I keep coming back to the same conclusion- SELF EMPLOYED. The thought of working for someone and leaving or being fired in 4-6 months is tiresome.

Bottomline, I can't fire myself. If you go self employed, yes, it can be harder, but you can make a lot more money, you control your money, you get to choose your write-offs, and you are building and investing in yourself.

My industry has been rocked recently, but going to work for someone just doesn't seem like a solution, more like an ugly band-aid.

Time to tighten the belt anudder notch and just go for it!

All the best-

I'd love to be self employed, but what kind of jobs are relativly secure to do from a home office? I'd be a very good self-employee, but it seems like an impossible task to 'randomly' choose a job and work at it yourself.

Personally, I would look at something white collar or brokering a service. Stay away from scams and anything where you have to pay a fee before they divulge more information.

Stay away from having inventory. Try to avoid having a partner.

GOOD LUCK!

Hi Gonefishin

Self-employed is good, however every ADHD person is an individual with their own strengths and weaknesses. I do self-employed, sort of self-employed (working for others on short term stuff) and full on 9-5 long term (so they and I think at the time) employment.

Each of these has plus points and major downsides for me as an unmedicated ADHD type person.

Self employment is great ..for a while until another shiny idea comes along, I haven't bothered to do the admin and I get serious anxiety/procrastination.

Working for someone else.....now that really depends on the someone else.....they have to earn my respect...and even then I'm liable to blow a gasket at something trivial...plus the anxiety to do a good job raises stress levels....but at least I don't have to do any admin and I am motivated...because the job only lasts 6 months max.

Full time 9-5 corporate......now that is just hell.....not because the job is bad but usually because large organisations are by their very nature inefficient, chaotic and dysfunctional.

So my preferred option is working for someone else, preferrably in a small team on a short term job.

Having a partner.....for me thats kind of essential...without someone else that I respect around that can tell me I'm talking rubbish and to keep me on track....I just drift off.

If I was medicated...maybe it would be a different story and I could focus and attend to the admin stuff so that I would be successful self-employed......maybe I could even cope with the idiocy in a corporation...who knows..and in the UK its going to be a long haul to find out

kilt

I'm self-employed, and agree with the scotsman that anxiety/procrastination can be a problem.

Fact is I have a very difficult time doing what I NEED to do if it's not something I WANNA do, and when I'm doing something that I WANNA do, I can't seem to STOP at any kind of a reasonable time.

My major problem is my utter inabilty to manage my own time and behavior. I cannot seem to impose any kind of structure myself. And with no one to tell me - day's over, time to go home, I don't know when to quit.

So, working for someone else was good in that way. Less stress and anxiety, because there was structure and I had clear, small goals to accomplish. I also was able to have a personal life, because when I went home, work was over.

I have to make 100K. If you can survive on less, CONGRATS!!!

Fact is I have a very difficult time doing what I NEED to do if it's not something I WANNA do, and when I'm doing something that I WANNA do, I can't seem to STOP at any kind of a reasonable time.

My major problem is my utter inabilty to manage my own time and behavior. I cannot seem to impose any kind of structure myself. And with no one to tell me - day's over, time to go home, I don't know when to quit.
Both of these things are very like me, Hermit ... but then I think we figured out how similar our particular traits are in another thread, didn't we? : )

One summer at another job, our office did a pilot program to see if it would save energy to shut down the office every Friday - I already had alternate Fridays off, so I worked from home the other one. I'm ashamed to say I don't think I did a total of an honest hour's work on those 10-12 Fridays. So I know self-employed would not work for me ... I'd never get started in the first place.

I'm even struggling again right now because I only recently went back on my meds, and am facing the overwhelming amount of work I procrastinated on all summer, all of which seems to be due immediately if not sooner. And unfortunately, my job is very self-directed - I have projects to manage, with set-in-stone deadlines, but they are usually weeks or even months out, creating no urgency in me about doing anything now. I need firm deadlines and the threat of negative consequences.

It doesn't help to self-impose deadlines, because I know they aren't "real" and there are rarely any negative impacts - things always seem to fall into place at the last minute, but I know I could function and perform at a higher level if I just worked at a steady pace instead of procrastinating until crunch time.

The irony is that people always think I've got it so together and make comments about how organized I am - for years I fooled everybody but me and found myself in a string of progressively more responsible jobs, until the one I'm in now when I realized I wasn't coping and sought out help. I do better now following my diagnosis and treatment, but there are days, especially if I don't take my meds, when I can feel the old habits knocking on the door of my brain wanting to take over again. I try and remind myself how good it felt on those rare occasions when I did it "slow and steady" but it doesn't usually help. I guess I need that stimulating adrenaline rush of working under pressure, even though it wears me out.

I think that's why, although some aspects of my first job out of college didn't suit me, (I was a TV reporter), the opportunity to be creative within a structured framework were a great match. Things like being told "Go here and talk to these people about this subject and have the story ready by 5:00" were perfect for me - concrete deadlines, immediate consequences for missing them (day without pay if your story didn't make air), the "rush" of getting it done same-day, while still leaving creativity options in HOW to tell the story.

Bottomline, I can't fire myself.
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Sure can! Bankruptcy or divorce are surefire ways to get yourself fired from your own business ;) Sorta.
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I have no idea how I'd go about being self-employed. I'd probably do something software-related, but it's a lot of upfront work with a very large question mark on whether you can monetize it. I'm not quite ready to go that route. As to anything not software related, I have no clue what I'd do honestly. I'm pretty useless in anything else hehe. i.e. I replaced the kitchen faucet this weekend... took me 2 hours. It would take a pro 10 minutes.

But hey, I'm completely satisfied in my corporate job. My particular job has no two days the same, I have five direct reports two of which are offshored and whose sole responsibility is to take on all the boring stuff that me and my three other reports don't want to do (Yeeeee!), a manager who gives me a ton of slack and freedom to do things as I want (Yeeeee!), a project that changes every 4 months (can't get bored), and much more work that could ever be accomplished (again, can't get bored + keeps you on edge + priorities straight).

I really, really, really like my job. And the pay's not so bad either :D :D