"What time can you work on that thing you said you'd do?"
"When are you free to meet this week?"
"What are you eating for dinner tonight?"
If the above questions stump you, you're not alone. For many of us with ADHD, planning ahead is something we avoid like the plague. Probably because we're too busy scrambling to deal with the next urgent thing on our agenda. And we only know about that urgent thing because it's URGENT.
But what if you COULDN"T WAIT for those precious moments of sitting down with your calendar/phone app/journal, etc.? What if you experienced your planning sessions as scintillating, even magical?
What if you heard God say, "I've got an amazing week in store for you. You're gonna love it! Now write down what I tell you to do and when I tell you to do it."
I don't know about you, but if that happened to me I'd IMMEDIATELY schedule all those things God told me to schedule. And I'd FOLLOW IT! I wouldn't second-guess a single minute of THAT plan. I wouldn't want to miss anything uniquely designed for me.
Furthermore, I'd be eager for next week's planning session.
Or would I? With ADHD, it's easy to explain away the obvious best choice in favor of whatever else might momentarily be capturing our attention: "Hmmm, last week God showed up and dictated my schedule and everything I did worked out perfectly...but right now I'm so comfortable playing video games on my phone -- I'll plan some other time. And...was that really God last week, anyway? I probably just imagined it..."
Yes, friends, those of us with ADHD can, while in the throes of being captivated by something stupid, justify NOT DOING what we KNOW is the RIGHT THING TO DO in a particular moment.
So, make that choice right here and now -- when it comes to taking a sliver of time from your busy day (i.e., ripping yourself away from Netflix) to pre-think your immediate future, whose voice are you going to listen to? Your ADHD-convoluted voice -- or the voice of wisdom?
When you realize how precious your quiet time with your calendar is, I promise, you will indeed fall in love with planning!
