I Finally Built a Morning Routine That Doesn’t Hate My ADHD Brain
It’s 5:47am and I’m standing in my bathroom holding my toothbrush.
The meds are in my hand. I’ve already taken them.
Wait. Have I?
I look at the pill bottle. It’s open. Did I just open it or was it already open from yesterday?
I have no idea if I just took my medication.
This is after I wake up at 5:30am every single day like clockwork.
After I bought a $200 productivity journal with time-blocking templates designed by a productivity coach who definitely doesn’t have ADHD.
I have a routine.
The same routine.
Every single morning.
Meds. Teeth. Shower. Downstairs. Dog out. Coffee. Write.
And somehow my brain still finds ways to completely forget which step I’m on.
The Stuff That Spectacularly Failed
Let me tell you about the systems I tried before I figured out the routine thing.
Turns out I can wake up at 5:30am just fine.
The problem is everything that happens after that.
The productivity journal:
Beautiful. Expensive. Color-coded.
Required me to plan my day the night before.
Required me to remember I had a productivity journal.
Required me to remember where I put the productivity journal.
Last seen: Under a pile of mail from March. Maybe.
The morning routine from that one viral thread:
Wake at 5am (okay, I do this)
Meditate for 20 minutes (started thinking about fonts)
Journal for 15 minutes (wrote three sentences, checked phone, forgot I was journaling)
Exercise for 30 minutes (does walking to the bathroom count?)
Healthy breakfast with no phone (lol)
You know what happened?
I’d get through the first thing. Then my brain would completely forget there was a second thing.
Then it was 7:30 and I hadn’t showered or eaten and I was supposed to write and why is being a person so hard?
Here’s What I Finally Figured Out
The problem wasn’t discipline.
The problem wasn’t laziness.
The problem was that my brain can’t hold a sequence.
Neurotypical brains have this thing where the steps just... happen?
Like, they finish brushing their teeth and their brain automatically goes: “Okay, now we shower.”
Sequential. Linear. Automatic.
My brain finishes brushing my teeth and goes: “Did we take the meds? What if we forgot? Better check. Wait, did we already check? Is that water running? Why do we even have ankles? Remember that embarrassing thing from 2007?”
There’s no automatic next step.
Every single thing I do in the morning is a decision I have to make from scratch.
So I needed a system that wasn’t about motivation or discipline.
I needed a system that removed decisions entirely.
The Stuff That Actually Works
Okay. Here’s what I do now.
The routine is always the same:
Meds
Teeth
Shower
Downstairs
Dog out
Coffee
Write
Same order. Every day. No exceptions. No variations.
Sounds simple, right?
Yeah, well, it took me two years to figure out this exact sequence.
Here’s what makes it work:
The pill bottle stays in exactly one place.
On the counter. Next to the toothbrush.
Not in the medicine cabinet. Not in a drawer.
Right there. Where I will see it when I reach for my toothbrush.
And I have one of those pill organizers with the days on it.
Not because I’m organized.
Because otherwise I stand there every morning going “did I take these or am I remembering yesterday?”
If Tuesday’s slot is empty, I took them. If it’s full, I didn’t.
One visual check. No working memory required.
The order matters.
I tried doing it different ways. Shower first, then meds. Downstairs, then shower.
Every variation broke the chain.
This order works because each step triggers the next step:
Meds are next to toothbrush → I see them while brushing
Shower is right there → I’m already in the bathroom
Downstairs → I’m already dressed
Dog is waiting by the door → I can’t miss this step
Coffee machine → Only thing in the kitchen I care about
Writing → Coffee is in my hand
Environmental momentum.
One thing leads to another thing. Physically. Spatially.
I don’t have to remember what’s next because my environment tells me what’s next.
I don’t fight my phone.
Yeah, I’m supposed to write.
But first I check my phone for three minutes while the coffee brews.
All the morning routine gurus tell you: No phone for the first hour!
Cool. Not happening.
But I changed what’s on my phone.
I moved all the doomscroll apps into a folder on the third screen.
Home screen: Weather widget. Task app. Music app.
When I check my phone, I see the weather → think about my day → remember I’m writing.
It’s not willpower. It’s just... redirection.
The chaos day protocol.
Some mornings are broken.
Brain won’t brain. Everything is hard. Moving through molasses.
On chaos days, I do the minimum viable version:
Take meds (check the day slot, don’t think)
Brush teeth (while still in pajamas if necessary)
Shower (can be 90 seconds, don’t care)
Downstairs (in whatever I grabbed)
Dog out (she doesn’t judge my outfit)
Coffee (still has to be espresso)
Write (even if it’s just three sentences)
Lower the bar until you can step over it.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Even with this routine—the same routine, every single day—I still sometimes lose the thread.
I still sometimes stand in the kitchen wondering if I let the dog out.
(She’s staring at me. I didn’t.)
I still sometimes sit down to write and realize I never made coffee.
I still sometimes get to step 4 and completely forget what step 4 is.
That’s not failure.
That’s ADHD.
The difference now is I have a system that accounts for this.
The routine is so stupidly consistent that when I lose my place, I just scan the environment:
Am I upstairs? Haven’t showered yet.
Am I downstairs? Check if dog is inside.
Is there a mug in my hand? Time to write.
The environment tells me where I am in the sequence.
What Changed
Here’s what actually changed when I stopped trying to make my mornings “better” and just made them survivable:
I wake up at 5:30. Same time every day.
Not because I’m disciplined. Because my brain decided this is the time we wake up now and I can’t negotiate with it.
But everything after that used to be chaos.
Now it’s just... a sequence.
A sequence I don’t have to remember because I designed my space to remember it for me.
Meds next to toothbrush. Shower in the bathroom I’m already in. Dog waiting at the top of the stairs. Coffee machine exactly where I left it. Laptop open on the desk.
I stopped trying to be disciplined. Started trying to be strategic.
I stopped trying to be perfect. Started trying to be functional.
I stopped fighting my ADHD brain and started designing around it.
And honestly?
Most mornings are fine now.
Not perfect. Not some aspirational morning routine content.
Just... fine.
I do the seven things in order. I sit down to write. The day starts.
And some days, that’s enough.
Maybe try this:
Take whatever morning routine you’re already trying to do.
Put it in the same order every single day.
Then design your space so each step physically leads to the next step.
No remembering required.
Just follow the trail you built for yourself.
See what happens.
P.S. If your brain regularly derails your whole day (not just your mornings), I made something for that.
It’s called “When Your Brain Won’t Brain” — an AI field guide with actual prompts you can use when you’re stuck, overwhelmed, or have completely forgotten what you were doing.
No elaborate systems. No commitment. Just copy-paste prompts for when your ADHD brain is ADHD-ing.
Grab it here — it’s free, and you can forget about it for 6 months and come back to it. That’s allowed.