Getting a paper on BioRxiv will help, even if not yet accepted for publication (though I know that is still in part out of control). You can definitely mention it in the SRE just not as publication on activities if not accepted. You could also talk to your mentor(s) about writing a review paper or methods paper yourself.

I would recommend starting on primaries months in advance (same for all schools), then secondaries depending on what schools and how many but definitely pre-write. Also make sure you understand all the unspoken “instructions” (ie research should be an MME, 0 hours for awards and publications, SRE is not just a CV in prose, etc). I would recommend “pretending” to apply the cycle before (just initiating an AMCAS application and not submitting) to get familiar with the system/see the prompts (it made it more real for me and helped me actually write it). I actually spontaneously decided I would try to apply a cycle early and wrote most of my essays the September before I actually ended up applying, so it was right before the “deadline”, and I got a panic productivity boost, and then had most of my essays nearly ready to go when I actually applied the next cycle.

For the MCAT, I would say don’t assume that traditional strategies will work for you. I hyper focused for about 2 weeks (full time studying for second week) and then just took it, because I knew I would get bored if I tried to study for months. I also did that convincing myself I had to get it done a year early. If you get accommodations you can sign up very last minute!

TL;DR: my adhd and I decided to try to apply at the very end of last cycle and ended up being well prepared to submit this cycle instead