Hi there. Things have spiraled out of control lately, I don’t have a stable job at the moment and when I do, I mostly work from home.

I urgently need to establish some kind of routine and find a way to follow it. Productivity isn’t even the priority as I do have a good amount of free time. Problem is that I don’t use this boredom effectively at all.

I wanted to know if there are books/guides that could help ADHD people establish routines and how to keep them up. I’m autistic too, which means I greatly benefit from routine.

Thanks for any kind of advice!

  • @[email protected]English
    3•11 months ago

    I’d say 3 things

    1. To establish a routine, I had to let go of everything else. Like, the checklist for the whole day was just the routine and it stayed that way for weeks. Sounds like you’re in a good position to do this which is great to hear.

    2. Shape the environment to enforce a routine.

    Alarms are annoying. They can tell you something but not make you want to do it. We can do better. For example in the morning, using a sunlight alarm clock and a space heater will actually make you want to get out of bed. (Use a timer socket with the space heater to have it auto turn on)

    • It is incredible how effective this the combination is. You can go to bed at 1am and get up at 5am and still wake up in a decent mood, never pressing snoose, never dealing with a noise-maker. When it’s hot and bright, your whole body just tries to be awake instead of trying to keep you asleep.

    Doing the exact opposite night also helps; use the thermostat clock to make it cold and have lights auto-turn off using timer sockets. It’s difficult to keep working when it’s really cold.

    I find treating the weekend the same as weekdays is helpful. E.g. don’t take a break on the weekend.

    1. Then, if you can, get some external enforcement. Ideally this would be something like a class or a short job that requires showing up at the same time each day. It can be as simple as getting a plant that you need to water a bit every day, or a pet. Although be careful with a pet and make sure you can actually take care of them.

    Recommended Books:

    • Order from Chaos