I was interviewed by an academic who was writing a paper on women with ADHD recently, and I laughed when I was telling her how important my morning routine is to me.
The rest of the day doesn’t have much of a routine because I do lots of different things over the course of a week, but my mornings almost always follow the same pattern, and if they don’t then things go wrong - mostly for my dog!
I explained my morning routine to her:
Wake up and go downstairs
Drink water/make protein shake if I’m working out
Stick a coffee pod in the machine
Feed Eddie
Take the vitamin pills out of the cupboard below the coffee machine and put them next to my journal
Put coffee on the table
Write my journal whilst taking vitamins/protein/coffee
Exercise - go to my home gym or out for a run
Stretch
Meditate
Shower
Finally ready for work!
That whole process usually takes from 6 am to 9 am to complete, and I told her it’s the best way to start my day to ensure my brain functions well.
Sometimes, I’ll shorten different elements of the routine (such as exercise and meditation) if I need to get out of the door early, but I’ll almost always do the first few things in the same order.
If anything gets in the way of that routine - say I have my granddaughter to stay and I’m up at 4:30 am doing potties and Peppa Pig, then I’ll forget to do my journal and take my vitamins, and I’ll often get Ed following me around looking very sorry for himself at 8 am because I’ve completely forgotten to give him his breakfast!
Routines can enhance anyone’s life - not just people with ADHD. We all get unusual days when things go off plan, but if you get a good morning routine for yourself you’ll generally get more from yourself for the rest of the day.
Routines are simply a collection of habits, and as James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits, "We all deal with setbacks but in the long run the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits."
I was recently talking with a client who was having trouble sticking to the routine of writing their journal even though they knew it was a helpful thing to do, and I explained the solution is make journal writing a habit by slotting it in either before or after a habit you already find easy to do.
My whole morning routine has been built over time by “habit stacking” one useful action around something I already do almost without thinking.
What new habit could you stack on top of something you already do without thinking?