How do ADHD people cope on here?

> There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

One of the key features of ADHD is a never-ending list of things to do. Edward M. Hallowell (who wrote "Driven to Distraction") remarks that perhaps it is the most characteristic feature of ADHD.

Previously, browser crashes saved my sanity— killing dozens of open tabs with fascinating articles.

Now I try to let it go. In a Zen/stoic way, knowing that nothing will happen if I don't read something. This list is an illusion, as there are orders of magnitude more exciting stuff on the Internet.

Another approach I use is "write it down". In this sense, I add to bookmarks (here I am a diehard fan of Pinboard), but NOT with the intention of "read it later", but "if I want to find it again, I know where it is". So I have a cake and eat it too - no "wall of links of shame", and no anxiety that I might have lost a life-changing link.

For me:

(1) Recognize that if I'm struggling to focus, I'm probably either (a) not interested in what I'm doing or (b) have too much on my plate.

(2) If I'm struggling to focus day after day, find something else to do.

(3) If I have too much on my plate, insist that my employer lighten the load or, once again, find something else to do.

It's not easy. Taken to its logical conclusion, I'm suggesting quitting jobs that aren't interesting or demand too much multitasking in favour of those that are mostly interesting and allow you to do one thing at a time.

That's sooooo much easier said than done.

But for me, it's the only thing that works. Yes, I meditate, keep studious notes and lists, make use of project management software, take my medication... and all of that definitely helps. But it's not enough. I've found there's no solution to getting me to be productive in a job I hate, am not interested in, or demands too much and sets me up for failure. There's not enough medication or self-help in the world for that.

How much time I spend on HN is a great barometer for it. If I find myself struggling to stay off HN and do the task in front of me, I have to first look at myself and see if I'm doing all the things I know that help. And if those things aren't enough, then I know the problem is the job. And jobs don't change. Only people do.

So if your job sucks, find a new one as soon as possible. That's what I usually do, anyway.

With ADHD, a single HN post could have me following source material and child nodes up to 5-6 layers deep.

Once the time-blindness wears off, the anxiety sets in you realize hours have passed and outstanding work is due soon.

What sort of worked:

- Blocking web sites during work hours (SelfControl for MacOS and NextDNS for devices)

What did work:

- Consistent sleep schedule (10PM)

- Mindfulness meditation in the morning

- Getting physically active in the morning

- Working in a different environment

What helped on top of that:

- Getting prescribed for ADHD medication

- Professional counseling from a therapist

- Dealing with what’s causing your anxiety (or depression)

Pi Hole with my own blocklist. That is, I block all of my problem sites, then let someone else set my pihole password and then I delete my ssh key off the server.

Then on the phone, remove all apps that allows consumption (social media, games, readers, youtube, even the browser). Debloat it with adb too. Switch off all notification except for your main chat app (like whatsapp) and alarms. If still too distracting, set the screen to monochrome. Do not allow your phone to enter your bedroom & charge in another room.

Same with laptops/tv, keep them out of the bedroom.

For series, movies & games, have a set window per week/month to watch/play, do not endlessly play when Idle. Give your brain something intentional to do.

Avoid pornography as it can hook an adhd brain to the max and destroy your attention span.

Avoid caffeine if you can, drink more water, go bed earlier - it all adds up.

You basically have to change your relationship with the computers/internet and not allow yourself to consume/browse without intent or a clear goal. The internet is basically crack for our brains, so avoid it as much as possible.

Get some physical exercise and/or sunlight, once a day. Something as simple as stretching for 15 minutes makes a huge difference.

Remember that your brain WANTS stuff to do, it will generate an endless stream of crap to do if you don't learn to focus it. The internet is just the easiest way for it keep busy if you don't use it.

I'm 72 and retired. A blessing and a curse. I spend a lot of time ferreting out obscure facts on obscure topics and pursuing and commenting on social issues on web sites and to elected officials. I can't stand online videos or podcasts as the transmit information too slowly. I prefer to read and think about issues or concepts being presented. I have thousands of books in my house. I have thousands of bookmarks that I continually re-categorize. When I interact with people (which my wife, a nurse, forces me to do as a mental health measure) topics come up that I feel compelled to research and provide a report on later. This need to know, this feeling of missing out is exhausting. I have to force myself away from the computer and relocate myself physically somewhere where there is no access to the internet. My eyesight is failing me which is a blessing as I find it frustrating to use my mobile to look up things on the internet and instead actually use it for what it was originally designed to do - handle phone calls. Drugs just put me in a contemplative state that makes the browsing just that more dopamine rewarding. Therapy has been frustrating - primarily for the therapist - as I bring far too much information to sessions in order to "share". I've come to accept this state of existence and do my best to time manage the impact and not let the compulsion overwhelm other aspects of my life. My growing existential realization that the end of life is closer than the beginning provides an incentive to experience other things besides the internet as it may be the last time I experience that other thing. My advice to younger people with ADHD is to force yourself away from the compulsion. Very hard I know. You need to recognize and internalize that it's simply not possible to absorb everything we, as a species, are creating. The rewards for actually experiencing life far out weigh the rewards from simply reading about it.

"Poorly". I spent a few days writing down everything that I clicked on, read, commented on, etc, and how much time I spent doing it. After that horror, well, I just kept doing it without tracking it, same as I've done the past many decades.

The short solution is a very simple system. Pick 3 specific goals for your year, or your quarter, and before you bookmark/click/read/etc, ask yourself whether that is going to move you forward in a big way toward accomplishing one of those goals. If not, you skip it. It's Pareto Principle in a sense, and it applies to most everything. If you're tempted to "yes but" or other complications, recognize that you're sabotaging yourself and quit it.

Abstinence is the other answer, but that doesn't help generate functional adaptations.

GIGO. 90% of everything, very much including HN, is garbage.

Unlike almost everything else, HN has a "noprocrast" setting in your profile which you can use to constrain the time you spend on it.

What works for me:

- reminding myself that my fear of missing out is misleading. Grounding myself in work and specific interests. Nothing bad will happen if I miss a hot new JS framework.

- that clears space for more introspection. Observing myself, what I spend time on exactly here, how and why.

- then, deprioritizing new shiny unimportant things from HN in my mind; I still look at new things outside my niche, but I try to prioritize looking at HN posts closer to my interests. It's also good because some of HN comments look deep and insightful, but are not actually accurate or objective. It takes some pre-existing knowledge to be able to tell that.

- sorting through the tabs, moving important ones to the left, to be able to close a ton of tabs on the right in one go without hesitation when needed. Tree Style Tabs for Firefox helps me make rabbit holes visually obvious and undig myself from them.

- getting into a habit of more self-awareness of why I spend time here, "do I get anything meaningful from this time?". If not, time spent in comments would be better spent reading the actual article or docs for this new thing.

- getting "no HN" time, when I consider even visiting it a bad thing (not in a shameful way, just "here we go again"). Practicing switching attention to something else, even if it's something silly (and hopefully not too engineered for grabbing my attention).

I'm going to tell you what worked for me, with the explicit caveat that it may not work for you and/or you may not find it palatable.

I use browser extensions to timegate the time spent in websites that I know hit me in my weak spots and tend to send me into time-wasting sessions that I have nothing to show for. There's Stayfocusd and Leechblock, and probably other alternatives.

This worked for a few years, but it stopped. I tried rectifying that with no consistent success, there's no amount of calendar reminders / pomodoros or external triggers that helped beyond the initial novelty.

I tried medication, currently on Concerta XR 36mg, and it has made a world of difference. It's not a superpower but it does enable me to notice the distraction spirals I can get myself into and I can now break them.

I still have to use the same support systems I used before though. It's not a miracle cure, it just "adds" willpower to my toolbox.

> it’s worse than my addiction to The Guardian.

It's not :) Compared to other sites, HN is quite a healthy place. News are anxiogenic, and Twitter is as toxic as it gets.

Moderation makes a good job of keeping the place sane, and even if it's just reading the headlines and comments, at least we kind of know what's going in the tech world.

I've been diagnosed with ADHD but was told my ASD (Asperger's, but the docs can't call it that anymore) "masks" it because my urge to systematize everything means I can make use of much of my information hoarding (either for work or recreation). I don't want to celebrate these conditions, but I also think I wouldn't be as productive in my current field of endeavor without them working in tandem.. and I certainly wouldn't be as good as I am at the NYT crossword! ;-)

I set "noprocrast" in my profile: maxvisit=30 and minaway=360 (just upped from 120). So 30 mins for looking at the frontpage links and writing a comment if I want to. Then 6 hours where I'm reminded that I'm opening HN on an impulse.

For the links, anything that is a 5-10 min read I'll do on the spot. I try to be mindful with more involved content (long post, video, tutorial,...): I save the link in my inbox file with a small description of the content for reference or to read during a break – or never.

Looking at my inbox, I often delete links without opening them because, in hindsight, I saved them to have something (anything) to read. It's the same as opening the fridge multiple times and lowering your expectations each time until you find good enough food. By setting noprocrast, you put a time lock on your imaginary fridge to stop you from mindless snacking.

Medication helps. Lifestyle hasn't changed too much - I still have endless to-do lists, bookmarks, things I need to get to, but medication has helped me in the sense that it doesn't all feel overwhelming at every single moment, anymore. Days feel easier to manage.

Is fixing your HN habit really going to improve your life, or will you find a similar escape from reality to latch onto instead?

I think you'll get much more out of addressing the core problem -- I don't know what that is for you, but with therapy you may find out. See a good psychologist who is experienced with ADHD.

I cope with various strategies:

- Mobile is always disconnected. I have a few moments per day I check my WhatsApp and other apps, just like you would actively check mail in the old days. People get used to the fact that I'm not a quick responder.

- I use 2 machines, a work laptop and a home desktop. On work laptop never check socials or news. On real quiet days I might check HN on my work laptop but that's an exception.

- For work, I try to find real challenges. Even when fixing a little UI bug, try to understand completely, read a best practice, try to optimize it or design a cleaner solution. I discovered being distracted is also boredom and having no focus. Making even simple tasks more challenging makes it less likely to search distraction.

- Get out of your head some times, for me it's indoor bouldering twice a week but there are many other activities. You need a balance :)

I hear you and am right with you—-I recently spent the weekend trimming out Safari on my iPad from 500 tabs (mostly from HN articles) down to 20, and I’m already back up to about 75. And yep, super-frustrating to feel like there’s all these cool ideas and projects and sites out there and all I’m doing is reading and marking them for later.

One thing that helped was accepting that bookmarking it was just a way of putting it down for now, and that I always have the option to come back to it. That doesn’t happen often, but pruning back all those tabs did remind me of a couple things I’d marked that I wound up doing things with. And then on a regular basis I’ll run into a problem and think, “Wait, I think I marked a site in Raindrop about this…aha! There it is.” So storing those marks (as long as they’re searchable!) still has benefit without immediate action, which helps me not leave them open (although I’m still wrestling with it…).

Meanwhile, the act of browsing all those interesting reads and looking at those projects is beneficial in its own right even if I do nothing else but read and bookmark. By reading and absorbing all those different ideas, I make it far more likely that when I’m working on projects at work or talking with other people, my brain will pull those random articles together and make a connection or a reference that’s useful.

A friend of mine likes to call herself the “corporate bumblebee”, gathering bits from one project and connecting it to other projects like a bumblebee spreading pollen. Think of reading HN as being a tech bumblebee: you’re gathering the pollen that you can later give to other people.

Click on your profile link in the top right.

Set "noprocrast" to yes, "maxvisit" to 30 and "minaway" to 1000.

You'll basically get one 30-minute session per day that way, before the site kicks you out.

For funsies, I recommend setting "showdead" to yes too. Get some really weird unhinged shit, mostly from this one guy who keeps blaming the world's problems on the Jews.

> But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. It’s a severely frustrating and depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and disappointment.

This really rings true with me. The excitement of the new project, and then the crushing realisation that I can't trust myself to put in the work to build it. Rinse and repeat.

I have no answers, but to say you're not alone. I do build things, sometimes.

I see something on HN and I get inspired. It sparks many ideas in my head and I start planning a project in my mind.

But I don't write it down. Nor do I bookmark anything. I don't use bookmarks at all, frankly.

I know I don't have the time to start any new personal projects.

So I think about it, and then let it go.

I think this only reflects the jumpy disjointed nature of my brain. Things come and go, and that's okay.

I feel like reading HN daily has given me more opportunities than anything I've ever done for my career (and my general general love for tech). I recurrently apply things to my job that I've picked up reading the amazing articles people post here.

>There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

I just read them. I take my time to go through them :-). Every day for the past, I don't know, five years or so, my first hour in the morning is dedicated to reading about things I like on HN. That certainly kept the flame and the passion for tech going, otherwise it would become just a job (and if you're like me, you know how much that sucks).

Number one strategy for people with ADHD is migrate to jobs where there is a lot of variety and complexity and things are changing all the time and lots of new interesting things to look into.

The maturity part which I struggle with is how to convert my curiosity into forward motion.

I believe that if you have ADHD you have to act like you are playing a different D&D character class than everyone else. You win by being your character and doing the things that character type needs to do.

I personally like to walk around aimlessly for hours lost in thought. If I can’t walk and have to be stuck indoors I can’t stop but keep researching.

Somethings that helped me.

1. I realised the hard way that you can't focus on too many things at the same time.

2. Ruthlessly cutting down pursuits to one thing helps drive results.

3. Focus on areas you have circle of competence in.

4. I struggle with abstract ideas, and jump to projects without thinking the details, scoping abstract ideas and writing down concrete POA helps in completing things.

5. Working hard on staying loyal to my resolutions. I took a resolution last month to write a book on rust for beginners. I constantly hold this thought every day in my head. It helps a lot in making progress and saying no to distractions.

Discipline. Perhaps a harsh answer but it's true.

Some are self controlled enough to remind themselves HN is a dangerous time sucking rabbit hole as soon as they see the homepage. They close the tab instantly.

Others require browser plugin or DNS level intervention because their self-control is not strong enough - yet.

Personally I have a my medication bottle _next to my monitor_ as a visual reminder. My ultimate goal is to accomplish the same tasks with zero medical assistance, and I acknowledge this might be a long journey finding out what works for me.

I have a bookmarks list of "cool projects that I'll probably never do". That prevents me from fixating and gives me the peace of mind that it's not "gone forever" in case I ever want to refer to it again. Tags help semi-organize the list.

Similarly a "Maybe Someday" list or a list that contains ideas for projects or tasks or wishes, but I tend to cull this list every month or so.

Both of these things help me to reduce overwhelm of the multitude of awesome stuff I could be doing, but I'm so overwhelmed by choice that I don't do anything.

Using a timer or a blocker may also help you. Or as others have already pointed out the "noprocast" setting is an option on HN.

Realizing when I was entering the "time-blindness tunnel" has been the single most tool for me. At that point I would ask myself what was going on emotionally. This was aided by a website blocker that redirected to a page that just had the question: "What are you feeling emotionally and physically right now? Why did you want to go that website?"

I've learned to identify triggers that get me sucked in and by limiting my access to certain services/websites I've been able to waste less time.

On Brave I use "StayFocused" and set a maximum time per day. For YouTube etc. there are similar tools as well. Restricting access works best for me. Also, let someone else manage your password for these tools, otherwise you just change the settings when you feel a strong urge to visit HN even when you set daily time is over.

Whit bookmarks, ideas and others, I keep track of them and once in a while filter. If I did not look at a bookmarked page in the last 3 weeks I will probably not in the future (unless it is a source for work or a hobby project). You might know this principle with items in your house.

On a side note, please be aware that the described problems can be symptoms of ADHD but are common in people without (like me) as well and are, to some degree, normal. If you look at the problem biased to ADHD you might miss underlying causes that are not ADHD related like lack of sleep or exercise, nutrition, anxiety etc. I am saying this as I spent my early 20s diagnosed with a disorder and overlooked base causes for my problems through the lens of this disorder and chasing solutions for issues that were not the route causes of my problems. I am NOT saying that ADHD is not the cause but sharing a personal experience. , and I have a relative with ADHD, so I see the struggle.

Here's what works for me.

1. Start the day by mentally going over goals, and figuring out what I need to do.

2. Use _simple_ project management SW (like Trello, Notepad, Kanban boards) to keep track of what's going on and what's coming. The dopamine hit marking tasks "Done" is usually enough to keep me motivated.

3. Allocate time for off-task activities, like reading random interesting articles, YouTube, etc. This can be 10-15 min breaks throughout the day, and only after completing the current task. After that, actually shut down distracting apps/pages.

That's enough most of the time. If it's not...

4. Switch to a different (work-related) task for a while.

5. If really stuck, ask for help in chat. (I work remotely, so the ability to self-motivate is really important) The process of talking through a problem usually helps me focus on it.

6. If I catch myself procrastinating too much, I invoke a "boss personality". You know how we act differently around different people/situations? Those are mini personalities. I have one that tells me: "Dude, get your s--t together! People are counting on you."

7. The fear of having to look for a different job! :)

I find that developing good habits and schedules really helps me.

> I love HN. I check it out basically for hours every day, for the past 5 years or so.

been there done that

> But, HN is utter hell too… it’s worse than my addiction to The Guardian.

For me it was spiegel.de ... since age of 16. I'm now in my late 30s. They helped me get a grip on it by introducing paid content. Given that I don't even like their quality of journalism that much since more than a decade. I mostly go there to annoy myself. Yeah, I guess for ADHD stricken minds that counts as entertainment.

> I see so many topics I’m interested in, so many cool projects, so I bookmark them. Then I see more and bookmark them too. There’s a never ending number of things I bookmark.

I never really got into bookmarking. I just open lots of tabs and read through them. Then I forget about it and sooner or later I close the browser. Of course I don't start new sessions where I left off for a reason.

> But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. It’s a severely frustrating and depressing fact I feel faced with every day. A world of highs and disappointment.

That's life. If you think about it - time and its investment is always linear for a single person while knowledge is created exponentially ... so, even if you'd live forever you couldn't get a hold on it.

> But I’m totally addicted because there’s just so much new.

And so much old!

> Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook about HN?

Well - meditation - zen meditation - breath meditation - that's what helps me. Nothing else. It's this with devotion or misery.

Two things,

a) I categorize patterns of discussions that return again and again on here and they slowly become less stimulating until I stop looking. Most internet sites present the same information again and again, it doesn't satisfy anymore.

b) I get annoyed, say something disagreeable and wisely take break from internet commentary and reading until I've moved on from whatever was annoying me. It can take months.

Working with your hands on real life objects helps a lot too. You no longer desire to follow thoughts into addictive loops when it also hurts your body at the same time.

For example, following a youtube video tutorial on repairing bicycles and cars, makes it plainly evident that you have to choose your battles, come up with creative solutions for your own environment and suffer some scars to actually follow through on your stimulating thoughts. Your back will hurt, you will find rusty bolts you can't move no matter how much you think it and have to let go of hyperfocusing on one solution and reframe your headspace.

The internet and computing has a very low physical cost to participating in stimulating thoughts. Be wary of that fact.

Idk if this will help or make it worse (because now you will spend time searching your history), but I hope it helps..........

I don't bookmark anything anymore because my browser's autocomplete is so good at finding what I need and lasts like 2 years. If I don't need to retrieve it within that time (and obviously retrieving it will reset that interval), I probably will never need it. And if something is SO important that I want to save it forever then I will have shared it with enough friends that I can search our conversation histories to find things. This almost failed me once because I forgot who I linked one thing to but within a couple days I remembered and linked it to several more people.

I guess in this case for the TRULY important things I should probably bookmark but well YMMV. I haven't had an actual problem with this. And the trust in the system stops me from obsessive record-keeping.

(I guess I should add that I do use some websites' built-in save functions, sometimes, but tbh they're pretty write-only, and I only really click them a couple times as a novelty)

I tried meds and they were helpful in a way but had major tradeoffs.

Modafinil would make me hyper-focused but would blunt my emotions, cause terrible anxiety. Impossible to relax. I did it everyday for two years (unwise -- should take breaks or stop taking them on weekends. It doesn't necessarily improve cognition but improves focus mainly.

Now I take a Ritalin-like chemical -- its much more manageable than Modafinil but makes me less social-- a little more anxious but its tolerable. The dose-range you have to get right -- and take breaks for your body to recover. Stimulants can cause harmful side-effects mask fatigue/sleep deprivation suppress your appetite, cause weight-loss and have psychiatric effects.

In a 9-5 it helps you grind through tasks but its not sustainable to do it too frequently. I think 4 times max a week would be doable -- you have to be mindful to take care of your body and mind when using it. Productivity is only one part of life -- other parts of your health are important as well.

Oh hey, this is me, too! I'll have to read the comments, let's bookmark this...

Or, as I like to do, just keep the browser tab open. I'm currently at 3 Firefox windows with 10 to 100 tabs each. And at the and of the longest tab list, there is that "restore session" tab I've been meaning to get to month ago...

Distractions usually happen when you’re not satisfied with the other things in front of you. Of course nothing is black and white, but that’s what I’ve found.

I wrote a book on ADHD that quite a few HN users enjoyed: https://adhdpro.xyz/

It is not about HN or The Guardian. Something new always excites our mind and we get addicted to finding something new, something exciting each day.

The first thing is to realize this addiction to escape the present in the form of looking for new information.

Write about it everyday. Slowly, learn to discipline your mind. Make a habit to sit in silence, doing literally nothing for half an hour or so.

One thing you can tell yourself everyday is that every time you do something that is not highly relevant for your wellbeing, you will have less energy or focus for things that actually are.

From there on you can ask yourself, how relevant and useful it is to spend time on HN for your well being or for your experience of life.

Again, it is not about HN, humans find it very hard to face the plain everyday life against the sugary new information. We want it more and more.

Alt account of long time HN reader/user here:

But I admit that with my life circumstances (adhd, coming from a non wealthy family) and choices (active Christian, more than twice as many kids as the average around here) there will never be time.

I deal with it all by storing it in raindrop (used to be pinboard.in but I finally got utterly fed up).

I also have a bullet journal (ok, Logseq these days) where I have pages for each project and when I see something relevant I can paste a reference to it there.

Finally and most importantly I am realistic and I just admit it is not going to happen. That's life unless you are even more lucky than me. We can still dream though. My grandfather kept the blueprints for his retirement project (a boat he had designed for himself while being a boatbuilder as a young man) until he died, even if I think he realized before retirement it wasn't going to happen. He just made the best out of it.

I have realized already so I bookmark stuff just in case and to get it off my mind and then I very consciously make the things I need to do my hobbies.

I.e. at the moments my hobbies are:

- getting better in

- home repairs (drywall painting atm, but I have added a half way finished cobblestone path around my house and a tool shed, later made wall mounted cabinets for the new garage from leftovers etc etc)

- other repairs (clothes, toys, bikes)

- cooking (good, healthy meals that my wife and children will actually eat - on a budget)

- negotiations (bank, employer etc - I have a reasonably good economy but it needs to stay that way)

- fundraising for the church (I think one of the best way to find great and reliable friends is to volunteer for causes you believe in)

Also maybe interesting:

I felt had an almost crippling addiction to HN, then since late February last year I have barely read HN because of Ukraine.

I make it a rule to build the interesting thing, then the brain realizes it's harder than just fantazising about it and leaves me alone.

I think I have some sort of weird ADHD combined with a stoic outlook. I want to see all the new, shiny things, but I also understand that I can't, and nothing bad happens if I don't, so I accept that I'll just miss some things.

The book four thousand weeks by oliver burkeman or even just reading through his news letters is helpful to understand a different approach to time management and a philosophy of accepting finitute, I understand your issue, I am the same, but I think the freedom comes from understanding that you cannot win, you cannot find a solution to your question, there is just too much and always will be too much for you to do or that you could do and that is okay. Once you come to terms with that, it allows you to stop trying to do everything or follow every interesting path and get to work on something worthwhile.

I am getting to this post now because I only consume this website through https://hackernewsletter.com which allows me to feel up to date on things but also not have the constant need to open the site. I then work my way through the newsletter over the week, reading the things that seem important. The thing about a lot of tech news is that it all feels important but it really isn't. The newsletter helps me manage that. I consume all my tech news through newsletter like an old timey newpaper.

i don't want to sound like a shill but stimulants definitely help. if you really have ADHD at least try them once it will significantly improve your quality of life and help u overcome the impairment.

The most recent thing I've done is make my phone a whole lot less distracting. I used this guide:

https://whatifididnt.com/blog/iphone-dumb-phone/

I kept one of my note taking tools, voice memos, and bank apps. I still haven't reinstalled a web browser or email. It's been a little over a week.

I wasn't on HN all weekend, where normally I would have been checking it throughout the day. It not being at my finger tips has been positive so far.

How do I manage? with the help of assistive tools. Calendars, timers, reminders, alarms. They all contribute to the ability to get something done. You also need to learn techniques to help control the emotions that are involved with the procrastination you face. The good news is you can improve. The bad news is, if you have ADHD, you'll probably never be at the same level of someone who doesn't suffer from it.

My comment history offers other advice and suggestions for ADHD. It's a long struggle but it's worth it.

If you haven't see it already, set noprocrast on your profile page.

I’m not sure it’s ADHD. It seems that you just enjoy reading about interesting things and fantasising about doing them yourself - but you don’t enjoy ACTUALLY doing them. Every creative field is full of people like that. These are the people who’ve been talking about writing that novel for the past 15 years. Or „painters” who paint one picture a year. I don’t think it’s neccessarily a medical condition - just a character trait. I know I am mostly like that.

I also compulsively[?] bookmark things to get to them "later" but I think this is just something that stems from how ephemeral the web can be. I've started trying to regularly send my massive set of bookmarked links to a selfhosted ArchiveBox instance to preserve the content. Haven't figured out search yet, but I'm looking at Yacy and possibly Elastic. I cobsider it a personal knowledge base. It's reassuring to know that the feeling of "oh, I saw this! or read about that!" or "yes there was this project posted that solved this problem..." and know you can find it again with very little effort even if the original has long vanished.

As for coping with ADHD in general... the tack I'm taking lately is to just embrace the mundane. "Mundane excellence" is kind of the mantra. I'll do outrageous things to avoid the mundane business of everyday life and work, but it causes a lot of problems and discomfort. But it actually tends to feel rewarding to engage with it over avoiding it. The whole frustrating "thing I put off for months just took ten minutes at 5% effort to just do"... I don't know. It all remains a challenge, despite medication.

There is a mindset where each bookmark is an implicit obligation, and they of course pile up faster than you can go back and peruse them to your satisfaction, so this understandably leads to an unpleasant feeling of unfulfillable obligation.

After getting into all the second brain stuff and trying out quite a few ways of organizing this kind of information, I've started to think very carefully about what sort of implicit commitment I'm making when I write something down. I use a system of tags for things I need to look at later in some way, and I almost never tag links, but I often search back through them to find something particular that comes to mind, and I'm glad I store them.

Maybe you would have success reorienting your perspective to feel like "just" bookmarking is enough, such that there's not an implicit responsibility to come back and do something particular with the bookmarks? Or if you want that responsibility, that you can have one kind of bookmark that you're "just" saving, and another kind that you are okay committing to review?

Then it might become clearer just by the size of the folders if you're "assigning" yourself an impossible amount of work.

For me it's more about balancing the opportunity cost of possibly not knowing this one important fact with the pain that is realizing how much of the stuff I am actually failing to get back to in the end.

So I usually try to answer these questions for me:

1. What is the probability I will actually read it?

2. How much benefit is actually contained within the information the article might provide?

3. How much stress will I experience when I realize I am not catching up?

If I am honest on most of the things on HN score rather low on 1+2 but medium on 3. I can make the conscious decision that the trade-off is not worth it for me.

Combine that with a rule that either I will read it now or it's not important enough and usually I can browse through the comments a little bit trying to siphon the gist of an article in a couple minutes and failing that I will just move on.

Apart form that it has also helped is realizing that I absolutely loathe reading any long form articles. Even if I am really interested in the topic, I just cannot concentrate long enough to read any technical long form article that contains any form of 'fluff' in the writing. I started to hate reading these kinds of articles more and more.

Bookmarks are for being able to quickly retrieve something that you have already read and mostly absorbed for future reference. They aren't a to do list. Even if they were, a to do list is not a universal constant. Highly engaged people will likely have things on their lists that last their while lives - your "todays" to do list is something structured by priority. Continue at will.

I don't bookmark anything interesting anymore. If I get inspired to look at something again, I search for it.

I've come down to admitting to myself that there's a "now" pile and a "never" pile. Sometimes, the never pile items can graduate to now, but those events are often random or born from unforeseeable external events.

Projects that are not on my current short list of "need to know" things are added to the pile (added to Pocket with a tag of "checkthisout"), and I've decided to stop making myself feel badly for the list of things I never got to looking at.

Items that fall into into the "now" column are added to a separate text-based list that I actively look at and work thorough when I find myself with extra time.

What's truly "extra" time and not just time that should be spent on chores or honest-to-god downtime is an entirely different conversation.

Turn on the noprocrast feature. Rather than bookmark, just upvote; you can view your old upvotes later (https://news.ycombinator.com/upvoted?id=WhackyIdeas).

Also remember that there is no reason to feel sad for not getting to things. Because as long as you are alive, there will always be another thing waiting for you. It's an infinite highway with a piece of cake every mile. Missed the last one? Don't worry, another one's coming up. Half-finished one and need to move on? Don't worry, more cake ahead. The biggest problem you'll have is not being able to eat it all... but if you tried, you'd probably explode... The noprocrast feature is your diet. :)

I use a Reading List and file away anything interesting and then immediately close the tab. When I have time, I can go back and review all the things. In truth, I don't read most of them, but filing them away makes me comfortable to move on. If your browser doesn't have a Reading List, there are myriad extensions, you can also use Pocket, or even Evernote's web clipper. Use a couple of key tags - don't go overboard on tagging.

I also just focus on article content and ignore comments on all sites. Anyone can make a comment on a site, and there's no clear indication of authoritative comments vs amateur opinion, so they're largely a waste of time - there are lots of good comments, for sure, but I just don't have the time to wade through looking for them.

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"

I'm physically incapable of just closing open tabs. I must be spending good few weeks every year just closing tabs, if I'd add up the time spending it. Everything is so interesting, everything spikes interest in something else, which adds more tabs, it is taking me about an hour to close 40-50, and when I have less than 20 tabs open on my browser, - I feel a sense of pride and achievement.

I have to constantly limit myself, to constantly stand on my own neck to not get sweeped up by something interesting, the behavior of someone struggling with addiction comes to mind. And there's no legal Adderall in my country. It's hell.

I definitely get it about the constant bookmarking. There are often really good comments on HN, so I began saving the good ones in my Logseq journal. I save a ton of stuff in my Twitter bookmarks as well.

The key is to regularly re-visit these bookmarks and clean them up. For me it means categorizing these saved threads and comments under a specific theme. Maybe I'll write a blog post about it once I've arranged those ideas together. Even if I don't, the act of acting on those bookmarks reduces mental clutter.

Be sure to time-box it though. There's nothing more frustrating than opening up Twitter to review some old bookmarks and then getting distracted in the organization+deletion cycle for 45 mins.

Not knowing how things relate to one another can be frustrating. I suggest learning Category Theory to gain a sense of balance. Ingesting knowledge without an outlet is not a healthy practice. Use what you learn. To know and not to do - is not to know.

Is this symptom unique to ADHD? I certainly accumulate hundreds of open tabs of things I want to come back to and research, but I don't have the other characteristic symptoms of ADHD.

I use a browser plugin that lets me create markdown highlights from websites and I copy them into my Logseq system. I tag them and then, when I want to dive in and do something about a topic, I go to that topic and there are all my notes from hundreds of websites I've found interesting over the years.

Maybe the difference between my experience of this and the ADHD one is that I enjoy the times I get to sit down, dive deep, read the sites, and make the notes, but people with ADHD have trouble with that stage?

Use the obsessive phases, find a topic that is overlapping with your obsessions and cram every new obsession into that project. Yes, it leads to cluttered projects, but suddenly you are that developer driving that open source project in mono-mode.

I have adhd and have been taking adderall for more than a decade (wow I just now realized it’s been that long). Ultimately, I’ve learned to just stay vigilant with my attention. I try to manage my brain the way I manage my kids hah. Direction and control but plenty of freedom and independence mixed in too. It’s a balance that is rarely ever perfect though.

Btw, I have a bookmark folder named “interesting” that has maybe 100 links and growing. I don’t think ive read the content for any one of those links to the end. However, reading the list and remembering why I found it interesting in the first place is satisfying

I'm in a similar position, but have also learned that I can't do everything all at once. If I see something I'm interested, of course I bookmark it, but I prioritize the projects/ideas I feel would be useful in the short term vs long term.

Then I let em go for a little while before doubling back. Once I have some free time, I'll take a shot at one of em. It's important to avoid overwhelming yourself. It's okay to let things simmer for a while before you come back to them, or even forget about them entirely and "re-discover" the things you've already read later on.

99% of all content I find interesting is added to Pocket for future reading. This gives me a relative peace of mind that I can return to all that when I feel like it, without actually doing it now. From time to time I browse Pocket to choose something to read. Once every few months I go into consumption mode for a day or two when I go through hundreds of articles (in some cases by just archiving). The time a piece of content stays in Pocket limbo helps me to distance myself from the joy of stumbling upon the content, which in effect allows me to focus on reading just the more interesting pieces.

Stayfocusd chrome extension for sites that are trouble during working hours.

I've started to implement the advice here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFL6qRIJZ_Y albeit too early to tell. He's pretty well credentialed though, so I trust on average the advice is good (but specifically for each individual YMMV)

One of his best points is dont act like or prescribe yourself ADHD solutions until you have a true diagnosis by an expert. Losing focus and distractions is commonplace for all people today, not just ADHD folks.

Reading HN via an RSS reader on my phone has helped my ADHD. Using the Feeder app I can skim headlines, find ones that interest me, pin them for coming back to later and bookmark for saving for posterity. Feeder lets me bulk mark posts as read so that I don't have to see old posts again. Navigating RSS feeds from my phone not my computer means I separate work and procrastination more effectively.

https://gitlab.com/spacecowboy/Feeder

I do white noise on headphones, help me focus for many many hours, YouTube is full of that, get some good mix of vacuum machines, hair dryer noise on multiple tabs, play around with what works best for you - try to look for a moment where it makes you feel goosebumps aka when you hit some kind of "resonance" then keep that playing and try to focus - don't fight the "noise" instead try to embrace it let it flow thru you and time will kinda cease to exist and work will get miraculously done :D

In general I usually just disconnect from the Internet when I need to get stuff done. Phone goes in a drawer too. It's very relaxing.

Realistically, most of "news" isn't actually stuff that's happened, but just opinion and speculation. The remaining fraction will reach you if it's important.

I've also found that most of my procrastination is from not knowing what to do next and sort of hopping back and forth between things I think needs to be done, so something like GTD or just a todo.txt-file has been amazing.

This app: https://selfcontrolapp.com/

I don't quite know how it works, but it allows me to setup a website block list that I can't get around. I'm sure if I really tried I could figure out what it changed and get around the block, but 1) then it would defeat the purpose and 2) that takes effort that I don't want to spend.

Then I put my phone in the other room, and voila! 95% of my distractions are out the window.

Implement a FIFO based bookmarking scheme that deletes bookmarks >3mnths old, if it's not on your mind for longer than 3 months you'll probably never care to read it.

I have an 8 hour quota for the time I can spend in a week reading 'news' and use leechblock to enforce it.

I don't read anything on my phone, only on a desktop or my laptop. When I open one of these 'news' links, there's a tiny countdown timer showing me the time left this week. Once the timer runs out, all tabs close and that's it, done for the week.

I'm forced to be conscious of the time spent, so I read fast and am very picky about what I read.

I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but I've been trying to reduce distractions for a long time and the one thing that was extremely effective for me was going to the office and taking a desk in a busy region with my back against interior rather than the windows, this made my monitors visible to everyone. The constant feeling of being judged made it impossible to get distracted and I was extremely productive when I was at the office.

If glancing at the subject and bookmarking to later seldom go back to it allows you to move on, is that a problem?

Just like you don't have to and cannot read every book in your lifespan, you can't read every blog post. Your bookmarks doesn't have to be your todo list.

You might like Pocket or similar. Pocket specifically can sort your bookmarked articles in various ways, including popularity on the service, or just let it sit there knowing you have the possibility.

It's hard and took me a lot of time to just accept this is how I am. I also been doing a lot of bookmarks, screenshots, notes and what not. Most of the time I never actually return to them and even if I wanted to most likely I get distracted before I even get to it.

I just go with whatever I get the moments of focus with and I learned to work in a completely non linear way, so that the chaos I have eventually turns into something that works.

I don't think I have ADHD but I created a shaarli clone (https://gitlab.com/sodimel/share-links/) in order to be able to store, share and retrieve all the interesting link (the act of sharing interesting links happens more frequently now that I have a dedicated tool to store/retrieve them) :P

Right now I have 100 tabs open, many of which are HN posts or links from HN posts that I still want to check back on. That's down from the low 200's a week ago. Once a week, before I read more HN, I go through my tabs and either read it and close it, save it for next time, or say "realistically I will not get to this within the next year due to (other projects I want more)." and close the tab.

Badly, I've had some trouble maintaining employment in the past because at times it's just hard for me to start something. It's bad. I've been able to break some parts of the pattern, for instance I can manage to exercise daily now - but there are times where I wonder if I'll ever be able to cram enough productivity into a given day to really measurably improve as an engineer.

I stopped bookmarking long ago. I almost never read bookmarks, and if I still bookmark something, and never return to it, I don't feel any guilt. Such the way it is.

I, however, still sad that I don't have energy and not bright enough to do quantum computing research (I am trying, but my applications to Xanadu, CERN and LANL were rejected), and many other things. FOMO is inevitable.

But letting things go is inevitable, too.

I go to HN to seek distraction on purpose; if I'm busy enough with work and able to concentrate on it I probably wouldn't bother as much.

But I think everyone will find something to do with their brain when it's understimulated, and HN and its wealth of interesting things is a big source of stimulation.

I've got little else to add that others haven't already mentioned though.

I use a blocker extension in my browser that blocks X sites between certain hours of the day, including HN. If I wanted to, I could go override it but 95% of the time I don't.

I also use a blocker app on my phone and it's more jarring to get that angry background and "You tried to go to X app Y times today".

Fear of missing out, FOMO.

The simple fact is, humanity is producing more content than you can consume, even if you dedicated every moment of your life to consuming it.

So stop dedicating every moment of your life to bookmarking things you plan to consume. You won't.

Trust that cream rises to the top, check the front page, read as many articles as you can, then forget about the rest. That's all anyone can do.

Using RSS bot in slack, i recently added a subscription to HN. In Slack, i can skim through various articles while scrolling and open only those i want to read right away. Since it's url is already in slack i don't have to bookmark it. And Just because it's in slack doesn't mean i have to read it right away. So, for now it's working out good.

I haven't managed my ADHD very well in the last 2 years, my life is becoming a nightmare. But HN is less and less of a factor, I think my interests have somewhat diverged and I don't click that much anymore. Also, very often I see interesting stuff on the front page of HN that I have seen before somewhere else, which is probably not a good sign.

I accept that I'm not a polymath or genius. But I used to think I was supposed to be keeping up with everything in every field.

I just accept it as a part of life.

Read about interesting things, do more research, learn about the subject, read about something new and learn about that instead.

Learning about a variety of topics isn't a bad thing, a thirst for knowledge is good. Sure I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge on one or two topics, but I know a lot of things about a broad range of topics

I don't have ADHD. But I do have a bad Guardian habit, and I spend a lot of time following HN links (I have time to spare). Most of the things I want to do never get onto a todo list, because I don't want to clutter my list of important things to do, which I try to restrict to no more than three items.

I doubt it's about ADHD, mate.

I've on and off had problems with similar since early Slashdot years. Very ADHD.

A few years ago I realized I have more important things to do. I log on here when I can, but i'm fine with missing things.

Sure; there's so much I'll never come back to, but whatever. That's just life. I look for recurring patterns, not individual items.

I like to joke that my dream is to one day be able to afford my own free time.

But you’re better off being excited about a lot and only having time for a little than the alternative. Getting excited about this stuff is the key to success in the field. That endless desire to learn is critical in a field where you need to constantly learn everyday.

I don't see any issues with what you've described. If I were you I'd challenge the interpretation that not reading every single thing you find interesting is a bad thing.

The fact is there will always be too much for anyone to do. It might help to think about the issue you're having like how you think about FOMO.

I feel you. There’s so much good stuff out there.

But you’re only capable of handling so much. You’re under no obligation to process every piece of information you think you might like, and moreover - you shouldn’t. You’d be setting yourself up for disappointment.

The way I work is I acknowledge my limits and follow my gut. Sounds vague but that’s what I got.

At the expense of missing some subset of posts, my default bookmark for HN filters out posts that have less than 100 points. It helps reduce the number of things I look into.

https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100

I completely relate. One thing that has helped me is to employ the following workflow:

1. Use the "Add to reading list" feature in Safari.

2. Reward myself*

3. Before bed, I use a TTS** app to listen to those articles.

*Important step to give yourself a hit of dopamine, however small. The lack of which is the reason for not being able to control this impulsivity in the first place.

**Text to speech

I only check during the morning while my adderall is kicking in and I don't go past the first page. This allows me to go as deep as I want and do some exploring still, but with limits. It's just taken practice over the years because I could easily burn through hundreds of pages on reddit / hn easily.

Just set aside a specific time to check the things that are interesting. Say, during lunch for 30 mins or carve out a 1 hour block where you just read.

5 hours a day seems excessive and a waste of time. How do you get anything else done? You can build a million dollar business in 5 hours a day compound over time.

Regarding HN in particular, I use https://hckrnews.com/ with "top 10" visible to reduce the amount of things I need to check. If that's too much, subscribe to https://hackernewsletter.com/ and don't consume content on the main HN website.

Realizing the we have finite time and cognition is key to help us accept and reduce what we consume and what we like.

Medication to make your brain less dysfunctional and psychoeducation to learn how ADHD affects you and about tools and techniques to manage yourself better.

There's tonnes to learn and to discover about yourself. The more you know, the better you can focus your actions to achieve your goals.

Are you medicated? One of my boys has ADHD and it was life changing. When I was a kid ADD as they called it then was highly stigmatized because the meds turned you into a zombie, it's not the case anymore. Basically zero side effects other than appetite loss during lunch.

You're addicted due to a deficiency in your reward pathways. Stop beating yourself up. You have no impulse control.

You can not control these things with will power any more than a dog can will its way to human.

Self accept, get medication for the dopamine issue, stop beating yourself up, go slow.

For starters, I use https://hckrnews.com/ and filter it down to the top ten articles.

Like many people with ADHD, I have a tendency to hyper-focus on things, and if I don't have something that I'm focused on I tend to get depressed. Over the years (a lot of years, self-awareness is not a strong suit), I've become more familiar with my patterns and tried to accommodate them and make healthy choices.

It's easy for me to hyper-focus on a series of novels and devour them and not feel too guilty (this is better for sleep). When I'm hyper-focused on a development project or a work problem, it tends to disrupt my sleep patterns more. When stuff like that happens I try to make a lot of notes about the things intruding on my thoughts, so that I can put them to rest for the night and not feel like I need to address them now.

Similarly, if a subject is really interesting and I don't want to lose track of it, I'll save all of the articles in Pocket and know that I can revisit the subject.

Lastly: I have kids and they do not care what you are interested in right now. They're great at pulling me away from what I'm absorbed in.

HN weekly mailing list (only sends the top 100 articles of the week), or noprocrast settings.

I visit the HN site very rarely. I mostly see HN links via the Panda browser plugin. I open stories I'm interested in, which then leads to tab hell, but that is at least a defined list I can work through vs. the infinite scroll problem. YMMV.

If you missed it, I think a lot of the discussion in this thread will be interesting for you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34272834

> Anyone else with ADHD feel this way or have a healthier outlook about HN?

No, that's pretty much spot on for everything. 1) See shiny/interesting/cool/usefull thing 2) start making notes 3) possibly even start 4) go to step one.

Would you really be happier if you actually set out to do every idea you come up with?

Just keep on collecting bookmarks and wait for the day when a truly good idea comes along, one which you had been anticipating and preparing for all along.

Problem here is people with ADHD lacks behavior inhibition thus leading to distraction spiral, for me medications help with this helping me to filter out nice but low priority stuff.

Instead of bookmarking stuff that you would never later read, start relying on HN search. And coming soon would be better 'search' capabilities via ChatGPT ...

Yep, I struggle.

Things I've done.

1. Delete my account, change /etc/hosts or use OpenDNS and block it. 2. Restrict it to one device and only for 1 hour a day. 3. Sign up for a digest email from another service and only use that.

Didn't know I had ADHD until I read this. Were you officially diagnosed?

I use HN Digest and get an email with the top 20 (the number is configurable) stories from the previous day in my email each morning. I stay relatively up to date with less distraction.

If it'd take longer than 5 minutes or so to read the article I chuck it into Instapaper.

From there I've got my instapaper feed in my RSS reader, I'll give them a read whenever I've got a spare moment.

If you find it difficult to cope on your own, I recommend seeking Therapy, and getting diagnosed as well. It helped me a lot.

I always believe that a professional's opinion is better than anything you could find here.

We need to stop pretending HN is not part of the problem. Every time I see someone say they quit Facebook or Twitter on HN I chuckle. It's like announcing you quit smoking while shooting heroin.

I run an instance of yacy where I index pages that I would otherwise bookmark.

It prevents the infinite mega list forming and if you ever do need the knowledge then it has full text search and you can find it again.

No formal diagnosis here, beyond doctor's suggesting ADHD for my poor grades in elementary school.

I use Nicorette at work when I really need to focus, and I try to keep a consistent sleep schedule.

- Constantly reminding myself to get back to work

- Deep house music in headphones, sad ones help focus

- Tomato timer

- Edging, which releases dopamine and helps you focus.

I don't take amphetamines because they just make me sleepy, in a bizare twist.

Even if I remove all the obvious distractions, it still is much harder to read a long text on a monitor that it os on paper. So I just print the documents I have to read.

I have to block HN and Reddit during the work day. My problem is that I take just a second to check HN while something compiles and then an hour later I'm still reading.

Somewhat luckily/unluckily my job sometimes needs me to raid my references to come up with positions on niche topics.

Probably not that healthy really. Like a hoarder with happy clients

My current strategy:

- Don't read all the comments - Write a quick reply if I feel I must - If I find myself googling to fact check my comments then just close all the windows.

Specifically relating to browsing:

Just use a website blocker, plenty about. I use Cold Turkey (mentioned in another thread the other day), but there are others.

you can be addicted to the guardian? i have read the grauniad since i was 18 or so, thus for over 50 years. there are perhaps two or three articles in the average day that might be worth reading, plus the new word game that i got 100% on today (supercriticality) but that only takes me 20 mins or so. what can you find there to interest you so much?

I don't know if it helps but noprocrast (in HN settings) and Leechblock (browser extension) are the only way I stay employed.

Honestly, I wonder whether I should be here at all.

Like, this site is like cigarettes.

take a huge breath and close the tab

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.havabee.br...

yea i feel exactly the same. i just open a billion tabs, and use a mix of saving to pocket and onetab - onetab is the best, i rarely go back and check it, but it makes closing tabs feel a lot easier

I use Notion.so and if I find an interesting article I put them on a list.

Find a job you truly love and allow it to take all your attention.

Make a lot of bookmarks and never revisit them unfortunately

Meditation to develop single-point concentration.

I don’t. I’m just waiting to get fired and die.

I get prescribed with an ADHD medication.

Yes, this is very much a thing for me.

use onetab - i rarely go back and check it but it makes closing tabs down feel a hell of a lot easier

Give a try to aderall or drx amf :)

noprocrast mate.

Go into your HN profile settings and implement it now if you haven't already.

Drugs.

Fellow ADHS person here - it's an addiction, it's not funny and it's close to a personal hell depending how worse it is.

If you can go offline and don't read HN or other news on the internet do it. It doesn't matter. Practice ignoring it. Turn off the internet - not forever but long enough every day that you realize in what situation you are in.

Why I'm saying such harsch things?

Because you (and me) are bullshitting ourselves here - we are consuming news, articles and comments and looking for some insights or new information but we can't link it to existing knowledge mostly or get sidetracked and lose control of our own directions, things to do because these are probably dull, difficult or boring and have consequences - so they cause anxiety - and it's easier and mostly automatic behavior to run away from them and just fill your head with random tidbits on here. I'm not saying this site is bad - don't get me wrong - it's just that reading for hours here every day will do you no good and won't improve anything.

What to do instead?

ADHD is all about executive dysfunction and working on improving things there can have a huge impact - medication might help but is no panacea - stress, anxiety, outright fear can also cause this behavior and make it worse (at least for me).

If you are in education or school go offline, go the lab, go to the lectures, meet other poeple in real life and work with them, this helps me a lot - take a pen and paper and work on problem sets or meet with other students - go from reading/consuming to writing/creating - make a shedule and be gently to yourself because you totally ignore it - but exercise getting better at it - exercise itself also helps, so does settings time-limits like stop working on something at a time, pomodoro technique and things like that.

This won't work very well or at all depending how deep you are in the trouble but if you catch yourself drifting away be gentle to yourself and practice taking control again.

Work torwards mastering yourself and what is in front of you, you may think it's not as cool or important but that is probably very likely wrong - do interact offline with real people, solve real problems and don't run away from it - face your shortcomings and failures and learn from them or at least avoid running away from your reality.

You need to learn to be honest with yourself and work torwards tackling realistic work in small pieces for things to improve. Going into writing/creating mode helps and also slows you down and puts real problems in front of you that are worth solving (or ditch the project because you had wrong ideas about that)

And be gentle to yourself it's okay to do gown the rabbit hole once in a while.

i think i feel the same way

piling up browser tabs like dishes in the sink

(no solutions here)

i don't, but it all seems to work out anyways

Bookmarking this comment section for later. Thanks OP!

Rittalin helps

I was a psychotherapists for over 25 years working with children and families.

I don't see the the relevence of this question.

I do not see any links with saving bookmarks and ADHD. I too save hundreds of bookmarks and do not have ADHD! Isn't this just normal human bevaiour? Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with your daily functioning! Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with MY daily functioning!

You say: But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. BUT, "I will never ever" comment is unreasonable and unrealistic, the real reality is? that you can do all the things in your brain!

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"

I was a psychotherapists for over 25 years working with children and families.

I don't see the the relevence of this question.

Isn't ADHD called attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Though Hyperactivity was dropped from the DSM-3 in 1980 and reinstated in 1996.

I do not see any links with saving bookmarks and ADHD. I too save hundreds of bookmarks and do not have ADHD! Isn't this just normal human bevaiour? Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with your daily functioning! Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with MY daily functioning!

You say: But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. BUT, "I will never ever" comment is unreasonable and unrealistic, the real reality is? that you can do all the things in your brain!

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"

I was a psychotherapists for over 25 years working with children and families.

I don't see the the relevence of this question.

Isn't ADHD called attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Though Hyperactivity was dropped from the DSM-3 in 1980 and reinstated in 1996.

I do not see any links with saving bookmarks and ADHD. I too save hundreds of bookmarks and do not have ADHD! Isn't this just normal human bevaiour? Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with your daily functioning! Saving bookmarks does not seem to interfere with MY daily functioning!

You say: But the constant reality is that I will never ever be able to do all the things in my brain. BUT, "I will never ever" comment is unreasonable and unrealistic, the real reality is? that you can do all the things in your brain!

Do you really have ADHD?. Or are the symptoms you exihibit more related to the medication you take?

In the mid 1990's where I lived there were no instances of ADHD. I worked in a local children's psychotherapy service.

As far as I am concerned the prevalence of ADHD has been growing since then, from parents who beleived that all children should; "be seen and not heard", "should not be loud and unruly", "needed a medical reason to claim extra benefits", AND so it grew at the gates of all our local schools. Parents wanted robots and not children.

More and more children were referred to me with so called ADHD but in reality they were all just normal kids who had experienced and were still experiencing "Poor" parenting. How on earth can any reasobale parent allow their children to experience the negative and soul destroying impact of Ritalin and other ADHD drugs. Not to mention big Pharma in the pursuit of profit.

ADHD is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Have difficulty staying on task, sustaining focus, and staying organized. The child may seem to move about constantly, fidget or talks too much. The child may act without thinking or have difficulty with self-control and the inability to delay gratification. Really!

Put a child in a room with an open box of chocolates and tell them they must not eat any chocolates. YEP, evey child will eat a chocolate! Doesn't every child get excited about everything? Doesn't every child experience life at a faster rate because their hearts are beating twice as fast as adults? Children do not have the attention span of an adult, even adults can only concentrate for 45 minutes before needing a rest, yet adults expect children to sit in class for hours at a time studying with 100% concentration.

ISN'T this normal bevaiour of all children? I was like this as a child and did not have ADHD.

I doubt ADHD is a relevent or even a genuine psychiatric condition or diagnosis.

If children were Psychiatrists they would rename ADHD as "Being a natural born child"

For HN addiction in particular, hckrnews.com (not affiliated) helps a lot. It only shows top 10-20 for each day, reducing noise.

Not ADHD⁰ but I have similar issues with HN and similar. This usually results in a great many open tabs, different ones in different places¹, spread over numerous browser windows where applicable. I need a better way to manage it all but what currently happens is:

* Anything not being immediately looked at is shovelled to a different desktop to help keep focus. Tabs on phones are move to this desktop on one of the other machines.

* When browser memory use starts to climb it is time for a pruning session. Things that I don't really remember usually weren't that significant and are just dropped. Other get filed with notes in my collection of “possible projects/playthings” text files that are kept on a server accessible to all my devices⁴. This can take some time as I usually get distracted and end up climbing back down the rabbit-holes that resulted in some of those open tabs in the first place…

* I've started actively trying to be “evil” with myself and controlling the amount of time I'm here. This sometimes means passing up on links in favour of others, or just opening the tab but not looking at it until later (if I don't end up having time later this either gets closed or moved to that dumping ground desktop). If something is relevant to particular projects or idea groups the links (source and HN thread) go directly into the relevant project text files, skipping further attention/triage, to be looked at in more detail in that mythical future time that I properly look into said project(s) again.

I used to use a mind-mapping tool to keep the lists of lists of related lists of lists & notes together, but that became unwieldy so went back to tetx files. I've tried or just looked at various apps² and not spotted anything that matches what I want. A couple of those many project files concern writing my own tool to manage my brain-dumps, or at least a tool to help index/search the lists/notes as they are currently stored.

Occasional lost windows full of tabs due to browser crashes that have had no lasting effect on my life should probably be a sign that I should just stop caring to a large extent, but that is never going to happen!

----

[0] unless I am but undiagnosed!

[1] home main PC, laptop, phone, work machine, old phone that I haven't decommissioned yet as moving the FirstDirect banking app over is a PITA, old phone I use for work as I refuse to have Teams & other work stuff on personal devices

[2] like OneNote, keep and various FOSS options – Keep sometimes acts as a temporary³ dumping ground for things on their way to the text files

[3] though not temporary enough, I have too much in there ATM

[4] and, or course, backed up & historied along with other work, not actually in proper source control like I almost certainly should⁵, but at least in backups that allow access to older versions

[5] yet another not-on-going project being to rationalise how I store and backup everything.

I use hckrnews.com and only visit periodically.

As with others, "poorly", though I've made some attempts.

I keep my principle mobile device (an e-ink tablet) free of virtually all authenticated services. (An articles-clipping app is the one exception). I can read HN, but cannot engage from that device specifically.

I'll also try to turn off WiFi at least when possible.

HN as an article-filtering tool works well. Combining that with Algolia Search's time-bounded search, you can filter by the most popular stories of the past week, month, or year, which can be an interesting further restriction by entering a blank search:

Week: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=fal...>

Month: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...>

Year: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...>

As always, "popular" isn't a synonym for "best", though it is a reasonable proxy.

You can also of course search for specific topics or people of interest, though here story search is often less useful than comment search, for which matches tend to be more likely and relevant. Note that comment votes were removed from publicly-exposed data ... a long time ago? Apparently 2011: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595605>, though I thought it was more recent.

You can also visit "past" which will show previous days' posts, after the voting has largely settled. Again, this tends to filter out lower-quality content.

Otherwise:

- I'm trying to read or at least skim the article before reading comments, though that's one of those "observed in the breach" pledges...

- Recognise that comment quality on HN, whilst higher than most other significant online sites ... is still fairly poor relative to more curated sources, and there's a great deal of partisanship and ignorance (myself included) in discussion.

- "You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to", a/k/a "Someone is wrong on the Internet" <https://xkcd.com/386>.

- The HN Hivemind itself tends to glom on to specific topics and ideas more readily than others. I'm reminded of this every time I review my own submissions --- the stuff I'd really like to see take off rarely does, though there are occasional exceptions. It's usually either throwaway or predictable submissions which do get attention. (The submission queue is fickle, there is the Second-Chance Pool ("Pool": <https://news.ycombinator.com/pool>) to which you can both submit and peruse usually higher-quality / less immediately catnippy articles.)

- Time-boxing is underappreciated. Recognise what role HN does play in your life, and admit it at times but only in a limited fashion. You have 24 hours in a day, and probably about 2--4 hours per day which you can tightly focus on intellectual content. You're going to need to allocate that to work, personal matters, and general distraction. "Eat the frog first", put your most important tasks earlier in the day. (Much of this comes from David Allen's Getting Things Done.)

- I've also tried to apply a "BOTI" principle to what I encounter. That's "best of the interval", where "interval" is day, week, month, year, etc. I'll try to capture what seem both at the time and on later reflection to be the most significant articles, books, ideas, etc., I've encountered. This is partially reflected in the Algolia tips above, though I'll also keep a local list (bookmarks folder for "BOTI-Jan-2023", say, or a save-to-ePub EinkBro compilation on my e-book reader). There's the question then of whether or not that material actually was as compelling as thought at the time, and of course, the challenge of actually reading what I've archived. But it's at least an effort at organisation.

That said: the struggle is real and constant.