ADHD and Building Websites

I found out, about a year ago, that I have adult ADHD. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me because I am constantly bouncing from idea to idea. My brain never stops and I frequently have multiple conversations in one chat thread, which can really confuse people. But, today we're here to talk about how ADHD can affect your websites.

The Awesomeness of Hyperfixation

First, let's look at the giant pro in the room. Hyperfixation. This is when you get a new idea or interest and just focus on it to the exclusion of all other things. During this time, you're learning everything possible about this particular topic and you become an expert on it in a few days. You might even forget to eat (not me, unfortunately) and sleep (definitely me!).

Why is this so great?

Well, it means that you can learn a LOT in a short amount of time. Your brain is a sponge, soaking up all that incredible knowledge and pumping out the dopamine. This is excellent for keyword research and planning.

Within a few days, you'll have years worth of content planned, the entire website designed and the basics set up. You may even have several articles up in no time!

If you're lucky and the hyperfixation sticks around, you can end up being quite successful as you publish content, make social media posts, and just generally get the info out there. However, there's a downside . . .

The Dark Side of ADHD

While hyperfixations are terrific for building a website, when it goes away, you usually lose all interest in the topic. It's old news. It doesn't provide dopamine anymore. That's why it can be super hard to keep pushing forward.

Also, there's the constant flitting from idea to idea. Nothing is more exciting to my brain than a brand new idea and I've got hundreds of them, pouring in every hour. So, it's ridiculously easy to jump onto the next one and ride that dopamine wave for a while.

The end result? 10 websites on 10 different topics and all of them are partially done. We all know consistency is key in this department and I'm afraid this is where I crash and burn every time.

So, How Do We Fix This?

I live in a country where ADHD meds are not available, so that's not an option for me. It may be for you, though.

What I like to do is use my hyperfixation to create a LOT of ideas for posts and work them up as fast as possible. Then I schedule everything. I can often do a month's worth of thrice weekly posts in a couple of days. Then I can set it and forget it until the next month.

I'm also trying to change my brain a little. It's not easy, but if I schedule a little task on each site every day, it can be quite useful. It's short enough that I get excited and not long enough to lose that fun factor. So I will often do keyword research (Using Partha's method) for one site, then jump to another and another in one day. At the end of the day, I have keywords for multiple sites. Then the next day, I can start writing those. And the following day, I do images for them and publish.

If you have ADHD, I'd love to hear how you manage your sites and keeping them going consistently.