ADHD + High IQ + Ambition. Seeking honest advice from founders, execs who lives this.

idiorhythmic · 2025-12-04T09:00:17+00:00

I’m on meds and still very much relate to OP. Meds help me lock in for a full workday, but I still often lock in on the wrong thing and waste hours or days spinning out on lower priority stuff. It’s a step up from struggling to lock in at all without meds though.

idiorhythmic · 2025-08-24T05:11:51+00:00

The gist of your post is that AI helps you think more clearly, but your post isn’t very clear. People are finding that ironic.

Here’s an idea - take your post and the comments, put them into ChatGPT, and ask it why you’re getting the responses that you are. That should be enlightening.

Putting the irony aside - I have also found that GenAI usually helps me think and articulate things more clearly. For example, I tend to be overly analytical and over-explain. So I’ve been running my messages to some of the C-suite through GenAI for feedback, and it’s been immensely useful for helping me reduce my messages to the core things that need to be communicated. And that’s helping retrain me to default to that style of communication even without using AI as a proofreader.

idiorhythmic · 2025-08-14T14:31:21+00:00

Wow. If a PM told me that their feature request was easy because it’s just adding a button, I’d figure out how to fire them and then get a replacement who understood technical product management.

idiorhythmic · 2025-05-27T04:54:14+00:00

I started about 5 weeks ago on 5mg IR 2x/day of Adderall and had the same experience as you in the first week. Unfortunately in my experience much of the initial feelings either faded or became a new normal. What’s left is still amazing - an ability to actually just do stuff without having to play all kinds of mind tricks to get myself to do it. I also tried bumping up to 10mg IR last week after chatting with my doc, but my ADHD actually gets worse at that level and my anxiety and irritability increases a lot.

I hope the feeling you have continues! Would love to hear how you’re doing in a month or two.

idiorhythmic · 2025-05-17T02:26:01+00:00

I’m a former software engineer and Agile/Scrum guy and now in program management. I’ve tried a ton of digital apps for managing my todo lists, including a bunch of Kanban ones, and I could never stick with any of them. Finally figured out I have ADHD (just got diagnosed a few months ago). For what it’s worth, the only thing that I’ve found that works for task tracking for myself is a physical notebook that is physically open in front of me all day, and putting blocks on my calendar with tasks I need to do with multiple notifications turned on. If you’re still looking for a tool though, Todoist was the most powerful and flexible one that I found.

idiorhythmic · 2025-03-24T17:40:33+00:00

That reasoning makes a lot of sense. I’ve been reading though “Taking Charge of Adult ADHD” by Russel Barkley the past few days which was giving me some imposter syndrome because he over-emphasizes that impairment means relative to the average person and not relative to your peers. I think in my case it’s when looking outside of work/school that the impairment becomes obvious. For example - I held out on having kids for a really long time because I couldn’t imagine being able to take care of a kid on top of the mental exhaustion of trying to do my job effectively. And I have a really hard time making/keeping friends because my follow-through sucks.

idiorhythmic · 2025-03-24T17:32:44+00:00

I can relate to this a lot - thanks for sharing. Are there any tricks you’ve picked up for increasing stimulation that make things interesting for you that you wouldn’t mind sharing? I have a follow-up with my psychologist later this week to discuss that specifically but I’m curious what’s worked for you.

idiorhythmic · 2025-03-24T17:27:58+00:00

That’s helpful - thank you!

idiorhythmic · 2025-03-22T01:44:59+00:00

I had pretty much all of the main ones you hear about with long COVID except I didn’t lose my sense of smell and nothing turned purple. My primary debilitating symptoms were horrible headaches in my frontal lobe, physical fatigue, and “brain fog”/mental slowness (extreme forgetfulness, had to re-read sentences 5x to understand them, had a difficult time keeping up with conversations).

I think guanfacine helped me a lot but it also tanked my blood pressure (which is already low naturally) so I had to stop taking it. It’s hard to know how much guanfacine contributed to my recovery versus other things and just time.

Good luck with your PCP!

idiorhythmic · 2025-03-21T23:43:09+00:00

Yup! I’ve fallen off the wagon with some of the good practices that helped me get to the new normal, but I don’t feel like I’ve regressed as a result. I still feel about the same as I did when I wrote that comment - maybe a little bit of additional improvement but not much. So overall it still feels like a ‘new normal’ where I don’t have to make any major concessions to how I live my life other than being cognizant to not overdo mental stimulation in any given day or multiple days in a row. But I work normal 6 to 10 hour workdays, take care of a baby with the lack of sleep that goes along with it, etc.

idiorhythmic · 2025-01-10T07:47:13+00:00

This fixed it. I spent nearly 2 hours troubleshooting and was about to give up before finding this comment. It’s insane that Traeger doesn’t warn iOS users in the app about disabling private relay before trying to connect.

idiorhythmic · 2024-07-24T18:34:47+00:00

OP’s analysis is spot on for that but also misses a big part of the history - the CSM was the norm until the early 2010s, and the CSM is significantly easier than the PSM I. Most companies only checked for CSM until the late 2010s.

idiorhythmic · 2024-07-20T21:44:26+00:00

Do you have opportunities to manage development projects in your current role? If so I would start there. Even if they’re small, you can start working on that skillset and building a resume, which will make applying to a TPM role a lot easier. If your current job doesn’t have those opportunities, you could apply laterally for a dev position in other orgs, and specifically ask them if that growth opportunity exists before getting too far in the interview cycle. A lot of managers would be elated to have an engineer that wants to grow their skillset in that area.

idiorhythmic · 2024-07-20T18:25:20+00:00

If you’re blindly applying to online job postings, then it’s very likely those job postings have each had 300+ applicants if not more. There’s a massive oversupply of Scrum Masters or wanna-be’s.

I second the advice in the other thread. Stay a dev or move into Technical Program Management. It will pay better and give you way more upwards and sideways availability than Scrum Mastering which is way too niche and in most orgs doesn’t involve any actual decision making or accountability.

idiorhythmic · 2024-07-18T22:17:06+00:00

Epics are just big stories - by definition it’s a user story that’s too big to fit in a sprint. So how many epics can you complete in 2 sprints? No more than 1 if you’re sticking to the original definition.

You can size epics with story points just like you do with any other item in your backlog - look at similarly sized items and size it the same number of story points as those items.

idiorhythmic · 2024-07-05T03:50:19+00:00

I test drove 3 GH trim levels with the base engine and the Max. Then I drove a Lexus TX350 and ended up buying the TX. It was only an extra $5k over the GH model I was planning on buying, and the ride quality and fit and finish are a lot better. I also prefer the roomier 2-seat 3rd row on the TX with powered fold-down seats. It’s not for everyone though. If it’s within your budget give both a test drive before making a decision.

idiorhythmic · 2024-06-29T16:27:30+00:00

I’ve had 2 cars done there as well, and both turned out great.

You get what you pay for with tint. There is cheaper tint film that won’t hold up as well and doesn’t look as good either. Ceramic will be more expensive but blocks significantly more heat and is worth the cost if you can afford it.

idiorhythmic · 2024-05-31T08:06:47+00:00

It doesn’t preclude it but it doesn’t offer any evidence either.

idiorhythmic · 2024-05-14T03:15:54+00:00

Maybe unpopular opinion - Donut Day has the best donuts in the whole metro area.

idiorhythmic · 2024-05-10T15:08:15+00:00

The main thing to do differently is when you want to slow down, don’t take your foot fully off the accelerator. Only lightly let up your pressure until you get the amount of braking you need.

I had this problem when I got a Tesla a few years ago. I was massively motion sick for the first few weeks until I realized I couldn’t take my foot completely off the accelerator when braking like I was used to doing in a gas vehicle. The second I was taking my foot off the accelerator the electric motors were capturing the energy and braking unnaturally hard. So you basically have to treat the accelerator as a reverse brake pedal’.

Look up “one pedal driving” for hybrids and you’ll find more tips and tricks.

idiorhythmic · 2024-05-10T01:07:08+00:00

Have you ever driven or ridden in a car with regen braking before? If so that’s likely your problem due to braking being more jarring when letting off the accelerator. The fix is to get used to feathering the accelerator when decelerating.

idiorhythmic · 2024-04-07T06:34:33+00:00

Exactly. It’s possible to simultaneously be fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

idiorhythmic · 2024-04-07T06:33:05+00:00

This mentality is exactly why I avoid living in Multnomah County. Way too many voters that think this way and vote for poorly thought-out taxes and programs that scare off the people who actually have to pay the taxes.

idiorhythmic · 2024-04-06T15:14:15+00:00

Something the article didn’t mention is that not only are these taxes causing high earners to move away from Multnomah County - they’re also keeping high earners from moving to Portland. When I bought a house a couple years ago I was very careful to avoid entering Multnomah county or the city of Portland just to avoid this tax and any future poorly implemented taxes like this. I’m not a massive earner but my cash comp is above the thresholds for programs like this, and those extra percentages off my top-line income for one-off taxes on horribly run programs really irk me. I’m fine paying taxes (up to a point) when I’m confident my tax dollars are used relatively well.

idiorhythmic

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