The plants died again, and you like plants.
You watered them every morning for eleven days in March. Then one Tuesday went sideways, and the routine went with it. The plants are the small version of this. The big version is the pill at eight, the bin on Wednesday night, the invoice you send on the first of the month and did not send. Same shape every time: a job comes back, and the brain does not.
A routine is a list you have to remember to remember
A routine is a list with a clock on it.
You have to hold the job and the minute it is due, and you have to hold both until the minute arrives, while the rest of the day pours in on top. With ADHD it is hard to keep a list in your head. A 2013 meta-analysis of 38 studies of adults found the same thing across all of them: holding a list in mind while you use it is harder with ADHD, and the finding is well supported (Alderson and colleagues, 2013). This is the same reason a brain dump helps. The head is a bad shelf, so you take the list off it.
A routine is worse than a list, because it is due at a minute you also have to remember. "Water the plants" is easy. "Water the plants at nine, on Mondays and Thursdays, for the rest of your life" is a job for a shelf, not a head.
So the plants die in March, and it is not about the plants.
Habits form slowly, for everyone
Sixty-six days.
In a 2010 study, 96 people each took on one new habit and were followed for twelve weeks. The median time for the habit to become automatic was 66 days. The range ran from 18 days to 254 (Lally and colleagues, 2010). It was a small study and not an ADHD sample, so take it as a shape, not a rule.
The shape is the problem. For two months, and for some people most of a year, the routine runs on memory alone, because the body has not taken it over yet. "You'll get into the habit" assumes the head can carry the job for those 66 days. For a head with no room for a list, day twelve is where the plants died.
You were never lazy. You were asking your memory to carry a job for 66 days.
The lever is someone there
Someone asking is the routine.
An ADHD brain does not start on importance. It starts on four things: a deadline, something new, a game, or someone there. A routine has none of the first three built in. It is not new, by definition. It has no last hour, because it comes back tomorrow. It is not a game. What is left is the fourth lever, and it fits a routine better than it fits anything else.
Think of the flat where the plants lived. A flatmate who says "plants?" at nine on a Monday is not a system. They are a person who remembered so you did not have to, and asked once, by name. You did not need motivation. You needed the question to arrive at the minute, from outside your head.
A routine tool has to be the flatmate: at the minute, with the name of the job.
Never count a miss
A red pile is the thing you stop opening.
Most habit apps keep a count. A chain of ticks grows, and the morning you miss, the chain breaks and the app shows you the break. For a brain already carrying the story of the eleven days in March, the break in the chain is one more line in the story. So you stop opening the app, and the routine goes back into the head, where it dies again.
A miss is not information you need. You know you missed. The only useful question after a miss is a small one: is it still on today? If yes, do it late. If no, tomorrow comes back on its own. Nothing is counted back at you.
How Kaapi does it
A routine in Kaapi is a task with days and a time, and it comes back.
You pick the days, "Mon, Thu", and a time, and the routine appears on those days. At its minute, Kaapi sends the one OS banner it ever sends, with the macOS Glass chime, asking about the routine by name. At nine: "'Water the plants'?" Nothing else in Kaapi is a banner; everything else Timi says is a quiet line in the corner of the screen. The banner is kept for the one thing a banner is good at, arriving at a minute you did not have to remember.
If you are late, it asks once whether the routine is still on. If it is, do it. If it is not, nothing more is said, and the routine comes back on its next day. Misses are never counted. There is no chain to break and no number to see. The rest of the list still starts as a brain dump and still runs on the four levers. This is the one for the jobs the levers cannot reach.
How to do this without Kaapi
Take one routine and move it out of your head this week.
- Give it days and a minute, not "daily". "Mon and Thu at 9" is a job. "Water the plants more" is a wish.
- Set an alarm on your phone for the minute, and name the alarm as a question: "Water the plants?" The question is the flatmate.
- If the alarm goes and you are mid-something, ask yourself once: still on today? Yes means do it now, late is fine. No means nothing to write down.
- Keep no count. No chain, no tally, no app screen showing you the days you missed. If the routine matters, it comes back tomorrow, and you can meet it there.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I stick to a routine with ADHD?
Because a routine is a list with a clock on it, and with ADHD it is hard to keep a list in your head, a finding a 2013 meta-analysis of 38 studies calls well supported. The routine has to be held by something outside the head, for as long as it takes to become automatic.
How long does it take to build a habit with ADHD?
Nobody has measured it in ADHD. In a 2010 study of 96 people without ADHD, a new daily habit took a median of 66 days to feel automatic, and some took 254. For all those days the routine runs on memory, so plan for the tool to carry it, not for the habit to arrive.
Should I use a habit tracker if I have ADHD?
Only one with no count of misses. A chain of ticks gives you a way to lose, and the morning it breaks is the morning many people stop opening the app. Pick a tool which asks about the job by name at its minute, once, and asks nothing when you miss.
What should happen when I miss a routine?
One small question: is it still on today? If yes, do it late. If no, let it go, and let the routine come back on its next day as if nothing happened. No red, no count, no reminder of the miss. You know you missed; the tool does not need to say it.
Sources
- Alderson, R. M., Kasper, L. J., Hudec, K. L., and Patros, C. H. G. (2013). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and working memory in adults: A meta-analytic review. Neuropsychology, 27(3), 287–302. doi.org/10.1037/a0032371
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., and Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
- Dodson, W. (updated 2025). How adults with ADHD think: Uncomfortable truths about the ADHD nervous system. ADDitude. additudemag.com/adhd-in-adults-nervous-system. A clinical model from practice, not a trial.