The advice in this article probably won't work for neurodivergent people like many of us reading HN.
That's because for stuff like ADHD, we have infinite enthusiasm for stuff we want to do, and zero enthusiasm for other tasks. It's like someone versed in music telling someone to "just play the piano" when that part of the brain hasn't been developed in the other person. We can replace that missing functionality with todo lists, reminders and digital assistants. But in the end, we must face the fact that we may never develop a flow state for tasks that feel mundane to us beyond a certain point. Meaning that those tasks may always feel manual to us, forcing us to pay an ongoing tax that others don't often perceive.
After experiencing profound burnout just before the pandemic, I learned a couple of things about my mental models that might be useful. Keep in mind that the only thing real is reality, so I'm not saying that these models are how it all works, just that they touch on other insights that make things easier:
1) Anxiety about finishing an upcoming school or work assignment is a physical response in the body identical to excitement. That's why when under extreme pressure, we somehow find the energy to comment on social media or play video games instead of studying or working. The problem isn't a lack of motivation or energy, but where it's directed.
2) The mind is separate from the brain. This may be a hard pill to swallow for people who identify with their prowess in certain mental fields like programming. If doing a task feels insurmountable, it's not a problem with our problem-solving skills, but something physical in our brain chemistry. It's like the oomph to trip the neuron threshold voltage is too low, so it takes additional manual effort to think.
What finally worked for me was NOT to keep exercising my motivation and discipline (which are already overtrained by 2 orders of magnitude), but to rehab and strengthen the other areas of my life which had been neglected. Loosely, that means having dessert before dinner. Here are some examples:
* I carved out Saturdays for myself. Regardless of how much work I have to do, or how many plans I have to cancel, or even if I have bills to pay, I spend my free day now on Wikipedia deep dives and geeking out on various physics spreadsheets like Tony Stark, living my best life.
* I turned correcting my deficiencies into acts of gratitude and love. I feel that burnout is the full loss of all automatic thinking and habits after the brain stops cooperating. So even the simplest act like brushing one's teeth can feel insurmountable. The fix is to remove time from the equation and stop thinking about any step beyond the current one. Which also eliminates any subsequent step or the knowledge of how many more times the step will need to be performed over a lifetime. Instead, find a fond feeling or memory and linger in it while brushing your teeth, so that your mind comes to associate it with pleasure instead of pain.
* I learned to meditate with my eyes open, surrounded by distraction. Just quiet all internal dialog and observe the matrix unfolding before you. The mind is the nexus of an infinite fractal of intersecting probability curves, so the slightest change in perception affects the whole reality. The brain struggles for a bit to hog your attention before finally giving up, then becomes more open to new ideas because it so enjoys being heard. This allows one to shift between tasks without expending effort because the mind moves along the multiverse until it finds the reality where the brain is already eager to get to work.
Basically the above is about setting boundaries, prioritizing yourself, mindfulness and most importantly: coordinating them with action so something manifests. I suspect that the rampant outbreaks of procrastination and burnout in tech have more to do with opportunity cost than shortcomings in work ethic. I also think that the global awakening gives us a rare opportunity to grow out of that dysfunction.
..and I just spend an hour writing this when I should have been working. But now I really really want to get to work because I've gotten it out of my system!
That's because for stuff like ADHD, we have infinite enthusiasm for stuff we want to do, and zero enthusiasm for other tasks. It's like someone versed in music telling someone to "just play the piano" when that part of the brain hasn't been developed in the other person. We can replace that missing functionality with todo lists, reminders and digital assistants. But in the end, we must face the fact that we may never develop a flow state for tasks that feel mundane to us beyond a certain point. Meaning that those tasks may always feel manual to us, forcing us to pay an ongoing tax that others don't often perceive.
After experiencing profound burnout just before the pandemic, I learned a couple of things about my mental models that might be useful. Keep in mind that the only thing real is reality, so I'm not saying that these models are how it all works, just that they touch on other insights that make things easier:
What finally worked for me was NOT to keep exercising my motivation and discipline (which are already overtrained by 2 orders of magnitude), but to rehab and strengthen the other areas of my life which had been neglected. Loosely, that means having dessert before dinner. Here are some examples: Basically the above is about setting boundaries, prioritizing yourself, mindfulness and most importantly: coordinating them with action so something manifests. I suspect that the rampant outbreaks of procrastination and burnout in tech have more to do with opportunity cost than shortcomings in work ethic. I also think that the global awakening gives us a rare opportunity to grow out of that dysfunction...and I just spend an hour writing this when I should have been working. But now I really really want to get to work because I've gotten it out of my system!