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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3123 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 16, 2022

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Anybody else here have pretty bad concentration issues? I'm near the end of a coding camp and will be looking for a job in tech soon (timing couldn't be worse, with the tech job market as it is).

I've been messing with various stimulants. I used to take Dexedrine or Adderall, but I don't tolerate amphetamine well. Currently I use coffee, but I'm also sensitive to caffeine so I can only handle about half a cup currently. I sometimes use provigil, I used to take a full 200mg pill, but that made sleep too difficult. I switched to half a pill, 100mg, and that seems to work. But it isn't something I can take daily, again because of sleep. I still need to experiment more with a quarter of a pill, 50 mg. I've only done that a handful of times, but it seems like it might be low enough that I'm thrust into the comedown after two or three hours, which would be a problem.

I used to smoke, and vape, and use snus. Nicotine seems to work well for me, but I don't want to mess up my lungs, get gum disease, or obviously cancer. So I've been using tobacco free nicotine pouches, a ten pack of 15mg nicotine pouches will arrive today. I don't have a comedown or anxiety with nicotine, so that seems to be the winner so far.

Does anyone have advice for managing this stuff? I'm so much more productive with it, but I'm so sensitive to anxiety and sleep disturbances that it's hard to imagine that I could do it long term. Maybe a day with 100mg provigil, then a day without, repeat? Provigil's half life is so long that daily doesn't seem possible, at least not long term.

Edit: Does anyone have experience with khat?

As some people have said, the correct answer is that you should ditch the drugs, work on yourself deeply, and build up a new personality based on healthier habits. But that's unrealistic advice in general, and especially near the end of a coding camp. If it's a good one, you probably don't have much time for anything besides the course work. And when it does end, you need to dive into job apps hard.

(timing couldn't be worse, with the tech job market as it is).

There's still a fair amount of hiring right now. You're probably right that it will get worse if the recession gets more apparent, but you should still have some time.

Your main question is about managing stimulants.

You find nicotine useful but you've already found a solution for that by buying nicotine pouches. You also can get nicotine gum at any pharmacy. So if you find that works for you then great.

If you're looking an easy way out of concentration issues (and again obviously this is the unhealthy approach) then amphetamine is the only real option. I think that caffiene, provigil, nicotine, methylphenidate are all way inferior in terms of the motivation:side-effects ratio.

I used to take Dexedrine or Adderall, but I don't tolerate amphetamine well.

That sucks. What do you mean you don't tolerate it well? Very low doses at times that don't interfere with sleep can work really well. But that's obvious advice, so maybe you're already tried that.

I have issues as well, but then I also grew to hate programming.

You can use nicotine in plaster form ah I see you already have a solution.

Delete (yes -- delete) all distractions. Mute everything. Lock your phone in a safe. Ensure that the only kind of rest you're permitted is passing out on the floor from exhaustion.

Hire a supervisor with a whip who would oversee your work.

In my experience, there's great value to be gained from going completely offline (preferably by disabling your router and physically moving it to another room). But good luck doing that while having a coding job.

You can print source code on paper. Some programming contests allow it (those where team of 3 has only 1 computer but can use printer).

Depends what kind of concentration issues you're talking about. I don't use stimulants, but I have a number of coping mechanisms, myself. Listening to music helps if I am becoming distracted due to boredom because I'm at a stage that doesn't require much thought. Breaking the task down so far that every step is stupidly easy helps if I need to reach a stage that doesn't require much thought. Shortcuts are useful for getting between tasks -- I miss having an "Open Terminal Here" extension on my code editor because I do sometimes get distracted on the way to navigating to the right folder; I should probably put that back in on my new machine. Writing down my thoughts helps stop me from forgetting what I was doing in the middle of it.

None of these is foolproof. I take it for granted that there will be good days and bad days, and that I do better when I've had some warm-up time to get my head in the right space. But I also think it's okay to just bring my own unmedicated human capabilities to the job. I do what I can; sometimes that turns out to be quite a lot.

I have been working in software for a long time and I find it extremely difficult to concentrate on mental tasks consistently over hours unless they are deeply creatively rewarding. Working on the boring and unnecessarily difficult tasks (eg. refactoring code someone else wrote on very little sleep) are difficult to force yourself to do. I'm not sure how a coding bootcamp would compare, but if you know deep down inside that the given task isn't actually worthwhile it might be hard for you to concentrate on it. I'm projecting, but that's how I feel.

The greatest weapon I have against the forces of distraction is pair programming because it turns programming into a social activity where your mind is held in place by someone else who is presumably also interested in getting the task finished.

I believe that many of the tasks we're asked to get through in a day are mostly meaningless and in-human. We're not meant to sit at desks staring out the window all day. If you can feed your soul with hobbies and social activity and the other things that make us human it's easier to treat intellectual work as a retreat and relax in to it. Nothing makes me more antsy than staring at my editor avoiding writing annoying code when what I really want is to get out on my bike.

Drugs sound like a great time if you have a project you actually care about, but don't waste drugs on an overall meaningless job for Uber But For Accountants 2.0 - The Revenge Co.

Fair enough, I do find pair programming the best way to learn. It does help me to concentrate quite a bit. I haven't had as much of a chance to do that as I'd like, but when I can, I do.

Can you find a local coding group? When you're looking for work mention that you have got a lot of value out of pair programming and maybe you can find a place who practices it well. I miss it at my current employer.

I'd practice concentration by 1) mindfullness meditation and 2) reading things you enjoy. When you can read a book you enjoy for 3 or 4 hours at a stretch, you'll find it a lot easier to focus on work for an hour at a time.

Have you considered cultivating mindfulness and refining your ability to concentrate absent chemical stimulation, so that you needn't worry about health complications and anxiety issues? You mention a lot of issues with drugs and all your solutions seem to be some form of "more and different drugs".

Agreed here. I don't know what exactly OP's issues are, but in my IRL experience nonstop experimentation with every drug under the sun is a shit strategy and universally worsens the situation.

Cut the drugs, entirely. If you can't find a nonpharmaceutical way to concentrate, then consider a career in which you can make do with what you have.

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