6 ms·

My first job out of college was in an office with a cubicle space floor. After a few weeks, I'd often pace around in a small space outside the main entrance whe

My first job out of college was in an office with a cubicle space floor. After a few weeks, I'd often pace around in a small space outside the main entrance when I'm thinking about a problem at work. People would ask if I'm ok. After ~3 months, I couldn't do any work in that office, so I quit. I don't know if I have ADHD or not, but whenever I'm stuck at a coding problem or any sort of a creative problem (I do product design work as well), I have to walk. Otherwise I feel claustrophobic or about to have a panic attack. At the very least, I feel very agitated and have shortness of breath. I'm coming to accept this about myself and after reading this article, I'll embrace walking as a mode for thinking and clearing my head more.

romwell 5y ago
When I worked in an open floor layout, I used to set my working hours to 2PM-10PM, while most of my coworkers were on 9AM-5PM or so. This gave me an overlap of 3 hours to exchange information with my colleagues, and 5 hours to actually work when the office emptied out. If you are wondering whether you have ADHD or not, I made a website where symptoms are described from a first-person POV[1]. It's 200+ memes/comics I found on the Net, and a lot of text going in-depth about them. If you relate to a lot of these, treatment can improve your life. However, if you find that whatever makes your life easier - walking while thinking, fidgeting/doodling in meetings and phone calls, etc - just do it. It's your life. No need to play it on hard mode. [1] https://romankogan.net/adhd https://romankogan.net/adhd
- stepbeek 5y ago
  > No need to play it on hard mode. I love this sentiment. Thanks for this - I'm definitely going to use it going forward.
  - romwell 5y ago
    Thanks! That the thinking I had when I started taking medication. Do I need the meds? Irrelevant, and I already got through several decades of my life without them. Do they make life easier? Absolutely. Do I have a reason to keep making my life harder? Nope. Another thought: all the resources and energy (including mental efforts) that are solvable by other, easily implementable means (from medication to changing the way you do things that works for you) — all that time and energy is stolen from your loved ones and people you care about. Is the time spent doing Boring Difficult Task more valuable to you than time with your friends and family? Perhaps not. Then why choose to maximize the Boring Difficult time? Fidget, walk, exercise, drink water, take breaks, take Monday off, hire a maid, order takeout, get therapy, get the right meds — it's your life, and you want to spend the most of it on things that matter. And the time you spend trying hard to do things that are difficult for you is time and energy you can recover by taking the pain out of the process of doing them.
stepbeek 5y ago
Hope you've found a company that values output rather than presence. I run a small company but given the last 18 months have had to come to grips with the idea that I might have to return to normal employment. Losing my freedom to go for a walk - or go to the gym to work through a problem - is a huge fear of mine. I'm utterly convinced that long walks in the woods is my secret sauce and that without it I'll degrade as an engineer massively.
- romwell 5y ago
  I switched jobs after COVID hit, and I realized just how much of the presumed benefits of office culture didn't really exist. On paper, my previous employer only valued impact, and employees were able to choose their own schedule. But work from home was explicitly discouraged in very clear terms, and I have been pressured to increase the overlap in office time with my team "for my benefit". That coming from people responsible for my performance evaluation and making hiring decisions felt a lot like "...or else". It is also for my benefit, I guess, that I got a seat between my manager and my team lead during an office move (open-floor layout). I didn't mind, because they are both excellent people, but it feels a bit weird in retrospect. We are all remote until 2022 at the very least; I don't expect mandatory office presence 40 hr/week ever coming back. At some point, the CEOs will have to come to terms with office space being a sunk cost; and either downside, or provide more space for people who do come into the office. Having in-person discussions with many people at once is still a killer app for physical offices; latency issues inherently make videoconferencing clumsy. But two days a week should suffice for that, at best.

romwell 5y ago

When I worked in an open floor layout, I used to set my working hours to 2PM-10PM, while most of my coworkers were on 9AM-5PM or so. This gave me an overlap of 3 hours to exchange information with my colleagues, and 5 hours to actually work when the office emptied out. If you are wondering whether you have ADHD or not, I made a website where symptoms are described from a first-person POV[1]. It's 200+ memes/comics I found on the Net, and a lot of text going in-depth about them. If you relate to a lot of these, treatment can improve your life. However, if you find that whatever makes your life easier - walking while thinking, fidgeting/doodling in meetings and phone calls, etc - just do it. It's your life. No need to play it on hard mode. [1] https://romankogan.net/adhd https://romankogan.net/adhd

stepbeek 5y ago
> No need to play it on hard mode. I love this sentiment. Thanks for this - I'm definitely going to use it going forward.
- romwell 5y ago
  Thanks! That the thinking I had when I started taking medication. Do I need the meds? Irrelevant, and I already got through several decades of my life without them. Do they make life easier? Absolutely. Do I have a reason to keep making my life harder? Nope. Another thought: all the resources and energy (including mental efforts) that are solvable by other, easily implementable means (from medication to changing the way you do things that works for you) — all that time and energy is stolen from your loved ones and people you care about. Is the time spent doing Boring Difficult Task more valuable to you than time with your friends and family? Perhaps not. Then why choose to maximize the Boring Difficult time? Fidget, walk, exercise, drink water, take breaks, take Monday off, hire a maid, order takeout, get therapy, get the right meds — it's your life, and you want to spend the most of it on things that matter. And the time you spend trying hard to do things that are difficult for you is time and energy you can recover by taking the pain out of the process of doing them.

stepbeek 5y ago

Hope you've found a company that values output rather than presence. I run a small company but given the last 18 months have had to come to grips with the idea that I might have to return to normal employment. Losing my freedom to go for a walk - or go to the gym to work through a problem - is a huge fear of mine. I'm utterly convinced that long walks in the woods is my secret sauce and that without it I'll degrade as an engineer massively.

romwell 5y ago
I switched jobs after COVID hit, and I realized just how much of the presumed benefits of office culture didn't really exist. On paper, my previous employer only valued impact, and employees were able to choose their own schedule. But work from home was explicitly discouraged in very clear terms, and I have been pressured to increase the overlap in office time with my team "for my benefit". That coming from people responsible for my performance evaluation and making hiring decisions felt a lot like "...or else". It is also for my benefit, I guess, that I got a seat between my manager and my team lead during an office move (open-floor layout). I didn't mind, because they are both excellent people, but it feels a bit weird in retrospect. We are all remote until 2022 at the very least; I don't expect mandatory office presence 40 hr/week ever coming back. At some point, the CEOs will have to come to terms with office space being a sunk cost; and either downside, or provide more space for people who do come into the office. Having in-person discussions with many people at once is still a killer app for physical offices; latency issues inherently make videoconferencing clumsy. But two days a week should suffice for that, at best.