Comment by danudey
6 days ago
> I buy a domain name → I code for 3 all-nighters → I lose interest → I start again.
That's ADHD for you.
A former coworker of mine lamented this - "I start so many projects or hobbies, but just when I feel like I've learned a lot I lose interest". I had to point out to him that his hobby isn't - whatever, sheep shearing or book bindery or underwater basket weaving - but rather his hobby is learning things. That's a common thing for ADHD people, absorbing all you can in a rapid amount of time, devoting every minute of thought to something, and then suddenly completely forgetting it exists until you get the domain renewal notice.
At least you (seem to) have (some degree of) acceptance of the circumstance and recognize the benefits of this behavior rather than just focusing on the drawbacks; too many people have this behavior and think it's a personal failing, when really they just have a different hobby than they think they have.
I don't think it has to be ADHD. I don't have ADHD, and none of my friends have it that I know of. We all start things we don't finish, though. I was going to post some of the more ridiculous domain names I've purchased for personal projects, before I realized I'd be doxxing myself. Too bad, there are some good ones.
I think in many cases, we fail to finish projects because it's so much easier to start than it is to finish. The first 90% is easy, as the saying goes, but the second 90% is much harder.
And I use the word 'fail' advisedly. I think it's fine to not finish everything you start, but it's not good to never finish anything, ever. Not if your intention was to finish it anyway. I think finishing things is a crucial skill, and we need to practice it in order to get good at it, and we won't do that if we tell ourselves it's about as good to give up as it is to keep going.
ADHD is a real diagnosis, but I'm hesitant to pathologize not finishing projects, since that will end up being an excuse rather than an explanation for a lot of people.
I didn’t think I had ADHD. Then I saw some video on autism that hit a little too close to home. I went and got tested, and just had them test for everything while I was at it, which included testing for ADHD. Turns out I do have ADHD. The more I learn about it, and autism, the more my entire life comes into focus.
I have mixed feelings about finding this out late in life (early 40s). I do think there was a lot of value in not having it as an excuse when I was younger, to force myself to figure things out and get to where I am today. On the other hand, I spent a good 20 years looking everywhere to try and figure out what is wrong with me. Lots of time and money down the drain… and the YouTube algorithm is what ultimately pointed me in the right direction.
I used to think that these psychiatrists were just trying to diagnose the human condition, as so many of the things I heard just seemed like normal life for me. But I guess I now know why that seemed normal for me, but maybe aren’t normal for everyone.
I felt the same when I discovered I was a Gemini. Come on - someone has created a category which describes a group of people in a fairly self-consistent way. Of course a large number of people will spot it and say: "Finally! The agency lies outside of me! My struggles are no longer my fault!"
But they never were in the first place, and being in a category doesn't change your responsibility to do the best with what you've got.
At least star signs don't medicalise you.
There are plenty of other ways of characterising this - Ayurvedic medicine or the Humours - in fact, those are so effective that they've been taken by business coaches and turned into "colour personality types". And they describe the same thing.
You have a deficiency of phlegm and black bile. Ask ChatGPT about how to treat it, and it'll essentially suggest a permanent dopamine fast.
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What kind of tests are these that can identify such disorders? In the culture and country I'm from, everyone I know with a similar diagnosis has had to go through a path of "decide what you have, battle the gatekeepers until they relent". This isn't just cynicism and shopping for desired results but the result of a medical system where professionals are guardians of insurance spend rather than fonts of advice.
The idea that there's a valid diagnostic test available sounds quite interesting.
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What kind of testing for ADHD was given to you? Or more specifically, from what you've learned, what helped you diagnose it best? Even more importantly, what has helped you manage it better afterwards?
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Aspb ‘83 baby, that’s 80s parenting for you. Boomers saying “Oh he’s just hyper” or “Oh he’s shy” or “Oh she’s just in her own world” and brushing it under the rug. Combine that with processed food additives of the 90s and I look exactly the same as I did in high school only with grey hair instead of brown!
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However, as it can be a valid indicator for ADHD, it is fine to do a test, like[1] offers. It's difficult to diagnose adults, but I was surprised to see a quite high rate of matches in the test. I share the same "problems" as OP: I quit projects because I was able to solve the problem at hand.
[1]: https://www.adxs.org/en/
> I don't think it has to be ADHD.
It definitely doesn't have to be ADHD, but that loop of "new interest" -> "hyperfixation for a period of time" -> "no interest" is classic ADHD, and in almost all of the people I know who do have ADHD this was the first major sign for them.
There is definitely a difference between starting projects that don't turn out to be interesting or useful and not bothering, but the way OP described their experiences is textbook and should definitely not be minimized as it is definitely not the typical case for neurotypical people.
> I don't have ADHD, and none of my friends have it that I know of. We all start things we don't finish, though.
One of the other things I've noticed about people with ADHD or autism, even undiagnosed, is that they tend to congregate together - neurodivergent people tend to cluster together through similar interests and thought patterns. This leads to the logic of "I don't think I have ADHD because everyone is like this", but that's a selection bias that hides the distinction that people could otherwise make.
> think finishing things is a crucial skill, and we need to practice it in order to get good at it, and we won't do that if we tell ourselves it's about as good to give up as it is to keep going.
Again, this sort of phrasing can minimize the impact of the executive dysfunction inherent with ADHD; again, not saying that you or the OP definitely do have ADHD, but this idea that "finishing things is just something you need to practice at" is the ADHD equivalent of "have you tried not being sad?" For many ADHD people, it just does not, and cannot, work that way, or at least not without interventions like medication and conscious coping strategies.
> since that will end up being an excuse rather than an explanation for a lot of people
I dislike this line of thinking, because it sort of inherently (if subconsciously) implies that, without a real diagnosis from a professional (which can cost thousands of dollars that people don't have), it's probably just an excuse people are making for... what? being lazy? being incompetent? ...and that we shouldn't take those explanations seriously. If we want to destigmatize neurodivergence then we need to be willing to take people at their word and support them.
If someone says "I can't finish projects because I'm so ADHD lol", then you can either say "that's just an excuse unless a psychologist has said otherwise" or you can say "If that's the case, how can we support you, and what are you working on to support yourself?" and, if those supports don't work, then you look for alternate explanations.
That's basically my lifelong addiction.
I have dozens of projects that I will obsess over for a few weeks. When I was younger I would convince myself that what I was doing would change the world and I was going to make billions of dollars, but eventually I became more honest with myself: I do these projects because I want to learn about <<subject X>>.
I built a Icecast server recently because I wanted to learn more about audio encoding and streaming protocols. I built a clone of fzf because I wanted to learn more about Rust and diffing algorithms. I wrote a custom async scheduling framework for my Swaybar because I wanted to learn more about how async scheduling works. I started trying to prove the Collatz conjecture because I wanted to learn more about Isabelle.
I am ok with this being part of my life; I like learning new bits of math and technology, and the easiest way to actually learn a new concept (instead of nodding along in a book) is to try and do something with that knowledge. I think "learning for fun" is far from the worst hobbies one could have.
No, I think it's just that actually shipping projects is harder than one imagines it, and the glow wears off relatively quickly.
This is a good way to look at it. My issue is that I hate acquiring all the stuff to learn something when I know there is a high likelihood of losing interest after a few days or weeks. I’ve done this far too many times and got really sick of it. It feels so wasteful.
Maybe this is where a lot of my stress comes from. I need that outlet, but I suppress it to avoid collecting future trash or losing money selling a bunch of like-new stuff (and having to deal with the process of selling things all the time).
That's definitely a real thing. It's beneficial to try to steer the ship rather than stop it - instead of buying like-new stuff, restrict yourself to getting second-hand stuff from FB marketplace or Craigslist, or to sales. This can serve the dual purposes of saving you money on your initial investment and also reining in your overall collection of more gunk to clutter up your home over time.
Living in the city I sometimes wonder if this isn't what garage sales were amazing for; gather up all your stuff that you don't touch anymore, lay it out on the driveway, and people come to you to take it away rather than you having to hunt them down.
Maybe there's benefit in some kind of "temporary hobbyist" FB group or similar, where people who are excited to start a hobby they know they won't continue with can pick up an entire batch of like-new equipment from people who started a hobby they didn't continue with.
Maybe I need to get more comfortable with that. I tend to subscribe to the buy-once, cry-once way of buying things. There have been various times in the past when I wanted thing X, but bought thing Y to save a few bucks. I didn't like it and ultimately ended up with thing X. This costs be more money, time, and frustration than just buying the good thing from the start. But when dealing hobbies I may or may not like, it's a problem.
> Maybe there's benefit in some kind of "temporary hobbyist" FB group or similar
Many libraries have a bunch of stuff like this now. They call it the Library of Things. Looking at my local library, they have things like a record player, gardening tools, a ukulele, steel drum, knitting stuff, some electronics kits, etc. That could be a good "free" resource for things like this. I looked at it before, but should probably actually give it a try.
> "I start so many projects or hobbies, but just when I feel like I've learned a lot I lose interest".
Similar problem for me.
Every project I've wanted to do, there's usually some technical hurdle I need to achieve, and once I've achieved it, I lose interest and have something that's not even enough to be considered a proof-of-concept, let alone an MVP.
For example, there's an arcade game called Killer Queen that I loved, and thought it was a travesty that there wasn't a PC version, since it's a 10-player game that's played on 2 cabinets, and who has that many friends going to the arcade at the same time? It needed to be online!
So I decided I was going to create a clone of it. The big hurdle I needed to figure out was how to make a realtime multiplayer platforming game that kept clients in sync while also compensating for latency. My implementation worked by having both client and server keeping copies of the last 60 frames of game state, and the client would merely send their inputs and a time stamp (Really a frame number) to the server, which would then go back to the frame state for that number and re-simulate the game with that input. It would also stream the current state (It was only ~300 bytes) to other players with their inputs, which would also do a similar re-simulation.
I even made it mostly cheat-proof. There's no hidden information (All players see the exact same screen), but I figured a modded client could simply see what other players have done, then send inputs with time stamps in the past to put themselves into an advantageous position, but I prevent that by making the server reject inputs older than 250 ms.
But...after getting all that working, and basic platforming working...I got bored. Never touched the project again.
EDIT: I've got another game I worked on and actually got to the MVP part, but it needs a heavy refactor and I just haven't bothered. Mainly because I hate writing and testing front-end code, and I feel like I've already written it once and don't want to write it again. I haven't bought a domain for it yet, thankfully. I'm going to insist on a .game domain for it, which is like $400/year.
Stop medicalising everything. These people don't have sufficient motivation to finish the things they've started. Yes, their hobby might be learning things. That's actually a pretty good hobby. Are they kidding themselves sometimes, do they lack self-knowledge, yep. This is just a slice of humanity, and giving it a label that helps people to sell amphetamines doesn't really do anyone any good. Teaching morals and self-discipline does.
It would be great if you spent any time at all educating yourself about the science and actual experiences behind it, rather than spouting off about what you assume to be true based off of nothing.
Your willful ignorance of objective fact does nothing to improve the discussion, and just shows you as being unwilling to engage intellectually.
Put aside your preconceived notions and do some actual research and you might learn some really interesting things.
I called this Opportunity FOMO for myself. I always wish to jump on the bandwagon with the next idea/project instead of sticking to the one I currently work on.
I wrote a short blog post on this a few weeks ago: https://baduiux.de/posts/opportunity-fear-of-missing-out/
This is not really ADHD but simply the fun part of new projects. The exciting start vs. the grind. Is the difference between 17 abandoned side projects and an overnight success ten years (or more) in the making.
You've just described ADHD perfectly, I'm sorry to say.
People who don't have this sort of ADHD level of executive dysfunction are capable of completing projects. The "exciting start" vs "abandoning them as soon as they're not exciting" thing is a core criteria for ADHD in my experience.
Neurotypical people don't have this same experience; they don't start something new because they're excited about it and then bail out halfway through and never go back. I can't understand what that kind of life would be like, but they do it. Meanwhile, people with ADHD, especially undiagnosed, are constantly starting projects because they're excited, hyperfocussing on them for some length of time, and then bailing out never to return.
In my experience, comments like yours usually tend to come from people who have undiagnosed ADHD. Maybe that's not the case, but from what I've seen it often is.
What compells neurotypicals to start projects, then?
I do like learning things, but I wish I could retain better. Abandoning hobbies has set me back in that way, making it harder to pick up more advanced interests. It feels like lost time. I have needed to restart instruments and various maths several times. Perhaps a proper system based on spaced repetition could help, but organization is a hurdle
> his hobby is learning things.
I've rarely felt so seen.
> absorbing all you can in a rapid amount of time, devoting every minute of thought to something, and then suddenly completely forgetting it exists until you get the domain renewal notice
This could be my bio. And yes, I do have ADHD (it hyperactive).
Dan Okrent (fascinating guy [0]) has a great line:
"My wife calls me a serial obsessionist"
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Okrent
Thanks for this comment. I love this - it is a very kind and self caring way of thinking about it especially on dreaded annual domain renewal day
Remind yourself when that dreaded e-mail comes around that these are not markers of failed projects but trophies of new skills learned!
...but don't necessarily renew them.
Is that why my wife keeps telling me I need to get a diagnosis?
It could be one of many!
I was diagnosed ages ago, relatively speaking, but my wife didn't get diagnosed until after our first child was born. We'd go for walks with him and he'd try to talk to her or ask her something and she wouldn't have any idea. I'd have to get her attention, let her know he was talking to her, and she'd ask him to repeat. Thirty seconds later, she's off in her own world again. After a diagnosis and a pretty low dose of medication, she's far better at being present in the moment, and she gets more out of life as a result.
When she was on her way to the doctor to discuss things, she asked me for a list of the things that made me suspect she had ADHD; I sent her a small list of my suspicions and she said afterwards that it was a really difficult thing to read about herself - strange to me, because, at least from my perspective, those are all 'normal' things for someone with ADHD to have and obviously not her fault.
It's worth mentioning that medication doesn't make you not have ADHD, though; she's still the same person with the same thought processes and habits, starting new projects all the time, and leaving stuff until the last minute unless she's put it in her calendar immediately. The difference is that it's easier to be conscious about how and why those behaviors affect your life differently than other people might expect, and to compensate for them if they're affecting you or others negatively.
I honestly think that this sort of diagnosis should just be a normal thing that they evaluate kids for in school. Let the parents do with it what they will, ignore it or look further, but I think a lot of people would be a lot better off if they understood from childhood why the gulf between society's expectations of behavior and their own were so different, rather than finding out after feeling like a failure or a screw-up for 10-20 years.
I’d call it impulse coding.