Play to your strengths
I believe that the “trick” to thriving as a developer with ADHD is to focus on your strengths and lean into them rather than trying to fix the things you suck at.
That’s true, in my opinion, for everyone, but it’s acutely true for folks with ADHD.
For example, ADHD causes time-blindness. That means that we’re often unable to perceive time as it actually happens.
If you ask me how long something took, I cannot accurately tell you. If you ask me how long something is going to take, I also can’t tell you, even if I’ve done the task before.
Agency-based jobs that require frequent, accurate scoping of hours and a tight adherence to deadlines are a really bad fit for me.
I can do the work, but the administration around it is squarely in my “weakness zone,” and trying to fix that is going to both be unsuccessful and use a bunch of energy I could be pouring into doing my best work.
My ADHD also makes me great at solving open-ended up problems.
In the roles where I’ve been most successful, I would get presented with “we’ve never done this before but we need to figure out how to make it work” technical challenges, and then been given the freedom to just go off and explore solutions.
I would research, experiment, put together prototypes, and come back with some suggestions.
This type of work lets me ignore the stuff I suck at, and pour my whole self into the stuff I kick ass at.
I’m curious: what are you great at, and what kind of work would let you play to those strengths and do your best work? Send me an email and let me know!