Working With Your Brain, Not Against It: Routine Hacks for Neurodivergent Minds
Routines have always been hard for me. I so desperately wish they weren't, but they are. I used to feel so ashamed when I would try to implement a new routine and it wouldn't stick. For a long time I questioned why routines felt so difficult for me but seemed so easy for everyone else.
As I've gotten older, I've learned that some of my struggles with keeping routines are due to my neurodivergence. Remembering the routine is hard. Completing the routine is hard. If I do implement a routine eventually it feels boring, which makes continuing it hard.
I have had to make a concerted effort to accept that this is just how my brain works. As I moved through figuring out how to work with my brain instead of against it, I realized that clumping tasks together, or "habit stacking," was something that helped. Instead of my brain having to remember two or three separate tasks, I combined them into one routine when it made sense.
Routine building, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent, includes a lot of trial and error. Sometimes it's habit stacking. Sometimes it's doing tasks at odd hours. Sometimes it's completing tasks in ways that don't make sense to others. The most important thing is that it makes sense to your brain.
Here are some examples of routines that work for my neurodivergent brain:
Laundry — washed, dried and folded, but it lives in baskets rather than getting put away in the closet
Cleaning — starting in one corner of a room and working around in one direction, creating piles that need to go to other areas instead of taking them there right away
Purse and work items — placing these in the same spot every day so I don't misplace anything important
Placing items down — I say out loud to myself, "don't put it down, put it away"
Memory — when my brain tries to convince me I'll remember to do something later, I say out loud (or internally), "no I won't remember, I'll just do it now"
Tasks — if I know I'll be moving around my house completing tasks, I put shoes on. If I've come home from work and know the dishes need to be done, I do them before I take off my shoes and relax for the night
Hygiene — I keep a stick of deodorant in my work bag in case I forget to put it on before leaving the house. I keep lip balm in multiple places (purse, island counter, bathroom) so I never lose track of one
Groceries — a routine I want to try is online grocery ordering instead of taking the time to go to the store myself, since decision fatigue in the aisles is its own kind of hard
If routines feel impossible for you too, it might not be a willpower problem. It might just mean you haven't found the version that fits your brain yet.
-Nicole
Ever start a new routine with the best intentions, only to watch it fall apart within a week? You're not lazy, and you're not doing it wrong. For those of us with neurodivergent brains, routines don't fail because we lack discipline — they fail because we're trying to force our brains into a mold that was never built for them.
