
I know - trust me I definitely know - that "Make A Schedule" is something that no person wants to hear when they first look up tips for developing a schedule with ADHD. I've spent thirty or so years of my life avoiding schedules as if they were the black plague. It took getting married and having my SECOND child to really push the fact that I needed to develop a schedule of some sort to ensure that I get done everything I need to get done. For decades before that I knew, much like you probably know, that I needed a schedule...it just seemed like I couldn't keep to any schedule at all. I still mess up sometimes, but I hope to help you this time by explaining my own schedule and how I went about developing it so that you can develop one for yourself.
I'm sure if you've been working on your ADHD habits that you've been writing checklist after checklist or schedule after schedule trying to figure out the perfect situation for you. It seems to be the curse of ADHD to create endless checklists just to get nothing done or develop countless schedules that you will just end up messing up. Again, I've been there and done that...I'm also willing to bet this won't be the LAST schedule you or I make in our lifetime. The goal here is to get something feasible going that you can tweak or change along the way to keep your life moving in a positive direction. The key differences in my newest schedule are that others rely on me to keep this schedule, it's a full schedule with little downtime until the end of the day, and it requires me to wake up early to fulfill. Once more, I understand none of this is what you want to hear but stick with me as we get into the process (or jump to my example at the bottom).
Something my father taught me a long time ago about being on time to things is to choose what time you leave by working backwards. Hopefully you have somewhere that you need to be at a certain time each morning whether that be school or work. If you do not have a consistent time you need to be somewhere every morning, then I recommend you make a solid workout time that you will not be late for. Going back to being accountable to others you might plan on working out with your spouse or a friend every morning. Accountability to others is something that has always helped me when I need to be somewhere on time or do something by a specific time. Let's begin our exercise with answering a few important questions:
Armed with these answers you can begin to shape your schedule by working backwards. We start at 7:30 a.m. and figure out what time we need to leave by taking a 35-minute drive and adding 15-minutes to it for traffic. We now know that I need to leave by 6:40 a.m. to guarantee I make it on time each morning. We also know that I need 30minutes minimum sleep bringing the time that I MUST wake up to 6:10 a.m. and since I like to schedule things on the hour I will give myself another 10 extra minutes to get ready bringing my wake-up time each morning to 6:00 a.m. on the dot. Now, we have a base setup for the morning to figure out what time we need to go to bed and even give ourselves a range knowing that we need 6 hours minimum but would like 8 hours. This means that we can get to bed sometime between 10 p.m. and 12 a.m. every night. Let's take a look at this schedule written out:
I know some people are looking at this schedule and thinking "I'm not going to bed that early" or "I'm not waking up that early" because I thought the same thing. The only thing that actually made me change my mind was having children, but I do promise you that getting and early start to the day is key in regulating your schedule and actually getting to bed at a decent hour. Of course, everyone's mileage may vary, and you even work nights. Apply this same logic to your existing schedule and I still believe you will find more success overall.
Now over the years I have built schedule after schedule using this method and have not managed to actually stick to any of them very well. I'll stick to it for a while and then 'fall off the wagon' as they say. I have found some minor tricks to keep myself on point that I want to share with you, but essentially, they all come back to being accountable to others or finding something to look forward to as a driving motivation. In order to show you an example I'm going to talk a bit about the 40-45 minutes I actually get in the morning to wake up and get moving. Some things, like waking up, I just have to force myself to do and getting to bed at a decent hour is key to doing this successfully. If I'm particularly drained one day, then I make sure to get to bed at that 10 p.m. time or earlier for a full night of sleep. Getting to bed earlier one night will afford me some time on another day to get to bed a bit later if I am doing something for myself like playing a game. Breaking down a little routine for things like waking up & getting ready seems to help me, so lets go over it:
I have found that if I keep moving right after I get up, don't sit on my phone, and just knock these things out that I can fit every single one of these things in before I have to leave. Sometimes I can sit and get a bowl of cereal and other times I walk out with a piece of toast or a strudel, but I have added one very specific thing to this list that I look forward to every single morning. It's also helped my son wake up in a better mood to be quite honest. I go upstairs, wake my son up, and together we check on his gecko (which he unfortunately still has not named). This means we turn his light on, check where he is at, and spray water all over the inside of his cage so he has something to drink. At this time his little crested gecko is never awake to handle, but hunting for where the little guy has gone to sleep at is a ritual I cherish with my son. I believe having that one thing you look forward to every morning is key to really nailing down a routine. I don't particularly love leaving my wife and kids for work nor do I love waking up and getting ready in general; however, I really do enjoy seeing my son wake up happy to check on his gecko with me. It truly is the little things that bring us the most joy...sometimes that little thing is getting an extra hour of sleep for a day off, but still every morning I follow the same routine no matter what time it might be.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to what is right for you. As I mentioned earlier you may work at night and have to adjust your schedule a bit or you may not have a wife and kid like I do. If we're being honest here, my wife is one major reason I can get out the door so fast since she will often pack my lunch and start my coffee at least. Not to mention she is juggling our youngest son the entire time. Find out what works for you and what you actually look forward to everyday. At one point in my life waking up early to play a game for an hour before I had to leave was a nice motivation or getting outside to stretch and drink my coffee was another good motivation. What you don't want to do is be rushing to get to where you HAVE to be and feeling miserable the entire day...I've also done that plenty and I really just did not enjoy life at all always looking forward to being done with the day so I could 'veg out'. While I still enjoy watching a movie or playing a video game, it feels far different than the depressive lounging about just trying to not be bored and dreading going to bed so I could repeat the same slog all over again. Find those little opportunities in your life that you truly look forward to and immerse yourself in those things, but as a reward for accomplishing those things you NEED to do. It'll feel much more worth it in the end I promise.