Hook Your Brain: How to Focus and Write Now

By Rochelle Melander

May Sarton published Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, anovel about a poet and writer in the early 60s, long before cell phones and the internet. Here’s what she said about the main character’s struggle to write, no doubt inspired by her own writing life:

Every single day she fought a war to get to her desk before her little bundle of energy had been dissipated, to push aside or cull through an intricate web of slight threads pulling her in a thousand different directions.

As a poet and novelist herself, Sarton knew that writers and artists had to overcome distractions and write before the threads of life pulled them toward both crucial and mundane tasks of the day.

The war to get to our desks—and stay there—involves many small battles. We struggle to turn off social media. We scuffle with our own egos: Does this work matter? Will anyone read this? We battle our sense of duty: I need to be earning more money. I have emails to answer! We confront the millions of ideas that float around our head, our long to-do lists, and our anxiety about getting our work finished. How are we to accomplish anything?

If you have ADHD, you may struggle even more with starting, staying focused, and managing tasks.

Hear this: Distractions happen. It’s not your fault. It’s the way the world is built. According to cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitan, author of An Organized Mind, it’s no wonder we’re feeling overwhelmed and distracted. He said, “our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting.”

Here are my tips for helping you set up your life, get writing and stay focused.

Before You Begin

Plan the week. For most of my clients, we’ve discovered the benefit of having a reset session once a week can save them time and support their week. Once a week, usually on Sunday, decide what you need to get done during the next week. Assign tasks to time blocks.

Set cues. Time blocking doesn’t always work if you have ADHD. It’s difficult to track time. To support yourself, you can:

• Schedule it on an online calendar that will send you push notifications.
• Schedule your task blocks around already established habits. For example, walk as soon as you get out of bed, write immediately after your morning coffee, call your mom while cooking dinner.
• Review your schedule every single morning to reinforce it.

(Pro Tip: This is what makes Show Up and Write so helpful—the time is already blocked off for you. Sign up to try it out at the end of the month: SHOW UP

Assign a task to each session. Attention is goal-directed, so you’ll do better if you have a specific goal. Instead of “work on project” try “write paragraph on task paralysis” or “sketch details about protagonist’s past.”

Pro Tip: Have a list of small steps you can do during the week. That way, you can choose the one that most interests you at the time.

Starting Writing

You’ve done the “before” routine: You’ve reviewed your day, set an alarm, and scheduled your writing to follow a cue. But when you get to your desk, you don’t feel like writing. This is when you’re most tempted to distract yourself. (Hello social media scroll of choice!)

Instead, try this:

Temptation Bundling! Give yourself a treat. It might be a special beverage, working at the coffee shop, or music you like. The key: this is the ONLY time you can have the treat.

Create a writing bubble. Turn off your phone, disconnect from email and social media, shut off wi-fi. This creates friction between you and distraction. It doesn’t mean you won’t go online—it just makes it harder for you to do so.

Ten-minute start. Set a timer for ten minutes and write anything on your assigned task.

Staying Focused

You write for ten minutes, and you get a notification. Oops, forgot to shut something off. Or your kid needs you. Or the dog pukes. Distraction! What can you do?

Refocus. Just like refocusing in meditation, when you focus again on your writing work you’re building the focus muscle. Start with another ten-minute timed sprint.

Create a refocus plan. There are hundreds of ways to combat distraction and doubt. Here are a few that work for me:

• Mind-mapping or listing possible solutions
• Working on a different part of the project
• Committing to writing a terrible paragraph
• Creating a positive mantra
• Talking back to negative voices
• Feeling the feelings and moving forward
• Change environment
• Jot down new ideas or research tasks in a notebook
• Gently ask yourself to refocus
• Take a quick regenerative break: walk around the block, do dishes, stretch!

The Secret Sauce

You may be thinking, “But I have so many tasks, I can’t just focus on one!”

When you’re busy, it’s tempting to tackle multiple projects at once. This might mean squeezing in watching a class while we try to do a part of our writing task.

But multitasking is bad for our brains and our bodies. Multitasking increases the stress hormone cortisol and raises the fight or flight hormone adrenaline.

According to psychologist Daniel J. Levitan, multitasking also “creates a dopamine addiction feedback loop.” In other words, when we deviate from our key task to check tweets or texts, we get a tiny dopamine hit. In effect, we’re rewarded for doing tiny, meaningless tasks. This creates the desire to constantly search for that novelty.

The secret sauce? Single tasking. Do one thing at a time. If possible, try the pomodoro method: work for 45 minutes and then take an energy-restoring break.

Share your secret for overcoming distractions and getting stuff done in the comments below!

TL;DR

Distraction happens.

Before you begin, plan your week. If time blocking doesn’t work, schedule your writing to fall after a set cue (like morning coffee). Assign a task to each session.

Start writing. Create a writing bubble by turning off distractions. Set a timer for ten minutes to overcome difficulty starting.

Stay focused. Use tools like mind mapping, taking a regenerative break, or brainstorming to gently refocus and keep writing.

Don’t forget the secret sauce: single tasking will help you get more done.