Some random rambling ahead.
Back when I was a kid in middle school I was diagnosed with ADD and put on Ritalin. After a few years I decided I didn’t want to take drugs every day and weaned myself off of it and that was that. I was successful at school, excelled at work and my career growth, and had no issues that I can tell that would have impacted my quality of life. Who knows if I was just misdiagnosed or I had managed to actually get it under control.
Fast forward to today and I’m noticing I’m finding it incredibly hard to focus and be productive outside a few key things. At work I can focus if I actually care about the stuff I’m working on, and just lose focus when that’s not the case. I can’t pay attention to video meetings very well unless I’m actively engaged in it (meaning I’m speaking or being spoken to).
More to the point though outside of work I used to be so good about doing side projects of all different sorts, learning new stuff, gaming, reading, etc… I never had motivation problems until now. Even while writing this I’ve clicked off of it for a few times and gone pacing around the house. I can’t get through a lot of articles without clicking off of it anymore, can’t motivate myself to go through some online courses that actually do interest me, etc.
I start working on something and always find ways to distract myself. Hell I can’t even motivate myself on what game I want to play, thumbing through my library and then tabbing through the web. Back before Covid I had a hard time motivating myself to get out to meetups etc… When I do manage to focus myself on reading a chapter of a book or a side project I have to spend considerable effort to not distract myself and focus, and I’m actually really tired after a decent spell of that.
That being said, it’s not 100% of the time this is the case, just maybe 75%. When I"m at work I usually find some angle that interests me and can be very productive then, and at home I have had short bursts of good productivity. In some ways if I can just get started and some momentum on something I’m good, until I am done with that segment and end up in several directions I can go (at which point I’m back to square one).
Anyways, I’ve come to the realization about this today and that this has been slowly the case for the last few years. Granted, there’s been some big shifts in my life in that time span as well. I lost a good chunk of my local friends (petty bullshit rifts caused by us trying to start a business together), I’ve been working remotely for the last several years (and since a lot of people I know I’ve met through work this means very little social interaction, even before coronavirus). I wasn’t happy at my previous job, and I outright hate my current job. Etc…
So who knows, maybe it’s just a general downward happyness spiral that I need to find a way to break free from. Maybe even though I wake up at my own at 8am I’m not getting enough sleep (I blame my asshole dogs for that though). Though I figure getting tested for ADD is at least a good place to start.
I don’t really have a purpose to writing this out, other than collecting my thoughts.