The Bypassing Creative Consistency with Susanne Schotanus

Summary

Hacking Your ADHD

Episode: The Bypassing Creative Consistency with Susanne Schotanus

Host: William Curb

Guest: Susanne Schotanus

Original Publish Date: June 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the intersection of ADHD and writing with guest Susanne Schotanus, the world’s first dedicated ADHD writing coach and founder of the Basecamp to Brilliance Writing Summit. The conversation delves into why traditional approaches to writing often clash with ADHD brains, how to manage the “messy middle” of long-term projects, and critically, why “consistency” is an unhelpful myth for ADHD creatives. The discussion is rich with practical, compassionate strategies for breaking through creative barriers, supported by memorable anecdotes and quotes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The ADHD Experience & Diagnosis Journey

• Double Diagnosis Story:
  • Susanne shares her experience of being diagnosed twice with ADHD, highlighting the lack of supportive infrastructure and the limited utility of diagnosis without subsequent learning and community support.
  • Quote [04:15]:
    "It's not the diagnosis, it's the learning after. It's getting the language that can help you find your people online...So it's not the diagnosis, it's the learning process and the finding community after...that have the bigger effect." — Susanne Schotanus

2. How ADHD Affects Writing

• Nonlinear Thinking vs. Linear Writing:

  • ADHD minds are multidimensional, connecting ideas nonlinearly. Writing, however, requires a linear process, causing conflict and overwhelm.
  • Quote [07:38]:
    "Most neurotypicals are linear thinkers... For us, that is definitely not the case. We start with A and then we see how that relates to B, C and D...We think in a two-dimensional map...But writing is a linear form of communication." — Susanne Schotanus

• The Messy Middle & Craving for Novelty:

  • ADHD writers often abandon projects when the excitement fades after the initial burst of novelty, leading to a pattern of unfinished work.

• Emotional Toll of Creative Incompletion:

  • Feelings of failure around abandoned projects can feed negative self-judgment, which must be countered with curiosity and self-compassion.
  • Quote [05:49]:
    "Curiosity is the antidote to judgment...In those moments of failure, quote, unquote, treat yourself with curiosity and ask yourself, okay, what went wrong here?" — Susanne Schotanus

3. Challenges Unique to ADHD Writers

• Executive Dysfunction:
  • Issues surrounding starting, organizing, and persisting with large writing projects are magnified for ADHDers.
• Note-Taking & Organization:
  • ADHDers are either prolific note-takers with unusable piles of notes or avoidant altogether. Systems often collapse under their own complexity or become abandoned.
  • Quote [13:02]:
    "Even if you're a good note taker, that doesn't necessarily mean that the notes are serving you in any way, shape or form." — Susanne Schotanus

4. Rethinking Tools & Systems

• Tools Should Serve You, Not the Reverse:
  • Accept the “natural lifespan” of excitement around new tools. Make systems exportable and easy to revisit after breaks.
  • Quote [14:30]:
    "You can't fail your tools. Your note taking system is here to serve you, you are not here to serve it."
• Keep Systems Playful & Evolving:
  • Complexity for its own sake suffocates utility. Instead, adopt a playful, experimental mindset.
  • Quote [17:43]:
    "Play. Give yourself 15, 20 minutes a day and play with your new tool...Don't try to build it all right now. Just accept that it's going to develop over time as your ideas develop."

5. Consistency: The Creative Myth

• Challenging Consistency as a Standard:
  • For ADHDers, “consistency” in the traditional sense is often a source of shame and self-criticism. Progress, not consistency, should be the goal.
  • Quote [20:12]:
    "I think consistency is a myth...What if we replace consistency with constant progress, whatever that looks like?...So yeah, I think consistency is a myth and...we shouldn't even redefine it. Just let's, let's let go of that concept altogether because it's not serving us, it's not helping us."
• “Touching” Projects:
  • Stay in contact with your project in any way possible — brainstorming, collages, audio notes — to maintain a creative thread.
  • Creative Examples [22:35–24:23]:
    • Making collages or clay characters to understand academic writing
    • Listening to disagreeable podcasts to fuel writing motivation
    • Using bath crayons for shower wall outlines
  • Quote [24:23]:
    "Just accept where you have your greatest ideas and build on that."

6. Motivation and Gamification

• Don’t Wait for Motivation:

  • Motivation is created through action. Break work into “absurdly small” tasks to ignite momentum.
  • Quote [25:39]:
    "Waiting for motivation rarely works because motivation comes from action, not the other way around."

• Leverage ADHD’s Interest-Based Motivation:

  • Draw from William Dodson’s INCUP model: Interest, Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, and Passion. Most ADHDers default to novelty or urgency, but challenge, gamification and playfulness are powerful forgotten levers.
  • Quote [27:57]:
    "If you can start pulling on the gamification lever and the challenge lever and maybe bring some accountability into it...then you can start generating motivation without having to wait for it."

• Tiny Habits for Tiny Starts:

  • Reference to the book Tiny Habits: break tasks down to the simplest component (e.g., write a sentence, fix a typo) to lower activation energy.

7. Accountability & Coaching

• Accountability Systems:
  • Community and scheduled check-ins are especially helpful for ADHDers.
  • Quote [29:48]:
    "Accountability works. It's just enough pressure that you don't get overwhelmed, usually, mostly, but that you do keep, like, we do so much better in a community."

8. Client Types & Universal Writing Struggles

• Typical Clients:
  • Academics, memoirists, novelists, freelancers — anyone who needs or wants to write.
  • Predominant issues: motivation, time management, organization, and making big tasks smaller.
• Quote [32:39]:
  “I talk a lot about motivation, I talk a lot about time management, and 9 out of 10 times the words make it smaller come out of my mouth.”

9. Ubiquity of Writing & Custom Solutions

• Writing is Unavoidable:
  • Emails, texts, and professional writing all pose unique ADHD challenges.
  • Creative Workarounds:
    • Dictation, voice notes, recording presentations, using whatever nontraditional approach works.
    • Quote [36:27]:
      "You're absolutely right. Writing is everywhere. You can't avoid it. But what you can do is redefining what writing looks like for you."

10. Basecamp to Brilliance Summit

• Annual ADHD Writing Summit:
  • A virtual event dedicated to ADHD writers, designed for both practical strategies and sharing the often-hidden struggles of ADHD writing.
  • Quote [41:14]:
    "...Basecamp to Brilliance is a celebration of ADHD in writing, but it's also a place where these stories can finally exist and be shared."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Consistency] is a myth. It is an impossible standard, especially for ADHDers who live a rich, full life.” — Susanne Schotanus [20:12]
• “Curiosity is the antidote to judgment.” — Susanne Schotanus [05:49]
• “You can't fail your tools. Your note-taking system is here to serve you, you are not here to serve it.” — Susanne Schotanus [14:30]
• “Motivation comes from action, not the other way around.” — Susanne Schotanus [25:39]
• “We do so much better in a community. We do so much better connected to others, in relation to others.” — Susanne Schotanus [29:48]
• “Let go of that stick that you keep beating yourself with...Bring curiosity and play into it. Figure out how to make it work for you.” — Susanne Schotanus [43:12]

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Recommended Strategies & Actionable Tips (with Timestamps)

• Adopt Curiosity Over Judgment: When you “fail” at writing or organizing, pause and ask “what didn’t I have in place?” instead of judging yourself. [05:49]
• Resist Perfection in Note Organization: Use whatever system works, keep it simple, and don’t feel guilty if you change systems often. [14:30]
• Progress, Not Consistency: Focus on “touching” your project regularly in any way that feels natural. [22:35]
• Gamify & Play: Try outlining with Legos, dictating drafts, making visual collages, or bringing your project into daily life. [22:35–24:23]
• Break Tasks Down: Make the first step extremely small (e.g., write one sentence, fix one typo) to kick off motivation. [27:24]
• Leverage Accountability: Use groups, coaching, or public commitments to create gentle external pressure. [29:48]
• Explore Alternative Inputs: Use speech-to-text, record presentations, or whatever format “unlocks” your thinking. [36:59]
• Engage with Community: Attend events like Basecamp to Brilliance to connect and learn from other ADHD creators. [41:14]

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Resources Mentioned

• Basecamp to Brilliance Writing Summit: basecamptobrilliance.com
• Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg – practical approach to habit formation
• INCUP Model of ADHD Motivation (Dr. William Dodson): Interest, Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, and Passion
• Susanne’s Free Emergency Motivation Toolkit (specific link in show notes)

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Key Takeaway

Replace “consistency” with creativity, curiosity, and play. Let go of traditional rules that don’t serve your brain; progress can take many forms, and honoring your unique process will help you not only produce work, but also enjoy the creative journey.

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For more details, links, and resources, check the episode show notes at hackingyouradhd.com/299.

Transcript

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[William Curb]

Welcome to Hacking youg adhd. I'm your host William Curb and I have adhd. On this podcast I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Hey team. As many of you know, I have a passion for writing, so I'm excited that today we are deep diving into that world and why it often feels like an uphill battle when you have an ADHD brain. Today I'm talking Susanna Scrotanas, an expert ADHD coach who holds the unique distinction of being the world's first dedicated ADHD writing coach, as well as the founder of the annual base Camp to Brilliance Writing Summit. Susannah brings a wealth of clinical and practical insight from her years spent coaching everyone from burnt out university professors to memoirists struggling to organize decades of research. In our conversation today, we discuss why standard linear approaches to writing clash so intensely with our multidimensional thinking styles. Susanna also explains the mechanics of the messy mental in long term projects, how our constant craving for novelty can derail a draft after just two weeks, and why we might want to reconsider our views on consistency. We also explore practical ways to gamify your workflow and create structural frameworks that adapt to your brain rather than forcing your brain to adapt to them.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And while this episode's core focus is on writing, I think there's a lot

[William Curb]

to get out of this when considering any kind of long term pursuits and

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

the fact that we all have to do so much writing for all of our day to day life. If you'd like to follow along on

[William Curb]

your show notes page, you can find [e-mail] 299 alright, keep on listening to find out how to stop worrying about consistency but still actually finish that draft.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well I'm so excited to be doing this interview because writing has been a passion of mine since I was very young. So I was looking through this, I was like oh this will be so much fun even just for me. Even with that in mind, I thought

[William Curb]

a great place for us to start

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

is that you had mentioned that you had been diagnosed twice, which for a lot of us, once is enough. But tell us a little bit about that.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right. I can't recommend it. It wasn't intentional at all. I first got diagnosed when I was 15. All they could tell me at that point was, sometimes you have a hard time focusing and these pills might help. They gave me Ritalin. Didn't really work for me. It made me very aggressive, and I'm not an aggressive person. So everyone kind of forgot about my diagnosis until I was in university and I was struggling a little and I was visiting a friend's house and her mother happened to be an ADHD coach, and she said, well, your struggles sound a whole lot like adhd. And I said, I think there was a diagnosis somewhere in my past. So I undertook a journey and I went back to my child psychologist and psychiatrist and everyone else who was involved at that time, and no one could find my diagnosis. So I heard through the grapevine about a psychiatrist who was close by and who was very good at diagnosing adhd. It took me about three months, but in the end I got my second ADHD diagnosis and very proudly took it to the university, only to hear, yeah, well, the only thing we can give you is extra time on your exam. And as I'm an exceptionally fast reader and only needed half the exam time to begin with, the second diagnosis was pretty much as useful as the first one. But it does make for a good story.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. And, well, it's often the diagnosis is incredibly life changing for people, but it isn't always. Sometimes it's just like, oh, this is. I kind of knew and I. It's nice to have the confirmation, but

[Susannah Scrotanas]

it's like, I think it's not the diagnosis, it's the learning after. It is getting the language that can help you find your people online and help you find information and help you learn more about all those challenges that you thought were just you being a bad person and not well adjusted to our society and turned out to be adhd. So I always say I was diagnosed relatively early, but I am on the same journey that everyone else is because there's so much that we're only finding out now that we're only learning about now from podcasts such as yours and from scientists who are now finally looking at women and other stuff, even though they're not looking at writing yet. So I think that we're all in this together. We're all learning together. Because before, let's say 10 years ago, we knew nothing Nothing. So it's not the diagnosis, it's the learning process and the finding community after, I think, that have the bigger effect.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. There's only so much that just having the diagnosis gives you. Because I know for years after my diagnosis, I didn't actually do anything with it. I was just like, okay, well, this makes sense. This explains a lot of my life. And then I didn't go through with the process of being like, okay, well, let's actually find out how I can, like, work with my brain.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

And that is where. That is the crux. Right. When you start learning with your brain, that is when it starts having an impact.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. It's one of those things where it makes so much sense to be like, oh, yeah, let's just do things that work for how I do things. But it takes that, like, just one additional step to get there.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Often because we are so used to just blaming ourselves and just getting stuck in this. Oh, yes, I just failed again. Of course I failed again. I always fail. That is our go to. That is what we've been doing since childhood. And that is like decades of habits that you now have to shake to. I always say curiosity is the antidote to judgment. We've all been stuck in this judgment. And it takes a big step to, in those moments of failure, quote, unquote, treat yourself with curiosity and ask yourself, okay, what went wrong here? What didn't I have in place that I needed? Instead of just beating yourself up and going down that deep dark.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, because often when we have this self talk, it doesn't lead us to that. Okay, well, there's something I can do about it. It's just this self talk of, like, I'm bad and therefore I can't do anything. But with, as you said, with the curiosity, you go, oh, well, maybe there is something I can do. Maybe. Maybe I can write that book if I know the right steps.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right, Precisely. It makes such a big difference. And as long as you get stuck in the judgment zone, your diagnosis is not going to save you.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

No. So with that in mind, I think we can jump into some of this idea of ADHD coaching with writing and specifically for writing. Because I know so many people that I like writing so much, I have trouble imagining other people not wanting to be writers. And so it's one of those things where sometimes I forget about that. But I do know a lot of people that are like, oh, yeah, writing. I would love to write, but it's too hard for me. And I think ADHD on top of that layers in some really heavy burdens with the executive dysfunction stuff. And so can you talk a little

[William Curb]

bit about what are some of the

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

unique challenges ADHD writers face?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I think, as with many of our ADHD challenges, the challenges make most people go, oh, so everyone has ADHD because they are not complete, like completely unique to us. We just have them in a more excessive form. But one of the big differences I have noticed is that most neurotypicals are linear thinkers. They think from A to B to C to D. For us, that is definitely not the case. We start with A and then we see how that relates to B, C and D and we see how that relates to everything else. If I can, if I give you two random topics and you're in the zone, you're probably going to be able to find a connection between the two because your brain is constantly seeking connections, making connections. And that means that we think not in a linear line. We think two dimensionally, we think in a two dimensional map. But the problem with writing is writing is a linear form of communication. It is one line broken up with commas, periods and maybe a paragraph break here and there. So what we're trying to do is we have this two dimensional map in our heads of how everything relates. And now we need to squeeze that into a one dimensional line. And there's a few things that go wrong there. One, we get completely overwhelmed by the map because there is so much to say. Where do I even get started? Because we don't have a natural start point and a natural end point. A second one is, I can never catch the nuance and the richness of my ideas within my text, so I need to throw it out and start over. Then, of course, there is our desire for novelty, which means that when you have worked on something for two weeks, this is mostly true for longer form texts, your brain will tell you this is not exciting anymore because you were relying on novelty. In the first two weeks, that novelty wears off, it's not exciting to you anymore and therefore you think that the project will not be exciting to the rest of the world.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I've definitely felt that one.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

So you throw it out and you start a new project. We love starting new projects. We have a very, very, very hard time with that messy middle going through. The way that I describe it is you start very excitedly in those first two weeks. Everything is new. You have so many ideas, you create all these different threads and then you get stuck in that messy middle, surrounded by threads, not knowing how to Tie it all back together. And I. That is very ADHD specific writing problem.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. I've definitely had my trouble with, like, I'm gathering all my ideas and then I'm like, well, that was the most interesting part. And then like, well, time for a new idea to where that. That's all that. And we'll just write about something else.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

And that is fine. If you just want to write for pleasure, then start a new project every two weeks. Why not? But if you start feeling bad about this stack of unfinished projects on your desk or in your. In your Google Drive, then that is going to start weighing on you. There's going to be. It's going to be one more piece of evidence that you were a failure and you can never finish anything and never accomplish anything. And there's so much emotional work that comes into it. And as writing is usually a very vulnerable, vulnerable activity, those two don't mesh very well. When you feel terrible about yourself, it doesn't make your writing better.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah. One of the ideas I was curious about when I was thinking about this interview was how much of what you do is just coaching. Writing specific problems versus ADHD problems that in turn make writing harder.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Yeah, I think that 80% is the second. I often tell my clients I'm a life coach for ADHD writers because I think that if the rest of your life is falling apart, then we can talk about writing all we want. But it's not going to happen. If you can't figure out how to motivate yourself in general, if you can't figure out how to manage your schedule in such a way that you can have time for writing. If you are so overwhelmed by everything that is going on in your day job, there's not going to be any writing. And yes, I think that I have some clients where we mostly talk about the content of their work. How do I structure this? What are the elements that I want to bring in? How does it all tie together? How can I make sense of this for my reader? But most of the work that I do is really, how do I organize myself around writing.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I can definitely see that, because organization is one of my Achilles heels in these, in all areas of my life. And so it definitely will slip into my writing where I'm just like, I will get. I'll finish a piece and be like, I can't this. There's no organization to this. This is awful.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Yeah. And that is the organization within your work. But imagine that you haven't touched your project in two months and you know, you need to work on it because there's a deadline but you don't even know what, which of the thousand folders it is in or you know that you read something somewhere that has a bearing on what you're writing right now, but you have no idea where to find it because you don't have, you have a note taking system, but you don't have a note organization system.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's always. I've, I have a lot of notes and I know that I'm like, I probably have some good ideas in there that I'm never going to see again because I just don't. I never labeled them or any, you know, either physical notes or that are in a giant bin of papers that I may, may or may never go through or you know, digital note takers. I'm like, oh, this will, this one will be great. And it's, it's not.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Nope. No. Because when you architect. Look, people ADHDers often tell me either I don't take notes at all, but but or. And more, more regularly they tell me, oh yeah, I do take notes. I'm a great note taker. And my follow up question is okay, but do you know how to find your notes? I had a client who had a binder, like a scrapbook where every thought he had he wrote down and put in the scrapbook. Beautiful, wonderful, magical. Like every single thought he had, every epiphany, every idea went into that. And I asked him, okay, so when's the last time he actually looked at it except to put your new ideas in? Doesn't happen. So yeah, I think that note taking is something that a lot of people talk about. But how to organize your notes in such a way that you can actually find them or organize them in such a way that you will want to find them instead of thinking, oh yeah, well this is such a mess, I don't even know where to start. So let me just think about it again and come up with a new solution. Those are two completely different things. And even if you're a good note taker, that doesn't necessarily mean that the notes are serving you in any way, shape or form.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's absolutely true. I have more notes than I know what to do with and no way to. I'm getting better with finding ways to like organize them because I'll be like, oh, I'm specifically taking notes for this project so I need to be able to look at it again. But I guess. So do you have systems or suggestions for how people should Better go into that idea.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Absolutely. The first rule is you can't fail your tools. Your note taking system is here to serve you, you are not here to serve it. So if you have a brand new note tool that seems very exciting to you and after a while it just seems like it isn't working for you anymore, that doesn't mean that you failed and you should give up on note taking altogether. It means your system needs to change. If you fall in love with a new tool and every time you stop using it after two weeks, that's fine. Clearly the tool has served its purpose. Find the next one that gets you excited and use that. Just make sure that you build your note taking systems in such a way that you can export them so that you can still take them with you to the new tool and that you don't make it so complex that if you come back after a while, you can still figure out how it worked. So it is all about accepting how your brain works and then figuring out, okay, how can I make this work for me? I don't think it's necessarily. People often tell me, oh yeah, tools don't work for me because I never use them. And my follow up question is always, okay, do you not use them or do you use them for two gloriously productive weeks only to then get bored with it? Because if it's a second, then my question is, is the price of this tool worth the two gloriously productive weeks? I'm sure that you would be willing to pay a lot of money for two very productive weeks. If the tool can help you do that, then it served its purpose. It's fine. But it is our beating up of ourselves that prevents us from, from, from making the most out of those tools for the brain that we actually have, rather than the brain that we wish we had.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, often that is the, the rub is that we are too often being like, oh, but if things were like this and it's like, but they're not, no.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

So why not start with acceptance and then take it from there? So I, I would not say there's one system that works for every ADHD writer because I think that we are all, we might have a, but we're still individuals and we still have our own quirks and our own interests and our own passions. I love databases. I'm a complete geek. I love databases and tagging and filtering and creating entire architectures that is not for everyone. So I think that the best thing you can do is take it in a more playful way. Watch some YouTube videos and follow your interest. If something seems interesting to you, start using it in a playful way rather than thinking, I now need to set this up in such a way that I can use it for the rest of my life. Because let's be honest, you're not going to use it for the rest of your life unless you start keep making changes to it to make it seem new to yourself again. So I think that is the big, big problem. We, we find a new tool, then we dedicate like a week of our life to figuring it out and as soon as we figured it out, it's not interesting anymore. And then we've wasted that week setting up a system that we thought was going to serve us forever.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I have spent a lot in that zone of like, oh, I'm gonna make this tool so complex that I can't fail without realizing that that complexity itself is making it fail.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Yes. So play. Give yourself 15, 20 minutes a day and play with your new tool. Play with your new toy. Watch YouTube videos, try things out. Don't try to build it all right now. Just accept that it's going to develop over time as your, as your ideas develop. Take it easy.

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[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, and yeah, I guess be willing to be like, oh yeah if it. Because often you'll be using something you're like, if only this one thing was different. But I've already set it up this way. It's like, well just do it the

[Susannah Scrotanas]

new way, of course. But limit the time that you spend on it.

[William Curb]

Yes.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Don't dive in for weeks at a time being like, I'm making this script that's going to put every note in the right place and it's going to be, I'll be, it'll be magic. Because it won't be.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

It won't be. No tool is magic. And your brain is not capable of figuring out what everything that you might need in the future. So let your future self take care of it.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I think that's a great point because there's so many things where I, like, try to think ahead as much as I can and then it never. I can't quite ever get that far ahead.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right. It's true. So let's let your future self figure it out. They are probably going to be incredibly capable.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And so this is also touching on another point I wanted to get into, which is consistency. Something that I know I've had a lot of issues with consistency on a number of things, but it's. I think I probably have a fairly similar view of consistency that I've developed that you have, where it's not about everyday consistency, it's just kind of a rolling, like, yeah, I'll get. If I just keep doing this month after month, I'll get there. I don't have to be every day consistent.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I think consistency is a myth. It is an impossible standard. It's an impossible standard, especially for ADHDers and especially for ADHDers who live a rich, full life. And let's be honest, we all do. The word consistency just makes me shiver. I do not like that word. I had a conversation with one of my coaching groups the other day and one of my clients said, oh, I can definitely make this work as long as I'm consistent. And one of the other people in the group said, yeah, we don't use that word here. We don't use the C word here. Consistency, I think, is a myth. I don't think we are capable of consistency. And I think that it is not necessary. If you go online, people will tell you if you want to achieve anything, you have to be consistent. If you want to build an online following, you have to be consistent. If you want to get any big creative projects done, you have to be consistent. And that is another stick that we keep beating ourselves with because we can't be consistent. So I think what if we replace consistency with constant progress, whatever that looks like. So writing every day, no, that's probably not going to happen. And the problem with that kind of thinking is if you miss one day, you've broken your streak, so you might as well give up. So it is actually going to make it less likely that you finish your project rather than more likely if you tell yourself you have to be consistent. So what if we let go of the idea of consistency and instead try to keep making progress? And that means that your Shower thoughts count. That means that listening to a podcast in your car and having a new idea about the thing that you are writing that counts made progress. Great. Just try to stay in touch with your project instead of only counting like 500 words a day. Because that is what consistency look like. Looks like according to the all knowing Internet. So yeah, I think consistency is a myth and we need to replace that. As ADHD writers, we should just, we should, we shouldn't even redefine it. Just let's, let's let go of that concept altogether because it's not serving us, it's not helping us.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. And I think a reason a lot of ADHD writers do really cling to it is the same thing that we were talking about earlier where they lose interest in their idea because they haven't been touching it. And so, yeah, I think there's a little bit of a dichotomy where like, yeah, we can't be consistent in the way we want, but we also need to keep touching it in a semi consistent fashion.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Yeah. So let's play what, how can we touch it? I have done this exercise with a lot of my clients and they've come up with the craziest things. I was working with an academic. She was a professor, and she started making collages about the transformation that people would undergo if they read and understood her paper. Not something that you would associate with academic writing, but collaging for her worked. It worked as a way to stay in touch. I have someone who uses Legos to outline her academic papers. I know someone who was writing a screenplay and she took her project to the clay studio. So in the clay studio, she was working on the faces of her characters. And through that she could get deeper into who are there? They, where are they coming from? She did character development as she was working with clay. Someone else said, I spent a lot of time in the car, so I listened to podcasts about topics related to my project that I strongly disagree with. And then I use that frustration about my disagreement to fuel my motivation to get back to my project and write. So what can it look like? How can you touch your writing while you do other things? We are great multitaskers. So what if you can bring your writing project into the everyday instead of seeing it as a separate realm that you need to visit and need to make time to visit? Putting all else aside, make it fun.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. And I can definitely see the importance of just letting your brain kind of play because looking at a blank page often we get, we mirror that and are just blank in our thoughts. But when I'm, you know, outdoing something else, it's usually my brain is like, oh, let's fire. Let's think about these ideas.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Absolutely. One of the best investments I've ever made is I bought a pack of bath crayons and I put one of them in the shower. And I have outlined entire texts on my shower wall because that is where I have my greatest ideas. And after that I can and just put them on paper and then rinse it all off with a shower head. So yeah, just accept where you have your greatest ideas and build on that.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I know I get a lot of good thinking done while I'm driving because I'm not listening to an audiobook or a podcast. I'm just like driving. I'm like, okay, yeah, my brain needs something to do. And so it just starts working through ideas. And often that's where ideas for what I'm writing about come from. Is like so many, many posts from this podcast have come from. Just like I was driving around being like, man, that's a neat issue. And then been like, okay, let's solve it.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right? That's amazing. And that is a way to stay in touch with your writing without putting the pressure of consistency on yourself.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I've just glanced at my notes here with the consistency. I also saw this note I had about waiting for motivation, which I think is almost kind of a parallel problem here because that's often what people talk about. The reason for consistency is that then you don't have to wait for motivation, but because we don't want to just like only work when we're motivated because that's. We have deadlines and it does not work that way.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right. That's true. Yes. But you're, you're absolutely right. Waiting for motivation rarely works because motivation comes from action, not the other way around.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. And so using this, just using this idea of touching the idea any way you can, I think is a great system there for not waiting for the motivation.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I think so too. It often it awakens your intrinsic motivation. But there are other ways too. So I don't know if you're familiar with the work of William Dodson. He's the one who came up with the idea of the interest based nervous system that ADHDers have as opposed to the importance based nervous system that neurotypical people have. And he also developed the incu model of motivation for adhd. So he says we're interested by interest, passion, novelty, challenge, and urgency and pressure. Now ADHDers I have found, often rely either mostly on novelty ADHD writers, either a novelty. So as we, as we discussed, you start a new project because you have a new idea. This is exciting. I want to do this. And then after a few weeks, the novelty wears off and you have your new idea. So that usually results. If you only rely on novelty, usually results in a lot of unfinished projects, or they rely mostly on urgency and pressure, so they wait until the deadline and then they get things done. That usually, if. If that is your only source of motivation, that usually results in burnout because you are constantly firefighting. You are working one panicky deadline to the next. So that doesn't quite work either. But the challenge elements, often forgotten. We ADHDers are very susceptible to gamification and playfulness. So if you can start pulling on the gamification lever and the challenge lever and maybe bring some accountability into it as well, or racing against your past self or communicating to your friend that you're going to do something this week, then you can start generating motivation without having to wait for it, without switching from one new project to the next and without constantly working from one deadline to the next. So that is one thing that I would really suggest is play. That is kind of the theme of this session today, I think. Just play with it. Have fun with it. Another one is there's a brilliant book called Tiny Habits. Not Atomic Habits, Tiny Habits, where the behavioral scientist talks about how you don't need as much motivation as you think if you make the task super easy. So if you tell yourself, I'm now going to sit down and write a sentence, you need a whole lot less motivation than if you say, I need to work on my book.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, absolutely. It's when you can't conceptualize what you're doing. It's too much.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right. So make it tiny, and suddenly you don't need that much motivation anymore.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. One of the funny things I'll do with my episodes is I will use templates to help me, like, format stuff. But inadvertently, while I was making the templates, I left in some typos. I have never corrected those because they were such a good motivator for me to get started on doing things. Because I'll just fill open the template and be like, okay, gotta fix these. And then that just little habit of like, oh, I, I'm. I'm starting to work. My brain is like, oh, yeah, you're, you're, you're in work mode now. You're not just doing nothing.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right. Exactly. And what also What. What you also really showed there is when you get a tiny little task done, it becomes so much easier to do the next one, because fixing that typo seems simple and easy. It's not fixing the whole episode. It's not editing the whole episode. That is big. That's overwhelming. But I can fix this typo. And by fixing that typo, you are building up your motivation because you're giving yourself tiny little dopamine boosts. So what you're doing is you're not waiting for motivation. You are creating motivation through action. And there's probably also a little bit of accountability for you as well. People will know if you don't put your episode up.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, there's that. Always the thing of people like, so

[William Curb]

how do you keep doing your episodes?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I'm like, well, if I didn't, I get emails about it.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Precisely. Accountability works. It's just enough pressure that you don't get overwhelmed, usually, mostly, but that you do keep, like, we do so much better in a community. We do so much better connected to others, in relation to others. It is so much easier to do things for someone else than it is to do it for yourself. And that is one reason why coaching works.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Well, and I think especially with coaching and accountability, because one of the things I've learned about accountability is that it works much better with, like, connections to you from people that are not, like, your, like, sibling or mother, you know, like direct family or something. A little bit farther out in the relationship is, like, the best form of accountability. Because you're like, they don't know who I am yet. I don't want to let them down.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Precisely. Yeah, I see that. Especially in the. In the. At the start of a coaching relationship, people say, oh, I got so much writing done yesterday because I knew I was going to meet you today, and I didn't want to admit I hadn't done anything. So it's really. It's a regularly scheduled accountability point. Yes.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So as we've been talking, one of the things I've been kind of curious about is what a kind of a typical client would look like for you. Because when I think about writing, I'm often thinking about either the more journalistic writing I'm doing for podcast or the fiction writing I just do on the side for fun. But there's a whole range of things that people can be like, as you already mentioned, like screenwriters and academics and on. So just kind of, here's what the primary focus of, like, who is coming to you.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Interesting. I hate to Talk about the typical client, because all of them are special little snowflakes to me. But. But I do think the majority of my clients are academics. Because academics feel a lot of pressure to publish. They experience very little in the way of support. There's ADHD support for students, not so much for faculty, and they feel that their job depends on it, so they are very happy to invest. So the majority of my clients is academics. The rest is composed of people who are writing their memoirs because we ADHDers take risks, we have interesting lives, and at some point you realize people might be interested in everything that I have experienced. So there is a lot of memoirists, there's definitely novelists, nonfiction writers who are completely and utterly obsessed with a topic, have been researching it for decades, and now want to share their insights with the world. As I said, screenwriters, journalists, content writers. What else? Freelancer. Freelance content writers and journalists. Anyone who needs or wants to write? Pretty much, yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And is it usually around kind of the same subjects of issues for writing that people have or is it just like all over the place?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I talk a lot about motivation, I talk a lot about time management, and 9 out of 10 times the words make it smaller come out of my mouth. There's also a lot of, as we talked about the architecture of your note taking system, so there are some general areas that people mostly struggle with. But every day is different. I can never predict what is going to happen because every week you will probably experience that too. I always say every time you think you've solved a problem, your brain has just invented a new one. So I'm always busy and I can never predict where we're going next. So I just show up to my coaching sessions completely open, asking what's going on? And then we take it from there. I do not believe in a one size fits all program for ADHD writers because our problems are so varied and you can never predict what problem is going to pop up next.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, well, and especially when we talked about earlier, how many of the problems are really ADHD issues on top of whatever they're dealing with.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Yeah, because everything I just said is executive function. Right. Time management, motivation, organization, it's all like the ADHD checklist, but no one is talking about how it expresses itself when you're trying to write.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, and writing has become such a ubiquitous skill across like all fields. Like you can't really like, even if you think you're out of it, you're like, you still got to do emails and you know, texting even is something That I know so many people, like, they're like, I just want to be able to respond to this, but I can't.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Right. Exactly. The number of times I have personally struggled with email anxiety is just ridiculous. Seeing an overfull inbox and just becoming completely avoidant. Not knowing how to even begin, like, clearing it all.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. And even being like, email is something I've struggled with for years. And it's always. It feels like it should be easy. Like, I'm like, I know how to do this. And then I get. And then it like builds up again.

[William Curb]

I'm like, how did this happen?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

It's true. I am the exact same way. I teach this stuff. Stuff. You teach this stuff. Everyone struggles with this. I think it's just some people hide it better than others or, or higher assistance.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's. That's where I'm at right now. And it's great. But yeah, often you. Because people have this, like, need to, like, email, like, respond immediately to things and when. Giving that up has been very helpful for me where I'm like, okay, I'm. I'll get to this when I get to it. Unless it's actually urgent, but it almost never is.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

It's true. But for ADHDers, everything always feels so urgent because we rely on urgency so much. I have that too. Sometimes when I send someone a message, I just keep checking my inbox, seeing if I have already received a response. But when I am down in my rabbit hole, there's no way I'm going to respond within 24 hours because I am completely down the rabbit hole, completely immersed in whatever project I have going on. On. So sometimes, sometimes people's ADHD also doesn't mesh well together. We're not always on the same schedule.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

It's very true. There's. We all have our own unique flavor of adhd and it can be great sometimes and it can be a problem sometimes.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Absolutely true. Yes. Still, we are my favorite people. Sometimes I go months without talking to a neurotypical, and then people come to me and ask, do neurotypicals have this problem? And I, I say, I have no idea. I don't talk to those people.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I have. Every once in a while I'll talk to some of my neurotypical friends and I'll like, mention something. They're like, oh, yeah, I just do this one thing and it solves all that. I'm like, but how do you do that? Like, they're like, yeah, I just answer all my emails. I don't see what the problem is what?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

How? Yes, I completely understand. So, yes, you're absolutely right. Writing is everywhere. You can't avoid it. But what you can do is redefining what writing looks like for you. I had one of the most prolific writers I've ever, ever worked with that was a novelist, and she would go into the woods and dictate into her phone for two hours, and then she would go home and spend the afternoon editing what she wrote through her voice. She would never look at a white page, a blank page, and she could write a book in a month.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I've been experimenting with some, like, speech to text, and that's been fantastic. It's been one of the biggest game changers in my writing in the last last few years, where it's just like, oh, this is really a great way to get my thoughts out, because I don't get bogged down and trying, like, I can't type as fast as I think. And it often very helpful to just be like, oh, can just talk and then edit later.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Yeah, precisely. So when you do struggle with writing, one question you can ask yourself is, okay, so what don't I struggle with that I can use here? For example, I had someone who was very good at making PowerPoint presentations. Presentations. So I told her, why don't you outline your text in a PowerPoint and then present that PowerPoint to yourself while you record yourself and you have your well structured first draft.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. I think a lot of people are often get stuck in, like, this is how I'm supposed to do things. And with adhd, it's so often about just whatever works.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I'm a big fan of whatever works.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Which. And it's so funny when you, like, do it because you're like, why didn't

[William Curb]

I do this earlier?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I just had this thought of, like,

[William Curb]

how it was supposed to be.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And it's like, oh, well, this. Sometimes it's finding the right tool. Sometimes it's just breaking through that mental barrier of what is supposed to be and what you can do.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I absolutely agree. And I think the second one is often overlooked, but makes the biggest difference.

[William Curb]

Can you tell me a little bit

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

about Basecamp to Brilliance?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I would love to tell you a little bit about Basecamp to brilliance. Last year, I was five years in business, and I decided to throw a big, awesome party. And a big, awesome party took the form of a summit where people talked about ADHD and writing. And the prompts I gave all the speakers was absolutely. We want your tools, we want your strategies, we want to learn from you, but we also want to see your struggles because there's so little talk about ADHD and writing and the same experience that all of us had before we got diagnosed or before we learned after diagnosis that this too was adhd, where the only answer we had to the question, why can't I do this? Is, you're just bad at it. We didn't have, like, different language. We didn't have a different understanding that could tell us, oh, no, no, you're not a bad writer. You're an ADHD writer with very typical ADHD writer problems who just needs the right tools. That same thing also happens in writing. If there's no language, there's no story, there's no about what ADHD writers struggle with, then you think that your problems with writing are just your fault, are just you not trying hard enough or you being bad at it. So I felt that we needed more stories about ADHD in writing and what it could be and how great it can be, and how much we can achieve through our writing, but also how much of a struggle it can be. So it was a beautiful mix of learning and connecting. It was a magical experience. And I decided the day after, when I was completely and utterly exhausted and had my huge dip after a three day high, that this is going to be an annual event. So this October, again, I'm going to throw a big party, Basecamp to Brilliance, which is a summit about ADHD and writing. But through the. Through the. Through the organization of it all, I started to realize how. How unique this actually is. For the first time, I realized actually I was the first person in the world to call myself an ADHD writing coach. When I started, I googled the term and there was nothing. So I thought it would just throw up a page on my website and see what happens. And lo and behold, before I knew, it was the most popular page on my site. And I realized that that put me in a position where I felt responsible for actually making sure that this conversation happened. And that is why I started doing interviews and I started going out in the world more, rather than just talking to one client at a time about it. Because if we don't have these conversations, then all the millions of ADHDers who struggle with writing will just sit there feeling it's their own fault. And that was just a weight I couldn't bear anymore. So Basecamp to Brilliance is a celebration of ADHD in writing, but it's also a place where these stories can finally exist and be shared.

[William Curb]

Awesome.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That sounds fantastic. And it's all online, right?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

It's all online. You can go to basecamp to brilliance.com to sign up, to be the first to know when the tickets are online and speakers are confirmed. Honestly, you're the first person to hear this. I already reached out to someone and I have my first speaker confirmed for October 2026. So I'm super excited. This only happened, like, three days ago. It is starting to ramp up.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well, that's super exciting. I'll probably be signing up to go. So, yeah, I'm like, october, that sounds pretty free. I should be able to do that.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

So it's ADHD Awareness month, so you should just keep the entirety of October free and just celebrate neurodivergence in all its shapes and forms. Yes, I'll try.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

All right, well, we're coming up on time here. Is there any final thoughts you want

[William Curb]

to leave the audience with?

[Susannah Scrotanas]

Play. That's the big one. Let go of that stick. That stick that you keep beating yourself with, that you can't do it. That you are not good enough. That you are just terrible at this because the way that, that. That other people do it doesn't work for you. And bring curiosity and play into it. Figure out how to make it work for you rather than always feeling like you are failing your systems and you're failing your tools and you're failing. When you look at your potential, you're failing to realize your potential. You are not failing. You just haven't found the right tool tools. And if you do want tools for motivation, we also, we already talked a little bit about how you can motivate yourself. I created a free guide that is available specifically for your audience that they can download to get their motivation within 10 minutes or less. It is an emergency toolkit that guides you through six questions, multiple choice questions to help you choose between three tools that will help you get motivated within 10 minutes.

[William Curb]

Awesome.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well, I'll make sure there's links to that so everyone can find that in the show notes. And I'm sure a lot of people are getting quite a bit out of this. I know I got a lot out of it.

[William Curb]

So thank you so much for coming on the show.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

I'm so happy to hear it. Thank you for having me. I had so much fun with you today.

[William Curb]

Thanks again to Susannah for coming on the show and thank you for stopping, sticking with us all the way to the end. Before you go though, let's do a quick rundown of Today's top tips. 1. Waiting until you magically feel motivated to start a task is a losing game because our brains require action to generate momentum. To trick your brain into gear, lower the barrier to entry by making the first step absurdly small. Writing a single sentence or fixing a minor typo requires almost zero initial effort, but that tiny completion sometimes can give your brain the dopamine boost it needs to transition into work mode.

[Susannah Scrotanas]

2.

[William Curb]

Your note taking organizational systems are here to serve you, not the other way around. Using a brand new productivity tool for two glorious weeks and then completely losing interest isn't a personal failure, it's just the natural lifespan of a novel driven dopamine source. With this in mind, keep your architecture simple, make sure your data is easily exportable, and make it easy on yourself if you need to switch tools in the future. 3. ADHD brains run on a system driven by interest, novelty, challenge, urgency and passion. Most of us default to novelty, which leaves us with a mountain of half finished projects, or pass panic induced urgency which runs us straight into burnout. To break the cycle and handle long term projects, start intentionally leaning into the underutilized levers of challenge, gamification and genuine playfulness. Alright, that's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Feel free to connect with me [e-mail] contact if you'd like links or to read this episode of Scranch Troupe, you can go to the the show notes [e-mail] 299 and if you'd like even more hacking your ADHD, be sure to sign up for my newsletter any and all distractions which comes out every other week in it. I give up my best distractions of

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

the week, be they what I'm reading,

[William Curb]

what I'm playing, or what I'm watching. I also try to give out a few bits of actionable advice in each newsletter, although your mileage is going to vary there. If that sounds like something you're interested in, head on over to hackingyouradhd.com to sign out. And also be sure to check out our Patreon, which you can easily [e-mail] Patreon. It's a pay what you want model, meaning that all levels of the Patreon receive the same stuff. You can pay $0 or $2 or $10 and it's all the same.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And right now you can get early

[William Curb]

access to all the episodes and some behind the scenes content. You can also check out our Discord, which you can [e-mail] Discord. And also Also, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, which you can [e-mail] hackingyouradhd and finally, if you'd like another way to support the show, the best way to do so is to tell someone about the show, especially if you think a particular episode would resonate with them. Just click the Share button on your podcast player. And now for your moment of dad, what do you get when you cross a cow and an octopus? Your research funding revoked in a very

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

angry call from the Ethics committee.

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