It was a quarter past 6, almost an hour before I clocked out of work.

All of the tasks were finished. I tapped my feet listlessly, all but packed up.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. My thoughts were drowned out in the noise of after-work jibber-jabber, and yet, everyone sounded muffled behind this thick fog of inattention as I tried to respond to small talk with distracted non sequiturs.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I was distracted. My fingers were drumming an erratic beat of excitement as I feverishly zipped through my browser tabs, hurrying to close them all down. The incessant ringing of the messenger app kept yanking me back from the edge, though.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

What now?

I nodded to my coworker, who was mid-rant about something I can’t quite remember. I smelled food. It smelled like grilled beef, but I didn’t know where it was coming from.

Moo. Moo. Moo.

Why now? I was already one foot out of the door, hurrying to leave.

Whatever.

I said my goodbyes, trying not to sound terse. When the elevator rang open, my brain exploded with rapid activity.

Hey, buddy. Don’t unravel just yet.

It was a feeling I was all too familiar with. I took a couple of deep breaths as I tried to calm myself down. It wasn’t anxiety, although you might mistake it for it.

I didn’t feel winded down, in fact, it was the opposite.

My body was still in the office, but my head was already off to the clouds, where thoughts flew free and ideas just bounced around, waiting to be plucked from the branches of… what was I saying again?

Oh, right, sorry about that. I got distracted because I was inspired.

I got distracted because everyone, everything, was still on page 7, and I was already on page 333.

Inspiration had struck. It was like a knocker-up banging on the window of my executive dysfunction.

There was this creeping urge to drop everything and find an outlet to vent all the musings in my brain into something more digestible for me.

I needed some quiet. I needed to talk to myself and hear my thoughts spoken back to me so I could understand them better. So I could actually take it in.

I wanted to escape.

Oh, inspiration, you wily temptress.

She offered her sweet nectar, and my reptilian brain started to lap it all up like a glutton.

“Write,” it said, “write while the food is still hot.”

It didn’t matter that I might’ve been in the middle of some important business.

At the sound of the alarm, a monkey awoke.

It pulled up a chair and pressed a button. A whip cracked in the air, as another voice wailed and screamed at me insistently from everywhere.

Oh, writing, you cruel mistress.

You and I both know now is not the time for me to dance with you.

Writing is hard—as my previous blog had hammered to death already—and cannot be rushed.

This is a partnership.

I’m not a dog to be called upon any time at the expense of my convenience.

The monkey noticed my defiance, however, and tugged on a string. Every other thought in my head cleared in an instant, like water down a toilet.

What was I doing? Oh yeah, I was writ—Hey!

I just can’t cope sometimes. Yes, it’s good that I want to write.

Literally, this is what this entire blog is for.

I’m grateful that I can get highly inspired. It isn’t like that happens often, either. I enjoy being mentally fertile. To feel like I can solve anything.

But sometimes, I wonder—is this just the monkey talking?

Whenever inspiration hits me, a cloud of unyielding distraction descends. It gets and sticks on everywhere, shielding everything else from me while the monkey tugs and swings from the tangles of my brain, coil to coil, like Tarzan but less marketable.

Being creatively incapacitated is just one thing, though. What’s even worse is when the monkey actually starts rubbing off on me.

A whistling sound filled the air as a bullet train suddenly burst onto the scene. It’s an express train ticket on the Hyperfocus railway, and it’s leaving right now.

If you let it go, you’ll get left behind because the monkey’s getting on and he’s taking everything else but you with him.

If you get on, however, you’d better strap yourself in and hope for the best, because this monkey ride can get uncontrollably wild.

I remember all too many days and nights of walking around, pacing, just mumbling broken sentences and inarticulate ideas like an endless feedback loop. I would look in mirrors and act out the scenes in my head. I will speak out in dialogue or narration in a stupid British accent. These hyper-focused tripfests were terrible for productivity.

It probably didn’t help that instead of, you know, writing everything down, I just paced like a moron. If someone told me I started chattering and screaming like a monkey, too, I’d be inclined to believe them. The monkey’s in control, man.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Hyperfocus can be a godsend when it happens while I need it. When the train arrives while I’m actually in the middle of tasks, the monkey doesn’t wake up. There have been a couple of times that I got to hitch a ride, and oh boy.

It’s a smooth transit to the finish line.

In those moments, I was the king of the world. The emperor of mankind, ruling benevolently and wisely with the power vested in me by the ADHD gods: the ability to actually focus.

It’s an honest-to-God superpower.

Just, uh, don’t let the monkey see you.

If it hits while I’m alone, unshackled by any other responsibility, and unrestrained by any competing activity? Riot.

For almost 30 years of life on Earth, I couldn’t count on one hand—let alone two—any writing I produced in such frenzies that have the coherence of a high schooler’s. Maybe one or two, if a half-baked short story or a novel stuck in the outline phase counts.

But with that being said, 30 years of playing tug-of-war with this infernal primate has taught me a few tricks. Now, it’s time to set some boundaries.

Jumping back into how I handled that office dilemma, I’ve learned how to mask my distraction well enough that, at worst, people might just assume I’m being aloof. At best, they assume I’m trying to be mysterious. I mean, at least I think so.

I’ve learned not to engage in small talk—it’s quite obvious when I’m only feigning attention, plus, people aren’t idiots. Polite silence is enough. 

I can’t cure the monkey, but what I can do, though, is to give it a jungle gym instead of the whole office. I vent what I could through tiny bursts of stimulation, like tapping and fidgeting, while I calmly bring my head back from the clouds into solid reality. Keep it entertained by just cutting a little bit of slack on the rope for it to play with.

The key is patience, of course.

I had to learn how to take one step at a time. Inspiration comes in waves, so you have to learn how to move with it. Picture this: it’s like a heavy tray packed with the best food in the restaurant. It’s all yours as long as you can bring it to your table. I’ve tried bumrushing it countless times—I’ve stopped counting the broken china.

This night is a rare win.

I actually managed to hold on to inspiration without lighting my brain on fire with a stick.

I didn’t peter out; I got around to writing this piece you’re reading right now, instead of pacing around in my room, grinning to myself because I just had the best idea ever. Of course, there are times when things work out, same as the opposite. It’s the circle of life, although sometimes it feels more like a roller coaster.

I’ve read echoes in others’ stories. Some call hyperfocus “a superpower with a short fuse”; churning out novels in bursts only to ghost them by dawn. Monkeys at it again. But we persist. Even if it’s not always daisies and rainbows, the times when you and the monkey can actually get along feel great.

So, tonight, I am the king of the world.

I’d better slow down or I might just actually master time management too, and who am I without at least some of my signature charms, right?