The clean laundry has lived on the chair all week. Dinner was cereal again, and you went to bed past one. Every work email got an answer, and every school form got signed. Your own sleep, lunch and texts back to friends did not. If the basics slip first in a full week, you are in good company.
FROM THE VIDEO
Key moments from How to ADHD with Jessica McCabe:
Common questions from parents
Why do I drop sleep and meals first when I’m busy?
Is “prioritize self-care” bad advice?
What is one change I could make this week?
Is this only for people with ADHD?
The first things you drop in a busy season are the ones holding you up. Five small setup changes keep sleep, food and friends going on a bad day.
Why do sleep, food and friends go first?
Some jobs come with a deadline. Others do not. A bill due tomorrow gets paid. Sleep, a real lunch and a call to a friend have no due date. Skip them today, and nothing bad seems to happen.
Jessica McCabe makes this point in her How to ADHD video on busy seasons. Her list: downtime, showers, good food, sleep, friends, tidying and planning. She says they go first “largely because they don’t have immediate impact.”
If you work best with a deadline close, this will sound familiar. McCabe says that rush helps her get started. It also makes the basics easy to forget. Dropping them even feels good at first. It looks like getting things done. In her words, it feels productive “until you’re not.”
Sleep, a real lunch and a call to a friend have no due date.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Aren’t these the extras I add back later?
That is the usual plan. Get through the rush, then take care of yourself. McCabe disagrees. “Those aren’t extras,” she says. “Those are the systems and supports that keep us functional.”
She says dropping them is like taking down scaffolding while the building goes up. Then she lists what follows. A shorter temper. More forgetting. More worry. Snapping at the people you love. Worse sleep, which makes all of it harder.
This is why “prioritize self-care” lands so badly in a hard week. To McCabe, it sounds like someone yelling, “Have you tried not being on fire?” Telling yourself to try harder adds one more job to a full list. Our answer is to change the setup, so the basics take less deciding. There is more on that in our piece on willpower and focus.
Key takeaways
- The basics go first: Sleep, meals and friends slip because skipping them hurts later, not today.
- They hold you up: Jessica McCabe calls these routines the supports that keep you functional.
- Change the setup: Backups, defaults and rest booked early take deciding off your plate.
What keeps the basics going on a bad day?
McCabe sets a modest goal. Not “how to thrive,” she says. Only how to get through the busy season. Here are her five changes, in plain terms.
- Leave room for mistakes. Set bills to autopay. Keep a spare charger, spare keys and backup snacks. When you restock, replace the backup first. Add buffer time between plans.
- Pick defaults ahead of time. A go-to outfit. A go-to lunch. She says choosing gets harder when you are worn out. The default chooses for you. She calls a default “good enough and kind,” not a rule.
- Make key systems work on a bad day. McCabe swapped careful folding for bins on a shelf. Ask of each system: does this still work when I am worn out?
- Book rest weeks ahead. Put a walk or a day off on the calendar while it is empty. She says calling it off later is easier than squeezing it in.
- Give a slow task a reason to happen now. McCabe gets her wind-down show only after she brushes her teeth. Pair a small treat with the task you keep skipping.
The bad-day test fits a family’s routines too. Our guide to home systems that hold up with real children uses it too. For more on outside supports in the adult years, see this adult ADHD infographic.
McCabe ends with a line we love: “You’re not failing. You’re overloaded.” Pick one change this week, not five.
Telling yourself to try harder adds one more job to a full list.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
We believe your rest is part of the job, not a prize for later. The “push through now, rest later” story takes away what keeps you steady. You don’t need a credential to be your child’s first teacher. You already are one. The only question is whether you have the right tools. Our free PDF guide to focus and homework is Focus Foundations.
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