Question: Dr. Barkley, thank you for the valuable research you do. And, kudos to you and your ability to articulate this research with such clarity, insight, and humor. For most of my life I’ve wanted to be a writer and have struggled with the rather simple idea of story. Keeping a story idea even in mind (a rather important aspect of writing a novel) feels impossible. Understanding how ADHD impairs our ability to “string behavior together in a proper sequence” was a stunning discovery. 
  
  My question is related to this. Do you have any specific recommendations in overcoming this particular deficit for a writer? Or, is this one of those things I should accept and move on. Breaking things down into small chunks doesn’t quite work. I still manage to lose my way.
Answer: Those  ideas can help but I do somethings that might also be helpful to you when I write.  If I am writing a commentary or article on something already published, a fist on reading it put notes in the margins to myself about what is important or what issue I see with it.  Just free associate to the content but be sure to write it down or that idea will be lost to you later.  Then sit down and type all your notes into a Word file.  Don't worry about sentence structure or even sequence just get the content in there.  Now that it is out of your head and physically represented on in the computer on the screen, you can manipulate it, expand, contract, edit, etc. all outside your head and not lose the pieces.  Just keep expanding first, then polishing it later all on the screen and it may help.  If you are writing something from scratch, then before you do that keep a bunch of 3x5 cards or paper scraps around you and free associate to the topic.  Then as you go about your day jot down any other freely associated ideas that spring to mind on that topic but don't force it.  Just capture the as they fly through your mind.  When you have enough ideas, take the cards or scraps and try to sequence them into some kind of order.  You can do this manually or type them into a Word file as above.  The secret here especially for someone with ADHD is to get mental content out of the defective working memory and into some physical external form outside the mind so you can play with it initially with your hands in your visual field and then put it into a computer file also in your visual field and work on it there.  In my books I refer to this as externalizing mental content and stop depending so much on working memory.  See if that helps.
content: Q: Dr. Barkley, thank you for the valuable research you do. And, kudos to you and your ability to articulate this research with such clarity, insight, and humor. For most of my life I’ve wanted to be a writer and have struggled with the rather simple idea of story. Keeping a story idea even in mind (a rather important aspect of writing a novel) feels impossible. Understanding how ADHD impairs our ability to “string behavior together in a proper sequence” was a stunning discovery. 
  
  My question is related to this. Do you have any specific recommendations in overcoming this particular deficit for a writer? Or, is this one of those things I should accept and move on. Breaking things down into small chunks doesn’t quite work. I still manage to lose my way.
   Ans: Those  ideas can help but I do somethings that might also be helpful to you when I write.  If I am writing a commentary or article on something already published, a fist on reading it put notes in the margins to myself about what is important or what issue I see with it.  Just free associate to the content but be sure to write it down or that idea will be lost to you later.  Then sit down and type all your notes into a Word file.  Don't worry about sentence structure or even sequence just get the content in there.  Now that it is out of your head and physically represented on in the computer on the screen, you can manipulate it, expand, contract, edit, etc. all outside your head and not lose the pieces.  Just keep expanding first, then polishing it later all on the screen and it may help.  If you are writing something from scratch, then before you do that keep a bunch of 3x5 cards or paper scraps around you and free associate to the topic.  Then as you go about your day jot down any other freely associated ideas that spring to mind on that topic but don't force it.  Just capture the as they fly through your mind.  When you have enough ideas, take the cards or scraps and try to sequence them into some kind of order.  You can do this manually or type them into a Word file as above.  The secret here especially for someone with ADHD is to get mental content out of the defective working memory and into some physical external form outside the mind so you can play with it initially with your hands in your visual field and then put it into a computer file also in your visual field and work on it there.  In my books I refer to this as externalizing mental content and stop depending so much on working memory.  See if that helps.