Designing your own website sounds fun until you’re actually staring at the screen. Fonts, colors, layouts, plugins… suddenly it feels less like “launch day” and more like a semester-long design course I never signed up for.

I say that as both an ADHD coach and someone with ADHD myself. If there’s a research rabbit hole or a “let’s compare every single font ever created” trap, I’ve fallen into it.

All I wanted was a simple homepage for my ADHD newsletter, The Dopamine Drop. But instead of building a clean, simple site, I spent months avoiding it. 

I’d love to tell you I used all that time avoiding website builders to do something noble, like meditating or finishing a novel draft. But in reality, I went full ADHD “procrastivity.”

One night I sat down determined to finish my homepage and ended up reorganizing my sock drawer instead. 

Another time, I convinced myself I couldn’t possibly move forward until I researched the exact difference between teal and turquoise. Spoiler: they’re both blue-green, and my site didn’t care. I’m willing to bet you don’t either.

Every time I worked up the motivation to get started, I’d open a website builder and almost immediately get lost in decision overload. That’s the ADHD trap: when a task feels overwhelming, our brains redirect us to something else that feels productive but isn’t actually the thing we need to do. 

Then, I tried beehiiv. In less than an hour – without coding, spiraling, or sacrificing my sanity -- I finally had a professional-looking signup homepage I was proud to share.

So if you’ve been putting off launching your newsletter website (ADHD or not), this post is for you. I’ll walk you through what finally worked for me, step by step. 

(And no, it won’t require you to “just focus harder.”)

When I first decided to build a site for The Dopamine Drop, I wasn’t dreaming about fancy animations or some cinematic scrolling effect. I just wanted a clean homepage where people could figure out what my newsletter was about and hit “subscribe.” Simple, right?

So, like any optimistic beginner, I tried the “easy” builders—Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy. And wow… stepping inside felt less like easy and more like wandering into IKEA without the arrows on the floor – endless options, zero map.

Do I need a minimalist template or something splashy? SEO plug-ins? Image blocks? A blog section? Every question sent me into another tab-spiral of Googling. Hours later, I hadn’t built anything—I’d just built a headache.

My to-do list still said “launch website,” but my actual site was a blank page. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow turned into weeks. (ADHD folks, you know how this story goes.)

One of the sneaky reasons website building feels so overwhelming? Decision paralysis.

The ADHD brain struggles with too many choices. It’s not about being indecisive; it’s about executive function. 

When your working memory is juggling ten different options (templates, colors, plug-ins, menus), it’s like trying to run a dozen apps on an old phone. Everything slows down, overheats, and eventually… crashes.

Dopamine plays into this, too. ADHD brains don’t automatically get a little dopamine “kick” for making small progress decisions the way neurotypical brains do. 

Instead of “Yay, I picked a font, progress made,” it feels like, “Ugh, still 99 decisions left, what’s the point?” Cue avoidance.

For me, that looked like endless Googling, second-guessing, and closing the tab to try again “tomorrow” (or, you know, three weeks later).

The trick isn’t to magically become decisive. It’s to limit the number of choices your brain has to juggle. That’s why beehiiv worked so well for me – fewer templates, cleaner layouts, built-in defaults that already look good. 

Instead of drowning in decision overload, I could finally move forward.

Short answer: yes. But the “free” version usually comes with fine print (and not the fun kind).

With builders like Wix or Squarespace, here’s what you’ll often end up with:

Technically free, sure, but it doesn’t exactly scream “professional.”

Here’s where beehiiv feels different: you can spin up a polished, no-code homepage without spending a cent on designers or developers. 

Want to keep it totally free? Stick with the built-in tools. 

Ready to upgrade? Grab a custom domain, like yournewsletter.com, and you’re still not breaking the bank.

After weeks of wrestling with platforms that gave me too many choices (and way too many headaches), opening beehiiv was like hitting the ADHD jackpot: simple, fast, done.

The setup? Three steps. That’s it. No 47-screen onboarding gauntlet, no decision tree that makes you feel like you’re choosing your starter Pokémon. Just three clicks and boom: working homepage.

The templates were amazing. Other platforms offered everything from restaurant menus to photography portfolios, which only made me second-guess what I needed. 

But because beehiiv is built specifically for newsletters and blogs, every template was relevant. It wasn’t, “Which of these 100 random designs fits me best?” It was more like, “Which one of these clean layouts do I want to publish my words on?”

Customization hit the sweet spot, too. Sure, I could dive in and pick fonts and hex codes, but I didn’t have to. 

beehiiv handed me smart pairings and color palettes that looked good right out of the box. Translation: fewer opportunities to spiral into “let me compare fonts for six hours” mode and more chances to just hit publish.

Here’s the mindset shift that finally unstuck me: I didn’t need a whole website to launch.

Most platforms nudged me toward the “official” setup: About page, Contact page, Blog, Services, the whole buffet. And, sure, those things might be nice eventually, but in the moment, they were just extra opportunities to dive into “procrastivity” mode and never actually finish anything.

beehiiv made it clear that I only needed one page: a homepage that explained The Dopamine Drop and had an alluring subscribe form. That was it. Once I gave myself permission to launch with just that, the pressure dropped, and my brain finally exhaled.

And here’s what’s cool: expansion is easy. That About page, contact page, blog, and more -- including even custom extras -- are right there when I’m ready. 

But realizing I didn’t need five polished pages to start, just one solid homepage, made the task so small, so simple, so utterly achievable, that I was FINALLY able to get my work into the world.

One unexpected bonus of keeping my site simple? It’s not just easier for me -- it’s easier for readers, too.

When someone lands on your homepage, they don’t want to play “spot the subscribe button.” They want clarity: what is this newsletter, and how do I sign up? That’s it. If you don’t catch them in just a few seconds, you’ve probably lost them.

For ADHD creators, fewer design choices mean less decision fatigue while building, but this also means less decision fatigue for your subscribers once they arrive. A clean homepage guides their brain straight to the action you want them to take – subscribe – without distraction.

It’s kind of like walking into a bookstore. If the shelves are tidy and the signs point you right to the section you care about, you’re more likely to grab a book. If everything’s cluttered and you aren’t sure where to look, you leave empty-handed. 

Your website works the same way.

beehiiv’s templates build this clarity in. They strip away the extra noise and put your subscribe form front and center – less fluff, more focus, which is exactly what ADHD brains (and busy readers) need.

If you want to see exactly how to structure that clarity, beehiiv breaks it down in The Anatomy of the Perfect Email Sign-up Page.

The trick is to pick a platform that makes the process as simple as possible. For me, that was beehiiv. 

Here’s how I designed my site:

Designing your own website doesn’t mean you have to become a web designer. It just means choosing tools that reduce decisions, so you can focus on your content.

This part honestly shocked me: I went from a blank screen to a site I was proud to show my mom in under an hour – no designer, no endless menu wrestling, just following beehiiv’s flow and hitting publish.

Here’s exactly how it went down:

I chose the Uno template because it nailed the vibe I wanted: clean, simple, but not boring. 

With other platforms, I’d scroll through hundreds of irrelevant designs (restaurant menus, wedding portfolios, product catalogs) and spiral into second-guessing. 

beehiiv made picking a layout easy: just a few solid options, all built for newsletters.

(This is the “before” version of the Uno template. Check out that simple UX!)

Fonts and colors were already paired up during onboarding, so I didn’t have to start from scratch. I uploaded my Canva-made logo, picked a color palette that felt like me, and boom, branding done. (ADHD hack: keep your assets in one easy-to-grab folder. Nothing kills momentum faster than digging through 47 subfolders looking for your logo.)

This is where I dropped in The Dopamine Drop’s tagline: “Come for the chaos. Stay for the executive function hacks.” One punchy sentence told visitors exactly what they’d get if they subscribed. 

If writing feels overwhelming, start with just one line about what your newsletter does for people. You can always add more later.

Seriously, that was it – no extra plug-ins (What even are plug-ins, anyway?), no “I’ll just tweak this one button” detour that somehow eats three hours, just a homepage that worked right away.

The finished site looked modern, mobile-friendly, and professional. And guess what? It took me less time to finish my entire beehiiv site than it once took me to choose a single template on Wix.

Most importantly, people could actually subscribe without friction, without extra steps, and without extra work from me. And for my chronically under-stimulated brain, “no additional work” was the real win.

Here’s the “after” version. It’s so cute, and exactly what I always imagined!

I’m not the only one who loves the free homepage builder. Learn why other creators consider beehiiv The Best Free Homepage Builder for 2025.

I wish I could say my subscriber count skyrocketed overnight, but I’m literally writing this the next day. It’s too soon for that story. What I can tell you is how different I felt once I finally hit “publish.”

First, the mental relief was huge. For months, “launch website” sat on my to-do list, mocking me. Every time I looked at it, I felt a mix of guilt and overwhelm. 

But the moment my homepage went live, that mental weight lifted. It wasn’t just about the site itself; it was about proving to myself that I could finish the thing I’d been avoiding. 

Second, it gave me creative momentum. Having the site meant I had a central home for The Dopamine Drop. That clarity made it easier to focus on writing because I wasn’t also worrying, “Where will people find this?” With that piece in place, the rest of my creative work had somewhere to land.

And third, it gave me confidence. I no longer had to say, “Oh, I’ll have a site soon.” I had an actual link I could share and a professional-looking homepage. That subtle shift -- going from “in progress” to “it exists” – was enough to boost my motivation for the next project.

For creators (especially ADHD creators), that’s huge. Sometimes -- often, even – progress isn’t a giant leap forward. It's clearing one sticky roadblock so that the rest of your work can flow more freely.

ChatGPT (or any AI) can’t directly publish a live site for you, but it can help you plan and design your site faster. For example, you could ask it to perform these tasks:

But at the end of the day, you’ll still need a platform to actually build and host the site. That’s where beehiiv comes in. It gives you templates and tools, so you can take those ideas and turn them into a working homepage in minutes.

Why Trust Me: I’m the founding ADHD coach and managing editor at Shimmer, where I grew our newsletter past 10,000 subscribers in its first year. I’m also a content editor at beehiiv, where I help write and edit content for creators who want to design and scale their brands with ease.

Here’s the advice I wish someone had given me: pick a platform that actually matches your goal. That one choice can save you weeks (or months) of second-guessing. 

When I tried Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy, I was drowning in features that had nothing to do with what I needed. Did I want a restaurant menu page? A product catalog? A wedding portfolio? Nope. I just wanted a homepage where people could subscribe to The Dopamine Drop.

The second I switched to beehiiv, everything clicked. The templates, the layouts, the subscribe options… they were made for creators like me. Instead of wondering which features I even needed, I finally got to focus on the fun part: fonts, colors, and words that made the site feel like mine.

So if your goal is to launch a newsletter site, here are some tips:

Your newsletter website doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to exist, and beehiiv makes that easy as pie (or probably easier, given my last attempt at baking). Get it live, share it, and let it grow with you.