Comment by dondraper36
6 days ago
That's also very much task-dependent. When I have a task that I find either intellectually challenging or with a critically important outcome, I am usually hyperfocused, and even pausing for lunch is an annoyance.
With less rewarding tasks, however, I would say attention and discipline are exactly what I wish I had more of. Writing documentation, listening to other people talking in calls, etc.
I saw a nice 4 quadrant chart about this somewhere (but can't find it now).
Basically when a task has JUST the right urgency and/or difficulty level, my ADD superpowers engage and I can Just Do It.
But anything outside of that I just get bored and instead build a tool to filter and enrich RSS feeds, because it tickles my brain the right way.
I can kinda force myself to focus, but not always.
I can totally relate. Even going to the toilet is difficult on hyperfocus. Stupid thing is that to make things 'interesting' for my brain they often have to get overdue, adding unnecessary stress until that point. But it is all about acknowledging that in my case and working with it. I guess other people are a lot further down the spectrum or have jobs where this does not work. But I also know how much this ability actually helped me in the past (and annoyed other people I guess)