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I really don't wanna see pretentious here, but does anyone actually think autodidactism is hard? I have diagnosed and unmedicated ADD and I can still self-lear

I really don't wanna see pretentious here, but does anyone actually think autodidactism is hard? I have diagnosed and unmedicated ADD and I can still self-learn without too much difficulty. Again, I don't wanna sound too full of myself, but is any of this stuff really as hard the author implies?

wry_discontent 9y ago
As somebody else with diagnosed and unmedicated ADD, what do you do to manage it?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- BleachNut 9y ago
  The number one tip I always give is to write down everything you think off when you get off topic and start drifting around. I don't know what's happening neurologically, but it trains you to snap back once your train of focus breaks, it might not work for everyone, but I got pretty good results. It's also helped me with forgetfulness. I use apple's native note application, but evernote looks about the same or better. FYI: it'll take a couple weeks to start working
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    The number one tip I always give is to write down everything you think off when you get off topic and start drifting around. I don't know what's happening neurologically, but it trains you to snap back once your train of focus breaks, it might not work for everyone, but I got pretty good results. It's also helped me with forgetfulness. Another way that might help some people is to write down whatever you are about to drift into, the keep focus until timebox is finished (pomodoro technique). The best explanations I have are: As far as I am aware ADDers tend to have shorter stacks (3-4 compared to 5-7 shortterm memory slots). (My theory.) Many productive ADDers are keenly aware of this and the fact that if it slips now it might never come back until it is too late. This causes stress and you want to follow the train of thought even if it is unrelated to what you should do now. (I.e.: oops, I see something that reminds me that I need to call <x> today, I know I'll forget it as soon as I focus on my code again. Write one line: call <x> about <y>. Continue work. When your timer finishes: do call <x> immediately after stopping work (somewhat different from pomodoro but adapted for this kind of ADD). So in short: if you can, write down the interruption, then finish whatever you were doing but use a "timebox" to remind yourself to stop, "snapshot" your work (comments, journal, commit as far as possible) and then take the call, stretch, grab the water or coffe you tried to interrupt yourself with and be on track again. Of course this is the ideal flow. I have sympathy for people with ADD as it seems they have to work harder and smarter to get the same results as others.
Sakes 9y ago
You have to take into account a person's expectations of themselves as well as the scope of what they are trying to learn. If your expectations are overly ambitious, it's hard. If you are trying to learn to code some narrowly scoped solution, then its simple.
NoahTheDuke 9y ago
Obviously, or the author wouldn't have written it in reference to their own struggle. On top of that, it's easily demonstrable that others struggle with self-teaching: if learning alone is so easy, why are coding bootcamps and workshops and university degrees so popular?
- BleachNut 9y ago
  Good point. I always pinned it down to people lacking self confidence. I assume programming can be pretty scary when your bulk experience has been non-stem.
Jach 9y ago
Teaching yourself is hard; if it wasn't, we wouldn't have schools or tutors, or at least as many of them. Most people aren't autodidacts. One's IQ and Conscientiousness probably dominate one's ability to do it, but even so, things like genuine interest play a big part too. Try teaching yourself a subject outside of tech sometime and see how far you go without that much interest. Then there's a time and energy component. A lot of people wake up and go to work, then come home worn out, or at least at less energy than earlier in the day, and they probably have other things to do for their remaining 1/3 of the day besides devote it to self-study. At least for programming, self-learning most things is super cheap, so the cost barrier isn't as big, but again, self-learning is hard, which is why so many pricey bootcamps have popped up.

wry_discontent 9y ago

As somebody else with diagnosed and unmedicated ADD, what do you do to manage it?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
BleachNut 9y ago
The number one tip I always give is to write down everything you think off when you get off topic and start drifting around. I don't know what's happening neurologically, but it trains you to snap back once your train of focus breaks, it might not work for everyone, but I got pretty good results. It's also helped me with forgetfulness. I use apple's native note application, but evernote looks about the same or better. FYI: it'll take a couple weeks to start working
- reitanqild 9y ago
  The number one tip I always give is to write down everything you think off when you get off topic and start drifting around. I don't know what's happening neurologically, but it trains you to snap back once your train of focus breaks, it might not work for everyone, but I got pretty good results. It's also helped me with forgetfulness. Another way that might help some people is to write down whatever you are about to drift into, the keep focus until timebox is finished (pomodoro technique). The best explanations I have are: As far as I am aware ADDers tend to have shorter stacks (3-4 compared to 5-7 shortterm memory slots). (My theory.) Many productive ADDers are keenly aware of this and the fact that if it slips now it might never come back until it is too late. This causes stress and you want to follow the train of thought even if it is unrelated to what you should do now. (I.e.: oops, I see something that reminds me that I need to call <x> today, I know I'll forget it as soon as I focus on my code again. Write one line: call <x> about <y>. Continue work. When your timer finishes: do call <x> immediately after stopping work (somewhat different from pomodoro but adapted for this kind of ADD). So in short: if you can, write down the interruption, then finish whatever you were doing but use a "timebox" to remind yourself to stop, "snapshot" your work (comments, journal, commit as far as possible) and then take the call, stretch, grab the water or coffe you tried to interrupt yourself with and be on track again. Of course this is the ideal flow. I have sympathy for people with ADD as it seems they have to work harder and smarter to get the same results as others.

Sakes 9y ago

You have to take into account a person's expectations of themselves as well as the scope of what they are trying to learn. If your expectations are overly ambitious, it's hard. If you are trying to learn to code some narrowly scoped solution, then its simple.

NoahTheDuke 9y ago

Obviously, or the author wouldn't have written it in reference to their own struggle. On top of that, it's easily demonstrable that others struggle with self-teaching: if learning alone is so easy, why are coding bootcamps and workshops and university degrees so popular?

BleachNut 9y ago
Good point. I always pinned it down to people lacking self confidence. I assume programming can be pretty scary when your bulk experience has been non-stem.

Jach 9y ago

Teaching yourself is hard; if it wasn't, we wouldn't have schools or tutors, or at least as many of them. Most people aren't autodidacts. One's IQ and Conscientiousness probably dominate one's ability to do it, but even so, things like genuine interest play a big part too. Try teaching yourself a subject outside of tech sometime and see how far you go without that much interest. Then there's a time and energy component. A lot of people wake up and go to work, then come home worn out, or at least at less energy than earlier in the day, and they probably have other things to do for their remaining 1/3 of the day besides devote it to self-study. At least for programming, self-learning most things is super cheap, so the cost barrier isn't as big, but again, self-learning is hard, which is why so many pricey bootcamps have popped up.