Mastering Planning with ADHD: A Step-by-Step Guide
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A while back I committed to teaching a class. We set a date for the course sessions, and then I promptly forgot when we were doing it. It wasn’t an immediate commitment, so it left my brain. I recently panicked, thinking it was coming up soon. I thought I wouldn’t have enough time to prepare. Luckily, I had put the dates in the calendar on my phone, and I have plenty of time to prepare. However, I need to get going. It will be here before you know it. Preparations should get underway soon. So, how do I keep this project in mind when it is still a couple of months away? Those of us with ADHD struggle with planning for the future. We tend to discount future planning. It becomes hard for us to not do things at the last minute. Last-minute work tends to be sloppy. So, what can be done?
Plan out the Project
When the project is placed on your plate, figure out when you need to be done with what. You do not have to completely plan everything, but it is a good idea to set up objectives and benchmarks. Decide when you want to be done with certain parts of the project. If you do this early on, you can then relax and wait for the work time to approach, but it will be stressful if you have not planned out the project.
Schedule Work Time
When the project is all planned out, it becomes imperative to schedule work time to complete the project. If you just say, “I want to be done by X time,” and don’t decide when you are going to do the work, you will still be doing the sloppy work of a last-minute dash. You might not even have the time to get the project done.
Add Extra Time
Those of us with ADHD are bad at estimating how long things take, so build in extra work time just in case. If we assume that we can get work done in a short amount of time, we are setting ourselves up for disaster. It behooves us to add extra time to our plans for work. Later, if you finish early, then you have downtime to do other things. If you want to relax in that downtime, you can. It will be easy to relax knowing you have gotten what needs to be done done.
How Will I Get the Planning for This Course Done?
I need to sit down and plan out this course. I need to figure out what needs to be said and done in the course. Once that is done, I can plan out some time to work on the course. I want to start sooner rather than later, so I can set aside short work sessions to chip away at the project, rather than doing it all at once. If I follow these plans, I should be able to get the course all planned out in advance of the April 15 start date.