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The Book That Sat in a Drawer for Four Months

The Story

Jesse Anderson set out to write Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD because the existing literature wasn’t friendly to the audience he was trying to reach. “Like when I started the book, it was like, since I got diagnosed, which was about like six years ago now, there wasn’t a lot of content available at the time, like Jessica McCabe had kind of just started her channel. And I think Eric Tivers had his podcast and that was kind of it. And then like some older books from like decades ago, when I talked to my doctor, he was like no help at all.” (Source 1).

He framed the goal as a quick start: “I really wanted this book to be like, Hey, maybe you saw like one of my tweets or you saw some other like ADHD meme or something on TikTok, enough times to be like, maybe I should look into this more. I really wanted this book to be like, here’s a great first step. Here’s like that quick start guide to figuring out like, what is this thing? ADHD.” (Source 1).

The opening stretch was good. “I knew I wanted to write this book and I was very excited in the beginning. There was all this energy and ideas and I was writing and everything was going great.” (Source 1).

Then it disappeared. “And then it was like one day I looked up and it was like, oh, I haven’t, I haven’t touched the book in like four months. Like I sat it down in a drawer, you know, metaphorically one day. And then it was like, I totally forgot all about it.” (Source 1).

The fix was two structural commitments outside himself. “And then that’s when I kind of needed to create some sort of systems to help me because I knew it was really important to finish it. And so I hired an editor who gave me deadlines. And then I actually, I did beta reading with the book where I had people sign up to read early versions of the book.” (Source 1).

The beta-reading wasn’t just feedback — it was an embarrassment lever. “That was a way to motivate myself to finish it because I knew I was like, I told these people I was going to get, let them see the book. And I’m embarrassed of what the book is right now. So I have to work really hard to get it to a state that I can actually share it with other people.” (Source 1).

The book did ship. By the time of this conversation it was finished and released as Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD (Source 1).

Lesson for Creators

When initial enthusiasm fades and the project quietly disappears for four months, motivation isn’t going to come back from inside. Jesse outsourced both halves of the problem: deadlines (paid editor) and stakes (beta readers who’d see the draft soon). Notice the asymmetry — the editor created the calendar; the readers created the shame. He needed both. The same pattern shows up in any long-form solo project that stops feeling urgent: the work isn’t the obstacle, the inertia is, and the only reliable cure is letting other people impose the deadlines that you can no longer impose on yourself. If you’re stuck on something that should be done already, the next step is rarely “write more.” It’s “let someone else expect something specific from you by a specific date.”

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