People with adhd or anyone that struggles to stay on task

Hi again im a data science student and i do want to take on creative coding i would like to be able to make the cool visuals i always see people do and i understand those people spent a lot of time in their craft. Personally for me its not that i dont want to do things its just i just get burntout and also get sidetracked a lot and i get put off from things all the time and also find myself wanting to do everything. I recently discovered what works for me is like giving myself grace and also just not making plans to do things because i then feel so bad for not doing them because as usual i do something then i stop and just never do that things so the thing that seem to work for me is by thinking in my brain what i want to do then take action. I am very addicted to my phone but i am working on it and i have been making progress with my phone addiction by doing things like getting an e reader because im fidgety and recognising why i am addicted to my phone in the first place and I want to get into programming and do something creative which makes me think because it helps a lot regulating my emotions and exercises my brain to problem solve i want to ask for people who have made a lot of progress on touch designer what has worked for you and what do you love that keeps you going and dedicated to your craft.

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Hello,

I’ve found that the Pomodoro Technique really helps me get through various tasks that I have a hard time staying focused on. It’s led to a small obsession with timer gadgets themselves but it’s otherwise been very helpful for me.

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For long complex touch designer processes I make a Trello board and update it with notes of steps I am likely to forget days to months later. If it is a repetitive task like a workflow for making complicated youtube videos I try to estimate how long each step should take and set a SmartTimer to try to alert me when I am going overboard or lost in details. Hope this helps.

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Yeah i used to use trello board back in college i need to get back onto that and it was helpful thank you

hi! fellow adhd-er here and also very new to TD.

what helps me stay on task is finding a project I really want to get into. for me, I got into TD because I wanted a better way of syncing LED props and costuming for my performances. I have been taken in many different directions, which I have told myself are okay since I am still learning touchdesigner. I still have my main goals in mind, and every little thing I learn gets me closer to my goal.

so, if I were in your shoes, I’d ask myself exactly what it is I want to create, and then look up the relevant tutorials as building blocks to get started. start small, don’t overwhelm yourself. stick to the easier/shorter tutorials at first.

good luck!

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thank you when you say building blocks im confused do you mean like making a plan/timetable?

I’m not entirely sure this is what lunaivana meant, but when I think of ā€˜building blocks’ in TD, I’m usually talking about custom, pre-configured container/base COMPs

The ā€˜my components’ section of the pallete can be populated with custom modules that can then be dropped in to a project

Spend some time building a toolkit of modules, especially stuff you tend to build often.
This will save future-you a lot time & effort from having to repeatedly build & configure commonly used things like render networks, effects, audio analysis, etc…

some of mine are stupidly simple (in>level>HSVadjust>out, with custom parent params), others more complex (multi-stage feedback loops) - they all serve a purpose, smooth my workflow & reduce distractions

thank you and your right i will look at how to do this.

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hi! sorry for the late response as I just moved so I didn’t have a ton of extra time on my hands.

by ā€œbuilding blocksā€, I meant gathering knowledge that will be useful and relevant to your long-term goals. as an example, since I work with LEDs, learning about SOPs and CHOPs were crucial, so I started with really simple tutorials like the ā€œIntroduction to Touchdesigner - Stream part 3 - SOP, GEOMETRY and 3D getting startedā€ one from Programming for People (https://www.youtube.com/@Programmingforpeople).

sure, we weren’t building a LED network, but for me anyway I found it useful.

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i see thank you very much that youtube channel looks very interesting to me i will be checking it out