Thursday Thoughts from an ADHDer - Issue #5

Welcome to Issue #5! 🧡

I’m Luce, a newly diagnosed combined ADHDer from the UK. The aim of this newsletter is to share with you my journey as I try medication and other techniques to get a better handle on my chaotic brain. Plus things I have found interesting that week or caught my attention!

Nothing much to report this week either with my medication. As it is non-stimulant ADHD medication, it will take a while to get into my system so no sign of improvement yet but also no side effects, so yay!

I am currently in London to attend the Agenda Committee meetings for NDC London 2022 which has been great. For those who don’t know, NDC is a large developer conference. They have editions all over the world from Melbourne to Minnesota via London, Porto and Oslo, and many more. It is an excellent conference with a high calibre of speakers. I was on the agenda committee last year for the 2021 virtual edition but for 2022 we are back in person, both for deciding the lineup but also the event! 🥳🤘🏻

Tough decisions had to be made on what to include and exclude but we have a wonderfully diverse set of topics and speakers and I cannot wait to see how the community reacts to the agenda when it can be released.

This week we have another song I listen to when I am trying to ‘get things done’. Whether that is work, exercise or chores. This is actually from the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, which is probably up there as one of my favourite soundtracks just because Daft Punk are excellent in my opinion.

Don’t worry, next week we are going to switch genres to something different. I know the last few have been quite similar.

This is probably the only self-promotion you will see from me really in this newsletter, but this week I released a Youtube video.

I won’t give too much away in terms of spoilers but essentially I am unable to get anything better than around 10mbps download in my area, despite my location. So I invested in Starlink, the satellite based internet service from Elon Musk.

Many times when I try to explain to people about my poor internet, they end up ‘mansplaining’ to me about my other options as if I haven’t done my research, so I decided to do a short video explaining why I made this decision. This is my last resort and will be a worthwhile investment as I settle into life as a purely remote worker.

I am still on the same books as last week at the moment, it’s hard to read a book in a week, let alone two, so I may well move to monthly updates, what do you think?

However, this week, I have found myself with a bit more time to read Troubled Blood and it has been very enjoyable. I have found myself wanting to pick it back up and read so I call that a success!

I am in fact also having a book discussion with three lovely colleagues tomorrow, around the Intro and Chapter 1 of Atomic Habits so that will be exciting! I have never really been part of an official book club/discussion before.

As the new month begins, I have decided to try switching up my productivity technique. Back in Issue 2, I mentioned using Pomodoro, however I haven’t found myself able to consistently stick to this, so maybe it isn’t the right technique for my ADHD. In time, I may find that there is no magic cure but I will keep trying.

This month I am going to try time blocking. This is the idea of giving every hour in your calendar a job. You can have chunks of less or more than an hour, but the idea is you always have something planned. You assign a task to that block and focus on only that task during that time.

For example, I could set a block of 1hr to write. I may find I cannot just write for 1hr, my mind gets too distracted but maybe knowing other jobs will get done in another block will allow me to focus more. Watch out for an update next week on how it’s going!

I was told off in jest last week by a good friend, for not making this section about me so I will try and find more reasons to be proud each week so I can always mention something I achieved :)

This week’s highlight I would say is driving. Sounds odd potentially I know, but it’s true! I have had a licence for many years now, however I have never owned a car. My proximity to transport options where I live has meant that owning a car is just more expensive than it’s worth. It is only a few times a year that I wish I had one when going somewhere like Ikea, or visiting friends and family further away.

I last drove on a visit to my parent’s house a few years ago, when I brought one of my best friends with me and my mum kindly lent me her car for the week so we had a bit of freedom to see and do things around the area.

However this week I needed to rent a van to help a friend move house. I hired a small van as I knew that would more than likely suffice. However, when I got to the rental company to collect the van, they informed me that in fact they only had the next size up available. This made our lives much easier in terms of space, but meant that not only was I driving for the first time in a couple of years, I had a vehicle much larger than I had ever driven.

I can report though that everything went swimmingly. All Worldly possessions were moved safely and the van was returned without a scratch. They say driving is like riding a bike but it still comes with risk when rusty, especially when it’s not even a ‘normal’ size car.