Disclaimer: I am now medicated for ADHD, but I was unmedicated for most of my life. Most of these suggestions come from when I was unmedicated. In addition to medications I'm taking a multivitaminic / multimineral supplement to which I sometimes add more vitamin D (helps with depression) and magnesium (helps with energy).
I have similar phases - I'm personally trying to reduce this variability as it annoys me too (not only a problem with my job). I was feeling literally burned out after as little as a week of focus, and all the other aspects of my life tend to fail when I'm burned out.
What I find really helpful is having set routines that don't change easily or are easy to maintain - for example, eating at the same time everyday, going to sleep at roughly the same time. It can feel like jail starting to do this while unmedicated (and likely depressed)
For the routines, weekends are usually my bane as they are an interruption in most of them - I try to stick to my personal routines week-long.
If you can start work with a really low load - I ended up in sick leave for untreated ADHD and I'm currently ramping work hours little at a time, and it seems to help.
It also helps a lot to have set times for work and to drop work as soon as you are done with the hours - you won't be able to make up for lost time anyway, and it only adds to the stress. I'm planning to go to the gym every day after work, so that I cannot "slouch" back into working until late.
(This is with me medicated) To reduce the social media effect on me I time an hour from when I wake up to when I'm allowed to go to my phone and my PC - it's strangely effective, after a week I didn't feel the need to check social media anymore (this from being 8/9 hours a day on it). I got a lot of time and energy back from this. (If I check social media during the day I "get back" at when I was checking them all day long, feeling wise, but it's getting less and less difficult to do so).
When I was unmedicated I used various timers for social media (leechblock, for example) and they helped a bit. I also had a routine for studying that required a couple of hours before starting to study (gaming a bit / checking social media / convincing myself to start studying). I prefer having time in the morning before work to do roughly the same now.
I assume the "problems at home" are the ones affecting work performance. It's very difficult to keep productivity up, especially in a creative / complex field like programming, if one's mind is filled with other thoughts.
This works especially well if the person doesn't want to take vacation, or cannot, for one reason or another, and can also be in the form you state (I have to deal with stuff, I need a bit of slack at work). Not everybody is comfortable saying even that in a "team" setting.
Exactly. I wouldn't ask specifically if someone had a problem at home. I asked how they were doing and then I used whatever they told me to try and improve/ease their situation.
It's not easy for everyone to ask for extra flexibility or time off. When you have this open conversation space, that one-on-ones provide, it becomes very natural to make room for people's lives.
Though the software complexity was already there, and they decided to remove it (by adding another kind of software complexity), effectively deleting a feature that apparently people are using.
It cannot even be claimed to be an UX improvement since it's creating disruption for everybody that had this feature disabled.
At this point they should have added it to the terms of use and deleted the toggle directly (which I suspect they are going to do down the line, when they can prove that nobody keeps that toggle off).
There's a point to be made about how it's not possible for Amazon to check every single listing (made by other companies) for authenticity, nor they can use user feedback as a way to check/block those companies as many people use a different return reason than the real one (eg. "I don't like it" becomes "it's counterfeit").
It's unfortunate but you'll have to learn how to navigate the new amazon, and possibly use the mentality that everything CAN be counterfeit on this platform.
I think this is definitely true - and it's enough that I just don't find it worthwhile to use the service anymore. The overhead of doing detective work to determine whether something might be counterfeit, and the too-commonly-realized risk that I'll need to re-pack something and schlep it to UPS makes it utterly not worthwhile.
One will basically never encounter this problem with, e.g., Target, Best Buy, NewEgg, Ikea, Bed, Bath, & Beyond, or other retailers - what makes Amazon preferable to any of those brands, when the diligence you described is required to shop there and not elsewhere?
I just tried to disable every "augmented navigation" and use GPS only.
Everything works, it's just a bit more annoying because it takes more time to get the location. If I press the "current location" button before that I'm prompted to activate augmented location, if I wait a bit google maps successfully finds my position on the map.
Trying to navigate brings the annoying pop-up again (every time I close/open the screen, actually), but clicking OK and then reverting manually keeps the navigation open.
I live in Europe, so that might be a reason for the difference, anyway I can suggest OpenStreetMaps as a good alternative (superior to gmaps at times too).
True, but you know which noises are normal for your Civic much better than your new mechanic (or even your old one). If you know there's a new sound, your mechanic has to take that as truth and find the (a) problem. Works the same for a body.
Incidentally this problem is what is stopping me from going to a doctor right now. I'm having headaches recently which are not normal for me, but are still in the realm of "normal". I'm putting off a visit to the doctor because I'm afraid they'll say it's normal. It is not, for me.
Also, always search a second opinion. I wouldn't be born if my parents went for the "absolute truth" of the doctor they had at the time.
I have similar phases - I'm personally trying to reduce this variability as it annoys me too (not only a problem with my job). I was feeling literally burned out after as little as a week of focus, and all the other aspects of my life tend to fail when I'm burned out.
What I find really helpful is having set routines that don't change easily or are easy to maintain - for example, eating at the same time everyday, going to sleep at roughly the same time. It can feel like jail starting to do this while unmedicated (and likely depressed)
For the routines, weekends are usually my bane as they are an interruption in most of them - I try to stick to my personal routines week-long.
If you can start work with a really low load - I ended up in sick leave for untreated ADHD and I'm currently ramping work hours little at a time, and it seems to help.
It also helps a lot to have set times for work and to drop work as soon as you are done with the hours - you won't be able to make up for lost time anyway, and it only adds to the stress. I'm planning to go to the gym every day after work, so that I cannot "slouch" back into working until late.
(This is with me medicated) To reduce the social media effect on me I time an hour from when I wake up to when I'm allowed to go to my phone and my PC - it's strangely effective, after a week I didn't feel the need to check social media anymore (this from being 8/9 hours a day on it). I got a lot of time and energy back from this. (If I check social media during the day I "get back" at when I was checking them all day long, feeling wise, but it's getting less and less difficult to do so). When I was unmedicated I used various timers for social media (leechblock, for example) and they helped a bit. I also had a routine for studying that required a couple of hours before starting to study (gaming a bit / checking social media / convincing myself to start studying). I prefer having time in the morning before work to do roughly the same now.