A bit about distraction

and an unintentional ode to Jami Attenberg

Last Friday night I got to attend an event with Jami Attenberg, the OG Substacker and brilliant writer-gatherer who started the 1000 Words of Summer challenge I first participated in last summer. And man, I don’t want to sound like a fangirl, but she could write a masterclass on How to Win Friends and Influence the People at Your Speaking Engagement.

if you squint real hard you can see her

She somehow knew just the right balance of speaking, reading, and interacting with the audience, AND she had us do a couple of writing exercises which was so pleasantly surprising and I will come back to that. But the most impressive thing to me was how much she seemed to genuinely care about the people in the audience and what they had to say. Every time she interacted with one of us, it was as if she was having a one-on-one conversation with whoever she was talking to. She listened to what they said, responded to them directly with genuine interest, and remembered details about all of us at the book signing afterward. It was truly a joyful, inspiring evening.

The main writing exercise she had us do was to finish the following sentences, with three minutes for each one:

• “I wrote then because…”

• “I write now because…”

• “I will write tomorrow because…”

A simple task, right? It was. But that was the magic of it, the simplicity. That, combined with her follow-up question, which was if we learned anything about ourselves from the exercise. And ironically, the one I learned the most from was the one I already knew the answer to, which was why I started writing. Here, I’ll just let you read it.

I wrote then because I saw Cruel Intentions and thought Ryan Phillipe’s journal was so cool and mysterious and I wanted one just like his but then I realized I am not a scrapbooker nor am I patient enough to draw pretty little pieces of artwork representing what or whom I’m talking about and then I realized it’s a wonderful alternative to paying attention in class and if you’re committed enough to the ruse you can even look up from your journal every so often as if that one thing your history teacher just said really struck a chord with you so you need to look up at the board for a minute before returning to your copious note-taking. I wrote because I was dramatic and hormonal and thought I had no one who really understood me and the page couldn’t judge or interrupt and was always there when I needed it.

We can address the whole Cruel Intentions thing later in therapy, but for now I want to focus on the part about writing in my journal during class. When Jami asked, after the exercise, if anyone realized anything as they were writing, neurons were firing. I raised my hand before the thought was fully formed and told her I had realized that for the first several years of my writing career, almost all of my writing was done when I was supposed to be doing something else. I realized, in essence, that my writing began as a distraction.

the journal that started it all

I’ve always told the story of how I started writing professionally as beginning with an epiphany in my early twenties that writing in my journal was the only thing I had ever been disciplined at. There had to be something to that, I would tell my rapt audience, and proceed to regale them with the dramatic unfolding of how my writing career ended up where it is today. What I had never considered, even after my ADHD diagnosis, was the role distraction had played in this so-called “discipline” of journaling I had kept up with for so long.

I was a prolific journaler largely because I did it while I was supposed to be doing something else.

Ugh.

Before I could finish explaining my revelation to Jami and friends, my brain had come up with a solution: I had to find a way to make writing my distraction again.

I know what you’re thinking. Wesley, are you sure that’s where your focus should be? Adding to your list of distractions? Isn’t the title of the first book you read about ADHD literally called Driven to Distraction, and its sequel Delivered from Distraction? Aren’t we working on being less distracted?

Well, yes. But then again, no. The reality of the ADHD brain is that fundamentally, it’s not going to change that much. There are medicines and supplements I can take, lifestyle changes I can (attempt to) make, coaches and therapists I can hire, and these things can help take the edge off. But there’s nothing I can do to truly change the way my brain is wired, and my brain is wired for distraction.

So as I do everything I can to improve the way my brain works, I also have to learn to work with the way my brain works, rather than trying to work against it.

I saw a meme a while back that said something along the lines of “Life with ADHD is tricking your brain with one thing until that no longer works and then finding something else to trick it with over and over for the rest of your life.” So if I can trick my brain into thinking writing is a distraction from the other things I’m supposed to be doing, it could be just the solution I’ve been looking for.

You may have heard of the term “productive procrastination,” which is basically being productive at all the tasks except the one big, important task you should really be doing. And I told my husband just the other day that the ADHDer’s life is essentially 95 percent productive procrastination. So it’s not that we aren’t productive. I can be extremely productive. It’s just that most of the time, I’m productive with the wrong things.

So while productive procrastination isn’t ideal, I can still leverage it to my benefit, if I’m intentional about it.

If I can set up my life so that instead of getting distracted by my phone or cleaning the baseboards or brushing the dog or organizing my books, I get distracted by writing in a little notebook I keep with me, I just might be able to get back to the days of prolific writing I once enjoyed as a student. If writing is my default mode, instead of one of the things I’m procrastinating, maybe I’ll actually get some writing done.

I haven’t read this as an ADHD strategy yet, and I haven’t thought it through fully (I know you’re shocked), but I feel like it’s worth a shot.

If you’ve tried something like this and succeeded or failed at it, please let me know. Or if you have any other tips on how to use my distraction well, I will also take that advice. There’s so much advice out there on how not to get distracted, how not to procrastinate, and I’ll deal with that later. For now, let’s focus on making that procrastination productive.

xoxo,

Wesley

ps. it has been a long two weeks of being home with sick kids, so getting this post out into the universe is about all I can manage for now. We’ll get back to treats when the illness has left my household.