ADHD brains create a peculiar contradiction: they desperately need structure while actively fighting against it at every turn. 

If you have ADHD, you've probably been told countless times that consistent routines could transform your life. Maybe you've even experienced those rare, magical periods when you actually maintained one for two or three days; yet somehow, despite knowing that routines could really help you manage your symptoms, your ADHD makes it nearly impossible to actually stick to them.

Talk about a catch-22. It's like needing glasses to find your glasses. Or needing your phone to call your lost phone. And yes, this can definitely be an ADHD thing. 

📊 According to my recent survey, over 80% of ADHDers either agree or strongly agree with both of these statements: 

• “My brain needs structure and routines to function in society.”

• “My brain seems to actively fight against maintaining structure and routines.”

But why does this ADHD contradiction happen? Let's break down the psychology behind this paradox to understand why ADHD brains seem programmed to resist the very routines that could help them thrive.

Executive Dysfunction vs. Routines

At the heart of our struggle with routines is what scientists call "executive dysfunction" – which is basically your brain's CEO calling in sick when you need it most.

Executive functions help you: 

• Plan your day (and actually stick to that plan)

• Organize tasks in a logical sequence

• Shift your attention when needed (without getting lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole)

• Regulate your emotions (so you don't have a meltdown when you fail the Master Sword Trials… again.) (IYKYK)

• Use your working memory to temporarily store multiple bits of information

• Monitor your own behavior (AKA listening to that little voice saying "maybe don't text your ex at 2 AM")

When researchers look at ADHD brains under functional MRI (fMRI), they see different activation patterns in areas like the prefrontal cortex (PFC) – the brain's command center for executive skills. This is a visible biological difference that explains why routine management is so challenging for kids and adults with ADHD. 

As Dr. Russell Barkley, a leading ADHD researcher and expert, explains it: 

In other words, our brains struggle to turn our intentions into consistent actions… which happens to be the exact skill needed to establish routines. Go figure.

Planning vs. Actually Doing

If you're like me, you're fantastic at creating beautiful, color-coded schedules in (one of your many, many) notebooks or planners. But when Monday morning rolls around, that meticulously planned routine goes out the window.

Sound familiar? It's a classic ADHD experience - we can spend hours crafting detailed plans, but when it's actually time to do the thing we planned, we either forget, postpone, or completely abandon what we so carefully designed.

Planning is an executive function – one that many of us with ADHD can perform reasonably well. It's the transition to action that trips us up. Why? Because it requires different executive functions, like task initiation and sustained attention… things ADHD brains aren’t the best at. 

Why ADHD Makes Routines Feel Boring

Routines, by their very nature, are predictable. That's kind of the whole point. 

🤔 The problem? Predictable often translates to boring for people with ADHD. If there’s nothing new, interesting, or unexpected about it, the brain basically checks out. 

But why?

ADHD Dopamine Deficits

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (a brain chemical) that plays a key role in motivation by making tasks and activities feel rewarding or pleasurable—but ADHD brains have a complicated relationship with dopamine…

Research using neuroimaging techniques shows that people with ADHD have different dopamine pathway activities. In basic terms, this means that ADHD brains literally need more stimulation to feel the same level of engagement and satisfaction that neurotypical brains get from everyday activities.

So, when dopamine levels naturally drop during routine tasks, the ADHD brain essentially responds by saying, "This isn't worth my attention," and starts scanning for something – anything – more interesting.

When ADHD Boredom Hurts

Think about what happens when you're bored: Your mind wanders, you check your phone, you suddenly remember that you need to reorganize your entire closet... basically, you're willing to do almost anything but the routine task at hand.

This happens because your understimulated ADHD brain is desperately seeking dopamine from novel or exciting inputs. For many of us, this isn't just mental frustration, but also a physical sensation. That uncomfortable, crawling feeling? 

It's like an itch in your frontal lobe that you just can't scratch.

When routine tasks don't provide enough stimulation, your brain will actively push you toward novelty-seeking behaviors that promise a quick dopamine hit, even if abandoning the routine isn't in your best interest long-term. 

Time Blindness and Routine Disruptions

Perhaps one of the most researched areas of ADHD is "time blindness" (also known as “time myopia”)—a genuine difficulty with perceiving the passage of time. 

Daily ADHD Time Warps 

Research in chronobiology (study of biological time/rhythms) and neuroscience reveals that ADHD brains actually process time differently than neurotypical ones. Our internal clocks are just a little behind... But also sometimes ahead… And usually in a completely different time zone for some reason?? (I don’t know, it’s hard to keep up.)

Time blindness can manifest in a few ways:

• Two minutes of waiting feels like an eternity (waiting mode, anyone?)

• Three hours of doing something interesting feels like five minutes (otherwise known as hyperfocus)

• Estimating how long something will take—even if we've done it before—is like guessing the weight of a cloud (...is it… seven?)

• Remembering how long ago something happened is... approximate at best…

Dr. Thomas Brown notes that people with ADHD usually have a "now/not now" perception of time rather than a more nuanced sense of past, present, and future.

When Memory Sabotages Routines

Memory challenges create another major roadblock for routine adherence, especially those related to our working memory.

Working Memory: The Mind's Notepad

Working memory functions as your brain's temporary storage system. It's how we hold onto information while using it - like remembering the beginning of a sentence while reading the end. And even though everyone has working memory limitations, those of us with ADHD typically have a significantly reduced capacity.

From a neuroscience perspective, working memory involves the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus—two brain regions that show different activation patterns in ADHD brains (compared to non-ADHD brains.) This neurological difference means even simple routines can quickly overwhelm our capacity if they have multiple steps.

"Out of Sight, Out of Mind"

Ever walked into a room only to wonder why you're there? (This is called the Doorway Effect, by the way, and it happens to everyone, though it may hit ADHDers harder.) Or perhaps you've carefully placed something "somewhere safe" only to have it vanish into another dimension? You can thank your issues with object permanence for that.

For many of us with ADHD, if something isn't visually present, it might as well not exist. This applies to routines, too: When the cue for the next step isn't in our field of vision, our brains often fail to retrieve it from memory. 

Note: I use the term “object permanence” very lightly, as I personally disagree with its use to describe memory and attention challenges in ADHD. That said, even though it’s technically been long-established as a developmental stage for infants, many neurodivergent adults relate to the term because it perfectly describes our “out of sight, out of mind” experiences. I included it here only to connect this concept to our main topic.

Why ADHD Makes You “Bad” at Routines

Feeling awful about yourself yet? Don't. 

Your struggles with routines may not actually be your fault.

Neurotypical Solutions for ADHD Problems

When routines aren't designed with ADHD in mind, they can feel unhelpful and unusable. It's like if your Biology professor announced that everyone could use a cheat sheet for an upcoming exam. At first, you're like, “Oh wow, this is going to be so much easier!” …until the test starts and you realize that your cheat sheet is for the Principles of Music Theory instead of Genetics.

See? Useless.

Following a routine that doesn't align with how ADHD minds process information feels the same way—frustrating and unproductive. The problem isn’t the routine itself; it’s how it’s set up and applied.

Studies comparing cognitive processing styles show that ADHD minds often excel at big-picture, non-linear thinking – the exact opposite of the sequential, detail-oriented thinking that traditional routines demand.

Think about what standard routines are like:

• "Just do the same thing at the same time every day!"

• "Follow these 27 steps in the right order!"

• "Use this complicated color-coding system!"

For an ADHD brain, this is like trying to use chord progressions to fill out a Punnett Square—it’s technically information, but it’s completely useless in context.

The ADHD Perfectionism Trap 

Many ADHDers develop perfectionist tendencies that make it even harder to build routines or habits.  Research shows perfectionism is more common in adults with ADHD than in those without—often as a way to compensate for executive function challenges.

But this creates an impossible standard. What starts as, ‘I want to try out this new thing’ quickly turns into, ‘I have to do this perfectly every day, or I’ve failed.’

The first inevitable slip-up feels like proof that we were never capable in the first place—that we’re a failure, or maybe we shouldn’t have even tried. And just like that, the routine is out the window.

The all-or-nothing thinking pattern is extremely common in ADHD brains:

• "I missed my morning routine today, so this week is ruined."

• “I didn't do all 64 steps in order. None of it counts because I cheated."

• "I've failed at routines before. Why bother trying again?"

This rigid thinking creates a perpetual cycle: 

Okay, Let’s Wrap This Up

So here we are, full circle: ADHDers desperately need structured routines to manage symptoms, yet those very symptoms make routines extraordinarily difficult to start and keep up with.

But here's the good news: understanding why your brain works this way is the first step to finding routines that actually work for you. The problem isn't you; it's that you've been trying to use tools that weren't designed with your unique brain in mind. 

When routines are redesigned to work with your brain's natural tendencies – incorporating novelty, using lots of visual cues as reminders, building in flexibility, and embracing imperfection – they can become powerful allies rather than sources of frustration.

Think of it like this: You wouldn't expect a fish to climb a tree or a monkey to breathe underwater. So why are you expecting your ADHD brain to thrive using basic neurotypical routine strategies?

Tuck that in your brain pocket for later. 😉