

Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 5. The butterfly approach - swombat
http://inter-sections.net/2009/02/23/hyperbrain-owners-manual-5-the-butterfly-approach

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spydez
I keep lists. Many different list of all sorts of things that need doing.
Stuff to do in a text file, tabs in Firefox, post it notes scattered over my
desk, lists in my head... So whenever I get bored with what I'm doing, I
wander through them all and find something more interesting.

It works reasonably well for most stuff, but I have some hang ups:

1) I'm a relatively fresh-out-of-college programmer, so my job at work is
pretty narrowly defined. I pretty much only ever have one task, so it's hard
to find diverse things at work to flit to and from as interest dictate. This
gets me pretty burnt out on 'programming stuff', which translates to (nearly)
always skipping all the cool hacking stuff I have written down in my various
notes/lists when I get home. I've yet to find a way around this... :(

2) Some things on my lists get put off a long time. Like I wanted to research
some topic that caught my interest after reading an article about it, but
figuring out where to start was rather difficult, so I put off starting for
about a year.

~~~
kirse
_This gets me pretty burnt out on 'programming stuff'_

22 here -- I have a similar programming day-job and nothing works better than
a good 1 hour of lifting/running to relax and clear your mind of the last 8-9
hours at work. Usually after my workout I'll spend another hour to cook a good
dinner and watch some TV to kick back. I make it a point to shut the door on
the past 8 hours and mentally move on.

Working out seems counter intuitive because you think you'll be more tired
after a workout (some days it will exhaust you), but once you get a good
routine going you feel more energized and rest better during the night, etc.

------
bitwize
Daria: "But Quinn's a brain with bouncy hair. I can't compete."

Jane: "Then you can be... a super-brain. An even bigger outcast than before."

Daria: "I don't think I can handle being a super-brain."

Jane: "Then she's got to be stopped... but how?"

Daria: "Oh I already know how. I just haven't been able to bring myself to do
it. Until now."

------
carterschonwald
There seem to be many articles of this sort that are around in various places.
Why do they insist on using feel good adjectives in lieu of "you have adhd
like behavior, here's what works for me to function well"?

The window dressing makes it had to pay attention to the ideas in these
articles :p

~~~
jrockway
_The window dressing makes it had to pay attention to the ideas in these
articles :p_

I think you are only perceiving the "window dressing", because you think the
article should be more negative about having ADD or whatever. Why make it
negative? "ADHD" sounds like "a disease that needs to be treated". Hyperbrain
sounds like "the personality of some very smart and productive people". So
there's really no need to use terminology that immediately taints the
personality as being negative. (Plus, the target audience will probably get
upset and get distracted by something else.)

There is no reason to consider your personality a disease that needs treating,
but it is also not bad to learn how to exploit it effectively. That's the
point of the article, and the terminology used appeals to the "target market".

Anyway, this is pretty much exactly my personality. I consider myself pretty
productive (look at my GitHub page, more than a few projects there), but I am
very easily distracted from things I don't want to do. The key is to not let
yourself be distracted by stupidity (Reddit was my problem), and instead let
yourself be distracted by things that are going to be useful. Other
programming tasks, answering people's questions on StackOverflow or mailing
lists, etc. If you aren't going to get any work done, at least get _something
valuable_ done.

I should really stop reading news.yc, though, because I waste too much time
here. (The problem is that pretty much everything I say gets upmodded, which
is very addictive. It's nice when people like you, or think you're
interesting. But it is still a complete waste of time :)

~~~
carterschonwald
umm, no. I just don't like having layers of fluff between me and content.
Don't project your sensitivities onto my words.

