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How to Read Books When You Have ADHD
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bluedays 6y agoThat was pretty disappointing. I was hoping for more substance. Seems rather than giving strategies on how to read books with ADHD the article devolved into telling people with ADHD to embrace that they never finish any books.
- ajdlinux 6y agoI'm also not sure what "one thing I am going to take action on" means when the current book I'm reading is a history of Australian-East Timorese foreign relations. In general it sounds like a tactic for reading self-help or spirituality books and not much else?
- JimBlackwood 6y agoI also don’t see how that thought will help. I don’t have the attention to focus on a book, I’ll surely forget my thought about what I’m going to take action on.
- EdwardDiego 6y agoYou could perhaps lobby Australia to cut the Timorese some goddamn slack on the oil?
- ajdlinux 6y agoIndeed, or at least lobby my government to cut the oil spying whistleblowers, including the author of the said book, a bit of slack... alas these things might be a bit out of place alongside the "get more exercise" and "change my morning routine" items on the One Thing List.
- gnicholas 6y agoAgreed. It wasn't so much 'how to read books' as 'how to get something out of books (without actually reading most of them)'. For people who want to actually get through books, I'd recommend this tool [1], which I created several years back. It has become fairly popular in the ADHD world and is recommended at top universities (Stanford/Yale/Dartmouth) to students with ADHD and dyslexia. It works with Kindle books as well as many websites. The Chrome extension comes with a 2-week free pass and I'm happy to send a month-long pass to any HNers out there who can benefit from it. 1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifjafammaookpiajfbedmacfldaiamgg?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...
- bluedays 6y agoThat's pretty cool, though I think I would be capable of creating a userscript that can apply gradient text.
- gnicholas 6y agoYeah, the most seamless way is when it's integrated into a browser itself. The new Insight Browser (YC W19) offers this functionality in a pretty slick way (and it's totally free). [1] We also have a JS widget that can be embedded into a website, like The Program has done for their transcripts. [2] 1: https://www.insightbrowser.com https://www.insightbrowser.com 2: https://programaudioseries.com/0-the-program-comes-for-us-all/ https://programaudioseries.com/0-the-program-comes-for-us-al...
- tpaulin 6y agoThis looks like a neat idea! A couple of questions if you don't mind: 1. Does the pass apply to the Firefox version too? 2. When you say "It works with Kindle books..." what do you mean? On desktop only? (My) Kindle doesn't have colour.
- gnicholas 6y agoYes for Firefox and yes via the kindle cloud reader (on desktop or our iPad app).
- reflexe 6y agoHaven't managed to finish a paragraph in this book-long article. Looks like I will never know how to read books after all.
- dejj 6y ago> Your mind doesn’t work in a linear, methodical way. When I’m not sure if interested, I read texts like a prefix stream in JPEG-decoding: look only at the first sentence in a paragraph. If it hooks me, I’ll read the next. Otherwise skip to next paragraph. It is yet faster than reading every noun as in regular cursory reading.
- dcolkitt 6y agoWhen it comes to long, difficult slogs, I prefer audiobooks. Mostly consumed when exercising outside in nature. Imagine reading Moby Dick, and the author goes into a long boring diatribe about 19th century cetology. If you're sitting at home reading a physical book, pushing through is a long, difficult process that requires continuous effortful willpower. But when you're running a 10km, at worst you just zone out util the chapter's done. It's not like you have anything else to do. Sure, it's not optimal in terms of reading retention, but it's better than giving up completely because you can't force yourself to turn the pages.
- h0l0cube 6y agoThis seems like better advice. For fiction, or even some non-fiction texts like philosophical treatises, I find I can amble through an audiobook by putting it on while I fall asleep, and then back-tracking a little each night. The advice in the article pertains specifically to non-fiction, didactic literature, and hints that most books of this nature really are full of fluff. For those there's a few take-aways that you could have gotten from a concise article, instead of getting stuck in someone's ramblings.
- xkeysc0re 6y agoExcuse me but Melville's asides are anything but boring!
- RupertEisenhart 6y agoYeah, I was amazed by good moby dick was. It's rare that a famous book so fully lives up to the expectations that society has set for it.
- weinzierl 6y agoMoby Dick was one of the first "real" books I touched as child. I got it from the school library over the summer vacations. I have to admit that I too found the asides boring and only managed to get about halfway through until the end of the vacations. At the beginning of the new school year I had to return it but had the intent to borrow it again to finish it. I never did and this must be the longest open point on my personal to do list. I wonder if - after so much time has passed - I still would find the asides boring...
- joshka 6y agoTL;DR: you have many unread books, here's 4 more to add to the unread pile. Don't read all your books, accept that you'll fail and redefine success.
- Gene_Parmesan 6y agoNot sure if this comment was meant in earnest or not, but to be quite honest, "accept that you will sometimes fail" and "redefine what success means" were actually two very important steps in my journey to accept what my limitations were. I didn't get diagnosed until 28, meaning I had had a fairly long life of not succeeding at things, but also not realizing that I flat out was unable to succeed at them. So having to readjust my self-image to include this idea of a disability was quite challenging. If you don't accept that you are going to fail at certain things or at certain times, then your failures will feel like your fault -- if only you had tried harder, if only you had worked more. By accepting that you have real limitations and will sometimes fail, each new failure doesn't have such a strong sting anymore. Instead, you are able to recognize it isn't your fault; you can pass the blame to your disorder, so to speak. Then, redefining what success means for you allows you to celebrate victories again. Ten years ago I never would have considered things like "I haven't been late to a meeting in two weeks" as a success to be celebrated, but now I do, so I'm able to extract some sort of satisfaction out of life with this janky brain instead of a never-ending series of disappointments.
- tgaj 6y agoI can't agree more. Too many people with ADHD are unhappy because they compare to normal people. You can't. ADHD is like not having an arm or leg. You never will be able to do some things and with others you will need a lot of special training. And that's fine. The challenge is to find what is worth to fight for. And many things are not. Be mindful.
- joshka 6y ago>Not sure if this comment was meant in earnest or not Somewhat satirical with a hint of truth - the article purports to solve the problem of ADHD reading stacks. It did so in a long windy form going all over the place which is generally the opposite of it's own advice. My summary fixes that by applying the article's premise to itself. I generally have strong agreement with the article. This is as someone that has a significant amount of partially read kindle titles on the go right now and who recently managed to get his browser open tab count down to single digits for the first time in years.
- _blu 6y agoi just pop some ritalin and explore that book with clarity and purpose. Just make sure you are reading it when it kicks in.
- ncfausti 6y agoHow to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler is a great resource.
- ycombinete 6y agoSeems like a catch-22
- weavie 6y agoThis book is sitting partially read on my bookshelf along with many others.
- nevster 6y agoAside: I've seen a lot of Viola's but I think this is the first time I've seen Volia!
- filmgirlcw 6y agoI find this blog post fairly unhelpful, insofar as not only are not all ADHD people alike, the “tips” here seemed thin at best. I’m an avid reader and in spite of my ADHD, I manage to read hundreds of pages a week (if not a day), between books, stuff online, and periodicals. My tips: Embrace reading multiple things at once. I’m often in the middle of three or four different books at once. Some I’ll finish immediately and some I’ll let sit for ages. When returning to a book or long magazine article or something you haven’t finished, don’t be afraid to go back a bit to refresh yourself. I sometimes take notes in my Kindle app to remind myself where I left off. I have an eidetic/photographic memory (yes, yes , I’m aware claims of both are disputed but I’ve been tested many times over the years and have a better than average memory and the ability to recall where things were on a page/details about what I read long after I read it — provided I found the subject matter interesting), so I can often recall where I was once I get my context again, but sometimes it’s helpful to have a note about the context attached to where I left off. I tend to try to read fiction relatively quickly, either consuming it all at once or over a few successive days. When I’m reading fiction, I try to keep myself to one fiction book at a tile. Whereas with non-fiction, I can often juggle multiple books at once and even leave non-fiction books for months before I finish them. Audiobooks are amazing. I can read significantly faster than an audiobook, but it requires a lot more concentration. I can’t listen to audiobooks while doing another focus-heavy task (like writing or coding), but I can play a game or build a keyboard or do something else with my hands while listening to an audiobook. That can really help me focus because half my brain is doing something else “mindless” and I can really get sucked into the book. On that same note, Audm, a service that does professional voice readers for newspaper and magazine content (from sources like The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Atlantic), is probably my favorite subscription. I subscribe to many of the news sources Audm covers, but I find myself much more able to consume the content aurally. Back in beforetimes, Audm replaced podcasts on my daily commute to work. I also find having a dedicated reading device like a Kindle or an Onyx Boox device really nice because it gives me one less way to get distracted by a notification on my phone. I used to frequently send Instapaper articles to my Kindle and I don’t do that anymore, but I do read nearly every book I can on either my Kindle or my larger Onyx Boox Note Air (it’s good for technical papers or legal documents), because it helps me focus more. Don’t feel compelled to finish. If something isn’t clicking, go to something else. You can come back to it or just say “fuck it.” Reading should be for pleasure, above all. Yes, there are sometimes things we need to read for our jobs, but this whole notion of adults trying to feel compelled to read on a schedule like in high school or college is stupid. Read for pleasure. If something isn’t pleasurable, stop.
- ahthat 6y agoThis is actually similar to how I've been reading a lot of books over the past few years. As a practical realist, I realized that, when it comes to reading, if I have a clear objective in mind, as long as I feel I have accomplished that objective then I have no use to continue my involvement with the work. Much of my reading of literature has amounted to merely becoming somewhat familiar with the work such that I am able to understand what others are talking about when they refer to it, and can engage somewhat intelligently with them about that work. This does not require actually reading the entire work in many cases. This for me is the true value of much literature as it applies to me personally. Of course, on a basic level this is perhaps not quite as rewarding as reading a book cover to cover and becoming intimately acquainted with all the characters, stories, facts, figures, and/or arguments inside. But in my approach to a life filled with an absolute abundance of ideas from so many brilliant minds - indeed, there are most likely more men and women of utter genius alive today than have existed in the whole of antecedent human history - I decided that it would be a shame not to become acquainted with as many perspectives and ideas as possible. Sure, I sacrifice the rewards that come with truly coming to understand some objects in depth, but my hope has been that in doing so I have assumed some breadth in the understanding of the world, its affairs, and a great many of its inhabitants' ideas.
- fishbacon 6y agoStarting with a motivation can be great especially if it lights my butt on fire. This one sort of demotivated me by telling me exactly what it looks like when I fail. Then it told me to continue doing that but write it down when I do, creating a reference of failing attempts at reading a book. What a strange piece of advice.
- periheli0n 6y agoTotally agree. Midway through the post I thought she‘d recommend to read a in a nonlinear way. This has recently worked for me with science textbooks.
- fvv 6y agoWhile reading the article, at about half of the page, I got distracted thinking about useful comments that may be lie here thus stopped reading the article to read comments
- fvv 6y agoOk I forced myself to go back to finish reading, I found the content interesting, BUT why not apply the concept to the article too ? being directed to people that easily get distracted, why not intrigue the reader in the first paragraph ( with actual content ( the ONE thing concept, (badly summarized : learn something useful and feel free to get distracted or go away)) not a description of a common behaviour ) ..than go deeper explaining the concept instead of buring it deep in the page ?
- she11c0de 6y agoI don't have ADHD but often find it hard to finish books too. I honestly think that there's a lot of books that are simply not worth reading. Reading a book is quite a commitment (may take up to a month for me). I often lose interest once I realize that whole book is a single idea that could be summed up in a blog post but stretched to fit 300 pages.
- sillysaurusx 6y agoThat's actually the basis of... I forget the name... There's a new-ish product doing the rounds on YouTube sponsorships. Basically, they distill every book into its core ideas, and present them as a 15-minute chunk. I like the idea, not because I dislike reading, but because it's handy to have an "idea map" of a book. The ToC is ostensibly that, but it's hard to figure out what their points are from the titles alone. Wish I could remember what the company was called, but whatever. Haven't used them myself, but it struck me as a neat concept.
- she11c0de 6y agoI think you mean https://www.blinkist.com/ https://www.blinkist.com/. I used it for a year, it's great for those low-density books. But really I'd like to read books, only the ones that are really interesting and valuable. My problem is that I don't want to spend money on ones that I then find are not worth the time. Perhaps someone can recommend a good subscription service with decent selection? How does scribd selection compare to amazon?
- jacobolus 6y agoThe local public library has excellent pricing.
- lathiat 6y agoSounds like Blinkist is the service for you :)
- jarenmf 6y agoExactly. Most books are bloated. No one would publish a 20 pages book, if something is going on a book format it needs to hit a certain size.
- newman8r 6y agoI find that it's a habit you can build. If you read for 20 minutes a day, and keep it up for a few weeks, that might be all you need to keep the habit going for the rest of the year. For some personality types, it's easy to get intensely interested in reading something, but it can be hard to keep up that intensity. I built a web app for making goal boards, and it's perfect for getting yourself to read a little bit every day https://javaboards.com https://javaboards.com
- qart 6y agoFor the benefit of people like me, I'm quoting the part of the article that should have been at the top. > 1. Create a Word or Google document to track your books if spreadsheets fill you with fear. > 2. You don’t need to read the whole book. Write down your ONE thing from the part of the book you did read. > 3. Review the document weekly, to keep the ideas fresh in your mind. > 4. If you find that you stopped implementing your ONE thing, go back to the book and either continue reading where you had left off or reread the part that you already read. I'll go read the entire article some other time.
- gcatalfamo 6y agoThank you so much. They make articles for people with ADHD then make it unreadable for them.
- arkitaip 6y agoArticles on procrastination have a similar problem and I would tell you exactly what that problem was but I never finish reading the articles...
- timw4mail 6y agoIs this recursive irony?
- nicbou 6y agoI believe that those articles are unreadable for everyone. They are written for search engines. I built a whole business around giving straightforward answers. I remove superfluous text, and I use formatting to make my content easier to skim. There's no clickbait, no cookie notice, no newsletter prompt, no author bio and no sidebar content. There's just you and the answer you came for, and it loads in under 500 milliseconds. This is working so well that it makes me wonder why other websites go out of their way to hide their answers. When I have simple gardening questions ("how much sun does [plant] need?", I have to click 3-4 results and scroll a few pages to get the answer. Even with a finely tuned ad blocker, the experience is infuriating.
- da4c30ff 6y agoI don't have an ADHD diagnosis but clearly have some of the typical symptoms. My brain is constantly in an obsessive state, meaning that I get an obsession about something and my brain just focuses on that single topic for some variable amount of time (days, weeks, months) until I get a new obsession. I'm quite unable to think (or do) anything else during that time. Last November I experienced something that I have not experienced before. My mind was at peace. I had no obsession for at least two weeks. It felt amazing, I was so content. I started to read Wizard of Earthsea, which I finished few days later. Then I read Tombs of Atuan in a few days as well. I read The Farthest Shore about halfway before my brain rebooted into its usual obsessive state. This was the most I'd read in almost 10 years! I wish I could experience that peace of mind once again.
- ZeroGravitas 6y agoMy own tips: * Borrow books from a library to put an artificial time limit on your reading * Use a bullet journal or similar note taking system to keep a list of things you want to read, so that something on the list will grab your interest * Use an e-ink device, not so much for the display, but because it'll be less likely to have other distractions and more likely to let you jump right back into where you were in a book quickly.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoI've been diagnosed as having ADHD, but am able to lay in bed reading books all day long (sometimes I need to put the book down and walk around thinking about what I've read but often I can read straight through), so I wonder - is my diagnosis wrong or is this common. Obviously also able to program all day without rest as long as the task is interesting enough. on edit: obviously I was able to spend all day reading books back when I was single.
- EdwardDiego 6y agoNo, ADHD differs from person to person. Can you read a book that's necessary, but dull? Your comment about "as long as the task is interesting enough" is why I ask. I found the medication made a big difference for me in doing the boring, but needful.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago>Can you read a book that's necessary, but dull? hmm, probably not. I would have to take lots of breaks. probably end up reconsider whatever had taken me to that point in my life I needed to read something dull.
- austincheney 6y agoThis article describes a problem or behavior that I don’t see with ADHD (note: I am raising an ADHD child). What I observe are these two problems: 1. Poor reading comprehension. 2. Disqualified completion. Disqualified completion means the inability to differentiate poor completion rates (actually completing the material) from a loss of interest resulting in poor completion thereby believing the material is completely read when either it was never read or is entirely lost from memory. The behaviors are interesting to observe because the child with ADHD appears to read with ease even if there is nothing to show for it, as in no memory of the material. I have raised children with dyslexia who struggle to read anything but know exactly what they have read, an opposite behavior. Notes and hints do not appear to be a solution for the ADHD related behaviors. What we are trying to work on is persistence such that an uninteresting focus becomes excruciatingly exhausting very quickly. We try to remove talking, excuses, bullshitting, and unrelated movements from the event of focus to practice increasing focus duration. Eventually we want to get to a spot where the child can self identify when focus is lost so that they can stop the focused activity at hand, take a quick break, and then resume the activity. We aren’t there yet. The biggest challenge is eliminating excuses and justifications that prioritize the distractions over the activity of focus. In a person without ADHD these sorts of qualifiers would come across as deceit or lies, but for a person with ADHD these behaviors appear to be a self regulator for emotional continuity that occurs arrhythmic to the focus by which emotions are generated.
- jacobolus 6y agoHow much time have you spent reading aloud to your kid? Does the kid have the same trouble following material heard read aloud that they have for material they are reading themselves? * * * Anecdotally the times in the past when I would forget material I was reading came from either being profoundly sleep deprived (e.g. pulling an all-nighter in college) or mentally highly engaged with some other idea/problem and therefore extremely distracted while trying to read. More recently (I have a 4-year-old) I have been doing lots of reading of kids books, and have developed the new ability to read a familiar (or unfamiliar but simple) picture book aloud including funny voices for all of the characters etc. from start to finish, while working on an unrelated problem in my head, and end up with no memory of what I read in the picture book or what happened. Reading picture books is apparently (sometimes) now separate enough from my conscious attention that the effect is almost like short-term memory loss.
- mtbkvc 6y agothis article is way to long for people with adhd
- yigitcakar 6y agoThe article lacked substance but I am glad that we are talking about reading with ADHD here. I don't feel guilty about not finishing books because most of the times if I force myself to finish a book that I don't find interesting enough, I don't remember the information in the book anyway. Over time I have learned to trust my brain, and figured that it will remember the important parts I read. If the book bores me then probably there is nothing interesting in it for me. Most of my life I read books without taking notes, and I would go through them thinking that I understand everything, but in the end I would miss deeper connections and wouldn't connect them to the information I already possess. Now, I read non-fiction books with taking notes and taking notes makes me stop and think about what I am reading and enables me to make deeper connections with what I already know and improves retaining. Also shifting from reading to note taking and going back helps my ADD brain. I read a couple books at a time, and when I get bored of one, I shift to another one that interests me. I choose my books around one topic, and this topical similarity makes my ADHD a boon because this way I can make those books talk to each other and improve my understanding of the subject. I used to take all my notes longhand before, but now I type really fast and writing longhand feels antiquated now. I also love to be able to search my notes and use my notes as a second-brain. I read both from kindle and paper-books. The change from kindle to paper also helps my brain. The variety increases my concentration. When I am reading fiction, I try to visualize everything I read because if I stop visualizing, it turns into eye training, I think other things, or just read and don't remember anything. If I figure out I am eye training instead of reading, I stop reading the book and come back later. I hope this helps.
- teekert 6y agoI don't have the diagnosis but certainly recognize add elements in how I navigate the world. My conclusion was that there are actually quite a lot of books that just start out great and objectively become worse as the page count goes up (like The subtle art of not giving a F. You really start feeling "yeah, ok, I get it." There are also books that are the other way around (like Atlas shrugged) where you struggle through the first half and then almost read the second half in one go.
- 6y ago
- dr_dshiv 6y agoStep 1: find your obsession. Recently, it's been the concept of harmony in philosophy. Step 2: download original source books on LibGen. E.g., complete works of Kant. Step 3: keyword search to find relevant passages. I read so many books now. Let's go ride bikes!
- vmception 6y agowww.typelit.io
- brailsafe 6y agoI don't think things need to be this complicated. I have a few books that I haven't read, many that I have, and some that are on their way. If a fiction book hooks me, I'll probably read it cover-to-cover and move on. If it doesn't, it's probably just not that good, and can go away or be finished when I have nothing more interesting to do. If it's non-fiction and non-reference, I tend to just work my way through them slowly, and go to a coffee shop with only the book to get a chapter done at a time. This is the case with Zen Motorcycle; I like it, but not so much that it needs to be read right now, so I'm slowly getting through it. The God Delusion took me about a year, while The Greatest Show on Earth took me 2 weeks or so, and The Selfish Gene took a few months probably. I retain some of the ideas, and don't expect much more, but if I want to, I'd just take notes. With reference books that I hope to come away with something useful from, I don't even bother anymore unless I'm prepared to act on it with an implementation or something. I read Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja cover-to-cover, and retained a bit, but revisiting it I'd just do the code along with it. Likewise, I read a tiny book on the history of Greenland, and didn't take notes and didn't hope to get more than a high level amount of retained information, because it's not important to anything I do, and that would be an unreasonable expectation. If however I did want to retain the data on how much fish was traded between 1750 and 1850, I'd just write it down and write an essay on it. I think what I've decided is that the value from books is an accumulation of some ideas from all the books you read, and you should just set your expectations accordingly. My bet is that people who listen to audiobooks while working on a treadmill desk are just fooling themselves into thinking they've lived a sufficiently productive life, when really you should really read on your own accord, and go to the gym; getting to the end of a book isn't remotely as important as getting the value you set out to get from the text. TL:DR; "I finished x books this month" is worthless, determine the value a book has before or during your reading of it, and adjust accordingly.
- Riesling 6y agoIronically I could not finish this article. Here is the one thing, that works for me, if I must read a text: While reading I use a Text-To-Speech-Engine to read out the text at the same time. TTS-reading speed should be at least 1.5x. It should not be too easy to keep up. I have no explanation why this works, but it does. Maybe someone else with ADHD finds it useful.
- StevenWaterman 6y agoI find this helpful. It satisfies my need to be doing 2 things at once, like turning the subtitles on when watching TV/movies
- pharke 6y agoYou may also want to try reading with earplugs in or over ear hearing protection if you find plugs uncomfortable. I didn't realize how distracting normal background noise is until it wasn't there.
- atemerev 6y agoI have heavy ADHD. My strategy is the same as some other people in the tread have: skip the parts I find uninteresting without any guilt about it (and, if a book really interesting and entertaining, I do not need to worry about finishing it — I need to worry about other things I can't go back to right now).
- RaceWon 6y agoPictograph instructions: that's the real SOB of ADHD. Reading novels is not a chore for me, depending. I typically find an author I like and then read the the hell out of his writing. Stephen King short stories are a pretty good place to start imo if you want to get into reading (again), though I started with Vonnegut myself. I am a famous re-reader of books btw. Its like slipping into a comfortable "another world" for me. Pure escape. The benefits of ADHD far outweigh any of the negatives for me. I wouldn't trade the Hyperfocus I possess when I drive and/or race with being able to tell my right from left (without consciously thinking which hand I write with) or being able to find my way across towns without navi For ANY amount of money. I did try ADHD meds for a few weeks once--but it wasn't for me. I am who and what I am.
- tgaj 6y agoI am not sure it problems with left-right or navigation are connected with ADHD. I have ADHD and never had problems like these. But I'm more ADD without Hyperactivity and some symptoms are different.
- JackMorgan 6y agoI believe ADHD people are fully capable of training their minds to become extremely productive. Granted, most people don't want to train anything, much less their minds, so it doesn't manifest much in the wild. But in those that do, it's like a superpower. I spent several years training my hyperfocus to the point where, barring externalities like lack of sleep or food, I can engage it at will. For challenging or creative tasks, it's like a superpower. I can go at levels far past most people's ability to focus. My entire mind will be engaged and thriving at full blast. Presentations, writing, designing, and creating I can do as easily as breathing. There are real downsides, but I wouldn't trade them for anything.
- biased_coin 6y agoPlease share your techniques to train your hyperfocus. I am currently willing to try anything (except drugs) to help my attention. Pomodoro and meditation have helped me enormously in the past. But now, with kids at home, everything has taken a beating.
- faeriechangling 6y agoGet on a bus, go somewhere far away, don't being your phone. I will 100% guarantee you will read a bunch. Physically flee from distractions.
- neilshevlin 6y agoThere have been only a few things I have done with frequency in my life. Playing musical instruments in one of them. I have never been deliberate in practice. I have never sat down and made a schedule to practice playing the guitar or piano. But having a guitar always in visible line of sight has meant that I've practiced consistently everyday for years at a time so long as I have a guitar in the room. Books don't have the ease of re-use. There's too much friction involved with a book. So I read whatever I please and give up frequently. Reducing this friction, in every domain, but especially in the sciences would have big impacts on my contributions to the field. If you could visualise and make learning slippery, ADHD people would likely perform much better. But the diligence is still needed. My musical ability has benefited enormously from knowing what I'm playing and recording the things I do play. The same thing can apply with learning. Technology can really shine at doing all of the boring stuff that your irregularly dopamine-ized brain refuses to do. We just havent gotten around to doing it. But it is necessary if you want to do great work.
- sudosteph 6y agoI agree 100% on the "line of sight" strategy being a really effective for developing music skills. I do the exact same myself. But I actually have had a bit of success with doing the same with books on a well-curated bookshelf in close proximity. It definitely works best for reference books, but almost anything that's a primary source works great for this. I often mark these books up with notes in margins, underlines, sometimes even sticky notes. If I have a lot to think about, I'll write that in a leuchterm notebook I keep on the same shelf, and just put the notebook page number in the book margins so I can go back later. When I go back to them - I'm not just able to build of of the original work, I'm able to build off of my own previous thoughts and easily recall my own situations where this applied. It's honestly really satisfying. Some examples of books I keep going back to many times over and still find valuable as someone with ADHD: - "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu - Any time I'm on any kind of competitive game kick or just thinking about competing in general, I always find something applicable to my situation. It's super short too. - Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" - it's massive and not something I could ever read straight through - but it's so dense with interesting applications of a super simple concept (and great images of those applications), I can jump between the chapters and get something interesting to chew on every time. - "The Federalist Papers", and also "The anti-federalist papers": They're great from a "oh, so this is why America is set up like this" perspective, and also from a "Let's see how close or off these guys were from predicting the future on specific topics! (ie, economic and social predictions mostly). I also like that the English used is not actually terribly hard to understand, despite being older. - "Learn to Read New Testament Greek" - Really great smaller intro book to Koine greek with good exercises inline. Greek is one of those languages that shows up in so many places, that it's really satisfying to see it in historical perspective and then learn to recognize it elsewhere. This book also scratches some of my personal interests around the history of early christianity. I also do the same process for some religious texts (New Testament and Nag Hammadi Scriptures). Just as you said, things that require pure diligence don't usually work out for people with ADHD, but some books out there are straight up great for dopamine if you can find them. I think the core tings to look for are: 1. Super information dense yet still good for jumping around and digesting small pieces. You shouldn't have to re-learn the core premise every time. 2. Should feel different and novel when you come back to them after time away. Some of the greatest writers, especially philosopher-types, express ideas in an intentionally ambiguous way. They ensure that a part of their intended meaning is accessible to anybody on first read - but the more complete interpretation requires some degree of context and re-reading. A reader's interpretations of texts like that change and grow based on their own life experiences, and as a result it often feels like you are finding new things each time.
- adrusi 6y agoMy trick: get the audiobook version, and listen while doing something else, which prevents my mind from wandering too far from the text. Ideally not something I was going to do anyway, but something that I'm only doing to occupy myself while I listen. I find that driving or cleaning are OK, but the problem is that they're both often too brief to really get into the book, and that they both occasionally demand cognition, and during those times I lose track of what's going on in the book. I've found that the ideal accompaniments to audiobook listening are taking a walk and playing Nuclear Throne, which is the only video game that I've both found to be endlessly engaging, and requires absolutely no cognition. It's $12, runs on windows/mac/linux, has DRM-free versions available, and would probably perform adequately on your toaster. If anyone knows of other games that work in this niche, please share. As much as I love occupying my hands with Nuclear Throne, I wouldn't mind mixing things up.
- diqwndwqiond 6y agoMy solution: I keep a bunch of books from all topic( kubernets, python, ML, Design, Investing, HTTP, Cooking) and since my interests fluctuate(one day I like investing the other programming etc) then if today I'm interested in investing, then I'll read a investing book, mark some parts of it to be made into flashcards, mark the boring parts with another color(so I can read later) and then(another day) I make de flashcards and read the boring parts. I have also noticed that I get 'sick' of a book after reading for some time, then I need to either stop reading or go to read something new. This is called incremental reading and has significantly increase the amount I read. https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Incremental_reading https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Incremental_reading
- nicolas_t 6y agoI have the opposite problem. My problem with ADHD is that if I start a novel and the novel is decent, I will not stop reading until I finish the book or series of book. No matter what work I need to do, I'll even forget to eat and will not go to sleep until I'm either finished or I'm so tired that I need reread the same sentence multiple times before I understand it. It's great in that I've read a lot of books, but it's also been a source of problems more than once when I blew things off because I have a book to finish. With non-fiction, it depends, if the subject interests me, I can become equally focused, if it doesn't, there's very little chances that I will finish it. But I also have weird interests, once I became obsessed with finding the best health insurance plan and read all the 100 of pages of terms and conditions of the different plans in a day (very dry material). I know that now that I'm no longer in the mood to do that, I would never be able to read a single page.
- carterschonwald 6y agoI definitely have that completionism of a good novel issue myself.
- interleave 6y agoI very much agree and share a similar experience. Struggling with ADHD is not a matter of not being able to focus. Part of the issue is directing and keeping attention on non-pleasant tasks that are stacked up against a brain chronically low on dopamine and norepinephrine transmission. As someone with diagnosed and treated ADHD, these articles are misleading. In my opinion it's dangerous to claim "Do this ONE behavioural thing and your ADHD goes away (or gets easier.)" After struggling with ADHD for 25+ years I can tell you: These life-hacks don't work. Please, consult with a medical professional instead. It'll save you years of agony and disappointment. Again, if you have – or suspect – ADHD, work with a psychiatrist to discuss diagnosis and treatment options. Period. Quoting Dr. Russell Barkeley "ADHD is one, if not the best-understood psychiatric conditions. We understand it for several decades now - it's also called the diabetes of psychiatry because there's treatment"[^1]. So, we know what it is and have known how to treat it. It's a neuro-genetic disease, and we have had working medications for – I think – 50 years including the obvious methylphenidate and dexamphetamines. After reading the article and so many like it, I feel frustrated because I think they're predatory. They're targeting neuro-divergent people like myself. And boy, did I fall into those traps over and over again until I enrolled in actual medical treatment. I'll assume that Jacqueline writes and published this in good faith to a point. My smell-test says otherwise - but please correct me if I'm wrong: The article smells like a classic "authority" post that's designed to generate leads for her mailing-list via the "free"-for-email ebook "YOUR ADHD STRENGTHS" just below. Once singed up I imagine I'll... [conjecture!] get an email drip campaign for a week providing "value" to join her community to eventually be offered an intro offer for $37 with an upsell for $197 etc. [^1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo
- F5-Chi90 6y agoI have distressed because I often can't finish reading books, but this opinion changed my mind. I thought of my personality, my interest shifting to various things as my shortcoming, but I will apply the concept of "One Thing" to my life and try to gather information what is useful to me from my daily life.
- namelosw 6y agoAs an ADHD I just skim through this I see the write down 'The One Thing' part I'm not sure if it will work well, but most of these rituals don't work for me usually. But what did really work for me: 1. Read the book as soon as I just found it and was interested in it. If it is short I would finish it directly. If it is long I'll eventually fail halfway and it's okay. 2. Top-down reading. Skim through books quickly, multiple rounds, each round goes deeper. In this way, I can stop anytime and still get some insights, instead of stuck in chapter 2 failed and time wasted. I can also always come back later. 3. No additional overheads, no notes, no plan, no to-do lists, or write down 'The One Things'. Try to use the brain instead of tools, tools usually give me leading I hate everything and gave up earlier. Also, practice this way you'll also find brains are better than people perceive them - people used to recite phone numbers. 4. Read when I feel like, at least don't read the same book when I started to struggle - try switch to another book, or else just go out and do anything you want. In essence: 1) read when you feel like 2) read incrementally so you can stop anytime 3) avoid negative feedback loop
- nicbou 6y agoI really dislike this sort of blog. Every article feels like it was written for their affiliates and for search engines, and rarely for the readers. It's certainly not written for people with ADHD. Here's the only useful paragraph in the article: > This idea came from Megan, a guest on Hal Elrod’s podcast. Megan explained she keeps track of all the books she reads in a spreadsheet. Each time she finishes a book she adds it to her spreadsheet, along with the ONE thing she is going to implement. With each new entry she reviews the list. If she isn’t implementing her ONE thing, she goes back and rereads the book. Perhaps we read different kinds of books, but I don't see the benefit of this. I read for pleasure, without taking notes or setting objectives. I feel like those would interrupt rather than encourage reading. Good books tend to stay with you either way. I found that a good book in a good environment is all I really need to read more. It takes 5-10 minutes before my thoughts stop buzzing around and I can focus, but once I'm in that zone, I'm good for a while.
- negrecio 6y ago> Here's the only useful paragraph in the article Looks like you found the ONE thing in this article. (jk) I do agree with you. I read for pleasure and to satisfy curiosity. it's hard (or pointless) to try to find one thing to implement from curiousity driven exploring.
- toper-centage 6y agoThat's not even a joke. I couldn't stand reading the article, specially this late in the day. This article is terrible for reduced attention states.
- toxik 6y agoIt reads like it was generated by GPT3 or something. Words without meaning, entire paragraphs that don't really convey information.
- kjleitz 6y agoI agree. It reads like those GPT-3-generated articles from a while back that were spread on HN as an experiment[1]. They also tended to be (IIRC) self-help style blog posts, and we're about as substantive as this one. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt3-hacker-news-ai-blog https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt...
- petee 6y agoWith ADHD readers the focus, I found it funny that it was so long, I had to put the article itself aside to finish later haha (it's not that long) Personally, I just use audio books now but still collect paper in hopes some day I'll find the time to sit still
- JoeCianflone 6y agoNo. ADHD does not work this way for me, or people like me who are inattentive . This article is the equivalent of the time my primary care physician said, “just use a calendar”. You want me to maintain a set of documents? Buddy, without meds I can’t remember to brush my fucking teeth. I’m not exaggerating. ADHD is a spectrum, articles like this paint everyone with the same brush, which furthers many people to feel like complete failures.
- kerbobotat 6y agoExactly right, and also, thank you for reminding me I forgot to brush my teeth.
- Twinklebreeze 6y agoI can relate to this. Without medication I don't have any motivation to do ANYTHING, and that quickly leads to depression. My doctor recommended that I don't medicate on weekends, but what about my personal life? I have things I need to get done at home. My wife likes to with me and my executive functions, too.
- nemacol 6y agoI can relate. My compromise is to only take my morning dose on the weekends(most of the time). Do things and sort of wander off into the evening. The timing, dose, rhythm of your meds may differ, of course. Mine is not the extended release. For me, there is a big difference of how effective the meds are during the week because I have gone light over the weekends.
- aidenn0 6y agoAs an introverted ADHD person, my doctor recommended taking only the afternoon dose on weekends, as much adult social interaction is skewed later in the day on weekends. Only works on non-XR meds of course.
- SkyPuncher 6y agoMy guess is that recommendation is meant to combat building a tolerance.
- gazanther 6y agoCan somebody give us ADHDers the TLDR?
- joshka 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803342
- alexellisuk 6y agoIn general, I think that the “one thing” approach is how I read any kind of reference or self-help/business book. I rarely go cover to cover, but know people who do. I’m more likely to take something way 1-2 things and apply it, then move onto another book.
- jplr8922 6y agoI've been diagnosed with ADHD as an early adult, and oh boy do I hate this kind of article. They describe a human who not only have an attention deficit, but is also completly unable to cope with himself, objectives or life. Is it aimed for a teenager with low self esteem, or a functionning adult? Different books needs different levels of attention. An academic article needs several readings, while most articles (this one being a good example) are so crapy that you can decide after 3 paragraphs that the rest is very likely to be crap. Also we should alway remember that ADHD is a differential diagnostic, which means that you need to deal with all the other possible problems. The comorbidity rate for attention deficit makes one size fits all solutions near impossible. Do you have supportive relationships? Are you in a field which interests you? How is your self esteem and global mental health? Physical health?
- Twinklebreeze 6y agoThere is no quicker way to get me disinterested in a book than the words non-fiction. And there is no shot that I am reading a book if I'm not interested in it. I've noticed lately that when I hear or read someone talking about reading (it has come up in a few podcasts I listen to) it often comes up that they are talking about non-fiction. I've read one non-fiction book outside of school[1]. I read for escapism, or to explore other worlds in my imagination. Reading gives me something fantastical to think about. If I want something real to think about I use the internet. Books have never filled that role, and I've never really considered them for it. Am I missing out? Should I try and shake my prejudice against non-fiction? [1]: Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
- AntiImperialist 6y agoYawn. Help me read this first.
- qwerty456127 6y agoAudio books at 200% speed work the best for me.
- patrickwalton 6y agoMy solution is walking while I read. As a result, I end up walking for 4-6 hours at a time when I have a lot of reading to do. My biggest struggle is finding good e-readers that can handle all the reading formats I need, sync annotations, and have good connectivity. Still haven't found one. I'm not sure they exist yet. I also find myself saving things to read, because I struggle to read them while sitting, but never quite get around to reading everything.
- amasad 6y agoAny tips on how to read while walking?
- shoemakersteve 6y agoWear noise-cancelling headphones for maximum immersion and don't take your eyes off the page to avoid losing your place. As a bonus, take your walks in high-traffic areas so that everyone can see how smart and productive you are!
- motohagiography 6y agoNot ADHD, but system for reading a lot is: non-fiction: read chapters last to first / back to front. there is usually only one big idea and most of the book is the writer sounding it out themselves. fiction: treat it like a piece of music. If it's not as good as music, let it go. technical: start with a hypothesis and use the book as a reference tool for discovery. spiritual: the bible and others are the thinking person's magic 8-ball, so if you are searching, you are searching when you should probably be listening.
- amasad 6y agoMy trick: read books as if you’re doing research for your own writings. Sometimes I’ll actually publish an essay based on what I’m reading or just keep it for myself. I think it gets at the same thing this article is getting at: have an objective for reading. And btw, it works for other habits too. Having goals or milestones to strive for.
- every 6y agoI refer to myself as a fractal reader. I never start with the first page and never make it to the last. I open a book randomly and let my eye fall on something of interest. I may read for five minutes. I may read for five hours. I might pick it up again tomorrow. I might not touch it again for years (currently I'm "reading" an obscure tome on symbolism in 13th century French religious art that I know I haven't touched for decades). This obviously works better with non-fiction but, unburdened with plot and emotional investment, fiction can be interesting too...
- joshmn 6y agoLike others in this thread with ADHD, I find this post to be rather minimizing to those with ADHD. My problem isn't the actual reading of words or the investment of time. There are stimulants that work wonders for me and allow me to do it. It's the parsing of all the unnecessary information to get to the point of the material. Part of that might be because I'm on the spectrum and struggle with understanding context, though. Fun anecdote: 30% of people with ADHD/ADD are somewhere on the spectrum; 70% of those on the spectrum are ADHD/ADD.
- joshmn 6y agoFellow ADHD/ADD HNers: If you do read, what do you find to be your medium of choice?
- _aleph2c_ 6y agoIf I have to get through boring material, like technical manuals or things written in a tedious fashion, I use a text-to-voice synthesizer (balabolka on windows). I have hacked balabolka to use the Cortana voice, and over time I have increased its reading speed. Now 'she' sounds like a chipmunk on meth. If I need to get through a book, I buy the paper copy, then obtain a pdf and run it through the synthesizer... I read the book while the synth squirrel-speaks the words. If I find something interesting, I'll turn off the synth, then slow down and go over the good spot in slow motion, reading and link-think what I'm reading to other things I know.
- WhompingWindows 6y agoDoes anyone with ADHD want to comment about audiobooks? I have moved 90% of my pleasure reading to audiobooks, since I can get through SO much more material during chores, driving, etc. I do zone out from time to time, so I'll have to rewind a couple minutes, but it's nbd, I'm there for pleasure. I'll even re-listen to a book a month later if it was great, and I find my retention is pretty great if I listen to a book a few times.
- IceHegel 6y agoJust read a lot. Switch to listening if you get tired. That's the only way to get better. Honestly who cares if you finish a book. There's no magic in just turning the pages to the end of the book. The question to ask is: what new ideas did I acquire?
- effnorwood 6y agoWhat were we talking about?