The routine’s dramatic one-week residency
Day one has colour coding. Day four has optimism. Day eight has a planner under a takeaway menu and the faint smell of personal betrayal.
Rigid routines collapse because they assume stable energy, predictable days and a brain delighted by repetition. ADHD brings variation. When one missed step invalidates the whole sequence, real life wins immediately.
The actual problem
A routine should be a handrail, not a railway timetable. The useful structure is built around anchors that already happen—waking, lunch, arriving home—and minimum versions that survive bad days.
The clever part is the restart. If a system requires Monday, a clean kitchen and renewed faith in humanity, it is not a routine; it is seasonal theatre. Build one that can resume at the next anchor with no apology.