Hello beautiful human,

The seasons are changing, and a brand-new season is unfolding for 2e Minds.

The past few seasons have been a time of building behind the scenes, focusing on supporting my 1:1 clients, learning to surf through (and getting smacked by) some major life transitions (hello ADHD in your 40s🫠), and navigating lots of uncertainty.

Through these intense changes, I’ve been hyperfocusing on the relationship between uncertainty and creativity.

I’ve been exploring and playing with new techniques, concepts, and formats that I’ve been weaving into my programs, workshops, and 1:1 work.

If you are a creative with a neurodivergent/2e brain, you may recognize my current experience.

Right now, as I type this email, my brain is operating at its absolute cognitive ceiling.

I’m currently in the final 20% of building a powerful new support format I’m almost ready to share. The core framework and concepts are set, the structural design is clear, and the largest pieces are completed.

But right now I’m trying my best not to drown in the dozens of small, fine details😵

In the final stages of a creative or complex project, the nature of the cognitive tasks shifts drastically. It moves from divergent thinking (generating ideas and multiple exciting possibilities) to more convergent, detail-oriented work that requires planning, monitoring, and cognitive control (AKA boringgg!!!)

For many neurodivergent brains, this can make the final stretch particularly demanding on working memory and executive functioning, for several reasons:

Switching Between Small, Disconnected Tasks:

At the start of a project, you deal with broad, generative concepts (e.g., brainstorming the main themes or designing the overall strategy).

At the end, you are forced to hold dozens of small, seemingly disconnected tasks and disparate variables in your working memory simultaneously (e.g., fix that specific formatting error, verify that link, change the color of that button, format here, organize there, export in the correct resolution, etc.)

Swapping between these tiny, separate tasks causes task-switching costs that can place additional demands on working memory and cognitive control.

Proactive Interference:

When multiple pieces of information compete for your attention, old data can interfere with what you are trying to work on now.

With a large project and lots of loose details, it becomes harder to keep track of what you were doing, what still needs attention, and where to begin.

By the end of a project, your brain is already carrying the massive mental weight of the 80% you have already built.

Keeping all that in your working memory while trying to execute fine details creates an immense cognitive load.

To process new details over old information, your brain utilizes cognitive inhibition. This is an energy-consuming process where you must forcefully suppress the project's massive background context just to focus on changing a single comma or fixing a small thing.

The Novelty Drop:

For many 2e minds, especially those with ADHD or autism, motivation is deeply tied to interest and situational salience. Dopamine thrives during a project's initial novelty and problem-solving phases.

Every idea, insight, and fresh possibility acts as a mental reward, triggering high dopamine levels that make the project feel exciting and energizing.

When a project hits the final 20% cleanup phase, the structural novelty can drop dramatically, making task initiation feel mentally draining and less rewarding.

So, what am I doing to get this project across the finish line and not quit before it’s ready?

1-Cognitive Offloading:

To clear the working memory bottleneck caused by task switching and proactive interference, I’ve been using one of my favorite practices, Brain Dumping, which I use for pretty much everything in my life to stay sane.

When a project is near completion, we can use a lot of mental energy trying to keep the entire context of the 80% stable while scanning for errors. You can reduce this cognitive load with a radical data dump, on paper or on a screen, externalizing the details and breaking the final phase into highly specific steps, like "fix the alignment on page four" or "verify the link in section two."

Bonus points if you group similar tasks into categories and block time in your calendar to tackle them.

Working from a finite, physical checklist reduces the amount of information you need to keep track of internally and gives you a clear sequence to follow, eliminating the energy-draining choice paralysis of wondering where to look next. This allows you to execute mechanical adjustments without processing the weight of the entire project at once.

2-Dipping into a Parallel Creative Project:

To overcome the intense fatigue caused by the drop in novelty, I’ve been experimenting with a strategy of deliberately cycling between the technical final details of this project and the high-novelty ideation stage of a closely related parallel project.

The exciting new ideas from the ideation phase generate a state of mental momentum and alertness that I immediately redirect into the dry execution tasks of the finishing phase. This prevents the drop in motivation by ensuring my brain remains stimulated by the shared topic, using the energy of the new creation to power through the maintenance of the old one.

I have found this particularly useful when the two projects are connected by a common theme. In my case, both projects share creativity at their core. One is the new 1:1 support format I’m almost ready to share, while the other is a series of upcoming workshops on the neuroscience of creativity, leveraging flow states to move out of paralysis, and channeling creative energy sustainably to get ideas into motion without burning out.

I'm not abandoning the first project. I let my calendar keep me accountable for finishing those tedious tasks.

The key is to choose a project that is related enough that you are not completely changing mental context, while still offering enough novelty to re-engage your attention.

And you?

Do you have a project close to that finish line? Or a dream project you've been putting off for years while parenting, work, or life took priority?

Do you tend to get stuck at the beginning, somewhere in the middle, or in that final 20%?

I'd love to hear about your experiences and challenges with creative and long-term projects.

It feels good to be back here. Thank you for being part of this community!