How to Use Interest for Writing Motivation
Part 2 of the ADHD Writers series on Motivation
“I can’t have ADHD, because I have no problem focusing on things that are interesting to me.”
That’s something I actually said out loud when my wife first mentioned that I might have ADHD. At the time, my understanding of ADHD was that it meant you couldn’t focus on anything for any amount of time.
But it turns out, I do have ADHD, and that’s precisely why I find it so much easier to focus on things that are interesting (as opposed to things that are important, but boring).
When some project or task is interesting to my brain, I intensely focus on it with ease. I even hyperfocus on the task or project to the point where I often don’t even notice everything else happening around me.
Interest (or Captivate in my 4 Cs of Motivation framework) is one of the best ways of finding motivation.
Sometimes, this becomes easy with writing when you’re already fascinated with a particular topic that is the subject of your writing, and you can use that fascination, that interest, to help inspire motivation to keep going.
Here are a few ways you can make your writing project a bit more interesting to your brain.
Find the “why”
Look for ways you can connect your work to a personal value or goal.
Maybe you’re someone that’s passionate about helping others, or you highly value a calm living space, or you just really love learning new things.
In these cases, a few things you could try to find your why:
Approach your writing from the angle of “how will this help my readers?”
Rearrange your writing environment in a way that’s pleasing to you
Take the opportunity to research and learn something new about your writing topic.
A really important part of motivation with ADHD is finding the thing that excites your brain, and then using it to build up momentum. Once you’re already in motion, doing something that’s interesting to you, it becomes a lot easier to stay in motion and move to the next task that you might’ve been avoiding.
It’s always going to be easier to tackle a task if you’re on your feet and doing something, than if you’re sitting and feeling bad about not doing anything.
Maybe you’re writing fiction and your “why” is more related to fun than anything else. That’s okay too!
Add Social Elements
Another way of adding interest is by involving others through accountability, collaboration, or sharing. Maybe you have a trusted reading partner that you can share your writing with, which helps give you that extra boost when working on the page.
(Psst, we have got body doubling for paid members coming up next week!)
Link to a Passion
Connect a boring task to an existing interest or hobby.
Often I suggest listening to a podcast related to your current hobby or passion to help you get focused on a task which can be effective for some of the admin tasks related to writing. But this can be difficult with writing itself since you can’t easily write and listen at the same time.
Another approach might be a modified pomodoro timer where you alternate between working on a hobby and working on your writing. Set a 25 minute timer and switch tasks each time it goes off.
You might even find that your brain does a bit of working on your writing in the background without you even noticing.
This makes tremendous sense to me.