Which of those has been, for you, the most effective non-medical strategy to deal with low motivation?

1. Make yourself athletic, doing aerobic exercises multiple times per week.
2. Keeping a healthy food habit.
3. Supplementing with essential minerals, vitamins, EFAs, etc.
4. Using neuroactive supplements.
5. The 5-minute rule: tell yourself you only have to work on it for five minutes.
6. Behavioral Activation: Commit to completing the smallest achievable wins.
7. Reframing Self-Talk: Shift your language from feeling-based pressure ("I have to do X") to value-based purpose ("I want to do X because it aligns with my goals").
8. Dopamine Diet: Minimize quick-fix digital pleasures progressively until they are all eliminated.
9. External Accountability: Share your deadlines
10. Other? (please describe)

My house and finances are a mess, and I'm almost being evicted. I wouldn't care much if it was just for me, but I have 6 dependents, so I must fix my issue with motivation so that it stops affecting them.

My issue

I have always been like that, since I was born. My issue resembles CDS (SCT) more than ADHD, but CDS is not yet a full match.

It is not about distractibility. It is about motivation. I need a significant level of external stimuli to engage in whatever I need to. Otherwise, I just can't do it. On the other hand, I have very high engagement when the stimuli are enough.

When I'm facing a challenge that (a) requires me to be creative or that has time constraints and (b) stakes are high or the reward is high, then I become hyperfocused. In these situations, I can do it for 15+ hours non-stop, and I won't feel the need to sleep until it's done.

I love to keep my mind highly active with games, such as chess, but I had to quit chess because many times it turned into an addiction, so I was playing chess instead of doing what I was being paid for.

When motivated by some important goal, I can be social, communicative, pro-active, etc. However, most of the time, I feel internally apathetic and trapped with my own thoughts, unwilling to connect to the physical world.

When working remotely, the lack of interaction with my peers makes it very difficult for me to engage with the work. It becomes harder and harder until I stop working, don't send timesheets on time, etc. This has led me to lose many jobs.

But I'm not in any kind of pain. I have no tendency for depression or anxiety at all, and I'm extremely resilient. Actually, I would function better if I were constantly anxious, but instead I'm constantly laid-back.

Treatments

I have tried psychotherapy for many months, with different professionals, but saw no actual benefit in dealing with the core motivational problem.

I also tried supplements of all kinds, but there was no big change. Except when smoking had lowered my testosterone too much and I lost pleasure in everything. The supplements were very effective in fixing that. Now I don't smoke or drink, just to avoid problems.

About meds

I'm not seeking medical advice, but here is what I've tried:

• Methylphenidate stimulants (like Ritalin) may have helped me to do the boring task of washing dishes but didn't quite give me motivation for longer-term tasks that require more engagement. Anyway, I had to stop because it causes me migraines, like it happens when I consume food with Tyramine. This may be a sensitivity to monoamine fluctuations. Amphetamines would probably give me a much worse migraine.
• Clonidine doesn't seem to do much, but I haven't taken it for long enough. I tried it as an adjunct to control the migraines.
• Atomoxetine was started a couple of days ago. All I have noticed about it is that it gives me cortisol spikes, which are unpleasurable, but I will give it more time to see if it helps with motivation.

Further thoughts

I never saw it as a treatment, but in the past when I was more atletic, I only did very intensive types of exercise. I don't see the point in doing exercise unless it is very intensive. Recently I was suggested to do that again, preferably after waking up early, at dawn. Does that make sense, does that help anyone here with motivation along the day?

Does anyone here identify with what I said in this post?

I'm below the threshold of a diagnosis, but my procrastination and difficulty engaging in my career as a software engineer severely affect my financial life, so I do need help. I have many kids, so I can't cherry-pick the ideal job. Here are my feature:

* Chronic procrastinator.

* Pronounced inattentiveness, but only when there is no stimulus (such as filling a long form)

* Resistance to starting, but also to continue boring tasks.

* Difficulty keeping up with work when there is no interaction, challenge or time pressure.

* I have no hyperactivity/impulsivity, no emotional interference (such as anxiety, shame, or depression), and no psychological barrier (no stigma; was brought up by hippies).

* I thrive on hyperfocus for hours if it's challenging, requiring mental effort or creativity.

My unique characteristics:

* Got tyramine sensitivity, which triggers migraines.

* Have very little reactivity whatsoever to stimuli, even emotional or social.

* Extremely resilient, emotionally.

* Suffered from emotional neglect in childhood, but fully recovered with self-help books.

* Was a gifted kid. Never had to make effort at school. Never paid attention to classes Very high IQ in untimed tests.

* I dislike reading because of the visual processing effort, so I use text-to-speech a lot.

As an effort to find a solution, I've tried many months of psychotherapy with different professionals, as well as various behavioral strategies like task lists, timing techniques, and self‑rewarding, but I haven’t yet found something that consistently improves my engagement. Meds have also been ineffective, and some trigger migraines.

Any suggestions, tips, or sharing of experiences are very welcome and will be replied to.

This is how I got 8 layoffs...

Along my 25+ years as a software engineer, I have noticed that I have a problem with working as a simple gear, where I don't exercise my creativity, especially if there isn't any time pressure and even worse if I'm working in isolation without interacting with my peers.

Unfortunately, when working remotely, that's what happens most of the time. Then my brain starts shifting its interest towards something else, such as a hobby that's more stimulating, so it becomes progressively harder to do the work I'm paid for. Then I keep trying to force myself, unsuccessfully, until they terminate me.

But I don't want an office job and all of that noise. I just want remote work that is stimulating. I actually had one once. Back in 2023/2024, I was a pioneer coder for LLM training platforms. In my first month, I made 10k by working up to 16 hours per day when plenty of tasks were available. But after some time they introduced super long and boring courses before every project, and then I just couldn't push myself through that anymore.

I had a couple of OE experiences, but not for long. I believe the problem was the isolation and lack of stimulation. But I still have hopes that, depending on the job, it might fulfill my needs, despite the fact that it's remote.

Does anyone here feel the same? Any tips? Or should I just keep cycling jobs?

In my previous post, I explained how I used LinkedIn strategies to attract recruiters every day and get myself multiple passive job offers per day and get interviews without using active job applications at all. Here is the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/comments/1ubgru9/my_job_stacking_framework_30_interviews_per_month/

But many of you requested to see the actual strategy. So now I'm sharing it. Those are the skills that I learned as part of a big program that helps Brazilian software engineers to get international jobs, but I perfected them a bit. Here is the summarized recipe:

1. Consider changing your LinkedIn location to the place with the largest pool of professionals. If you are outside of the US, choose the main metropolitan area within your country (such as São Paulo if you are in Brazil), and if you are within the US, choose the hottest spot within your state. If the recruiter questions you about your location (perhaps after seeing your phone number), then this is probably a hybrid job, which you might not be able to apply for, but yet the fact that you have interacted with the recruiter is already good (for the LinkedIn algorithm), and if you get a connection with them, that's even better. In some cases, you can even come up with a little explanation/excuse for why you are not actually in that place to keep the conversation going (and perhaps negotiate a minimum office visit down the road during the process). Side note:
   • If, alternatively, you are not within the US and you set the location to Silicon Valley in the US, then it will be very unlikely that an international B2B contract opportunity will come to you, but you can try that temporarily for expanding your connections and see how it goes.
   • If, alternatively, you are within the US but not in CA and you set your location to Silicon Valley, bear in mind that most jobs will be W2, so they will be seeking CA applicants only due to state income tax and local working laws. Yet, again, you can use this location strategy temporarily to maximize your recruiter interactions and connections and then switch back to your correct state, where you can get some local W2s. For 1099s, the recruiter is probably not filtering by state.
2. Set your Open-to-Work to active for remote jobs only, contract and full time, with specific roles, and for your target countries. But always set the visibility of your Open-to-Work tag to be "recruiters only" and not "everyone." Recruiters seek someone who's currently employed but unfulfilled and secretly seeking to switch for "a better challenge."
3. Optimize your profile for the ATS by adding the right keywords in your headline, such as "Senior Software Engineer" and terms that are in high demand, such as "Agentic AI," etc. Make sure those terms repeat in your About and your experiences. To find the best terms, you can search job posts of your target tech stack, and you can also use an LLM such as Claude to help you with that research of keywords in high demand (within your tech stack).
4. Format your about section in three parts: (1) your positioning (who you are, what you do), (2) your biggest career achievements, and (3) a short call to action.
5. Make sure each of your experiences has 3 or 4 bullet points with a good key achievement. Each of those must include (a) the technologies used (for the ATS), (b) the details of the process (so that it does not become generic), and (c) the impact of it (the accomplishment for the company, preferably with numbers/metrics). Very short experiences or those that occurred many years ago can have shorter descriptions, but add at least one key achievement.
6. Connect with the right recruiters. First, use boolean queries (using parentheses and the OR and AND operators) to find them. Also use the country filters (recruiters from the US, from Canada, etc.). And you can also filter for the #hiring tag with one or more specific roles you are targeting. Filter until you have just about 3 pages of recruiters listed in your search, then send 10-20 connection requests. Repeat that every day, doing modifications in your search so that you don't keep hitting the same recruiters. From time to time, revoke very old, unresponded-to requests so that you don't accumulate too many (ideally fewer than 200 pending requests). First, reach your 500+ connections, then if needed go for 1000+ or 1500+. But remember that the quality of your network is way more important than the quantity. It's good to connect to senior SWEs like you or people above you (such as tech leads, directors, or CEOs), but get a large percentage of recruiters in as well. Don't connect to a Junior SWE on the other side of the globe. If you are targeting nearshore work, you can pick recruiters that aren't from that country but who do hire global talent. For instance I'm from Brazil, but I connect to global recruiters from other LATAM countries and even from India, as long as those recruiters are clearly seeking talent for US companies.
7. Grow your network fast by consistently making 10-20 connection requests per day until you reach your 100/week limit (for Premium subscribers, that may sometimes be 200/week). Never send connection requests with generic messages. This is dangerous as it can make you get flagged as a spammer. To be on the safe side, you can request connections without any message. Or, you can go for a well-crafted message based on their profile. Personalized messages are ideal because they will maximize your acceptance rate. The challenge, then, will be how to make 10-20 of those messages per day. So my personal solution was to use a very elaborated prompt for an LLM to analyze the recruiter's profile and create a few message suggestions based on my examples/templates. The Perplexity browser from Comet is ideal for that (the free version includes the Sonar model, while the paid subscription allows better models such as Claude). With that, it's possible to create excellent messages while still spending just about 1 minute per recruiter. My acceptance rate was around 40%, but I can't share my prompt (sorry).
8. Engage with the posts from your feed, with not just likes but thoughtful comments. If possible, make posts every time you have a good idea related to your field (ideally, 1-2 posts per week). Consider adding posts with a carrousel of multiple images (that is done by uploading a PDF). The carousel maximizes the user's engagement time, so it increases your outreach. The content of your posts and engagements teaches the LinkedIn algorithm about what you are seeking and what you have to offer and makes you more active on the platform.
9. Complete a few LinkedIn Learning courses that are relevant for your career (that's my tip) and post about them at the end of the course (the LinkedIn Learning platform already creates the post for you).
10. Check LinkedIn multiple times per day so that you respond to messages and connection requests quickly (even when you aren't interested). Be friendly, and make the chat keep going. You might want to play the LinkedIn games to help you in creating the habit of being online every day.
11. UPDATE: If you plan to OE, avoid adding connections with anyone from any of your active jobs. Also, disable the possibility of being tagged by them (Settings->Visibility->Mentioned by others->Allow Mentions->Off). In any case, once you have stacked the number of jobs you wish, just hibernate your profile to avoid trouble.

All of that should reflect positively in your SSI, but keeping yourself active is the main thing. Here is where you check your SSI: https://www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi

And here is a snapshot of my calendar with the interviews:

https://preview.redd.it/f6hzxkm8hl8h1.png?width=1466&format=png&auto=webp&s=300b1d8933b2cec4c79e526e350ce5e931ae6431

Over the last three months, I have developed LinkedIn strategies to attract recruiters, and it worked very well.

Now multiple recruiters reach out to me every single day with InMail messages and connection requests, even on weekends. The image below shows the 35 interviews that I did over the last 30 days. Therefore, I don't have to apply to any jobs. Those interviews are all from passive job offers (they reached out to me).

I also participate in a course that teaches us how to get approved on interviews. It includes professionals specialized on oratory, psychology and recruiting itself. So I'm slowly improving on that.

And for the technical part, I'm studying new skills but also perfecting the art of using AI assistance without raising suspicion. AI doesn't exempt me from the need to have some knowledge of what's being asked, but it significantly enhances my skill set in real time, supercharging my capabilities during technical interviews and proctored coding assessments. It makes all of the difference.

Finally, for the last stages of interviews, I'm learning not to trust the interviewer and not fall into their tricks (they always try to use deceptive tactics).

Such a continuous cycle of improvements seems to be improving my odds of getting approved. I've already landed my first job, and I'm close to getting more.

I have 6 other lives that are financially dependent on me, but the cost of living in Brazil is lower, so J1 already pays 3 times more than what I need. Yet, I plan to stack as many as I can, as fast as possible, and see how far I can go.

Those jobs are usually independent contractor style, so I'm hoping that they won't care about my LinkedIn status. Then I would be able to continue stacking jobs for some more time until I feel like it's time to hibernate my LinkedIn.

If it works, then I'll brag about it here. Constructive critiques are welcome.

Btw, I have had OE experiences in the past, and they were unplanned and reckless, but now I'm learning from you more experienced guys.

https://preview.redd.it/9rk00bv5xj8h1.png?width=1466&format=png&auto=webp&s=616039f7f6a85e4231e859e5475c391bce7d9b04

UPDATE/EDIT: For those who asked for the actual recipe, here is it: https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/s/wCV9M2s8bU

I'm an excellent SWE, and I have accomplished great things, but I got fired from 8 of the 10 jobs I ever had. That was not because of OE.

The problem is the "lack of stimulation." That happens when I'm working as an isolated individual contributor, the task does not require my creativity, there is no immediate time pressure, and I haven't created "bonds" with my work (a personal connection to what you do), or I have to go through too many boring, mundane tasks.

Then, my focus drifts to something else, my motivation is lost, and suddenly I find myself unable to work, or even to check emails and submit my weekly timesheets. I see that I'll lose the job, but I still can't move. Until I'm unemployed for enough time to be in serious financial problems. When I finally focus on getting a job, I get it fast.

I think OE actually helps by bringing me some safety and adding some pressure, not allowing me to chill so much. Does anyone here identify with me? Any tips?

PS: Currently, I'm getting multiple recruiters reaching out to me every single day on LinkedIn, so it's an excellent time to choose the kind of jobs I need.

Ok, this question is about your personal opinion and personal experience.

While working from Brazil for international companies, there is a very wide range of salaries, from 2k to 16k.

There are many things that can improve your market value, such as improving your English, learning new skills, doing a specialization course, taking certifications, etc. It also includes getting better in doing interviews. But all of those take a lot of time and mental energy.

So the question is, should LATAM professionals try to boost their value before going OE, or should they go OE right from the start to gain experience faster? What if they already have 10+ years of international experience?

As a reference, here are the salary ranges (a Brazilian SWE working for US companies):

• Experienced software engineers usually earn around 4-6k USD per month. Usually we are hired through outsourcing/staffing companies, which take a big bite from the paycheck before it reaches us (the US company usually pays 8-12k for them, and the outsourcing company takes 30% to 70% of that).
• With a direct contract, we can earn somewhat more, usually up to 9k.
• It can be even more, up to 12k, in the case of a specialist with high responsibility or team leadership, who helps to steer the company in the right direction (easier in the case of startups).
• The real maximum seems to be 16k, which is only for specialists in niche technologies that have scarcity of professionals (such as Rust) or with an exceptional skillset and history/CV, also through direct contract.

It's certainly easier to land multiple 6k jobs rather than just one or two higher-paying jobs. But I'm assuming that maintaining a 12k job would usually take less time than maintaining two 6k jobs. Not sure.

What are your thoughts? Is it better to work it up first (vertical expansion) before going OE (horizontal expansion) or not?

Ok, I have this new full-time job, but I got hired through an outsourcing company as an independent contractor.

However, my 12-month independent contract does not have any clause stating a weekly hour requirement or saying the job is “full time.” There is also no clause saying that I cannot work for another company at the same time.

At first I thought that this sounded naive, but then it occurred to me...

My rate is specified in dollars per hour rather than the monthly value that I'll get paid. I know that this is very common for US staffing firms hiring contractors. But could it be that they will track my activity through the laptop that they have sent me, and then expect my timesheets to match with that?

Well, there is no contract clause stating that compensation is tied to measured activity, but technically they could track the actual hours of activity through this machine, since they are the system administrators... Is this common, or am I getting paranoid?

EDIT: Actually, the laptop agreement states that they may monitor the equipment use. 🤔