Supper Club × Coding with ADHD with Dr. Courtney Tolinski

doctor of psychology, so I have a clinical and educational psychology Background,

diagnosed or undiagnosed or there's a lot of people in programming

I am a But so, anyway, to get a diagnosis to meet the threshold, you have to struggle with

And it seems to be a pretty common thing. I don't I don't know if it's it's higher than other any industries. But,

teenagers,

It Seems to me that there is a lot of

Well, aside from being your wife, You're you're not organized necessarily. Like, I get parents who will tell me, like, they found, like, old cheese in their child's closet, There's actually, like, 9 different behaviors, and and you can Google it or, a resource I recommend is chadd, c h a d d. I think it's .com. West, you might wanna check that. If it's .com or .org.

that I'm doing currently.

and young adults. That's, you know, kind of my bread and butter there with, That wasn't, you know, super productive.

that have ADHD.

You know, so that's that's kind of my my range, my expertise, And there's the 3 different types.

currently, I am doing assessments. So I

Is there anything else? Yeah. Definitely.

things for you. I see, like, Scott always has, like, 30 tabs open. I think you've gotten better at that, but, like, You know, struggling to Yeah. I don't I don't wanna do this. It's not fun, but it's essential for me, you know, to have a productive work week. And so carving out Time and and making it an appointment like you would a doctor's appointment Yeah. Is what we always tell people. Like, I can't miss this appointment or or when you exercise or whatever. This is a part of my day that I need to do, and I need to block out my calendar. And,

Like, I guess one of them could be, like, calendars and actually,

Not that I like, I you feel like the thing for me is that I feel like I'm always being productive. Like, I feel like I'm getting stuff done because I am getting stuff done, But I'm not necessarily

like, getting to meetings on time. You know?

I'll be like, alright. Time to work on the header. There's a little CSS issue in the header, and I start working on the header. And then I see, LogRocket,

essentially, if you don't wanna do something.

But on the same that's constantly fidgety, that might be, like, prone to interrupting or blurting out, you know, however that makes sense if you do it Sunday night or Monday morning, whatever, but making it a priority and not letting it party

here's some other things I do that you might find interesting, Courtney, that, you know, when I'm like, When I'm programming,

you know, just whatever it is that you're doing. So What you might see is difficulties Really, they their brain find ways to finds ways to compensate for their challenges, so it's not As easy to,

yeah, yeah, the browser act well, like, if you if you don't open a tab, if you don't check-in on it, it will close it after a certain amount of time. But, also,

and having a hard time, like, pulling yourself away or or even being self aware that you're in that mental state of, you know, an hour's gone by and you kinda, like, wasted that time doing something And usually for people with ADHD, it's kind of, like, delayed a little bit.

pulling yourself away from a project that you're, like, really into but isn't Yeah. Well and so another component of ADHD

you know, structured manner. This, then that, then that, then that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good example of hyper focusing.

or, like, get overly involved in something that you're really into. You know, something that you're passionate about or is, like, really engaging to you. And for kids, it's usually like video games, But for adults and especially, like, computer programmers, it's probably like a project that you're working on or, as a high schooler, middle schooler,

In, like, an office environment or computer environment, are there specific things that you see,

You know, Instagram, whatever alerts are popping up or, like, just going back and forth between your different tabs. Yeah. Here it's be a problem. I haven't gotten necessarily better at managing my What I've gotten is the a browser that automatically closes my tabs that are older than 20 days old or something. 20 days? You can you can set it up to be you can set it up The close them at the end of every day, but I use the Arc Browser. We had those folks on and,

Yeah. Right? Getting, like, down all those different rabbit holes,

Right? So one of the hallmarks that I didn't mention of the inattentive type is Avoiding or disliking difficult or boring work, ADHD or for ADHD as well as learning disabilities,

you might hyperfocus

and I was talking to Scott yesterday about this. Like, what people don't understand about ADHD is is not so much that you can't Focus,

to focus on the thing that you're supposed to be working on and shifting between, like, Twitter or,

and having a hard time transitioning or, like, shifting between your work Responsibilities of, like, what you really wanna do and what's motivating to you versus, like, what you logistically need to get done for that day. So that's a big one, I think, that we see with adults. And then, you know, autism, mood disorders.

dug all the way through the earth and and had to take a step back and say, oh, wait wait a second here. What was I Actually doing in the 1st place.

in some spaces, Oh, I got an error into this subcomponent of the header. Let me just take care of that really quick. I'm in the subcomponent. And then I see, oh, wait. There's Maybe something in the state that's connected. Let me just go. And it's like next thing you know, I've forgotten doing so in a,

and ADHD, but now it's all under, like, the ADHD Necessarily your number one priority for that day,

way of life is just by multiples of literally everything,

energetic or

ADHD,

So that's somebody that's always on the go,

all all, like, mental health,

struggles are also a spectrum as well. So, Like, the impulsivity or sometimes they have, like, emotion dysregulation with ADHD, I recommend you go back and listen to that one. I know it was Pretty recent. You'll have to put in the notes what number it was.

by a psychologist,

You learn as as you get into Psychology. And we talk about, like, autism as being a spectrum. Everybody kinda knows that. But

messy or whatever.

That is impulsive.

And then I still lose them. My parents always make fun of me. Like, you can't just keep buying the same thing over and over again. You have to know where you put it.

Right? Is is acting before they're thinking through what it is that they're doing.

pretty much every day, And it has to, like, have some sort of impact on your work or, social life.

You know, so that kind of summarizes the Hyperactive impulsive type, and then the combined type would mean that you struggle with both.

there's 9 different, The big thing with ADHD is structuring

pretty much every day.

So to get a diagnosis You know? So to a point where it's, like, affecting Everything is a spectrum.

You're easily distracted.

you you know, will say, distracted

like, criteria.

So the first type is the predominantly

umbrella,

And to get a diagnosis,

order here at all.

You lose your stuff probably every day. You're losing something. It's usually, like, your keys, your phone, like, the essentials that you need every day. How often do I lose my keys? Every day.

They're flirting out, and people get annoyed with you, or you're not, like, totally listening to them.

or

just maybe even less organized.

Yeah. It's .com. Oh, it redirects the .org. So both Okay. So, Chad, that works. Yeah. Told Chad. It stands for children and adults with a d ADHD,

Or, you know, for me, like, I'm always looking at kids in school, so it's affecting you at school. So you can think about what you were like,

What what is that threshold, and what defines someone as having ADHD? API as a service, but it can also be it's open source, so you can host it yourself. It's a really great platform for,

your work So, with the predominantly inattentive type, you're struggling with Focusing.

Inattentive type. Right. So these are people that we used to say, like, ADD but it's that you can't regulate your attention appropriately.

Chad. But, anyway, Like, anything is a spectrum. Right? But what's interesting about adults is, I mean, you've had this whole lifetime of experience, you know, so you're procrastinating, you know, with that kind of 2 year delay for ADHD.

Yeah. Well, so, I mean, ADHD, evaluate kids, And you'll see, like, kids in particular struggle with,

and somebody who is Maybe just

at least 6 of these

somebody who has ADHD

So those things, your day, and you and Scott have learned because I listened to your productivity episode. And anyone that struggles

So is that the the threshold? I I know, like, Some people in the

Right. Right. I know. And even someone that has, like what do you have? A tile? Oh, the the AirTags and everything. Yeah. Still, like, doesn't I have to ping my AirTags every single time I leave the house. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, so those are big things. You zone out a lot. Yeah. So that that tends to be, like, the inattentive type. The hyperactive impulsive type is what people usually think of with ADHD.

I I know we're not talking about kids here specifically, but, like,

people often ask, like, I guess

the difference between My name is Scott Tolinski. I'm a developer from Denver, Colorado. And with As always, is Wes Boss.

and then socially as well. Like, it might affect you too, when you're talking with your friends or with adults and You're constantly interrupting them. I'm looking at you, Scott. Yeah. Or Yeah.

well, that's just being kids. You know, that's just big. Kids are all crazy or all hyperactive or all,

Oh, man. You're describing me. My my, like,

I just destroyed our garage door yesterday. I am,

that has manifested itself in Some good things in my life, like, I'm Attention span and focus, and, like, we were just talking about how,

because I'm that stand out for adults? I have

jumping all over the place.

prolific programmers, and a lot of them are say, hey. I've I've ADHD and Whatnot. It's very interesting to me, that aspect of it, as well as just like I feel like a lot of developers are kinda like, I'm not Sure. If I have it or not, I I find it hard to focus. I'm kinda all over the place, so I think it'd be interesting to talk about that. We got lots of questions from people coming in as well about

kinda scattered all over the place. Right? So

I'm one of those people in programming is, like, do do I have ADHD? Right? Like, my my parents tested it me for it when I was a little kid because I was

Also, sometimes you see

3 or 4 different things that alerts me when a invite comes up because I've missed meetings before,

So, yeah, that's it's kinda where we're at, and I'm very interested to talk about this type of stuff. Yeah.

Crazy. But Oh, really? Yeah. Well, then, twice. My mom said, twice, we tried to get you tested for ADHD because you were just not crazy, like, bad, but just High energy, out at 11, all the time, loud,

And

endlessly curious and jumping into all kinds of projects that are like, right before this episode, I'm trying to convince Scott To replace this under cabinet lighting. I was like, you can do it. You can do it. He said, I probably shouldn't.

with us some of her expertise Today, we have a very special

which is the session replay app that gives you all kinds of abilities to see what your users are experiencing

Hey, everybody. Excited to have Courtney on today. This is something we've been talking about for a while and excited to make it happen.

Doing great. For those of you who cannot see us, Courtney and I are are are sharing a microphone here like a Like a duet, so it's it's gonna be kind of fun.

And she's gonna be sharing

Courtney, Yeah. That that's very much. Yeah. What what about,

background? Who you are, what you do, what's your Specialty, what's your career? What's what's going on? Yeah. Well Language of choice.

so buckle up and grab that old handle because this ride is going to get wild.

Oh, I'm starving.

and we're gonna,

an app right, which is a that initial thing that I was even working on, and I've gone down 8 rabbit holes. And I've poked out The other end of the application, I've I've been definitely trying to get Courtney on since the last time she was on, and I think it's gonna be really great. We got a lot of questions we asked on Twitter,

This

I sure hope you're hungry.

on the topic.

Alright.

your own custom API back end, if you wanted to have a headless back end CMS or anything like that, if you wanna have some place to store your data, AppRite is the perfect place to do that.

Court, do you want to give some of your

This supper club is sponsored by 2 amazing companies, Welcome to the Syntax Supper Club.

Lang yeah. Language of choice.

Wash those hands, pull up a chair, and secure that feed bag, because it's time to listen to Scott Talinsky and Wes Bos attempt to use human language to converse with and pick the brains of other developers. I thought there was gonna be food,

sprinkle some of our own questions in there as well. So

how are you today? How are you doing? I'm good. How are you both?

we have doctor Courtney Talinski who's going to be talking about ADHD

is the Syntax supper club.

what people's thoughts are, what people wanted to know. So,

Yeah. Likewise.

and computer programming,

Concept of even touching for the next 2 months. You know? Like, oh, I'm gonna redo my entire website. You know? Is is that Right. Something you see?

Yep. I guess. Yeah. Lucky us.

I wanna do like and she's like, no. We have kids. Like, we have to do this. I'm like, okay. Like, yeah, we can we can plan this type of stuff. But my ideal day would just be like, I I don't know. Let's figure it out. Let's just kinda get let's just wing it. And Yeah. I wanna do what I wanna do, and, like, I'm taking the kids with me and and whatever. But, like, that's That's not a good way to approach it. Right? No. Yeah. Definitely not with kids, but that that sounds very similar to our situation over here, and it's very frustrating. Yeah. Could you

trouble with planning?

for the symptom, you know, or, like, Just, like, really disgusting things. Like, they're just really their room is a mess. You know? And it usually makes sense to them, the person, but, like, anyone else would look at it would see, like, there's no, like, sense of,

You know? Like, I need to

I thought that was really great, but it's understanding, like,

Right? there's 3 different types.

Because some days I can sit down and be like, I don't feel like planning it out, and then I just, like, sit down and just, like, one thing leads to another. And before you know it, I'm doing something I had no

Do you like planning, Wes? No. Absolutely not. My Caitlin will always come to me and say, hey. Like,

Yeah. That's that's the, like, avoiding or disliking, like, difficult or boring things that speaks to that, like, check mark you have to show That you struggle with at least 6 of these things

You'd maybe describe a little bit of my plumbing skills are, yeah. You married some stallions.

like, it's Monday. Like, this weekend, do you on Saturday morning, we're gonna do this. And then I my my saying with her is always, don't box me in. Like, I'm a I'm a stallion, and I need to be able to run free.

and being, like, easily distracted.

what is that that this that distinction is that it has to interrupt your every single day So, Court,

To do apps. Right. Yeah. So just needing more support.

where you kind of go from, like, 0 to 60 really quickly. Like, you get really angry really The asked are really,

Maybe needing to rely on more supports like Your 5 different calendars, Wes, that you're talking about are, like, with Scott with all of your tiles and Yeah. And all of that.

And for adults, it would be the same thing.

upset really quickly, and and you're not, like, slowing down to, like, use calming or coping strategies to help yourself. So that's, like, just a component of ADHD.

smart adults as well.

And your executive functioning like, your frontal lobe, your prefrontal cortex, which is in the front of your brain, I'm, like, pointing to it. Yeah. We We do that all the time. Yeah. We're always pointing at stuff. Oh, are you? Oh, yeah. As if people can see. Yeah. Yeah.

For kids, that's, like, more support from their parents to, like, model how to stay organized or from teachers, you know, Keeping redirecting the child, keeping them on track.

With all of those things? Or Yeah. It's not, like, all day every day, but it it has to be, like, to a degree where you are, like, Standing out is needing more support.

But so, anyway, that that part of your brain doesn't fully develop until you're 25.

Interesting. What about people who work

observe or to see.

But, anyway, that that part of your brain doesn't fully develop until you're 25, sometimes 27,

But adults, by the time you're you've reached that point, you've learned different strategies to compensate for all these things that you struggled with throughout middle and high school, and in particular,

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Having those things scheduled, I think. Like,

run away.

and not letting it you know, at the opposite end of the spectrum,