How ADHD Helped Me Build a Power BI Pipeline

Let me tell you a story. It starts with a simple goal: build a pipeline for Power BI using Microsoft Fabric. It ends with a dashboard so powerful it made my manager cry. Probably from confusion, but still, tears.

Step 1: Hyperfocus Mode Activated

I sat down to build a pipeline. Then I blinked. It was 3 AM. I had 47 tabs open, 3 half-written documentation pages, and a working ingestion flow that somehow pulled data from a Google Sheet, a SQL server, and a rogue Excel file named “final_final_v3_really_final.xlsx.”

ADHD superpower number one is hyperfocus. When it hits, you become a caffeinated wizard of productivity. You do not just build a pipeline; you architect a data symphony.

Step 2: The Tangent Tornado

While setting up the Lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric, I remembered I never finished that tutorial on Delta tables. So naturally, I paused everything to learn about Delta tables, then about Apache Spark, then about the history of data lakes, then about actual lakes, then about beavers.

ADHD superpower number two is curiosity with no brakes. Sure, you took a detour. But now your pipeline has version control, real-time streaming, and a beaver mascot named Byte.

Step 3: Dashboard Mania

Once the pipeline was flowing, I opened Power BI and entered what I call visualization fever. I created 12 dashboards. One was animated. One had a dark mode toggle. One played lo-fi beats when you hovered over a KPI.

ADHD superpower number three is creative chaos. Your dashboards may be extra, but they are unforgettable. And possibly sentient.

Step 4: The Panic Pivot

Suddenly, I realized I forgot to set up data refresh. Cue the 30-minute panic spiral followed by a heroic comeback involving scheduled refreshes, Fabric Dataflows, and a motivational playlist called “You Got This, Nerd.”

ADHD superpower number four is crisis-fueled brilliance. You may procrastinate, but when the pressure hits, you deliver like a caffeinated raccoon with a deadline.

ADHD is not a bug; it is a feature. Especially in tech. You might zigzag through the process, but you will build something no one else could imagine. And if you ever feel lost, just remember, even the most chaotic minds can build the most elegant systems when given the right tools and a little room to wander.

Now go forth and pipeline like the glorious chaos engine you are.

• Get started using deployment pipelines, the Fabric Application lifecycle management (ALM) tool - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn

• Module 1 - Create a pipeline with Data Factory - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn

• Create your first data pipeline to copy data - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn