by mettamage | 2025-05-22 22:35:26+00:00
Executive dysfunction here, bordering overwhelming but never actually overwhelming. So I probably have it easier than you. Here's what's working for me.

1. Healthy food: I tend to freezer prep the healthiest meals for like a month. Think like an industrialist here, cook for scale.

2. Running: two or three 3 mile runs a week helps a lot

3. Sleep: without it, I'm fucked. With it, I might not be. But without it, there's no chance to do anything.

4. Love: my wife is my life (in a sense). I'd do anything for her, even overcome my executive dysfunction. If it's for her, I will fight and if she needs a functioning me, I will fight for it.

5. Therapy: it turns out I had trauma. We were able to cleanly heal half of that. The other half is more messy but it helped with everything.

6. Meditation: I don't do it a lot unless I'm at a retreat. Each retreat I go to helps, eventhough I hate going, haha. It really helps (checkout dhamma.org).

7. Combine training discipline with meaning and hope. I want to learn more math as I want to understand the secrets of the universe and I think it's in math and coding and AI. Well, it's one avenue, it's in more of that but those 3 topics are already huge. I'm learning math now because I want to know the secrets of the universe (I'm a playful whimsical romantic person like that). Learning math requires me to utilize more discipline than I'm used to. I will fight for it. For if I can't even have a shot at this, I don't see much of a point other than living for my wife. So yea, I have to do this, I have to understand more about the nature of reality. Because it's awesome. It just so happens that it helps me to stay focused at work.

8. Pick a job that plays to your strenghts and is below your level. I'm currently a data analyst and I'm overqualified to do that job. I could've started as a junior data scientist 7 years ago (if anyone would've had me back then). Doing data analyst stuff right now is easy peasy. Linear regression? Done. Some coding? I'll tackle it as a software engineer (I was one before this). Creating dashboards with Tableau? I did frontend with React before this. Doing some SQL? Sure. Doing some presenting? I love presenting! I could do this job even when I'm sleep deprived as it doesn't tax me cognitively, being a software engineer does.

9. Train discipline. Related to 7 but just the advice to do your best to train discipline.

10. Love yourself, foregive yourself, go easy on yourself. You're trying, you're doing your best. That's all you can do. Beating yourself up about it will only mean you have to do more damage control.

11. Look for role models. I only found partial ones, but I've seen similar neurodiverse people tackling life's challenges better than I did. I emulated them a bit and it helps.

12. Attack this problem from the angle that you'll tackle it from a 1000 different perspectives.

13. Journal and reflect. I'm not great at this. I write a lot in my Apple Notes, that's great. I almost never read it though. I do tend to read my journals when I have to write a how to guide to myself. I write guides like "how to sleep" or "how to be good at dating" (thank god I'm married now!), basic life stuff. It really helps.

14. Play to your strengths. One of mine is that I'm incredibly curious. Half the time reframing something as an experiment as opposed to a task I have to do will make me do it. But that's because I'm incredibly curious and need to know the outcome of that experiment.

15. I tried some ADHD medication. It supresses my feelings and fixes my focus at a particular "zoom level". So if I need to mix convergent and divergent thinging - like with math - I can't. Basically, I've noticed that with programming taking ADHD medication helped. But in retrospect, it helped because agile culture kind of sucks. I know this now because ever since I'm working as a data analyst, programming is more fun. I program as much as a software engineer but it's more fun. Why? Because no one tells me that I need to write perfect code, I get to decide that. No one tells me when or what to code, I get to decide that. No one tells me what business problems to solve with code, I get to decide that.

I've learned so much being a data analyst about what's good and bad with agile culture, it's insane. I am now much more firmly in the camp of that software engineers aren't programmers, they're consultants that are capable of solving business problems either manually or through automation (i.e. programming). Consultants in this sense are problem solvers, not people with slide decks that then leave.

I hope some of this helps.