What an average Monday morning looks like when you have a book to promote and off-the-charts ADHD

This post probably won't sell many books

Your eyes shoot open. Heart beating out of your chest. You grab your phone and check the time.

4:07.

You immediately think to yourself, “I’ve got three hours to finish writing some pitches to podcasters that probably won’t get opened before the kids wake up and ruin my book launch plans!”

You make a coffee. Grab a stack of multi-grain cookies that your smoking hot wife bought so you begin to wean off the sugary ones before gently pulling out the step stool to get the Nutella from the back corner of the top shelf. 

You turn on the TV and spend the next thirty-seven minutes watching Between Two Ferns. Your thoughts rotate in and out of thinking Zach Something-Greek is a God and the multi-grain cookies your smoking hot wife bought should really just be called crackers. 

“Time to get moving!” you shout to yourself after snarfing out some of your Nutella-lathered multi-grain cookies that should just be called crackers when Zach Something-Greek asks Obama what it feels like to be the last Black president.

“I should grab my headphones and put on some Dan Deacon to quiet the noise in my head,” you think to yourself. “Oh yeah, and that Training Season song by Dua Lipa.”

“When did I start liking Pop music?” you ask yourself while looking down at your legs and thinking about when jorts became your clothing of choice.

But those thoughts last mere seconds because you notice your right index finger knuckle has delicious chocolate hazelnut spread on it from dipping all the multi-grain cookies that should really just be called crackers.

“Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t!” you then scream to yourself. “I need to put the Nutella away before my smoking hot wife wakes up and gives me one of those looks.” After licking your right index finger knuckle and making sure there aren’t any visible traces of delicious chocolate hazelnut spread on the premises while thinking that the word “spread” is a fun word to say, you find your focus.

It lasts fourteen minutes. 

You made the mistake of checking LinkedIn to see how many people didn’t engage with your last post.

“Do I really need to post selfies to get traction?” you cry to yourself. “How do so many people not know that giving their money to people who write about how to make more money only makes more money for the people who write about how to make more money?”

You try to say that last abnormally long sentence as fast as you can with five crackers in your mouth.

You mean five multi-grain cookies.

It doesn’t go well.

Your mind immediately begins to wonder if Reese’s makes a chocolate peanut butter spread because that would be ace. 

Finally, after twenty-seven minutes of cursing the state of the online world and learning Reese’s does make a chocolate peanut butter spread but isn’t sold in Spain, you angrily log out of LinkedIn before sorting through thirty-four open tabs to find the pitches you should have been working on for the last two hours. 

But as soon as you do, an awful noise ricochets throughout your house.

“Papa! Papa! Is it the day yet?” your oldest shouts.

“Papa! Papa! Is it the day yet?” his little brother echoes.

“No!” you scream. “It’s 5:58. Under no circumstances can you get out of bed until 7. I’m working dammit!” 

Not two minutes later, once you think the house is quiet again so you can finally focus, your wife emerges from your bedroom.

She looks good.

Smoking hot.

That is until she gives you one of those looks that screams for you to stop screaming before she disappears into the bathroom to get ready for work. 

“Can you put sunscreen on the kids before school, especially the little one,” she says a few minutes later with a cup of coffee in one hand and a multi-grain cookie that should really just be called a cracker in the other. 

“I’m working,” you mouth while pointing to the headphones that are clearly on your head.

“Obviously,” her smoking hot mouth mouthes back. “I’ll send you a WhatsApp when I get to the office,” she says as she lifts the headphones off your ears and kisses you on your forehead before asking in a highly judgemental tone — “Are you listening to Taylor Swift again?”

“Aren’t you late for work?” you say louder than you wanted as Anti-hero blasts through your ears.

“Stop talking with the headphones on or you’ll wake the kids, dammit!” she fires back in a vicious whisper.

“You know I’d be a famous writer if they didn’t exist,” you reply. 

Your smoking hot wife laughs. 

“Some jokes are funny because they’re true,” you say. 

The front door slams. 

You immediately turn on Magic Clap by The Coup to get your beat back. It works. It always does. But before your fingers get too much exercise, your oldest jumps on you and says — “It’s 7:16. Why didn’t you wake us up at 7:00?”

“Cookies and milk are on the table,” you grunt as you wince at the smell of your kid’s feet while they’re giving you an unreciprocated hug.

“Can we have some Nutella?” they ask.

“Only on Sundays!” you shout.  “You know the rules!” 

“But these cookies taste like crackers,” your youngest says.

“Can you please tell that to your mother when she gets home?” you ask.

“I’m gonna get in the shower. But if you two donkeys get dressed and eat some of the cookies that should really just be called crackers by the time I’m out, we can play some Uno.”

Your six-year-old who normally takes two days to put on one sock is fully clothed before the cold water has a chance to warm. 

You get out of the shower. Throw on your jorts. And commence with the card dealing. Uno does not go well. After each loss, your youngest immediately shapes his little fingers into an “L” and holds it up to his little forehead while screaming — “Loser!” 

For the first time all day, even though his “L” is backward, you feel an immense sense of pride. “Winning is the most important thing in life,” you tell him.

Your oldest kid looks at you like his mom looks at you. “Stop being a snapperhead,” he says before telling his little brother his dad is joking. You return his look by giving him one of those looks that your smoking-hot wife gives you.

“Oh sh*t! I mean, Oh shoot! We’re late!” you say after noticing the time. “Grab your sh*t, I mean stuff! We gotta book it!” 

You make the three-hundred-meter run to your kid’s school. Panting. You think to yourself that you should pick up smoking again as not smoking clearly doesn’t make running fun either.

“Papa! Papa!” your youngest shouts while you’re screaming at him to pick up the pace. “The sunscreen! You forgot the sunscreen!” 

“Sh*t! I mean f*ck! I mean shoot funk!” you say. “Just tell your mother if you’re a little red later that you think you have a fever.”

Your youngest laughs.

Your oldest doesn’t.

But thankfully, before he has a chance to call you a snapperhead again and demand that you make the brutal three-hundred meter run home only to make the brutal three-hundred meter run back to the school with lotion in tow, your friend Gemma takes sunscreen out of her kid’s backpack. 

You give her what she interprets as a bow but in reality, you’re just trying to catch your breath. 

She hits you in the back of the head. 

Your kids laugh.

So does hers.

So do some other kids who you can only imagine are bullies and not good people.

After you put sunscreen on your kids only for them to sit inside for the next four hours, you tell them goodbye and watch as they hug each other before running in opposite directions.

You think how cool it is that they still do that without any conditioning. 

But that nice feeling doesn’t last long.

You spend the entirety of the brutal three-hundred-meter walk home berating yourself for listening to Taylor Swift instead of ending out one pitch as your book comes out in exactly thirty days!

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Thank you for reading and sharing this post if you didn’t think it was too awful.

My very best to you and yours.
— Michael

PS: Feel free to check out my book that I’m struggling to promote —

Shy by Design: 12 Timeless Principles to Quietly Stand Out

Here’s what Cal Newport, NYT best-selling author of Deep Work and Slow Productivity, had this to say about it —

“In a world that lionizes loudness, it’s actually the quiet and shy among us who are best set up to thrive. Thompson provides an important new way of understanding what it really takes to stand out.” 

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