[TLDR: “Backwards planning” is just the term I came up with for this strategy. In the world of project management, it’s known as a Workback Plan. Whatever you call it, you start with your deadline and work backward to the present day.]
I’m going to try and get a two-fer here, and work on your sleep.
If you want to wake up at 8am, the ADHD brain will say, “Easy-peasy, go to bed at midnight. Eight hours and you’re done!”
As we know, the ADHD brain is a bit delusional and doesn’t really understand how time works.
First, you need to build in time to wake up. Maybe your alarm starts going off at 7am to get up by 8am because you hit the snooze button a LOT.
If you’re going to start waking up at 7am, you need to go backward to your bedtime and roll that back to 11pm.
BUT, now you need to build in time to fall asleep. How long does it take you to fall asleep?
If you haven’t tried doing a brain dump and your brain is still racing every night when you try to fall asleep, it might take you 45 minutes or more to get to sleep. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say it takes an hour.
That means you need to roll back your bedtime to 10pm.
Medical professional types say you need to digest for 2 hours before going to bed, so that means you need to FINISH your dinner by 8pm.
Which means you need to cook your dinner around 6:30-7pm.
And that’s how you work backward to when you get home from work.
Of course, this doesn’t take into account having children, your partner(s), your nighttime routine, or any other complications you have in your life. But hopefully it helps you with the idea of Backwards Planning and gives you a place to start.
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