I'm a steam engine: a tale of executive dysfunction

I’ve been working almost fully remote for several years now. At my current client, we have 1 office day per 2 weeks which in itself is great. There is one thing that’s playing havoc with my ability to focus though.

I recently described myself as a diesel train to a friend and she corrected me saying that I’m actually more like an old-fashioned steam engine. Once I get moving I’m unstoppable, but getting to that point requires a lot of mental work. Basically, I need to stoke the fire, heat the kettle and slowly get myself moving to counter-act my executive dysfunction.

This generally involves noise-cancelling headphone, music and writing down exactly what I need to do, which problems I expect to face, how I’ll try to tackle them, etc.

I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping a log file for each ticket I work on, which has the dual benefit that I kind of become my own rubber ducky, and I have a written record of what I did. If I come back to a ticket later on I don’t need to rely on my memory, I can look it up instead.

This particular client has one unique aspect to their process: they have 2 standups per days. So, at 9:30 in the morning we have the usual morning standup, but at 4pm we have another standup, where we discuss how the day went.

Now in itself I see the usefulness here. It’s a good way to keep in touch, and it’s a way to find problems quickly. For me it’s a huge flow killer though.

Because I’m like a steam engine, I work best when I have long blocks of uninterrupted time, allowing me to build up hyperfocus. Once I get there I can move mountains, but getting there just takes time. I realise this is true for most people, but for my ADHD brain it’s way worse.

Always having at least 2 meetings per day means my longest uninterrupted block of time is 3 hours, and this really is a best-case. Generally there are other interruptions as well. It just makes me feel unproductive and like I’m failing the team.

Since I try to practise “Be Brave” these days, I brought it up in a retrospective and made a case for skipping the second standup. Unfortunately the rest of the team values the added social element of seeing each other more and most of them don’t have the same flow issues I do, so the proposal was voted down.

I’m still debating how to handle this situation. On one hand I feel that I should just tell my inner critic that I’m being as productive as I can be given the circumstances. I haven’t gotten any negative feedback to my performance, so most likely this is just me not living up to my own expectations of myself.

I’ve also considered asking if I could be excused from the second standup, but I’m A) not very comfortable asking for special accommodations and B) I’d be missing out on conversations that I do need to be part of.

I’ll give it some more thought, and if I come up with more insights I’ll write more later.