Most writers I work with have what I call a “project junkyard” full of unfinished and abandoned writing projects. This junkyard makes them feel embarrassed, and they carry a lot of guilt around. In fact, we have a tendency to make the things we didn’t finish part of our self-image a lot more than the things we did complete. Is it any wonder then, that we keep saying that people with ADHD can’t finish anything?Â
Now that I’m writing my ADHD Awareness Month mini-series – on the topic “4 Hidden ways ADHD affects your writing life” – therefore, I felt it was high time I talked about this. That is why this post will explain the 3 main reasons why it seems like writers with ADHD can’t finish anything.Â
Let’s dive straight in!
1. Things that aren't new seem boring
Yes, I know I talked about this in the first and second blog post in this series as well. But I think it’s just as important here! For ADHD brains, novelty is a great motivator. That means that we always want to work on something new a lot more than we want to work on the same old project we’ve been working on for months. This is absolutely fine if you need to quickly finish an article before the deadline. But when we’re talking about big, sprawling personal projects like books, it really does look like writers with ADHD can’t finish stuff.Â
When you first have an idea for a book, you’ll be super excited and motivated. But after a few weeks (for me, it’s usually 2), the novelty wears off and the project just isn’t that shiny anymore. Luckily, our brains are very good at coming up with brand new ideas for projects! And as we struggle with impulse control and getting a clear sense of the future and its consequences, it’s incredibly hard to suppress the impulse to start a new project and stick to the old one instead. Â
2. We get overwhelmed by perfectionism
Even if you do stick with your old project, however, that doesn’t mean that you’re out of the weeds. You can still get stuck on the one project.
This often happens because you get overwhelmed by the task ahead of you. Our ADHD brains have trouble breaking big projects down into smaller tasks. That means that when the initial excitement wears off, you’re left with this big, overwhelming thing that you said you’d finish; and no way to see the trees for the forest. (I should trademark that phrase.) When faced with this overwhelm, it’s a lot easier to just stop writing altogether – especially if you won’t allow yourself to start a new project. The longer you don’t touch your project, the bigger you make it in your head and the worse you feel. Until finally people start asking you, “Why don’t you write anymore?” To which you’ll mutter, “Because people with ADHD can’t finish anything.”
Or maybe you manage to avoid this big chasm of overwhelm! Well done! But now you’re going to have to contend with the next issue: your perfectionism forces you to keep rewriting the same texts. Perfectionism can become it’s own source of overwhelm, making you feel not stuck, but like you’re going around in circles. In my ADHD writer coaching practice, I’ve seen so many people who had been rewriting the same text for years on end. Dissertations, journal articles, novels, (screen)plays – it doesn’t matter what kind of text you’re trying to write, your ADHD brain will tell you it’s not good enough and you need to start over.Â
3. We have a hard time managing feelings such as rejection
If you have an ADHD brain and you haven’t heard of Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD), go look it up right now. Up to 99% of us ADHDers struggle with this! RSD means we’re more sensitive to what we experience to be rejection than most, letting it affect, again, our self-esteem and self-image. Now, everyone would agree that rejection sucks. But we also have a tendency to see rejection where it was never intended as such, for example in one piece of constructive feedback in a sea of compliments.Â
The problem is that when you’re writing for an audience, you’re always going to be dealing with negative feedback. Which is exactly why ADHD writers are constantly walking around with a deep sense of unhappiness because they feel they were rejected. These feelings can become overwhelming and bleed into all aspects of our lives. Now it’s no longer that someone didn’t like one aspect of our work; this has become proof that we are terrible writers and should never write another word. And that’s how our challenges with RSD and emotional regulation can make it feel like writers with ADHD can’t finish anything.Â
So is it true writers with ADHD can't finish anything?
It seems that way. But no — it’s not true.
What’s true is that your brain is wired for novelty, struggle with the long middle, and takes feedback harder than most. None of that means you can’t finish. It means you’ve been trying to finish using strategies built for a different kind of brain.
The fix isn’t more discipline. It’s a different kind of motivation.
Novelty gets you started. But challenge — the kind you get from a game — can keep you going once the novelty wears off. Points, levels, side quests, a finish line you actually chose. It sounds playful because it is. That’s the point.
Turn your writing project into a game
Earn points for research, drafting, editing, and submitting — track your progress across four stages, and actually finish the thing you started.
The Gamify Your Way to a Finished Manuscript workbook is free. Pop your details below and I’ll send it straight to you.
