How to stick with a routine?

[catkingdom]

What are your outside the box or any advice/experience with routine? The words routine and structure scare me because every time I've tried, I have fallen off immediately. Routine would solve most of my issues but I can never follow one unless it is straight up enforced like back in high school. I couldn't even follow a college routine with my classes because it wasn't enforced. I'm on meds and still cannot handle doing things at certain times everyday.

[Eric_ElevateLearning]

Hi catkingdom - first off, you are not alone. Our ADHD brains are typically not wired to create and follow routines; it can feel like a battle that cannot be won. However, there are evidence-based techniques to help build and follow routines! Here are a few tips that helped me:

1) start small - while it would be great to develop and follow routines with many steps, starting small and building momentum will get you to where you want to be.

2) decide which type of routine to create - morning? pre-work? evening? Choose one and handwrite your ideal routine (remember to start small).

3) set a reminder - this will help you build the habit of following the new routine.

4) find an accountability partner - is there someone in your life who would be a good coach? Ideally, this person checks in on you or you two make an agreement that you will text the person an update on how well you followed the routine each day.

5) read Atomic Habits by James Clear. This is an incredible resource about building habits.

I hope this is helpful! What questions come up for you?

[STEM_Dad in reply to Eric_ElevateLearning]

Good advice.

catkingdom Regarding "1) start small" - one way to do this is called "habit stacking". Think of a routine as a series of habits, where one leads to the next, and then the next, etc. We all have routines, but they tend to be routines that developed organically. It can be challenging to change routines, because we tend to revert to habits that we've already formed.

Try changing one habit at at time, make a small change, acknowledge when you even have partial success, and don't sweat it when you don't. Remember, change takes time and effort, and most people (even most neurotypical people) cannot make an instantaneous change.

-----

Habit-stacking: one effective way to introduce a new habit is to pair it with an existing one. I did this when I decided to start taking vitamins, many years ago...I took them with breakfast. I ate breakfast every day, so I just took my vitamins when I served myself breakfast.

Cue => response : Breakfast => vitamins

So, a few years ago, when I started taking ADHD medication, I did the same sort of thing...I paired my medication with my habit of taking vitamins. So, now I had a routine: Breakfast => vitamins => ADHD meds.

[Note: I was passionate about taking the meds, so that strong interest helped to form this habit. Some days, I forget to take the vitamins, but I rarely forget to take my meds. However, many other attempts to form habits this way have not gone as smoothly, because of inertia, i.e. resistance to change. It has been incredibly hard to change my morning routine to get out of bed earlier. I'm going to try again tomorrow.]

[Mamamichl in reply to STEM_Dad]

Another helpful tool for me is to have a visual cue. I put little signs up reminding me of things. I have a dish near the front door to put my outdoor essentials (keys, wallet, etc). I will be making a sign like this toon too.

Cross stitch sign to take your meds.

[STEM_Dad in reply to Mamamichl]

Yes, visual cues are a big help. Putting the things you need before you leave by the door is always a good idea.

A related idea is to group parts of your routine by room. I listen to a few ADHD podcasts, and on one of them I heard a dad with ADHD who has kids with ADHD related how he simplified their morning routine:

• Before: as the kids got ready for school in the morning, they kept getting distracted when they went from one room to another. They had to brush their teeth after breakfast and comb their hair in the bathroom, get dressed in their bedroom, and put on their shoes and jacket by the door. The dad wasn't able to keep track of what each kid was doing, because they were moving from room to room throughout the house, getting distracted as they went.

• After: these separate getting-ready activities were combined to one location... the bathroom. The kids would get dressed, brush their teeth and comb their hair, and put on their shoes and jacket all in that one location. It was less distracting for the kids and easier for the dad to check on their progress.

* {I think that the kids were elementary school ages in this example.}

I do a similar thing when I go run errands. I will organize my list by location. My pharmacy is near Walmart, so of course I'll combine trips instead of making separate trips. And if I need to top off my gas tank, I'll stop at the gas station that's on my way to Walmart and the pharmacy.

I also learned the layout of my local Walmart well enough that I write my shopping list in order of the route I'll take in the store... less back and forth means less distractions. I loop through the store one way, per my routine. It helps me to save time, reduce the likelihood that I'll make impulse buys, and makes it less likely that I'll skip things on my list.

• The only thing I'm likely to forget is reusable shopping bags. I live in New York state, which has banned single use plastic shopping bags, and Walmart has already stopped using paper bags. (Other retailers haven't stopped using paper bags yet, but I think they will be required to do so later on.) I need to make it part of my routine to put the emptied reusable bags back in my car, so I don't have to keep buying them at Walmart for 80¢ each.

[Mamamichl in reply to STEM_Dad]

In Oregon we had the same plastic bag ban. When we put groceries away, we put the bags on the handle of the front door. Next time we go out, we put them in the car. It’s remembering them before we go in that we are struggling on atm. If possible, I put them in the passenger front seat and it helps when I’m getting my purse, but not always.

[STEM_Dad in reply to Mamamichl]

I've only thought to hang the bags on the doorknob a few times. I need to make it a regular habit.

Now that I think of it, all the big name chain stores have switched to reusable bags here (except for Dollar Tree and Dollar General). It's mainly the small chain and mom-&-pop stores that still have paper bags.

It used to feel really weird to me to bring my own bag to the store, until I realized that my grandparents' generation were probably the first ones that stores provided paper bags to. The norm for most of history has been to bring you own bags/baskets/boxes/bins for shopping. (If course, our ancestors also grew their own food and made their own clothes, way back when.)

[Mamamichl in reply to STEM_Dad]

There are also reusable bags that go into a ball that’s smaller than a tennis ball. If you got in the habit to have a man pack/purse like thing that you take places, it’s easier to carry them around in something like that. It took a while, but my partner started using one that he keeps his things in (keys, wallet, prescription sunglasses, blind man’s cane, etc).

[STEM_Dad in reply to Mamamichl]

😅 I used to sell "man bags" back in the 90s, but I can't bring myself to carry one. I have a large fanny pack that I will use for day hikes, when I go camping, but it's definitely not the sort of thing I'll use on a daily basis. I tote things back and forth to work in a backpack.

Throughout the cold months, I'll stuff things into my jacket pockets. I have a couple of those bags that pack really small (made of parachute style nylon) that I let my kids pick out...so one has Buzz Lightyear on it, and the other has the family from Encanto. Each holds the equivalent of two paper grocery bags. But I forget to take them out to the car after I empty them.

I should just get in the habit of hanging them in the doorknob when they're empty, so that I will always remember to take them out with me. --- Time to add a couple of new habits to my routine! (1. Hang empty bags on the doorknob. 2. Take bags out to the car whenever I leave the house.)

(Putting them in my backpack won't work, because I always put it inside the house when I get home from work.)

[Knitting20projects in reply to Mamamichl]

That is absolutely awesome! I love it.

[doghome]

HI there, my husband is the adhd in our house and he likes visual reminders too. He uses post it notes for simple reminders, and we have resorted to a list that we update as needed for a daily routine. He says it helps him alot. We are not super tech people and so he doesnt like to use his phone for reminders, thats why he goes to the sticky notes. We have separate bathrooms and sometimes I walk in his and see his notes for the next day and chuckle, but it helps him and I appreciate that he tries 😊

[Mamamichl in reply to doghome]

We keep a desk calendar (large) as well as an electronic one for my partner and me. We also have a joint grocery list on our iPhones that works wonders for us.

I like that he sets note reminders the night before. That’s a neat idea! Take time aside to do the planning.

[empleat]

I have problem i never could accept just doing one thing a day, as i have so much shit to do and i years behind stuck 8 years with chronic pain and no one helps me. I overwork one day, then don't do anything next day, then i am next month in rut. Also took me 8 years to fix bedtime procrastination and still can't go at same time exactly due to my insomnia, i didn't even fix my bedroom there is so much shit to do and i couldn't do absolutely anything, and everyone only shit on my head, no one ever really helped me even 1% of what i needed for severity of my problems...

David Goggins can't hurt me..........................

...And Here some lifehacks: bigthink.com/smart-skills/a...

You can also try atomic habits... Get to do app...

Also think how to remove something from your schedule not to add, maybe you are anxious or overwhelmed at that time, so it is hard to try to do something else...

Get off your phone, social media, cut out distractions, nothing exist only you and 1 thing you are doing right now and then you take time to think about what you will do next xD

IF you can try to take it slow, i had low self-esteem issues, perfectionism, self-sabotage and everything one might have at the same time so nothing ever worked for me... I overpower ADHD through sheer will and suffering with trying to gradually change issues/causes and my environment and hack my brain... But it might as well take me 20 years, i suffer from anhedonia feel 0 pleasure/motivation. Even after i was able to walk 24 km after like 6 years wasn't able to go more than 1-2km - i felt nothing, i never feel anything even if i massively succceed... I so different to ppl, even i can relate to 99.9999% ADHD things, no ADHD ppl can relate to me and if i say anything they get mean for no reason so...