Some writing advice looks gorgeous in a photo. A clear desk, a steaming mug, a color-coded planner with the whole novel mapped out through March. And then there’s real life, which sometimes means four open tabs, a brilliant idea for chapter 14 while you’re on chapter 2, and zero interest in touching chapter 2.
If you have ADHD, that probably sounds familiar. So does the usual advice: “just get organized.” We’re not going there. This isn’t medical advice and doesn’t pretend to be. These are desk-level tricks, the kind you try out on a Tuesday. Keep the ones that help and toss the rest, no guilt.
Steps so small they’re a little funny
“Plan the novel” isn’t a task. It’s fog. “Write one sentence about what Mara wants” is a task: it has a start, an end, and it fits in ten minutes.
Getting started is usually the hardest part, and a small step gets going far more easily than a big one. A rule of thumb: if you know what to do but you’re not doing it, the step is still too big. Cut it in half again. If you’re slightly embarrassed by how tiny it’s gotten, you’re on the right track.
Choose by the time you have, not by the order
Instead of asking “what’s next on the list?”, ask “how much time do I have?” Ten minutes: name the twins’ bar. Half an hour: write what happens in one beat. A whole afternoon: lay out the scenes.
That way you don’t burn energy on deciding, which is sometimes the most tiring part. And you get to use the odd scraps of time, which exist even when the perfect free afternoon doesn’t.
Memory that lives outside your head
Ideas show up when they feel like it, which is almost never while you’re working on that part of the novel. Try to hold on to them and you lose what you were doing. Don’t write them down and they’re gone.
The fix is one place, always the same one, where you can drop them in a single line and get back to what you were doing. No sorting in the moment. There’ll be time later to decide whether “the dragon sneezes sparks when it lies” is a scene, a character trait or just silly.
Same goes for “wait, where was I?” If you leave the novel for a week (or three), let something tell you where you left off, so you don’t have to rebuild it from memory.
Hyperfocus comes with fine print
Sometimes it just happens: four straight hours of planning, the whole structure in one sitting, the rest of the world gone. It’s wonderful. It’s also how you notice at 11 p.m. that you never had lunch.
No need to fight it. You just need something that reminds you, now and then, that you have a body. A glass of water within reach, a gentle alarm, someone poking their head in. If it’s going great, you keep going. If not, now you’ve got an excuse to get up.
Timers that don’t punish you
Working in timed blocks helps a lot of people. For others, the alarm cuts in right when things are finally flowing, and that feels awful.
Try using the timer to start, not to stop: “just ten minutes.” When it goes off, you decide. Want to keep going? Keep going. Want to stop? You did what you said you would. Nothing should flash red or feel like a test.
Permission to skip
If a question has you stuck, skip it. A novel isn’t an exam where you answer in order. Often what stalls you isn’t the hard question itself but the feeling that you can’t move on until it’s solved. You can. And the answer often turns up on its own once you’ve figured out what’s around it.
Tips
- Company while you work. Some people focus better with someone nearby doing their own thing: at the same table, in a library, or on a silent video call. No talking needed. Just being there.
- Rotate when the novelty wears off. Planning a novel involves lots of different jobs: structure, characters, places, scenes. Getting bored of one isn’t failure. It’s the signal to switch.
- Keep the next step in sight. A sticky note on the edge of your screen with exactly one thing on it.
- No streaks. A day without writing breaks nothing. The novel will still be there tomorrow.
For today
Just one thing: figure out how much time you really have today and pick a step that fits. If another idea pops up halfway through, jot it down in one line and come back.
Sunday Plot’s guided mode was designed with ADHD writers in mind, and it shows in the details. Today opens by asking “How much time do you have?” (ten minutes, half an hour or an afternoon) and suggests a step that fits. If a step has you stuck, “I don’t know yet” sends it to the end of the line, and it comes back once nothing else is left. The idea inbox is one button away on every screen of your novel, and “Where you left off” takes you right back. Each step has an optional timer that, when it runs out, just tells you that stopping and carrying on are both fine. And after 50 minutes in a row, a friendly note says “You’ve been at it for almost an hour,” and closes with “A little longer.” It never blocks anything. Turns out plenty of people without ADHD like it too.