The ultimate guide to neurodivergent planning and time management

You asked me how I plan my own life, and how I think you should plan yours. Here's how I make it work.

This is part of a semi-regular new series I’m calling Reasons for Hope. This series will focus on positive, uplifting, and off-topic content. No rage. No offenses by bad actors. Just advice for better living and an occasional glimpse into my mind. When I publish these pieces, they’ll come out on Saturday, but they will not come out every week.

I was a well-behaved rule follower as a kid, and I always did exceptionally well in school. Yet I was always in trouble, because I could not remember to cover my books (and when I did, I’d always pick off the covers in a fit of anxiety); do my homework (and when I did, I’d forget it or be too anxious to turn it in); get my permission slips signed; take notes home to my parents; do any of the things that seemed so easy for other kids.

Sound familiar?

Well then you might be surprised to learn that I have grown into an extremely regimented, organized, neat adult, and that I’m the most efficient person I know.

Neurodivergence can make it difficult to conform to the rules, especially in school. But learn to harness its power, and it suddenly becomes a strength. Neurodivergent people have an exceptional capacity to become organized and to manage their time well, because their neurodivergence gives them a strong incentive to do so.

So how can neurodivergent people better plan their lives and organize their time? Let me tell you—and show you—that, seriously, it can actually be fun, and maybe even become a special interest.

Here are my tips for better organizing your life.

A quick note: Everyone is different, and no advice works for everyone. Discard what doesn’t work here for you, and embrace what does. If you have your own tips, consider leaving them in the comments.

You will resist a schedule. You need a schedule.

When you’re neurodivergent, you cannot count on yourself to remember everything. You need cues from your environment. And that means you need a daily routine. You need to do your daily tasks around the same time, in about the same order, every day.

If you have kids, this is even more important, because kids need order and must know what to expect.

A schedule also helps you use your time more efficiently because:

• You don’t waste time trying to remember what you need to do.

• You don’t waste time in a fit of anxiety, knowing you need to do something but not knowing what.

• You know exactly how much time you have to devote to a task, so you don’t have to feel guilty about your scheduled down/hobby/sleep/veg time.

You’re going to resist this. “But I’m neurodivergent! Schedules are hard for me!” Or “I like spontaneity! Schedules make life boring!”

Nope.

Embrace the schedule. Try it for a month. I promise you your life will get so much better. You trust me enough to subscribe to this newsletter, and to read this far. Trust me on this. A schedule is going to be hard at first, but that effort offers you a big long-term payoff.

Your daily, recurring activities need to have spots in your schedule. Make time for things like:

• cleaning

• sleep

• grooming

• meals

• exercise

• downtime/vegging

• playing with your kids or pets

The idea here is that tasks cue each other. If you always eat dinner at the same time every day, and you always plan after you eat dinner, the two become tied together in your mind, and you don’t have to remember to do each individual thing—nor find a way to fit each item into your schedule.

Look at how each recurring daily task fits into your schedule. Then you can add in the non-daily tasks around them. For most people, there’s going to be a big block of work in the middle of the schedule. You’ll also have some smaller segments of time in between tasks. Maybe you have 30 minutes in between the end of dinner and the beginning of your kids’ bedtime.

These little chunks of time are the gifts you can really use to your advantage. Suddenly the 30 minutes that you used to spend vegging and feeling guilty are 30 minutes you can spend gardening, writing, or yes, vegging guilt-free because you know you’ve used the rest of your time wisely.

Budget your time like you budget your money

You know how much money you have, and where it needs to go. Time is even more valuable than money, because once you spend it, you can never get it back.

You need to be budgeting your time, too. Here’s what that means in the real world:

• You need to sit down and plan each day. It doesn’t have to be to the second, since you may not have full control over your schedule. But you do need to know which specific tasks you need to accomplish tomorrow, and about how long they need to take.

• Don’t give your time away freely. Establish strong boundaries to the greatest possible extent. Don’t immediately agree to a phone call when an email can save you time. Cut off a conversation that’s eating into your day. Cluster errands together so that you spend less overall time in traffic.

Build procrastination and down time into your life

One of the ways people get into trouble when they start trying to better manage their time is that they schedule their whole day, filling it with task after task.

No one is a task machine, who works from dawn till dusk without a break.

You must build procrastination and down time into your schedule. These cushions ensure you have enough time for self-care, for unscheduled interruptions, and for the realities of life as a human being.

Overestimate the time you need to do things

If you’re neurodivergent, you probably have no idea how long it actually takes you to do things, especially if you factor in panic/procrastination/stimming/distraction time. Especially as you get started with time management, you need a significant cushion.

If you think something will take two hours, budget three. As you become more aware of how you manage your time, you can scale this down a bit. But you should always add a cushion. This way if there’s an interruption, a sudden unexpected task, or you just lose steam on something, you can still stay mostly on schedule.

Cluster related tasks together

Run all your errands at the same time. Make all your phone calls at once—ideally when you’re doing something like waiting in the carpool line. Answer all your emails in a cluster.

This advice seems obvious, but it’s very challenging to follow if you don’t keep track of all you need to do. The real benefit of a strong planning system is that you can keep track of everything on your to-do list, then plan when to do each task.

Make action items actionable

Every item included on your to-do list, your daily goals, any list of things you want to do should be actionable. “Be healthier” or “Publish a novel” are not actionable goals. “Eat three vegetables” and “write one page” are.

Get as specific as possible with your goals, so you can break them down into smaller steps that bring you steadily close to making your dreams a reality.

Get as much out of your head as you can

Whether you have ADHD, depression, autism, anxiety, or something else, a key source of anxiety is going to be the same: the sense that you should be doing something but don’t know what, and that you cannot possibly get everything you need to do done. This is what causes a lot of people to procrastinate. It’s a sort of decision paralysis.

You need to put your brain in something external—a notebook or paper planner—where you track everything you need to do and cultivate a plan for actually getting it done. Then use this planner as a resource to dump your stress and plans and to-do lists. Free space in your brain by filling something else.

You need a good paper planner—and here’s how to use it

Speaking of getting things out of your head, a paper planner is the best way to do this.

A paper planner is the solution to better organization because electronic planning is time-consuming, cumbersome, and not at all customizable. The tactile experience of the paper planner is pleasing, and gives you a chance to be creative. It also makes your plans feel more tangible.

You might not believe me, but I promise paper planning is infinitely superior to and more customizable than any app. Over-reliance on planning apps makes you feel more stressed, not less. The goal is to dump everything in one place, then only look at it when you need to.

Try it. I promise you’ll be a convert.

Make it appealing

One of the main benefits of paper planning is that you can make your planner really attractive and appealing, so you actually use it. Invest in a high-quality planner, paper you love, stickers, sticky notes, and anything else that makes you want to use your planner. Organization should be fun. To whatever extent you can fill your time with little pleasures, you can. A planner gives you the chance to imbue the mundane tasks of everyday life with a little joy, and maybe even some glitter.

Make it your one stop shop

You need a place to store all of the stuff you need to effectively run your life—your upcoming events, tasks, projects, to-do lists, reminders, ideas. The goal is to clear your brain so you can think more creatively, and spend less time trying to remember all the things you’ve forgotten.

Everyone is unique. But I use my planner to track gift ideas, books to read, story ideas, and bills, as well as deadlines, projects, to-do lists, kids’ information, and amorphous future plans. The more you can put in your planner—in an organized fashion, of course—the more space you will have in your brain. This is the beauty of the planner: it’s a supplement to your brain that you can fill with all the stuff that stresses you out.

Consider a daily-weekly-monthly model

The most efficient planning model I’ve found is this approach:

• Every month, I make a list of monthly goals.

• Deadlines, events, and other hard, date-determined things go in a monthly calendar.

• Each week, I break my goals down into actionable steps and put them in a to-do list. This is also where little tasks like paying bills or calling a repairperson go.

• Every day, I break my goals into actionable smaller pieces, make a daily to-do list, and a daily schedule that includes times for all of the items on the to-do list.

Track your progress

Find ways to track and note progress toward your goals. This creates a sense of accomplishment that can inspire you to keep working. For example, every time I complete an article, I note the article and the dollar value in my planner, then each week tally up how many dollars worth of writing I have done.

You might track every penny you save. Every page you write in your blog. Every dollar of overtime you do. Find something objective to track, then make logging it part of your daily routine.

The setup that works for me

My setup may not work for you, but I’ve convinced a lot of people of its utility, so it might be worth giving a try. I have a TON of tasks and obligations, so I need quite a bit more planning space than most people. You may need to scale down or up according to your needs.

• I use a classic/a5-style ring-bound planner cover. This size gives most people enough space to write without being so big you can’t lug it around. Rings are almost always the best option, because then you can remove and add pages. You don’t have to worry about making mistakes. Rings are also totally customizable, because you can buy pages from any company, or even custom-make your own. This ensures you’re using a planning system that truly works for you, not trying to adapt your needs to someone else’s system.

• I make a daily to-do list, then break that to-do list into daily actionable steps. I make a schedule each day on the night before. I use a monthly calendar to track events, and a weekly calendar to track work due dates/projects/deadlines.

• I fill my planner with cute sticky note pads so I can add notes to things.

• I supplement my planner with a traveler’s notebook. This is just a notebook cover with rubber bands that allow you to add several small notebooks. I decorate the notebooks inside of it to make them more appealing. This notebook is where I keep notes on post ideas, interview notes, sketches of pieces I plan to write, anything that’s too detailed for a quick note in my planner.

• I decorate my planner. A lot. You will not use a planner you don’t like. And for many neurodivergent folks, decorating a planner with stickers scratches an itch they didn’t know they have. It’s fun. But it’s also fun with a purpose. Here are some places where you can get some absolutely fantastic planner stickers:

  • Jamison Reid Designs

  • Happy Planner

  • DEK Designs

  • Planners Anonymous

  • The Planner Society

  It’s also fun to just peruse Michael’s or A. C. Moore (but not Hobby Lobby because they’re evil and want to destroy women’s bodily autonomy) to find stickers you like.

• At the beginning of each year, I buy a bunch of blank planner pages (if you’re using the same size I am, A5, here’s what you want). I can then decorate the hell out of these pages and use them for notes, lists, or anything else I want.

• I make custom planner inserts—weekly, daily, and monthly—through Agendio. And then I buy additional artistic pages from Etsy. I pay designers there to make gorgeous to-do lists and notes pages so that I really enjoy using them.

• The specific way you use your planner will be personal to you, the workload you have, and the way you best manage your time. At minimum, though, I’d like to ask you to do the following:

  • Commit to spending 15 minutes each day planning your next day.

  • Commit to spending an hour each month planning your month.

  • Make daily to-do lists you can track your progress and learn about how you use your time.

  • Make a daily budget for your time—or, you know, a schedule. Not only does this help you to plan to use your time wisely. It also helps you assess whether or not you are wasting your time. These time budgets can help eliminate time blindness, and make it easier to estimate how long various tasks actually take you

Planning and organizations are skills. They require practice. But they can also become highly rewarding hobbies.

This is really just a skeleton of my rules for planning. I have an entire philosophy, and planning is 100% a special interest. I could go on and on about this, and I’d love to answer your questions about how to make planning work for you, or how to adapt to challenging planning situations. So feel free to turn this into a planning AMA!