Writing is hard enough; it’s even harder with ADHD, when you struggle to concentrate, or you fall too easily into a procrastination pit. Here’s what I’ve learned from my endless quest to stay in the zone.
BY REINHARD DELPORT
Although I’ve never been officially diagnosed with ADHD, I struggled enough with concentration in school to warrant a visit to our friendly neighbourhood neurologist. Grade 11 was especially tricky: classes were nothing but a half-remembered haze, and my notes were harder to decipher than The Da Vinci Code.
The doc told me that my myelin sheathing, a kind of fatty insulation around neurons, was thin, causing my brain to short-circuit from time to time. You can read more about the connection between myelin sheathing and ADHD here.
I was put on Concerta, a stimulant medication, and sent on my merry way. For the next two years, it was like I had tunnel vision. I could focus, I was taking notes, I could study!
I finally understood how it must feel to be able to finish a task without getting lost on the Wikipedia page of the Ottoman Empire, or thinking about dragons, or reciting my favourite movie quotes endlessly in my head. Wait, what was I saying?
Right! Concerta. The problem was that I wanted to write, and all those little daydreams and rabbit holes turned out to be great inspiration. So I stopped the meds and tried to herd my chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order.
Now this is the trick: how do you find a balance between managing your concentration and still allowing your thoughts to wander, to tap into that creative flow?
Understanding ADHD: advice from a clinical psychologist
To find some answers, I spoke to Candice Cowen, a clinical psychologist from Blairgowrie in Johannesburg, who has a palpable passion for supporting and guiding parents, teenagers and daydreaming creatives.
It’s difficult to give a strict definition of ADHD because the symptoms range from mild to severe and can often be expressed and experienced differently from person to person.
Luckily, Candice can give us some insight: ‘We all hyperfixate to some extent on exciting tasks and struggle with boring tasks; ADHD brains just function more on dopamine responses, which looks like seeking out dopamine hits and urgency triggers to get started, and falling into avoidant behaviour once that dopamine hit starts to flag.’
That behaviour, when we struggle to initiate or complete tasks, is called ‘executive dysfunction’ and, according to Candice, we can fight it: ‘Stimulants like Concerta can help us, but you can also do it behaviourally; you can teach, or trick, your brain to stay in that executive function.’ This is where proven techniques like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can help, giving you practical tools to manage your ADHD and stay in the zone.
Read more:
- Why Writing Feels So Hard: Overcoming Writer’s Block, Perfectionism and Creative Self-Doubt
- 20 Essential Editing Tips
- Topics to Write About: How to Choose
Four practical steps to fight executive dysfunction
We all need a little help from time to time; doctors and meds can often help us find the door, but we still need to do the work to open it.
1. Understand and accept your ADHD brain
You need to understand how your brain functions to get it to work for you. ‘From an emotional side, we need to learn to accept it; you’re not lazy. Your brain is structured differently, so find ways to work with it rather than self-loathing. Seek out those things that will set you up to succeed,’ says Candice.
2. External structure = executive function
You need to externalise a structure that can manufacture that urgency; this can look like visible word-count trackers, checklists or even just having a buddy you can hold yourself accountable to. Becoming ‘feedback fit’ and taking criticism at face value is a great way to keep up that urgency and improve the quality of your work.
3. Break down the task – keep the dopamine churning
‘Don’t go idealistic with it; don’t plan for five straight hours of writing; break it down into smaller chunks. If it’s hard to start the paragraph, start with the middle of the paragraph; write your name on the page, plan out the piece, anything to get started,’ says Candice. We then need to keep that dopamine coming, and completing smaller tasks gives you the fuel your brain needs to lock in.
4. Avoidance is the executive function killer
‘Unfortunately, we are creatures of avoidance,’ says Candice. ‘Along with seeking rewards, we are going to avoid anything that doesn’t feel good.’ Learn to catch those avoidant thoughts in the moment and change them. Procrastination happens when we let avoidant thoughts, like ‘this isn’t perfect’ or ‘I hate rewriting’, win.
Understanding your own brain and how it works is vital, and speaking to a mental health professional can make a massive difference to your life and to your creative work.
Also, here’s a picture of a really cool bird:
Photo by Brett A from pexels.com
About the Author
Incorrigibly curious, Reinhard Delport is a self-described hedonist for interesting stories. Travel, film, history, gaming: he’s a nerd all round. When he’s not writing, Reinhard is researching (seriously, he does this for fun), and once he’s found a story that interests him, he’ll leave no stone unturned to get to the heart of it.
