What Does Planning with ADHD Actually Look Like?

Have you ever looked at a blank weekly planner and thought, I don't even know where to start?

On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs teaches how to make a plan that actually works for an ADHD brain, without needing it to be perfect. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.

By the end, you'll have a new way to think about planning, one that bends instead of breaks, and actually helps you feel more regulated instead of more overwhelmed.

Megs gets real about a hard day juggling two young kids and another move, then pushes back on the idea that ADHD brains just can't plan. Plans, rhythms, and routines can absolutely work, when they're simple, written down, and treated as flexible guides instead of rigid rules to fail at.

Using meal planning as her anchor example, she shares what she learned living temporarily on a mountain in Georgia (far from any grocery store), and how she eventually built a Sunday meal-planning habit in Massachusetts that reduced both overwhelm and overspending, even on the weeks it still fell apart. She walks through how to notice what isn't working, break goals into small steps, set intentions with reminders and support like body doubling, and build a "bare minimum" plan for your worst days so you stay regulated even when life gets chaotic.

The good news? A plan doesn't have to be beautiful or complete to work. It just has to exist, and this episode shows you exactly how to build one you'll actually use.

This episode connects to an earlier conversation about all-or-nothing thinking, if that resonates, check out the "Burn It All Down" episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/organizing-an-adhd-brain/id1728728980?i=1000760213135

Looking for more meal-planning and organizing support? Join Megs' Circle community, a space built for ADHD brains who want accountability and connection without the pressure. > Join Here

This episode is for anyone who has ever given up on planning because it felt too hard to do it perfectly, and is ready to try a different way.

Time Stamps:

2:03 — An Instagram video about ADHD planning sparks a reframe 

3:23 — Why plans fail: and why that's not the whole story 

4:26 — The Georgia meal planning story: planning on a mountain far from groceries 

7:46 — Building a Sunday meal-planning routine in Massachusetts 

11:26 — Keeping plans simple, written, and flexible 

13:25 — Beliefs, small wins, and what actually builds momentum 

17:04 — What a plan really is — and what it doesn't have to be 

18:25 — How to reverse-engineer a goal into something doable

4:03 — Setting intentions, reminders, and using body doubling for support 

29:27 — Expecting imperfection: treating plans like projects, not promises 

32:12 — Building a bare minimum plan for your hardest days 

35:52 — Community invite and closing thoughts

Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start

The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain

You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

Transcript

Instagram Planning Trigger

Why Plans Fail

Georgia Meal Planning Story

Massachusetts Routine Builds

Keep Plans Simple

Beliefs and Small Wins

What a Plan Really Is

Reverse Engineer Your Goal

Set Intentions and Reminders

Expect Imperfection Like Projects

Plans for Worst Days

Community Invite and Wrap Up

Audio Only - All Participants 0:39

Hello, welcome back, or welcome if you're new here. this is a good place to start. I am recording this episode because I was thinking the other day, a couple weeks ago I chatted with you about just getting started and allowing it to be easy and flexing your muscles. So then. When does having an actual plan make sense? When does that work? I'm also coming to you today in a harder day. Interestingly enough, I've done some of my bare minimum tasks today, and I've also done some of the tasks that I had to get done just based on knowing what needed to get done. But I recognize in this moment that I have a 6-year-old who's about to turn 7, 6, 7. It's not cool anymore. I know, And I also have an 8-year-old who's about to turn nine and smack dab in the middle. My husband and I are moving, to a whole new house. This will be the second time moving. This year, third time moving this year, since we sold our house last July. So we are on another adventure. This time feels a little bit easier. We feel a little bit more prepared and. Maybe we have a little bit more of a plan, so to speak. I am recording this episode because as I've told you, I am not on social media very often, but I do sign in when I have a local event or an event that I want to tell people about. I was on Instagram the other day and I was watching this video and this gentleman came on and he said, let me show you the difference between an A DHD or planning their meals for the week and a typical normal person planning their meals for the week. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't actually watch the end of it, but part of it was because, okay, I know where this is going and it's not gonna look good for the A DHD or, and part of me got a little annoyed and this is my fight or flight response kicking in. I'm a little annoyed because I know that plans can actually help. Having a rhythm and a routine and something that you can come back to rely on can be very helpful for those with A DHD and with A DHD if you're a part of that category. I did an episode on Burn It All Down the A DHD Brains, all or Nothing Trap. I talked about starting small and letting it be easy. So when do we actually make a plan and does having a plan actually work? I'm here to tell you yes, and I'm gonna talk to you about the different ways that it does, but perhaps not in the way that you might think a plan works. Because what I will tell you right now is your beautiful brain loves to try to think of. Every possible scenario and has the best ideas for solutions, and in fact, not only has a solution for the solution, but has a solution for that solution that is now split into three different solutions because we thought of every possible solution on top of that solution that now needs an additional solution. But you know what? We didn't do. Write it down so you know what's hard to stick with that damn plan. So we're gonna talk about it in a way that makes more sense and keeps things simple because while we can follow intricate plans that we've created, that we've written down, it is much harder to remember these intricate plans. And so let's talk about a plan actually working. I'm gonna start with a story and. For those of you that are new, you might not know that. My husband and I sold our house in Colorado last year and we moved across the country to Massachusetts. But where did we stop along the way, Georgia. Why? I don't know. But we were there and we lived there for almost a month and it was really cool. We lived in this house on top of a mountain Mount Oglethorpe, if you are familiar with that area, and we. We knew that wherever we were gonna be, we were going to adjust our lives to be there because it was only going to be temporary. Of course, what we didn't really factor into the equation was that the closest grocery store was now going to be at least 20 minutes away each way. So that's a 40 minute drive just to get groceries. Some of you might live this life already, and so you're like, yeah, Megan, that's normal. For us, it wasn't because we've always lived well for the last five years, about a mile away from the grocery store. So if we forgot something, it was really easy to just go to the grocery store and get it. The convenience and ease was right there, and we lived so close to. Anything that would deliver. There was an Amazon delivery. Instacart would deliver anything but where we were at the top of this mountain not a lot of delivery. So what did we have to do? We had to make a plan. We had to start deciding what we wanted to eat each night. And to have enough food throughout the week to not only feed ourselves, but to feed our kids. Yes. Is this basic human things that we do when you have a family. Sure. But also. We were not used to meal planning. In fact, in this moment we didn't call it meal planning. It's actually as if we were fooled into meal planning because we had to make a plan. cause otherwise it would've been too inconvenient to run out of something. So it was interesting how I noticed that the inconvenience of life. Made sure that we got into a place that we managed that inconvenience in a way that. We weren't as inconvenienced in life because we knew we still wanted to live a life where we didn't run out of food and we had certain things that we wanted That's a whole nother episode. I'd love to talk about the conveniences that we have now, and if it's honestly, is it helping or hindering our A DHD? there's stuff that helps it. There's stuff that hinders it, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, we continued to meal plan. Again, we didn't talk about what it actually meant to meal plan. We didn't think of it as meal planning. We just had to make a plan and stick with it. But we didn't write it down. We just. Talked about it off the top of our heads saying, this is what we want for this night. This is what we want for this night. We'll go out to eat for this night and then the kids can eat this, and this. And when we had family over, this is what we're gonna do, and then we're gonna do this on this occasion. All of this was just, it was just a conversation and then it went something like, what are we having tonight? what was that plan? Oh, do you wanna just do this tonight? That's how it worked out. So then when we got to Massachusetts, we wanted to get into a place where we were meal planning. That was a goal of ours. We started talking about it more, and then one day we just did it. We were like, okay, it's Sunday. Let's figure out what we're gonna do for the week. And this was through one of our transitions. My husband had gone through a period where he was not working. I am transitioning in my business, so There's always a fluctuation between what does my schedule look like this week? So we know at night it is too exhausting to try to think about what we're going to eat. And normally in that case we were like, we're just going to eat out if we get to this point of exhaustion, because that feels like the easiest thing in the moment. And all we wanna do is just eat and continue to live our lives. Another aspect of this was, yeah, previously, and even in this moment, we probably could have put it on a credit card and that would've been fine. We'll just think about it later. Except now we're budgeting and we're tracking everything that we spend. in a way that like makes us really conscious about what we're doing, and we knew that we were not going to be eating out. In fact, eating out was significantly cut down because we knew we wanted to put our money in different places. Normal. That makes a ton of sense. So there is a convenience factor here again, in that when I was working a corporate job and my husband had a full-time paying job too, we didn't worry about what we spent on eating out as much. Maybe that's something that we could have in those moments and we didn't, and that's fine. We are doing things differently now but because of the fact that we can't necessarily just order out and we didn't want to be spending our money in that place, we knew we needed to meal plan. So when we started to sit down to do it. We didn't even realize that we had already built up some of the muscles we needed to do the meal planning. And so I actually went into the reserves of my remarkable, where I keep some of my files. I found some old recipes that I knew we liked, and in the past I started playing the leftover test where I would make a note on if we liked it enough to have it for leftovers.'cause there's some things that go into your fridge to die and then never actually. Be eaten again, even though you know you have it and you should eat it, but you don't. So I went into those reserves and then my husband and I started talking about what we wanna have for meals each week. And then we started planning the girls' meals too. And yes, they eat separate than us. We're doing our best. So we are at the point now that when Sunday comes, we meal plan. I say that, and I'm laughing because this week we didn't, and part of that was because we went to Costco instead of meal planning and didn't have the capacity to meal plan. So guess what? It's Tuesday night and I don't know what we're gonna have for dinner tonight. And I feel okay about it. And also. I wish that we had taken the time to do it because it's annoying now. It's also annoying when we do it and I practice regulation through it. I take a deep breath. We are safe to actually go and do this prep right now, even though it's ambiguous even though the barrier there is that. We don't know what life is handing us, and there's a lot of things to figure out. So my executive function is no, don't do this. My husband and I body double. We come to it together because it's just easier when we do it together. It doesn't feel like a task that we have to do alone. So having a plan each week allows us to live a life where we're not as overwhelmed on a regular basis, but it took us a really long time to get here, and in this case, we didn't come up with an elaborate plan to do it. We just started doing it the best we could with what we had without buying anything additional to add on top of it. And so I say that to say as I talk about making a plan, it does not need to be something that you buy all of these color coordinated pens for even if though you want to, it doesn't need to be something that you have stickers for, even if you want to. It doesn't mean you have to go and buy this acrylic Monday through Friday meal planning thing for your fridge. That's not what's going to make you successful. The only thing that will help you continue to do this is to say that this is something that I want to do to help us live our lives a little bit more carefree, with not as much thought during the week when we're already so exhausted. Last week and I re-listened to the episode where I talked to Stephanie about self-care. I was like, oh, meal planning is self-care. This is caring for ourselves during the week. That's so cool. It's not all that goes into this one thought process that makes the plan successful, but it is through coming back to it each time, that makes it a little bit easier. And allows us to get into it a little bit differently. Am I about to sell you a meal plan sheet that you can check off? Hell no. No. I don't want to. I don't want to actually at all.'cause each and every one of our process is gonna be a little bit different. But what I will say is I created a space in my community on circle where we talk about planning meals and like what's working, what's not working, where are you hitting barriers. What makes sense, what doesn't make sense? so I say that to say when it comes to making a plan, we want to, and sometimes making a plan gives us all the dopamine that. Is possible, but then because we've made it so intricately impossible to succeed at said plan, and we tend to look for what's wrong in everything, instead of looking for what we actually did well, we don't come back to it. Then we think that we're failures. We think that, oh there's the A DHD and this video that I watched about that guy just means that I can't actually meal plan with A DHD. So here's why. I just wanna say the belief thing comes back into it tenfold. When you believe you can't actually make a change, then you are right, because if you believe that a ADHDers are just gonna continue to fail at everything, then yeah, you're gonna look for that evidence everywhere and you're going to find it. But if you believe that making small changes can add up and can build on one another to be this bigger change, then that is the belief that you need. To keep going to say, Ooh, I didn't do it this week, but let me try again this next week and see what that looks like. Like just because my husband and I don't have a plan this week, even though I told you we've been having a plan, it doesn't mean that I've failed. It just means that this week was different and we allowed this Costco trip to get in our way we've done this a couple times where. The weekend gets ahead of us and we're like, let's just do it Monday and then we don't because it's not part of something that we do. So we're trying to change something now into something that hasn't ever worked for us and we need to come back to what, what does work for us This is where plans help and routines and rhythms help because when you change the rhythm and routine, that's another discomfort that you now have to address. Something else we tend to do a lot is hope for the best. We have this idea of having a meal plan or we have this idea of having a more organized home, or we have this idea of. Being able to use our digital calendar, we have this idea of going outside and taking deep breaths, and then we forget because there's all of these ideas competing for actual airtime in our head So this is where a plan can help when we're more intentional about what we want and when we start to notice where it's truly failing. So if over the next week you started to notice one or two things that really just weren't working for you, this is where you could put more intention and have a little bit more of a plan in your steps on a daily basis. Rewinding back to the episode I talked about two weeks ago. When you're flexing and just doing these little activities and little spaces and allowing it to be easy, you naturally then just start to notice all of these things that have either been put away in different places, these things that you didn't even realize you had anymore, or you start to notice where things aren't necessarily working like. Oh, I keep trying this and this is not working. Or I keep reacting in this way and it's not working. And this is where noticing and regulation, like coming back to your conscious brain and saying how could I respond to this instead of react? How can I respond to my environment in a different way? And this is where truly having a plan makes a difference. Let's talk about what the definition of a plan is, because just because we have a DHD doesn't mean we can't make a plan, but this is what a plan is, and I literally typed into Google plan definition, and this is what it is. A plan is a detailed actionable method, program, or design, formulated beforehand to achieve a specific goal, intention, or objective. It acts as a guide for action, often covering procedures, timing, and resources. It can also refer to a diagram, drawing or plan, view of a structure. Amazing. So having a plan sounds really exciting. And when you finally sit down to make that plan, Ooh, is it exciting? Oh, and you have all the dopamine. You're like, this is it. I'm a changed person. Now I can do things that I never thought possible. Wow. Amazing. And then you forget about it or. You didn't write it down or it's in, I don't know, one of your ai modalities that you've created this plan with, and it's not actually solidified or secured somewhere. There's nothing wrong with that. You can always come back to it, but when you start to notice what's not working. You can come up with a plan or an idea of what you want to change. And so this is where we can do one of my favorite things to talk about, and it is, what do you want? What do you want in life? What is it that you want? Not, what is it that Instagram wants, or your best friend, or your mom or your dad, or your sister or your brother, or your acquaintances? What do you want? I am gonna come back to the meal plan for just a second. This is not an episode about meal planning, but now it is apparently. Do you want to not have to think about the meals during the week? Cool. Okay. So this is where we start to just back it up. So in order to. Have a plan for meals each week. I'm actually gonna write this down as I do it, because this is how I plan some of the things that I do, and I'm pulling in some of my project management experience by thinking about what I want. I want to have a general idea for what we're eating each week, okay? I want it to be realistic, and I wanna believe that it's possible. So what do I need to do in order to get there? Okay. I need to actually go to the grocery store. I need to make a list of what we need. I also have to make a list of what we're eating. I have to consider some of the. Regular items that we get, and I also need to take a look at what we're doing each week. So girls have dance on Thursday. I have singing on Wednesday. Sometimes my husband has an event on Monday. And then into the weekends. We like to keep those kind of loosey goosey, if you will, depending on how much we prep for food. I don't actually want to prep meals in the way that I am, like have them in the fridge ready to go. My meal prep just means that I know. What I'm having each week, and I have it in the fridge by Sunday and that I have creamer for my coffee and that I have something for myself to eat for lunch. Like even if it's a protein bar, I know that there's something that I can go and grab that is not something that is unhealthy or a cheese stick because I tend to love to eat cheese sticks because they're easy and yay protein. So with all of that involved. What's one thing I could do today to help me get there? So we didn't meal plan this week, so if I think about what today looks like, I could ask my husband if he wants to sit down and talk about what we wanna do for the rest of the week. We also have a birthday party on Saturday, and so that's something that we have to take into consideration. That's a great first step. So what I'm doing here is thinking about what I want, and then I'm breaking it up into steps, and then I'm thinking about what's the smallest thing I could do today to take a step toward getting to that overall goal. Now that's just a meal plan. Every week or understanding what we're having. I said a general idea, and that's really what I want because as this plan comes up, there are days where my husband will get home and he's planned to make us like this elaborate meal.'cause he loves to cook and he loves to create delicious. Extravaganzas, if you will, and it will come a time where he's just so exhausted that I actually have to encourage him to pick one of the easier things. I know that we are planning on having sandwiches on Thursday, but what if we had those tonight instead because you. Actually Have a little bit more free space in your brain to do this more elaborate meal on that day versus this day. So we get to play around with things a little bit more, even though we've made a plan, right? The plans are meant to be malleable and meant to be. Something that's incorporated into our life to change and to play around with and to see what works and what doesn't. Because we don't actually know what works for our family. We only see what might be working for other people. Start here. Use what I'm doing to chew on it a little bit and use it as food for thought in your brain to say, oh, that wouldn't work here, but you know what would work. Yeah, that's what I want you to do. Take it. Take it with you and make it your own. Figure out how to mold this into what you want, because that's what all of these ideas and podcasts are for, is for you to make it your own and to truly get there in what makes sense for you. Side note, as a coach, I have a framework and I have a way that I teach people to get from point A to point B, right? And like we talk about what point B actually means, all of that stuff. But every single client I have is completely different. And the things that I teach them are the things that they need in those moments. They're not like, oh, I know we need to talk about boundaries this week, but this week we're gonna talk about all or nothing. Like it all adds up. But if you are needing something I'm gonna come to you and I'm gonna tell you these things and then I'm gonna ask you questions to help you understand how to start to navigate yourself out of it. And it's with baby steps. Okay? Now a plan comes in real handy too, when you actually set an intention. When are you going to take some action toward this and how are you going to externalize it from your brain to put it in a space that you're going to see it again, not in a space that's gonna overwhelm you, not in a space where like you might see it every day for a week and then forget that it ever existed, but. Where could you put it? So it's something that does become your next step in understanding how you can take that small, manageable step that we talked about last week, right? And say like, how could I put that in front of me? So right now, I just talked to you about how I'd really like to set an intention. To talk to my husband about what we wanna do for meals for the rest of the week. I could say that all day and he might help me edit my podcast, but if we don't do anything about it, it's going to go away. And that's normal. That that's just real life. And part of regulation is coming back and saying, oh. It's actually okay that I have a thought that's the greatest thought in the entire world, and then it leaves and I never think about it again. That's okay. I'm gonna take a deep breath. It's okay that I let some of these thoughts go because the ones that come up again, the ones I write down, the ones I do make space for do matter. And that's what makes sense in my life right now. So I am going to set an intention and I'm gonna text my husband right now, he's in the other room Would you like to sit down and talk about what we're having for meals for the rest of the week tonight? Cool. Side note, I don't know if you know this, but on at least an Apple iPhone you can schedule your texts. So I will sometimes do that. To my husband, but then sometimes I'll have him do that with me. If I have something on my brain that I can't get off it, you can't schedule a text to yourself. I've tried. So if you know a workaround, let me know. But he will send me a text for the next morning to arrive at say, 6:30 AM when I know I'm gonna be at my phone and I can see it. Okay. He's already responded, he said, sure. Let me see what time. So the next part of setting an intention is so I have a buddy that I'm doing this with, so what time are you actually gonna do it? Cool. Figure that out. Find a time. What makes sense for your brain? Normally the end of the day, not the greatest time for us to be meal planning. My brain is so tired at the end of the day, and that's because I have trained myself to get up earlier. He says five 30. I say that works. What's gonna help us remember what is going to remind us that we want to do this? probably that we don't have anything planned for dinner, so that's gonna help us. But now I'm getting in front of the forgetting about it by just setting that small intention. So this small step helps us get to this grander plan. So having a plan is really cool if you just have an idea of where you wanna get to and you trace it all the way back and just say what's one thing I could do today? Is it literally just having one meal planned each week? Okay, celebrate that. What is it? And come back to it. Come back to that. Celebrate these little wins because that is. Proof that you're doing it. That's it. It's not this all or nothing thing. We can't be all or nothing because if you did have one week where you almost made it and then you failed because the last two days you ordered out. Do you actually give yourself credit for the first three days that you stuck to something? So does a plan work? Yeah. But is it black and white and like perfect. No. A plan is having an idea of the life that you want to live that can make it easier. Understanding that you need to believe that you're capable of getting there, and then just knowing what step you could take toward that today. let's take it a huge step back. Let me make a plan just for today and see what I can accomplish instead of letting the overwhelm hit me. And you know what? That comes back to regulation. It's taking deep breaths when that overwhelm hits, noticing it and saying, oh, okay, I'm actually safe'cause I can't do all of these things all at once. Maybe I am quote unquote, behind, which is. A thing that we tell ourselves that's not actually real. We're not behind, we're exactly where we need to be. when it comes to a plan. The idea is to not make it elaborate and unachievable. It means to set an intention and allow it to be realistic based on who you are in this moment. I had a woman reach out to me a couple months ago and we talked about coaching, and she's like, I want a Martha Stewart house where everything is perfect and it looks amazing. I was like, cool. Have you ever done this before? And she's like, no. I'm like, awesome. How much stuff are we working with? And she's like, A lot. And I'm like, okay, that's not realistic. I'm gonna tell you that, right? I'm not here to make your dreams come true overnight. I'm here to help you understand what you are capable of, which is a whole freaking lot. So after you've set this intention, now is time to expect imperfection, expect life to happen. Have you ever done a project. Maybe you have hired someone for a project or you've even heard of someone hiring someone for a project and they're like, yeah, we can have this done in around three months timeframe. So what they do in there is they estimate the amount of time that each part of the project is going to take. So let's say you're redoing your kitchen. You are going to rip out everything. How long is demolition gonna take? Cool. That involves having someone deliver a dumpster so that you can get all the stuff hauled away and then you actually have to get the stuff hauled away. But if there's a delay in there at all, all of that stuff is factored in. Maybe like a couple days delay. So this is the estimate of when this is going to happen. But what happens in there is life. Most of the time when you hear about a project having a completion date. You then hear about all of the delays along the way, all of the things that happen that have to be managed and communicated on and kept up to date and like things are changing all the time, and so the plans are amazing, but just like in a project where you have like big construction things happening or any other project when you're building an app or things like that, there are so many moving parts that you don't take into consideration until the project is actually in motion. Only by taking action do you start to see what's actually possible and you start to see the things that you couldn't have possibly thought of beforehand. And that's one of the things that we get caught up on too, is like we want to be able to think of everything and you just can't, the more experience you have, the more you'll be able to predict certain things happening, and that will actually help you start to do things instead of put it off. Like I had just mentioned, my husband and I putting it off till Monday. We know that this does not work for us unless we set an intention to actually do it. So the next time we say let's wait until Monday. What do I need to do? I need to say when and like how can we remember? Because otherwise it's just a good intention that's gonna be out of my head the next day. It doesn't mean that I don't wanna do it, it does not mean I'm lazy. It just means that I forgot about it and there was nothing in my brain that was like, Hey, remember that thing that you said you were gonna do? Now you've got 80 other things you're doing okay. Yeah, of course. I'm not gonna pull that back up. Until mealtime comes and I'm too tired to think about anything else. These plans also help on your very worst days. The worst days, the days you show up and you're like, I can't do all the things I said I was gonna do today because I was a champion yesterday and today I am not that same champion. So what's the bare minimum? And the bare minimum, it comes back to those really easy tasks I talked to before. You flex doing those easier tasks so it's easier to come back to them. So like today, I worked out. Here's what I did. I used my green armband that I have on my calendar every day that says, do 10 green armband stretches, and then I can say that I worked out and that's it. But today I felt a little bit more excited about it, so I did 10 green armband stretches and I alternated those with squats. And then I was done and I was able to check that off and say that I worked out today and I also went and walked around a ton. We went on a family field trip to see baby animals at a local village. That was really exciting. Something else I did today was do a load of laundry. I talked about last time how. It can be really difficult for me to get started with the laundry, but then once I do, I'm in it. I like to do one load a day, dry it, and then my husband folds it and puts it away. So we've got a little bit of a rhythm, a little bit of a method here, and guess what? Sometimes I don't do the laundry and sometimes he doesn't fold it. So sometimes it piles up on his end. Sometimes it piles up on my end. We still have a rhythm and a flow to come back to whenever days hit us where we're so exhausted and we're allowed to put it off because we know we have something to come back to the next day. And so like plans are really awesome if you allow them to be flexible. And allow them to be a thing that gets you back on rhythm. It just allows you to come back to something that could work for you versus saying, oh my gosh, I didn't do it today. I'm the worst. Because that's where we really get off. Of course you didn't do it today because this happened and this, there's all of the evidence is there. Like you didn't get a good night's sleep. You haven't been sleeping and so like your brain is accumulating notes. Sleep, and now this is the evidence of that. But now you're shaming yourself because you're not doing the things that is just more evidence that you are not able to take care of yourself because of all of this other thing. And yoga, a couple weeks ago I got this card that said, life is happening for you and not to you. And I was like, what does this mean? And I'm like, oh yeah, that makes a ton of sense for me. Every time life happens. It's giving me a sign that is evidence that something is or isn't happening in other places. And so today I'm really tired and. That points to I'm not getting enough sleep or I'm not maybe taking care of myself in the best places. Maybe I'm not drinking enough water. There's a lot of things that this could be, but because I'm noticing and I'm practicing noticing, that allows me to start to take many steps to get back to who I am. And sometimes even getting back to this rhythm that has worked in the past can be really helpful. To me, finding myself again, finding myself in a space where I am getting enough sleep, where I am taking care of myself because. Maybe laundry is self-care, right? All of these little things add up to making me this better version of myself. But I get to have bad days too, and that's where a plan actually supports me. It doesn't hinder me, and it doesn't need to be perfect. So I would encourage you. To take this with you and share with me what you want your plan to be. What does this inspire you to do? I'm curious your thoughts, hearing how a plan could or could not work for you. Based on this episode, I would love to invite you into my community organizing an A DHD Brain. You can join right now by going to organizing an A DH ADHD Brain forward slash community. This month we're challenging ourselves, getting to these small little parts of our life, getting our eyes on things, and taking small steps toward where we wanna go. We also have a round table next week just talking about what we're working on and getting in each other's corner so that we can support one another. Next month we're gonna be doing small little steps in the direction of where we wanna go, but in the digital space, in the end. I just wanna remind you to take a deep breath. While it's sometimes scary to look at these things from a new and different perspective and to do things that are on our non-preferred task list, you are actually safe to do them. Even if everyone out there says it's not enough dopamine, and we're more creative than that, we still have to be adults at the same time. And so come be a part of community. Who are also adults trying to do the things, but we also wanna live our lives in joy as well. As you continue to hear in this season, life is a messy middle through those messy middles, if you will. You do have periods where you start to prove to yourself all of the really cool fricking things you can do, and then you just get to build on it. And the more you come back to yourself and remind yourself you're safe to do these things, you're safe to put things off for a moment. The things that don't matter as much right now, the more you actually accomplish, on that note, I'll see you next week.