A dopamine menu for developers

The short answer

A dopamine menu is a short list of activities you choose in advance, laid out like a restaurant menu. Dopamine is a brain chemical tied to reward and drive. When your brain wants a lift, you pick from the list instead of the nearest feed. This version sorts the menu by energy and by time, and the whole trick is that you choose before you are stuck.

I like my tools built like games. I once restyled the screen I code in to look like a Pokemon game, with an experience bar for the day’s wins.

What are some dopamine menu examples for developers?

Good dopamine menu examples for developers sort by two things you can check in a second, your energy and your time. Two minutes or twenty is enough detail, so the grid reads at a glance.

This is an example template I wrote, and it is not my personal list. None of the items is work, because a break that turns into a task stops being a break. Replace every item with your own.

Low energy, 2 minutes

• Refill water and stand up
• Step outside for two minutes of daylight
• Put on one song you already love

Low energy, 20 minutes

• Walk around the block with the phone left at the desk
• Make tea or a snack and have it away from the screen
• Read one chapter of a book that has nothing to do with work

High energy, 2 minutes

• Do 20 jumping jacks
• Do one set of push-ups or squats
• Run up and down the stairs once

High energy, 20 minutes

• Go for a short run or bike ride
• Play an instrument or sketch something
• Shoot hoops or kick a ball around outside

The high-energy column leans on movement on purpose. The Conversation points to running as a lift that lasts for hours, while a feed fades fast. [7]

Sides are different, because they pair with boring work instead of replacing it. An instrumental playlist while you write tests counts. So does a body double call, where someone works alongside you while you clear your inbox.

Desserts go in their own box with a stop time. Short-form video is a common one. You plan specials, like a hackathon weekend, well ahead, because they do not belong in a stuck moment at all.

For the tools around this, I wrote up my ADHD developer tool stack.

What is a dopamine menu?

A dopamine menu is a written list of things that reliably give you a lift. You make it while you are calm, so you can use it when you are not. People also call it a dopamenu. ADHD coach Eric Tivers told the news network CNN it is “kind of a creative project meets … a list of strategies to use.” [1]

The list is the easy part. The hard part is the moment. When a build hits a wall, the brain wants something now. If you have not decided ahead of time, the easiest default wins, like the nearest feed.

I hold one rule for every ADHD tool I build. Anything the tool needs me to remember is a design failure. A dopamine menu fits that rule, because it moves the decision out of my head and onto a page.

Where did the dopamine menu idea come from?

The idea traces back to a 2020 How to ADHD video by Jessica McCabe, “How to Give Your Brain the Stimulation It Needs.” [2][3]

Daily Dot dates it to 05/26/2020. ADHD coach Eric Tivers, host of the ADHD reWired podcast, uses the term in it. [3][4] [5]

CNN says Tivers “co-coined the term dopamenu.” [1] ADDitude credits McCabe with the menu layout in courses, so I treat the credit as shared. [6]

Why is a dopamine menu laid out like a restaurant menu?

The restaurant layout tells you how big each portion is before you order. I think that is the most useful part, because a break with no size has no end.

ADDitude describes the courses from the How to ADHD version this way [6].

• Starters (appetizers) are quick activities that give “a burst of dopamine” without pulling you in.
• Mains (entrees) take longer and are things that “excite me and make me feel alive.”
• Sides are “things you can do simultaneously to make boring tasks more stimulating.”
• Desserts are activities that are “easy to overdo,” which is fine once in a while.
• Specials are occasional activities that need planning or cost more.

So I read each course name as a portion size. The courses do two jobs. They size the activity, so a starter stays a starter. And they label the risky stuff ahead of time, so you name dessert as dessert before you are hungry for it.

My own design rule for any ADHD screen is that the part in view shows three items or fewer. A full menu can be long, but the part I look at in the moment should be tiny.

Why does doom scrolling win when you are stuck?

Doom scrolling wins because it asks you to decide nothing. It also never ends. The term means swiping through a feed long past the point it helps. When you are stuck on a bug, any choice feels like work, so you pick the option with zero choices.

Tivers frames the menu as a way to “separate the planning from the choosing.” [6] That line explains the whole design. The planning happens at a calm moment. In the stuck moment, I only choose.

There is also a reward problem. The Conversation notes that “we can quickly habituate to short-acting rewards,” which means they stop feeling as good. Some activities, such as running, “can cause sustained low-level increases in dopamine for several hours.” [7]

So the feed keeps needing more, but a walk tends to hold.

Developers pay a second cost after the break. If I switch tasks without writing down where I was, it costs me 15 to 30 minutes to find my place again. That is my own rule of thumb, and a feed never helps with it.

So my rule is that every session ends with a handoff note. It is a short note on where things stand, so the next session does not have to start from memory.

Copy the free ADHD CLAUDE.md config if you want the handoff note step done for you. CLAUDE.md is the notes file Claude Code reads at the start of every session. This config’s checkpoint section helps you skip the “what was I doing” reset when you come back. No email needed.

What should you keep off a dopamine menu?

Keep off anything with no built-in end, anything you owe, and any reward that counts effort instead of results.

• Feeds. A feed asks for no choice and never ends, so it wins every stuck moment it can reach. If short-form video stays at all, it goes in desserts with a stop time.
• Work you owe. Lint fixes and refactors belong on your to-do list, because a break that turns into a task is no break.
• Rewards that count effort instead of results. Hours at the keyboard can sit right next to zero progress.

That last rule comes from a game layer I planned for my Claude Code sessions, with experience points (XP) and ranks. The plan gives zero XP for minutes, tokens or commits, and it includes a test where 1,000 commits must score 0 XP. An early version runs in my own setup as of 10/10/2026, and it is a personal tool, so there is nothing to download yet.

One hook I built follows the same idea. When a session ends, it logs what the session shipped, and if the session shipped nothing, it writes nothing. There is no manufactured win.

How do you make a dopamine menu template you will actually use?

Make it when you are calm, keep it short, and put it where your eyes already go. A menu in a notebook you never open is just a nice page.

Start from the courses, then sort by energy and time like the grid above. Write each item as a physical action, so “walk” beats “relax” on your list. Then cut until the part you see in the moment fits in three lines.

Placement matters more than polish. The screen I code in has a strip at the top labeled NOW that shows one next step. A menu belongs next to a spot like that, because it is already in view.

Then plan the way back before you leave, because a one-line handoff note makes the return cheap.

If you want to see your own patterns first, take the free ADHD developer scorecard. I also wrote about an executive function mode for Claude. For the bigger system around it, read the ADHD Engineer’s Productivity System post.

This post shares my own experience as a developer with ADHD. For medical advice, talk to a clinician.

Sources

1. Andrea Kane, “Build your own dopamenu to hack your brain’s reward system,” CNN via KVIA, 02/12/2025. https://kvia.com/health/cnn-health/2025/02/12/build-your-own-dopamenu-to-hack-your-brains-reward-system/ (checked 10/10/2026)
2. How to ADHD, “How to Give Your Brain the Stimulation It Needs,” YouTube, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WCkTwW6xg (title and channel confirmed through YouTube’s own oEmbed endpoint on 10/10/2026; upload date from Daily Dot)
3. Daily Dot, “Dopamine menu” (dates the How to ADHD video to 05/26/2020). https://dailydot.com/memes/dopamine-menu/ (checked 10/10/2026)
4. ADHD reWired, podcast home page. https://www.adhdrewired.com/ (checked 10/10/2026)
5. Sluggish, newsletter post on the dopamenu (names the video and Tivers). https://www.sluggish.xyz/p/whats-on-your-dopamenu (checked 10/10/2026)
6. Melanie Wolkoff Wachsman, “Using a Dopamine Menu to Stimulate Your ADHD Brain,” ADDitude, published 01/23/2024, updated 07/11/2026. https://www.additudemag.com/dopamenu-dopamine-menu-adhd-brain/ (checked 10/10/2026)
7. The Conversation, article on dopamine menus and the science behind the trend, 12/11/2023 (date via CHADD’s ADHD in the News, 12/14/2023). https://theconversation.com/dopamine-menus-the-science-behind-the-trend-and-how-it-might-help-people-with-adhd-218970 (checked 10/10/2026)

Keep reading

I write about building with ADHD as I go, and the neurodivergent systems list is where the next one lands first.

• My ADHD developer tool stack
• The ADHD Engineer’s Productivity System
• Claude’s ADHD executive function mode
• ADHD and systems architecture in engineering