You’ve almost certainly seen those perfect morning routines: up at 5am, meditation, exercise, journaling, green smoothie. You may even have tried one. Three days later, it had all fallen apart, and you felt even worse about yourself than before.
You’re not the problem. The routine is.
Why standard routines don’t last
A ten-step routine demands ten decisions, ten transitions and a lot of memory. That’s exactly what costs an ADHD brain the most, especially in the morning, when your energy and attention haven’t kicked in yet.
The result: the routine holds as long as it feels new and exciting. As soon as it becomes ordinary, it collapses. And one bad morning is often enough to make you give up altogether, because you tell yourself it’s ruined anyway.
What the morning is really for
The aim isn’t to have a perfect morning. It’s to avoid drifting until midday. A good morning routine has one job only: to take you from “I’m waking up” mode to “I’m up and running” mode, as quickly and as simply as possible.
How to build a routine that sticks
1. Three steps, not ten
Start with three actions at most. For example: splash water on your face, have a coffee, get dressed before you touch the computer. That’s it. You can add more later, once those three have become automatic.
2. Link each step to the one before
A habit sticks better when it’s triggered by something that already exists. “After my coffee, I get dressed” works better than “I get dressed at 7.30”. Each step becomes the cue for the next one.
3. Get ready the night before
Clothes on the chair, coffee ready to go, phone charging away from the bed. Everything you prepare in the evening is one less decision to make in the morning.
4. Hold off on the phone
Notifications are the surest way to lose your first hour. If you can, don’t touch your phone until you’ve finished your routine. A proper alarm clock instead of the one on your phone helps a lot.
5. Plan a minimum version
Some mornings, you’ll be tired, running late or just not with it. Decide in advance on your minimum version, the one you do even on your worst days. For example, just the water on your face and getting dressed. A minimum version that you actually do is worth more than a perfect routine you’ve abandoned.
Track it without judging yourself
Each morning, tick off whether you did your routine, even the minimum version. After two weeks, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t, without relying on how you happen to feel at the time. And when it goes wrong, the only useful question is: what made me lose track that morning?
What we work on in coaching
This is where my programme begins. Block 1, “Foundations”, is there precisely to build your morning routine and the anchor points of your day, with one simple goal: to start your days without drifting until midday. We start from what you already do, keep what works, and fine-tune week after week.