- Joined
- Sep 1, 2023
- Messages
- 546
WARNING: There's a fair bit of airy-fairy, semi-speculative (albeit fairly well-informed) yadda below. If you're not interested in that sort of thing, then you probably want to skip this. Eh, I'm not the boss of you though, so feel free to inflict my yap-flapping on yourself, if you like! 
The recent revival of the thread on the Adam Savage video about First Order Retrievability got me thinking about a recent epiphany I had and about those of us with ADHD (diagnosed or not) in the hobby machinist niche.
Given the recent increase of adult ADHD diagnoses (the medicos have worked out that ADHD doesn't just dissappear magically at age 18) and the increase of interest in 'making' activities, I thought it might be worth talking about some of my experiences, partly to raise some extra awareness of what being ADHD is a bit like for those who aren't ADHD, partly to help those of us with ADHD give themselves a bit of a break and partly...because I love the sound (sight) of my own voice (typing)!
I've been doing a fair bit of workshop infrastructure work in the past several months and I've been pondering why I've been doing that work in preference to finishing the two projects I'm halfway through and starting the approximately four or so other projects that I'm genuinely looking forward to.
At first, thinking about it got me down a bit, made me mither about whether it was the bad old unmedicated, ADHDful me rearing his head. Was I losing focus on the very reason for the workshop? Was I putting off the kind of task that I had learned (incorrectly) to assume that I would mess up because of my inattention?
After a little more introspection, though, I think I understand what I was doing and why I was doing it.
Here's my understanding:
ADHD meds are for many (assuming one has found the right dose), very transformational. Honestly, I'm amazed that I managed to make a career in programming these last nearly 30 years. I've either been a lot more productive than I remember or I've had an unnatural amount of luck with very forgiving and tolerant managers!
Either way, my productivity and the quality of my work have really shot up in the last 'finally-diagnosed-and-medicated' year.
That said though, the meds aren't magic and I've got a fair chunk of 30 years of cognitive bad habits to unlearn, especially where those things pertain to the workshop.
One of the ways I'm learning to get over some of these bad mental habits is to sometimes prioritise important but tedious chores over the fun stuff (you know, like a normal, responsible, adult would do). One of these chores was sorting out my fixings.
During this chore, I noticed that I was doing a lot more preemptive planning and being overly strict about the differentiation of fixings...
...and was inordinately enjoying this strictness to boot.
It was then I realised that I was creating external order to help support the improvement of my internal mental order.
This is really important for someone with ADHD. The meds are transformative but ultimately, adult diagnosed ADHD people need to learn mental self-discipline to make the most of that transformation; unlearn those bad, short-cut, self-defeating habits.
In a workshop, where there are spinning drilly/grindy/cutty things that will hurt you if you aren't paying attention, learning this mental self-discipline is pretty critical (and that's leaving aside the epic, apocalyptic, galaxy spanning irritation that comes when you realise that, due to a typically ADHD stupid mistake, you've scrapped a part).
So, what I was doing with these workshop infrastructure jobs, was creating an environment that helps mitigate some of the internal disorder that persists despite the ADHD medication, whilst at the same time, training myself to apply my focus to the more mundane tasks and not ignoring them (as my undiagnosed self would have been wont to do) in favour of the fun stuff.
All wins and thus, I suspect the instinctive enjoyment of the fixings organisation.
There's often an implicit, or even explicit, call on here, to stop fannying around and just make some chips.
This is often good advice. That joy of seeing a part emerge from a piece of metal, even imperfectly so, can't be understated. It's a tremendous motivator and confidence builder.
However, people with ADHD might need to do some 'indirectly, implicitly productive' tasks, either to create a workshop environment that helps support their unlearning of the old cognitive habits, or to help learn the mental self-discipline that neurotypical people take for granted, or indeed both.
They're not necessarily faffing about or avoiding productive work due to fear of failure. There's a good chance they're re-building their brain to better serve themselves in the workshop.
The recent revival of the thread on the Adam Savage video about First Order Retrievability got me thinking about a recent epiphany I had and about those of us with ADHD (diagnosed or not) in the hobby machinist niche.
Given the recent increase of adult ADHD diagnoses (the medicos have worked out that ADHD doesn't just dissappear magically at age 18
) and the increase of interest in 'making' activities, I thought it might be worth talking about some of my experiences, partly to raise some extra awareness of what being ADHD is a bit like for those who aren't ADHD, partly to help those of us with ADHD give themselves a bit of a break and partly...because I love the sound (sight) of my own voice (typing)! I've been doing a fair bit of workshop infrastructure work in the past several months and I've been pondering why I've been doing that work in preference to finishing the two projects I'm halfway through and starting the approximately four or so other projects that I'm genuinely looking forward to.
At first, thinking about it got me down a bit, made me mither about whether it was the bad old unmedicated, ADHDful me rearing his head. Was I losing focus on the very reason for the workshop? Was I putting off the kind of task that I had learned (incorrectly) to assume that I would mess up because of my inattention?
After a little more introspection, though, I think I understand what I was doing and why I was doing it.
Here's my understanding:
ADHD meds are for many (assuming one has found the right dose), very transformational. Honestly, I'm amazed that I managed to make a career in programming these last nearly 30 years. I've either been a lot more productive than I remember or I've had an unnatural amount of luck with very forgiving and tolerant managers!
Either way, my productivity and the quality of my work have really shot up in the last 'finally-diagnosed-and-medicated' year.
That said though, the meds aren't magic and I've got a fair chunk of 30 years of cognitive bad habits to unlearn, especially where those things pertain to the workshop.
One of the ways I'm learning to get over some of these bad mental habits is to sometimes prioritise important but tedious chores over the fun stuff (you know, like a normal, responsible, adult would do). One of these chores was sorting out my fixings.
During this chore, I noticed that I was doing a lot more preemptive planning and being overly strict about the differentiation of fixings...
...and was inordinately enjoying this strictness to boot.
It was then I realised that I was creating external order to help support the improvement of my internal mental order.
This is really important for someone with ADHD. The meds are transformative but ultimately, adult diagnosed ADHD people need to learn mental self-discipline to make the most of that transformation; unlearn those bad, short-cut, self-defeating habits.
In a workshop, where there are spinning drilly/grindy/cutty things that will hurt you if you aren't paying attention, learning this mental self-discipline is pretty critical (and that's leaving aside the epic, apocalyptic, galaxy spanning irritation that comes when you realise that, due to a typically ADHD stupid mistake, you've scrapped a part).
So, what I was doing with these workshop infrastructure jobs, was creating an environment that helps mitigate some of the internal disorder that persists despite the ADHD medication, whilst at the same time, training myself to apply my focus to the more mundane tasks and not ignoring them (as my undiagnosed self would have been wont to do) in favour of the fun stuff.
All wins and thus, I suspect the instinctive enjoyment of the fixings organisation.
There's often an implicit, or even explicit, call on here, to stop fannying around and just make some chips.
This is often good advice. That joy of seeing a part emerge from a piece of metal, even imperfectly so, can't be understated. It's a tremendous motivator and confidence builder.
However, people with ADHD might need to do some 'indirectly, implicitly productive' tasks, either to create a workshop environment that helps support their unlearning of the old cognitive habits, or to help learn the mental self-discipline that neurotypical people take for granted, or indeed both.
They're not necessarily faffing about or avoiding productive work due to fear of failure. There's a good chance they're re-building their brain to better serve themselves in the workshop.
