How to Stick to Routines with ADHD

19 Dec 2024 · 1 min

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In this segment, the speaker explains that people with ADHD experience low dopamine, which makes it hard to maintain a single routine over time. To counteract this, they recommend creating two or three distinct routine systems. When one routine becomes stale and motivation drops, the individual can switch to another, keeping the activity feeling fresh and engaging. The speaker also notes that after a break, returning to a previously used routine can feel novel again, helping sustain attention and adherence. This rotating‑routine strategy leverages the brain’s craving for novelty to maintain consistent habits despite dopamine fluctuations.

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Here's how you actually stick with routines if you have ADHD. The first thing to know is that because you're going to have low dopamine, you're not going to be able to stick to a routine for a long period of time. Yes, you can find something that works really well, and that's awesome. And then you wonder a couple weeks later why I stopped doing that. You stopped doing it because now it's working and your dopamine is low and is going to force you to go look for things that are new, that are different, that are interesting. The way you work around this is you create 2 or 3 of these routines or these systems so that when one gets old, you have another one you can start doing, and that's new and that's fresh. And then your attention will kind of stay on that. And then when that one wanes off a little bit more, you can either go to a third one or you could actually jump back to the first one and it'll be new because you haven't been doing it in the last week or two. So your brain's gonna find that exciting and new and kind of plugging that same system into whatever's happening in your life at that moment.