PRODUCTIVITY FOR AUTISTIC WRITERS

I’m an autistic writer, an editor, and a huge productivity nerd: and yet, I put off writing this post for months.

I think it was due to a strange combination of executive dysfunction, imposter syndrome, and the fact that I only reached a self-diagnosis around eighteen months ago – despite having lived with autism my entire life.

However, I finally feel able to offer some coherent tips and guidance on balancing the desire to be a productive writer with being able to manage the additional challenges and difficulties that come with being autistic.

It is important to note that these ideas are based on my own experience; autistic people vary widely in terms of functional level, which specific traits are more or less prevalent in their autistic profile, and in how those traits impact their lives. These are some of the strategies which have helped me, but you may find other tips work better for you. Please use them – or don’t – in the ways that work best for you!

ABOUT ME

I’ll cover my autism journey in more detail another time. For now, all I’ll say is that I’m one of many late-diagnosed women who went unnoticed in childhood because I was hyperlexic and good at academic study. ‘What does it matter if she doesn’t have any friends, as long as her schoolwork is good’, right?

I spent months researching the topic before reaching a self-diagnosis of autism. I also decided to seek ‘formal’ diagnosis, although I’m still on the pathway for that.

I have some ADHD traits, and I’ve taken those into account in the current blog post. However, I don’t know if I reach the criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD. If I do have both, then my autism is definitely stronger.

I’m a freelance fiction editor and I’m working to build a career writing speculative fiction, which has been my dream since I first picked up a book as a little girl. Books, and reading, and writing have remained my one consistent ‘special interest’ throughout my life. So it really irks me that the author career I dream of is constantly sabotaged by my autistic brain. On the one hand, I thank my brain for being excellent with the written word, and for creating complex worlds and fucked-up characters; on the other hand, the sensory overwhelm, the difficulty connecting with others, and the inflexibility definitely provide many challenges.

SIMILARITIES WITH PREVIOUS PRODUCTIVITY ADVICE

It is important to note that some of the writing challenges we face are also faced by neurotypical writers. Finding time to do everything we want to do, removing distractions, and finding motivation on days when we don’t feel like writing, are common difficulties across all writer neurotypes.

I’ve written about productivity myths and productivity advice for parent-writers in the past, so I’ll try not to repeat the information here. However, some of the advice is also relevant to autistic writers. For example, autistic writers do not have the same twenty-fours a day that neurotypical writers do, regardless of what else is happening in our lives. Our brains naturally need more rest – especially if we’ve been masking all day – which means we have less time and energy to devote to writing, and to life in general. We also need to be kind to ourselves, and to stop comparing ourselves with neurotypical writers. No one knows the full scale of what another writer is facing: regardless of their neurotype.

I highly recommend reading the articles linked above for a deeper dive into my general productivity advice. The rest of the current post will discuss strategies which are tailored towards autistic – and, in some cases, ADHD – writers.

To be clear: I’m not suggesting that we should increase ‘masking’ behaviours or tendencies, or work against our autistic brains, in order to live the writing lives we want for ourselves. Instead, my intention is to help you work WITH your brain, and WITH your specific needs, so that you can build a peaceful, happy and successful writer-life – whatever your personal definition of peaceful, happy and successful is!

VISION FOR WRITING SUCCESS

There is a wealth of advice out there around goal-setting etc, and I don’t want to repeat that here. Instead, I want to focus on your overall vision for your writing life, which I think has been more helpful to my brain over the years than the rigid SMART goals I’ve used in the past.

I’ve been binge-watching Sarra Cannon’s Heart Breathings YouTube channel recently. I believe she’s neurotypical, but her planning strategies are soothing to my heavy-planner soul, and she made some points about the writer life that really struck a chord with me. One comment in particular slapped me across the face; we’ve all heard the saying that ‘life is a journey, not a destination’, but she framed it in a different – and powerful – way.

What do you want your day-to-day writing life to look like, and to feel like? Part of your vision for success should include how you want to live your daily life, not just ‘making six figures from writing’ or ‘selling XX number of books’ or ‘winning XX literary award’. This type of thinking wires our brains to be focused on outcomes and goals, rather than on enjoying the process itself. Instead, consider what you wish your day-to-day life to be like, and then model your schedule and your writing life on this vision as far as you possibly can.

Unlike the ‘bigger’ outcome goals, most of us have at least some control over our daily writing schedules, and we have some ability to shape our lives (and our environments) to align with what we envision for our ‘successful daily writer life’. Chances are, most of us will not (yet) be able to fully embody that. But it gives us a lifestyle and a vision to aim for, and to emulate as far as possible.

For example, the vision I have is living healthily and happily, enjoying writing speculative fiction, not burning out, working from home, making a comfortable income from my writing, having the flexibility to enjoy life as much as possible, and to enjoy quality time with my family.

Have I achieved that vision? Absolutely not. Most of us have additional demands on our time. Some of us are not just dealing with autism and / or ADHD in our overall health journey. However, I bear this vision in mind when deciding how to plan my time, and in choosing which projects to work on.

Achieving this ‘ideal vision’ is more difficult for those of us dealing with the additional challenges of possessing an autistic brain, but I think it’s a useful place to start.

Productivity advice can easily become toxic and overwhelming, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. My aim is to help you live your ideal joyful writerly life, not to burn yourself out and / or use the tips to become a better ‘worker’ in the capitalism machine. I personally think we should use productivity advice to help us live our best lives, not to make a few rich white men even wealthier.

FLEXIBLE AND REALISTIC ROUTINES

Once you have that vision of your writing life, then it becomes possible to shape your daily life – as far as possible – in accordance with that vision. How you do that will depend – in large part – on how your brain works best.

I personally gain a lot of energy from planning and scheduling, but I know this isn’t the case for everyone with autism and / or ADHD. Please adjust or modify the tips in this section to suit your specific brain!

For me, planning speaks directly to the part of my brain that LOVES perfection, consistency and rules. Few things are more fun to me than spending an afternoon surrounded by different coloured pens and stickers, and making pretty plans and schedules in my diary and on my whiteboard. I feel a deep sense of peace and control when I have a plan for the coming weeks, and I imagine myself following that plan to the letter and achieving all of the goals on my list for that month.

In reality, I’m a human being, and I also have some ADHD traits. Which means my vision for ‘perfect, productive writing time’ almost never comes to fruition! One of my ADHD traits is that, on any given day, I either find my ‘hyper-focus’ zone very easily, or my brain flits from thought to thought like an overstimulated butterfly. I gain comfort and safety from sticking to the same routine, but I also gain energy and stimulation from varying my routine – which thoroughly pisses off the autistic part of my brain!

I know myself well enough now that I’ve realised my ADHD tendencies are more likely to fight against my autistic ones when I’m overly tired or stressed, or when I’ve been following the same routine for too long, or when I’ve had a string of two or three hyper-focused days in a row. If the ‘ADHD’ part of my brain isn’t happy, then it has a tantrum and sabotages my entire day.

I’m trying to embrace and work with these contradictions rather than against them, but it’s an ongoing thing, and I don’t always succeed! The following strategies help:

• Finding joy in planning, even though I know I won’t stick to it.

• Re-planning every month to bring myself back on track. Sarra Cannon does this every ninety days, but this is too long for me and my brain!

• Trying to vary my routine once a week, e.g. writing in a coffee shop.

• Carrying out ‘lower energy’ tasks on the days when my mind is drifting.

• Not beating myself up if I have an unproductive day, or if I don’t quite reach my writing target that week / month.

• Scheduling at least one self-care task every single day, no matter what else is happening. This is essential for all brains, but especially for neurodivergent brains. This has become easier for me to do now that my children are both at school; I definitely didn’t do this enough when they were babies / toddlers, and my brain still hasn’t recovered from the damage.

The great thing about the above strategies is that I still get lots of writing done for someone who is dealing with neurodivergence, child-rearing, and running a business! Even if I planned to write 20,000 words over the month and I ‘only’ hit 10,000 words, that’s still 10,000 words more than I would have had if I never made the plan. Slower progress is still progress!

Some people can get started with a blank sheet of paper and the grain of an idea. Some people are even stifled by planning their writing time. I know someone with AuDHD who writes in accordance with the ups and downs of her condition, going weeks without writing and then writing thousands of words all at once.

Personally, my autism could never open my laptop on a random day and just start typing! This is why I always encourage people to do what works best for their brain. Only create detailed plans if they energise and motivate you; do not use them as a self-flagellation tool, or if they suffocate you.

WRITING TRIGGERS

One aspect of my autism that I really struggle with is the amount of time it takes for me to transition from one task to another. It plays havoc with my ability to strictly follow a schedule, despite a different part of my brain craving the routine and the predictability. It’s also the reason I can’t just write a few sentences on my phone while waiting to pick up the kids, or while waiting for a medical appointment. By the time I’ve ‘switched’ my brain into ‘writing’ mode, the classroom doors open, or my name is called in the waiting room, and I have to immediately jolt my tired brain into yet another new mode.

I only recently found out that people with autism and / or ADHD often struggle to switch between different tasks, and it wasn’t so much a lightbulb moment as it was a sledgehammer crashing into my skull. So many things I used to berate myself for suddenly made a lot more sense: struggling to go to bed on time; struggling to wake up in the morning; needing at least thirty minutes to begin writing after the kids are in bed; and not being able to jump in and out of my manuscript at will.

Now that I know this about myself, I account for transition times in my schedule. I give myself the space to pause, to breathe, and to ease my brain into the new mode. I accept now that pre-caffeinated Morning Claire will take a while to flop out of bed, and will take even longer before she can compose coherent sentences. I accept that my overstimulated, three-thousand-thoughts-a-minute brain will never want to get back into bed at the end of the day. I also accept that I need time to ease into writing mode, which is why all my writing sessions are at least an hour long. Two hours is my sweet spot.

I also use sensory ‘triggers’ to signal to my brain that it is time to write. Although my desk is usually tidy – too much mess and disorganisation sends me into meltdown – my notebooks and diary are always in plain sight. Object permanence can be tricky for me, so I’m more likely to remember when I can see and easily access the objects in question. I light a scented candle. I turn on ambient music – instrumental, never with lyrics. I have a drink and / or snacks beside me. I have a fidget toy within easy reach. All of these triggers help me move from one state to another, and help quiet the background noise in my brain so I can more easily find my hyper-focused state.

I also try to put my phone out of reach during this time. I can’t always keep it in a different room because I work when my kids are at school, and you’d be surprised how often I get ‘the dreaded phonecall’ about one of my boys having lost an argument with a climbing frame. However, I can fall into doomscrolling if I’m not careful – especially these days – so I try to make sure I can’t easily reach out for it in a moment of boredom or absent-mindedness.

FAVOURITE WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOALS

Which types of goals motivate you?

It was very helpful for me when I eventually worked out that I’m more motivated by task-based goals than by time-based or word-count-based goals. I’m much more likely to get into the writing mood if my goal is to ‘finish drafting / editing scene XX’ rather than ‘write from 9.30-11.30’ or ‘write 2000 words’. This is possibly related to my autism, because I love ticking items off on my to-do list, and I hate leaving things half-finished.

But everyone is different! Word-count or time-based goals may be more motivational to you, e.g. if you’re motivated by competition and you want to keep beating the number of words you wrote in a session. The key is to figure out which one speaks to your brain, and to plan accordingly – if you like planning!

Another important thing to figure out is which time of day you are naturally most able to think and to write – even if you’re not yet able to write at that time of day. I am definitely a morning writer, but I mutated into a deformed night pigeon while my children were young. Now that they’re both at school, morning writing is a possibility for me again. Funnily enough, I’ve been a lot more productive since being able to work in accordance with my brain’s natural rhythm!

Do you prefer to work in longer or shorter blocks of time? This one may require some experimentation. The Pomodoro method recommends twenty-five minute work sprints with a five-minute gap in between, and this works really well for a lot of people. However, it really doesn’t work for me. If I achieve hyper-focus, the last thing I want to do is stop in the middle of it because the timer went off. Then, if I only have five minutes to stretch, grab a drink etc, I’m less likely to be able to jump straight back in. As previously mentioned, task-switching is difficult for me! However, if you have a brain that is easily distracted, or is easily distracted some of the time, then twenty-five minutes – or shorter – could work really well for you.

Are you motivated by rewards? *Raises hand* If so, then make the most of that. Rewards don’t have to be large or costly. One way I use rewards which might vary from the way others do: I give myself the reward even if I didn’t hit the goal. As long as I tried, then I get the reward. For me, a positive mindset is everything, so if I go into a task fearing I won’t finish it and that I won’t ‘earn the reward’, then this hampers me rather than helps me.

Does gamification work for you – whether you’re competing with others or with yourself? Personally it doesn’t for me, but I know it does for many people, especially if you have trouble focusing or getting started on a task. If direct competition doesn’t help you, could body-doubling be useful? I personally don’t like being perceived so I haven’t warmed to doing writing sprints online or with other writers, but it works for many people. For me, the type of body-doubling that is most helpful is sitting in a coffee shop with (hopefully!) no one paying attention to me, but with enough background activity to quiet the permanent white noise in my brain.

RESETTING

Some chaos is inevitable: especially if you’re also a parent, a carer, or you have other complications in your life. This has been really hard for my autistic brain to accept because I want everything neat and ordered and controlled and predictable. If one thing disrupts my day, it is likely to throw my whole day into a spiral if I don’t talk myself out of it. Even then, sometimes I can’t prevent the spiral!

If this happens, then I give myself grace, and I resolve to start again (fresh) the next day. If the disruption lasts longer than that – my children are walking petri dishes after all – then I reset the following Monday. I also carry out a larger reset at the beginning of each month to keep myself on track, as I’ve inevitably drifted from my planned path by then.

I wrote a blog post about this a while ago. My larger resets now happen more frequently than they used to, but the post is still useful.

https://www.clairebentley.co.uk/post/regular-resets-to-stay-productive

REST AND SELF-CARE

Finally, and most importantly, we need to look after ourselves! In fact, this is even more important for those of us with autism / ADHD than neurotypical folks because of the extra energy and brain power needed just for us to move ‘normally’ through the world. Yes, we have creative goals we wish to achieve, but we also need to pace ourselves, and try not to burn out for the sake of finishing those projects a little faster. For me, that looks like trying to do a single writing session on most work days. For someone with ADHD, that might look like binge-writing over a couple of days, and then not doing any writing for two weeks. Everyone is different, and we all need to work with the optimal conditions for our brains.

Your physical and mental health need to be a priority, even if that comes at the expense of something else. For example, I originally intended to publish this blog post in March, but life got in the way and I moved it to May. There will nearly always be something which can be delayed, or rescheduled, or outsourced, or removed from your plate entirely.

Slow progress is still progress. Sometimes I question why I can’t write as fast as others can, when one of the answers to that question is literally climbing my torso, wrapping his arms around my head, and trying to lick my hair. Instead of comparing ourselves with others, we need to show ourselves kindness and grace, and to speak to ourselves as we would a friend.

CONCLUSION

Productivity strategies are useful to an extent for autistic writers. I’ve offered some thoughts, tips and advice in the current blog post, some of which may work for you. However, we need to apply the strategies in ways which work with our brains rather than against them. It is also important to remember that – even within autism – everyone is different.

BEFORE YOU GO…

Do you have any tips or strategies that have worked for you as an autistic and/or ADHD writer? Please join in the discussion (contact details below).

Please feel free to comment on the article and/or contact me if you have any questions!

Socials: @cbentleywriter on most of them!

Newsletter: www.clairebentley.co.uk/newsletter

Editorial services: https://www.clairebentley.co.uk/work-with-me

Website: www.clairebentley.co.uk

Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/clairebentley

I welcome respectful and friendly discussion on the topics I write about, including if your opinion differs from my own.

Disclaimer: generative AI

I do not use generative AI to produce or inform my blog, my images, or my fiction. All of my content is generated by the chaotic firing of my own (human) brain! (I have access to some stock images through my Wix subscription).I do not consent to the use of my content, images, or fiction to train generative AI models. Please contact me to discuss permission and compensation if you wish to use my content in this way.