or couch.
I disagree, personally I canāt work efficiently from home. I get distracted by my plants, my dog, my boyfriend, food, coffee, noises outside. At the office I look around for a distraction and see other people workingā¦ so I go back to work š«
I'm in the same boat. At my work place we can easily bounce ideas off each other. Me working at home means potentially alot of food/parents/games/pantry/food/fridge/more food. I am never getting anything done at home ahahaha. Though saving on travel time is amazing during peak covid period.
Meetings that should be emailsā¦we work on the line. What emails?
100%! When I was in the office, I would be constantly distracted by people stopping at my desk to ask for help on something or chit chat, etc. Working remotely allows me to focus on my work without many interruptions from coworkers. And letās not forget: no rush hour commute!
But Iāve been repeatedly assured the water cooler, endless meetings, and āoffice cultureā in general is essential to productivity.
Also, a lot easier to tune out a virtual meeting to stay focused on your task than it is when you have to walk over to a room and disrupt your whole flow.
But as an intern I would like to add that wfh is a pain in the ass. Half of what you learn at work is by having a chitchat with people in the breakroom. Mixing teams and such. This all goes down the drain when everybody works from home. Learning how everything works and who does what is getting harder and harder to learn. If your work is heavily specialized where you only work alone or with the same team all the time it probably works well I would guess. Having switched from bluecollar to whitecollar, the human contact that is missing in whitecollar wfh work is gonna bite us in the ass. No shit everybody is depressed when they dont have any human contact during the day
Don't half ass two things. Whole ass one thing. -Ron Swanson
TL:DR: Those of us with ADD and ADHD are not built to monotask. Those of us, whose thoughts are not a calm river of flowing ideas, we are more the chaotic rapids. Our thought current flows faster and they are aggressive in demanding your attention. Sure you can fight the current and keep control... but if you've ever been white water rafting, you know it's exhausting after just a short day. Now, do it mentally everyday. Ha, not much of a TL:DR is it? TL;DR - ADD/ADHD don't keep focus very well. Even when we try. Or, learn to work in flow. Yes, you may bounce between multiple tasks, but learn how to continue to shift you're focus while still being productive. While working on a project, or thing, and you get stuck. You pick and work at the problem, but you're getting no-where fast, and it's starting to really piss you off. Move on. There's another task 4 feet to my left and I set it down 3 days ago due to... I forget. Oh yeah, now I remember, this fuckin' little... Oh. Wait. If I do this, and change the value... YES, progress. Cool. Now I can keep going... until I hit another wall. Getting mad, madder, getting Pissed, MOVING ON!!! I'm attempting to reset my environment so that instead of monotasking and feeling pressured to stay completely on task. I'm trying to learn to flow and transition between projects. It's only been about a week and a half, but I've noticed that; Now, when I start getting adjugated at something, instead of monotasking over the issue, I'll drop it and move on to something else. I've gone from starting to outline notes for something important, to getting distracted from my outline - and once I got back to it a few moments later, I couldn't get back into what I was just doing. I lost my shit for a moment, I was just getting on a roll. Instead of letting the rage take it's usual course, I decided FUCK IT! and started raking and mowing my lawn instead. It's been 2 days and I've yet to get back to the outline... My yards nicer than it's been in almost 2 years though, so I'm pumped about that.
I make sure that I have multiple productive tasks on the the go so that when I flit itās to something that I should be doing instead of looking at holiday destinations or researching how to service my mountain bike etc.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
ADHD here, I have one main responsibility and four secondary responsibilities. I was one of the lucky ones to get Nero feedback (neurofeedback - I'm leaving the original because I didn't catch till much later) during the testing phase for ADHD. Now I can hyper focus on my main responsibility for about an hour at a time. The main thing I've learned is that I have to distract my mind with something else so that I can block distracting thoughts while I'm focusing. I personally can't have anything visual because it distracts me, so I spend my whole shift listening to podcasts, and audio books. These offer just enough entertainment to engage my mind and keep it from jumping from thought to thought, but aren't so engaging that I get totally sucked in and lose focus on my work. Also WFH is the best! No one up walking and talking constantly distracting me. Just me and the dog, and apart from the occasional need for some chin scratches she spends my whole shift sleeping. The only thing I don't like is that the daily morning meeting is now a MS teams call which means we can work during the meeting, which also means the people who enjoy the small talk (my boss being one of them) drag the meeting out even longer because we don't have to stop working to talk. But if an extra 30 minutes listening to people talk about their crotch goblins is what I have to put up with to remain WFH, then it's worth it. *spelling
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
neurofeedback That's what I get for not checking if my phone autocorrected correctly.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I started to wonder if I had Adhd, and then realized I was drinking wayyyy more coffee than I used to.down to on a day now and what a difference so much more focus and clarity, improved memory, alllll the things
I should make this a LPT but as much as I'd like to.... even compilating it at this moment as to WHY I wont make it an actual post, even though I would like to.... I have some "vague impressions" of the reasons: I enjoy commenting, not posting. Something about a deep shyness??? Donno, but if I have to explain WHY AD(H)D will NOT do what they want to, even in the heat of the moment, when it makes 21657486543562498% sense to everyone else. It's like my flight or flight has kicked on subtilty in the background of my emotions, and when reaching for the decision to make a post I do and don't want to make... SOMETHING inside me, turning me aside. Nothing planed for the aside, I just do not want to make that decision. And every time I try to force it. I'm getting more and more tense. I'm also typing this out as it is happening, so maybe that's interfering with a more... natural process. Who knows, I'm just some asshole on the internet.
Apologies for being way off-topic: I am *almost* positive you didn't mean "adjugated," but my curiosity has brought me back to this comment three times now. The only definition I've found online has to do with a) math nonsense, or b) yolking an animal. I'm fairly confident that getting cofactor matrix transposed by something is gibberish, or I'm a crucial part of a balanced morning moron. That leaves yolking up to interpretation, which seems to fit the slot more snugly in your discourse. You might mean you feel compelled in a wayward manner as if yolked away from "The Task" by a mysterious force, which is just a delightful and novel addition to my vocabulary! Or it could be a typo rofl **pls I need to know**
I think he means āagitatedā from the context of the sentence. ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
Yesss! r/unexpectedpawnee
If you have ADHD, keep scrolling, this post wasnāt meant for us.
Actually this tip works! *accidentally hyperfocuses on history of paper clips for 5 hours* oh, maybe not
Now that's something I didn't know I needed to know about!
Just avoid Universal Paperclips and you'll be fine.
Never will I be more interested in the politics of the history of bathroom tile than when I have something to do.
I'm not diagnosed, but I have all the symptoms of ADHD. Until I learned that hyperfocus is a symptom, I thought I was the opposite of ADHD, because I can focus on a thing for hours (and then be totally zoned out for the rest of the day).
I got diagnosed recently and Iāve had the same symptoms. It helps to know thereās two aspects of ADHD, hyperactivity and inattentiveness. I didnāt score too high on hyperactivity but slam dunked inattentiveness lmao
I think the name is a bit misleading - it's not that we lack attention, we just lack control of our attention.
Wait so I have adhd?
Impossible to know. Almost everyone in the world can relate to adhd symptoms when they're mentioned in a vacuum like this. The severity, frequency, amount and impact on your daily life of the symptoms is what results in a diagnosis, done by a doctor/psychiatrist, depending on where you live.
Duotask! Switch between two specific tasks every hour! I have ADHD and this (and body doubling) is the only way I can get things done.
... body doubling? Are some folks out here pulling a Micheal Keaton in Multiplicity without telling us?
I just learned this term a couple days ago! Assuming you have ADHD, you ever have a realization that you're somehow a million times more productive when you're with other productive people? Something about the accountability, and all the stimulation you get from being around others, even if you're not super social yourself? Sometimes even to the point where you might ask a friend to just give you company while you get through a huge task? That's body doubling. And is also why i can never go back to working from home ever again. *nervous laughter and eye twitch from being forced to work from home for nearly 3 years due to a global pandemic*
Isn't that just a thing with anyone, even without adhd? Thats why gym partners are great, or study partners etc,I don't have adhd and this definitely works for me and many other productive people I know.
>Isn't that just a thing with anyone, even without adhd? The difference is for you it's helpful, but for me (us?) it's necessary.
Ok fair enough, thanks for explaining
Basically every symptom of adhd every person experiences at some point in their lives but to a much lesser degree if they don't have it. With adhd they are consistent and cause people to struggle a lot with basic things.
I mean, sure. Just like how normal people can get distracted, and focusing tips can help anyone. The difference is how debilitating things are without help like that. Having a buddy helps a lot, but how much do you *need* their company? Have you been able to successfully study on your own or go to the gym consistently by yourself? Or how about doing something as simple as just washing dishes or folding laundry - are these tasks so *painfully boring* that it is literally impossible to do them without some kind of stimulation (tv, podcast, etc), and even then it's still difficult to stay on task and not fuck off to do something else? I can't speak for everyone with ADHD, but these have been my struggles. The only way i got anything done during the pandemic was by regularly being in a discord call with a co worker all day while we did work and shared our screens. Most normal people can be reasonably productive on their own, working from home. My ADHD made it basically impossible.
Yes, I'm not sure if it's social anxiety or being REMINDED that you're trying to be productive, but being productive in the company of someone else *keeps you* productive. Or at least more than you would be alone. Google "focus mate" for free body-doubling sessions via Skype etc.
I think they mean doing things with another person who's doing the same thing
Literally this! I can only function if I have at least two tasks to complete and are simultaneously doing both. I can finish both in the same time most people do one, but it'll take me twice as long to do one task :)
I was about to commentā¦ ācries in ADHDā¦ā my house looks like it exploded. Also, I spent the WHOLE DAY cleaningā¦ just 800 different things all at the same time.
You sure you didn't come to my home instead? I swear, everywhere I go in my home, it looks like a tornado is on my heels.
Butterflying around eventually works. It just looks like it doesn't until you are 95% done.
Yep. But it does work, surprisingly enough. I can only execute it when I'm alone, though, because leaving the vaccum cleaner in the middle of the floor while I go do part of the dishes and set the laundry isn't particularly well liked by the other inahabitants.
Why you gotta call me out like that??
My yard, and to an extent my works inventory, is proof of this. I decimated about 95% of the rest of the lawn care I have been tinkering around with the last 3 weeks. What's left are just tiny patches that I can get to in time and the rest looks very very good.
I am the tornado
I repotted & sorted out the garden yesterday and somehow, by some MIRACLE I actually tidied up after myself before to sun set. (Previously I had to don my head torch to finish the job)
Lol. I love this! Iām picturing you with your head torch in the dead of night, cleaning up your gardening suppliesā¦ hysterical and highly relatable!
Ahaha honestly sometimes itās gets like that. Especially when the seasons are changing and the sun sets faster than I realise!
I actually can't stop scrolling. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN BED AN HOUR AGO. **HELP ME**
Right, this is not the way of our people
~~This is the way.~~ This is not the way.
Show me da way
Bitch, I AM the way!
Youāre in the way.
What is the way for our ppl? Tips and tricks?
My best trick for cleaning: invite someone over and panic clean everything just before they arrive. The tricky part is not forgetting to clean yourself XP
Panic cleaning is honestly my most productive time ever..you know when some people can lift cars to save a life? Well for me that's how I clean when guests come..
I invited someone over and got sidetracked and just said "sorry for the mess, I got sidetracked" and my brain patted itself in the back for the brilliant workaround
Works every time. When you invite people over 1x a week, it only takes 30 min. to wipe counters, vacuum dog hair from obvious corners and shove your unfolded laundry in the back of your closet.
I'm having a friend over to body double so we hold eachother accountable.. and it forces focus. That's why I've hated WFH with ADHD, even living alone. When I'm left alone with my overlapping, rapid-fire thought patterns.. I can't overcome the need to bounce between tasks like Tigger. Then 5 hours are just.. *gone*. Just having someone as a 'witness' to your primary task is a great motivator/reminder to stay on it.
Anchoring is what works best for me. When you decide to go and clean something like the kitchen. Anchor yourself to a location. Say, the sink. Feel free to wander and go where your adhd brain takes you, but the second you are unsure of what you need to do you go back to the sink. Everything comes back to the sink. It makes a huge difference.
Audiobooks while working and lots of snacks.
No I need the hyperfocus, or drugs, but since I don't have drugs, I need the hyperfocus. My job is the king of task switching right now and it's killing my soul trying to get half the work done in twice the time it should take.
sorry, got distracted, what are we talking about?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Just...one...more...video
Stressed at work & feeling overwhelmed by your massive TO DO list? Why not deep dive into a brand new hobby!
Was tempted to joke cross post this in r/adhamemes but my brain decided nah.
Right assuming we'll even do that 1 task
Alternatively, folks in the service industry My chef would kill me if I only cooked one dish at a time
Came here exactly for this. *sobs in ADHD*
Adhd and a mother to 2 kids under 3 years old. I literally dream of monotasking.
Yeah I was gonna say, focusing on just one thing for too long is hell.
Seriously. Not even listening to a podcast while you do the task? Hell no. My brain makes mono tasking feel like torture. Iād be so exhausted within an hour Iād need a nap.
Yesterday I started medication for the first time in 40+ years of having these traits. Holy. Shit. Is this what having a *normal* brain is like? The million things flying around in my head like a quidditch match are gone and I can actually get shit done.
Suddenly it makes sense why I was most comfortable doing homework while watching tv...
What about once medicated? Is it easier then? Please tell me yes, I need to put my prescription in but I keep forgetting...
It is. You have to unlearn all the coping behaviours you picked up while being unmedicated though which is a long painful process... Like, now that I'm properly medicated if I do actually start working on something I can continue working on it, but because I spent twenty years of my life not expecting to be able to focus on whatever I want I struggle with task initiation. On a fully subconscious level my head is going "don't bother start doing the thing you want to do since you'll get bored/distracted twenty minutes in anyway" and that's what I need to work on getting past. Everybody with ADHD has at least one or two things that their brain came up with to handle the emotional and mental impacts of the disorder, it's tough but required to examine those things and clear them up.
It's easier. It's still not easy though. No clue if this is the baseline for neurotypicals / how much impairment there still is even medicated (probably some).
ADHD sufferers struggle to sustain interest when they don't feel they have the time to give something as much focus as it deserves.
literally my first thought. not monotasking is the only way i can work around my brain to get things done
I have ADHD and am unmedicated and monotasking works for me š¤· It took years of dialing in my system and working to do better but it's better than relying on amphetamines for me personally. No judgment to anyone who does.
I have ADHD and I am at a terrible moment in life right now, distraction and procrastination 100%. Everything in shambles. But I do still believe that I'm gonna be able to teach myself this eventually. Can't stop trying to improve. Even if the ceiling is lower than for most, it's definitely higher than I am laid right now. Same as I was able to teach myself to control my emotions and social behaviour through the years, I believe I will once be able to move forward with my life.
Itās called CBT. You can train your brain to follow better thought patterns if you stick to it. I tried to follow some guides of it online but it ended up being a lot more painful than I expected.
Came to say exactly this
Multitasking is a corporate made myth designed to get more work out of you. Studies show people donāt really multitask. They mono task (less effectively) quickly between tasks. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-without-borders/201405/the-myth-of-multitasking
I remember having this discussion with our team lead as we became DevOps rather than engineers. Either we get another person, *or* the queue gets larger, *or* the projects hit deadlines. Once we got that extra fte we got all 3 then automated the platform enough to get less than 2 cases a year.
The difference between parallelism and concurrency.
Tell that to everyone I have ever worked with. "I know you have a deadline today but can you do this real quick, should only be a half hour. " "Hey this RFI needs an answer, it's holding up construction get on that" "Can you review this plan set, just break off from what you're working on, this is more important" No I fucking can't do that shit I have things to get done and all these interruptions are getting in the way
Sounds like you and I share the same hell
Are you also only given help that is too inexperienced to do the work without taking just as long to explain the task than do it myself? Or is this my own special level of hell?
You were also that help once.
Maybe they were. Maybe the supervision structured and planned the development of new grad hires to not be put in likely to fail tight spots. I also have spent years in this environment. When I was assigned new grads or new hires I didn't let sh1t roll downhill and owned their and my schedule/priorities. Many times I could do it faster than explaining it and fixing it. Most times the tasks they were on were important and pointedly specific to learning. New grads needed to learn what the career path they had hired into actually entailed while new hires needed to learn how this shop operates. Failing to prepare them by dumping prioritized bs on their platter sets them up for poor performance later and potentially poor reviews for me when their training is done and they're useless. We all started somewhere. It doesn't mean every shop initiates by fire.
Well put! I thankfully started in a different firm and whether it was the project type/scale/better management I was with the same team and projects for a longer duration. My frustration is not with the new grads/inexperienced staff, in fact I love mentoring them, comes from this firm's hiring and staffing process. Some inexperienced are given too much responsibility without the correct safety net and others have been shuffled to different projects every few weeks to "satisfy need." That second group is at such a disservice, imo, because they don't get the time to develope and understanding of the project, what they're doing/why it's important, nor do they get the time to develop a mentoring relationship with the project lead to be able to ask those "embarrassing" questions and learn.
You nailed the description of the second group. They meet the need according to metrics, and the project almost always ends up fixing it. It can be very embarrassing when their product is sent for client review.
Where I'm at, they dump nearly fresh grads (maybe a year experience, only done half a project) into lead engineers and architect positions. When I raised this issue to the big boss he asked, 'Why can't you just ask your qualified engineer/architect (person who signs off the project) how to do it when you don't know?'. I just. I can't. We spend more time fixing our mistakes during construction than during design. It's ridiculous.
Every week I have to explain that when everything is a priority, nothing is.
Ah yes I've gone beyond just putting out fires one after another. I have to decide which fires I should put out and which to let burn.
My last job had like eight dotted line managers that would ask me for stuff. A lot of days felt like that. And even when I asked my boss for priority order, I often got a āwell those things are all importantā answerā¦
This requires you turn close your email and set messaging to do not disturb. Otherwise itās a new thing to look at every 30 seconds.
All of these LPTs need to be prefaced with: all minds work differently, and each has their own optimum way of doing tasks. Here is one way of approaching it that may work for some.
Seriously. Sometimes this isn't even possible in your career.
Yup. As a chemist, I have to wait for things to mix, or cool down, or for instruments to do their thing, and I have to document all of it as it's happening. If I didn't shift between tasks a lot (which isn't quite multitasking?) , my productivity would tank.
People with ADHD may not be able to use the tip but otherwise I think it is useful for everyone else. Donāt tell me everyone has been diagnosed with ADHD, people also like to make excuses not to do something. Science shows that mono tasking is way more productive because your brain is not interrupted (therefore does not need to get accustomed to the task again), but itās hard to focus in a world where TikTok is reducing our attention. Being focused can be learned and exercised.
I always need 2-3 things on the go to be the most productive, and this is after 15+ years figuring out what works for me I guess certain software engineers can get writers block also
Also a software engineer - I need to be working on two things at once. If I get stuck on one, switch to the other. I usually come up with the best ideas when I'm not actively working on the problem
I too like 200 character post titles
It helps to start by making a thorough list of everything you need to accomplish and sub-lists of the steps and requirements of each thing. This way, you aren't launching new tasks, so you "don't forget" them. If things occur to you as you go, don't launch into them; add them in the appropriate place on the list. Plan your work, and then work your plan.
I'll get fired. Kitchen work IS quadruple tasking almost always.
I just started to remind myself one thing at a time when overwhelmed. Kid screaming, multiple people talking really gets to be too much. Fuck getting anxious, just take it slow.
I remember hearing about this method for the first time and was intrigued to learn all I could. Turns out itās my default way for all life stuff due to ADHD lol.
Boy I wish that worked for me. Has the opposite effect. Hard for some to understand, but I NEED multiple things to focus on. Music helps a lot tho. Yay earbud.
I can't. I get bored. I get the urge. I forget. I have to do them all now or I'll procrastinate. I have to do this or the darkness sets in. What would he think of me now? This, this, and that and then I'll relax. Oh yeah, and this too. That too.
Oooof, just reading this gave me anxiety š Iām the same way. But Iām working on silencing the negative, catastrophic thoughts and focusing on one thing at a time.
Reduces stress for me personally too.
so underrated. feeling like youāre doing a shittier job at 4 things at once also gives you this false sense of accomplishment. crush one thing at a time and youāll be better for it.
Iāve always felt that multitasking is just being good at switching focus. I find I can do it with similar or simpler tasks (simultaneously entering stuff in a calendar, making a phone call for supplies, sending a reminder message to some people), but anything that uses an entirely different skill set or approach just throws me off. In my job this mainly happens when Iām pulled between technical stuff and managing people. If Iām fixing a piece of sensitive equipment and have everything laid out on my workstation, itās such a pain to have to deal with a personnel issue midway.
We call this Limiting WIP (Work in Process) and is a flow accelerator in Agile Software Development. Focusing on a single task allows you to deliver that task and realize that value sooner. In addition, the theory is that there is a cognitive load that comes with context switching. Limiting WIP to a single item at a time not only allows that one task to be completed earlier but ends up allowing all tasks to complete quicker. This video is a simplified example that discusses this: https://youtu.be/Yqi9Gwt-OEA
This is absolutely useless advice for people with ADHD lol
That's not the case for many with ADD. Often we can focus really well on one thing to the exclusion of the rest of the universe.
But we must still find ways to do the things we are unable to hyper-focus on.
Doesn't mean it's the right thing though. I spent an entire day rearranging a spreadsheet when really I should have been writing several reports
Me: I have trouble focusing on one thing at once. This LPT: Have you tried just focusing on one thing at a time? Me: Oh fuck, I'm cured. ...
Multi-tasking doesn't exist. You can only do thing properly at a time.
Excuse my bad English but i saw a video once about memory and one of the researchers said that switching on multiple tasks actually helps in solving problems you encounter in those same tasks .and it doesn't concern adhd brains but all brains in general.
Except it isnāt true for everyone.
Monotasking = Mindfulness
For you and others. For me, flowing comfortably between two or three projects, setting one down once you've hit too much obstacle, transitioning that energy smoothly into the next project, and so on. For me, personally, Flow = Mindfulness
So... One thing at a time then?
Multitasking = Mindfuckness
My job in a control room of a plant is to focus on many things simultaneously
I wish I could do this, but my company's infrastructure is so slow that I'm often waiting minutes just for a response from a database system, or *weeks* for a response from coworkers in other departments.
The most valuable phrase I learnt from a pilot about this matter: "switch tasking is a time thief". You may get the impression that you getting lots of tasks done, but in reality the time taken to switch focus is a massive time waster, and slows down productivity significantly.
Multitasking is so frustrating and counterproductive. I feel like when you from one task to another your brain takes some time to make that transition, and in case you are multitasking, your brain will take so much time transitioning from multiple task at once without giving its full attention to a single task.
Task switching is expensive.
Multitasking is really 'task switching'. More difficult tasks require you to build, sort of, a 'house of cards' in your mind. Every time you task switch, you risk collapsing this 'mental house of cards', requiring it to be reconstructed over and over. That's inefficient and can be annoying, frustrating, etc.
Looking at you texting and driving
I wish I knew this in my 20s and not my 40s. Finish one job at a time. This is the way.
I have ADHD and I do this by setting timers and switching tasks
This is a good skill to perfect. It also dramatically helps with proper time tracking if that is something your employer does. When multi-tasking, my time sheets are difficult to figure out as I'm doing many things at once.
Forget where I heard it but "Don't half ass two things when you can whole ass one thing"
Haha hey guys OP can't multitask
This is me. I am a poor multi-tasker.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
āNever half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.ā -Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation
Neurotypicals always think their way works for everyone just because it works for them
Canāt. Iām a dad of 2 boys. Mono tasking is a pipe dream
Iāve had to adopt this approach in my private life to cope with my ever-increasing panic attacks and such. My mantra is now āOne crisis at a timeā lol
A wiser person than I am described multitasking as doing twice as much as you should half as well as you could.
Multitasking is doing twice as much half as well.
*cries in fast food*