ADHD Glossary: Routine and Executive Function Terms

ADHD: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition marked by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that interfere with daily life. In adults it most often shows up as trouble starting, organising and finishing things rather than visible restlessness. "ADD" is an older name for the mainly inattentive presentation. Also called: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADD.
ADHD paralysis: An informal name for the state of knowing exactly what needs doing and being unable to begin. It is not laziness or indecision: it is a failure of task initiation, often worsened by too many options, an unclear first step, or a task that feels emotionally loaded. Also called: task paralysis, freeze. Read the full guide →
ADHD tax: An informal name for the money, time and stress lost to ADHD-related forgetfulness and impulsivity: late fees, interest, missed-appointment charges, forgotten renewals and replaced lost items. It is not a real tax, but surveys cited by ADHD organisations suggest many adults with ADHD lose substantial sums to it each year. Read the full guide →
Bad-day version: The smallest form of a routine step that still counts — brushing teeth without the full skincare routine, one dish instead of the sink. Planning a bad-day version in advance is what lets a routine survive low-energy days instead of being skipped entirely, which is how most routines end. Also called: minimum viable routine. Read the full guide →
Body doubling: Doing a task in the presence of another person — in the room, on a video call or in a co-working session — because their presence makes it easier to start and keep going. The other person does not help with the task. It is one of the most widely reported informal ADHD strategies, though formal research on it is still limited. Read the full guide →
Brain dump: Writing down everything that is currently occupying your attention, in no particular order, to get it out of working memory. A brain dump is not a plan; it is the step before one. It works best when it is followed by picking one item to do next.
Chunking: Splitting a task into steps small enough that the first one is obvious and quick to start. For ADHD the useful test is not size but clarity: "clean the kitchen" is one vague task, while "put the plates in the dishwasher" is a chunk you can begin without deciding anything. Also called: task chunking, breaking tasks down.
Decision fatigue: The idea that making many decisions in a row wears down the quality of later ones. The underlying research is contested and has replicated poorly, but the practical lesson holds up well for ADHD routines: fixing the order of steps in advance removes decisions from the moment when you are least able to make them.
Doom pile: A pile of mixed, unsorted stuff — post, clothes, receipts — that accumulates because each item needs a small decision nobody made. The community term is often expanded as "Didn't Organise, Only Moved". Doom piles are a decision backlog, not a mess, and shrink fastest with short, timed sorting sessions. Also called: doom box, DOOM (didn't organise, only moved). Read the full guide →
Dopamine: A neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward prediction and attention. ADHD is associated with differences in dopamine signalling, which is one reason tasks with no immediate payoff feel disproportionately hard to start. Popular content often oversimplifies this; dopamine is not a "pleasure chemical" you can top up. Read the full guide →
Dopamine menu: A pre-written list of activities that reliably lift your energy or mood, sorted like a menu into quick "starters", longer "mains", "sides" for boring tasks and "desserts" to enjoy in moderation. Popularised by Jessica McCabe's How to ADHD channel, the point is to decide in advance, on a good day, so that on a flat day you pick from the list instead of defaulting to your phone. Also called: dopamenu. Read the full guide →
Dynamic Island: The pill-shaped area at the top of recent iPhones that shows live information from apps, such as a running timer or a delivery. Routine apps can use it to keep the current step visible while you do something else, which helps with the transitions between steps.
Evening routine: A fixed sequence before bed that signals the day is ending and prepares for the next one: devices away, a few preparation steps, something calming. With ADHD its main job is often a clear start cue, because the hard part is stopping the evening, not what comes after. Also called: wind-down routine, bedtime routine. Read the full guide →
Executive dysfunction: Difficulty with the brain's self-management skills — starting tasks, planning, switching between tasks, holding information in mind and regulating emotion. It is not a diagnosis on its own but a description of what goes wrong, and it is central to how ADHD affects daily routines. Read the full guide →
Executive functions: The set of mental skills that let you plan, focus, remember instructions and juggle tasks: usually grouped into working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. Executive functions are what turn "I know what to do" into actually doing it.
Externalising: Moving information out of your head and into the environment, where it can prompt you instead of relying on memory: a list on the door, a visible timer, a step shown on the Lock Screen. Russell Barkley's advice to make time and information physical at the point of performance is the classic statement of this idea. Also called: external cues, external scaffolding.
Friction: Anything that adds effort between intending to do something and doing it: an extra tap, a missing item, a decision. Reducing friction for the things you want to do, and adding it to the things you do not, is often more effective for ADHD than trying harder.
Habit: A behaviour that has become automatic in response to a cue, so it happens with little conscious decision. Habits form through repetition in a stable context, which is why irregular days make habits unusually slow to form with ADHD — and why routines, which do not need to be automatic to work, are often the better first goal. Read the full guide →
Habit stacking: Attaching a new behaviour to one you already do reliably — "after I pour my coffee, I take my medication". The existing habit becomes the cue. The idea builds on BJ Fogg's work on anchoring and was popularised by James Clear's Atomic Habits. Read the full guide →
Habit tracker: An app or chart for recording whether you did a behaviour each day, usually with a streak count. A habit tracker records after the fact; it does not help you do the thing in the moment, which is the gap a routine app is designed to fill. Read the full guide →
Hyperfocus: A state of intense, prolonged absorption in one activity, to the point of losing track of time and surroundings. It is widely reported by people with ADHD but is not a formal diagnostic criterion. It is not the opposite of an attention problem; it is the same difficulty regulating where attention goes. Read the full guide →
Implementation intention: A plan in the form "when situation X happens, I will do Y", studied by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer. Deciding the when and where in advance measurably improves follow-through compared with a goal alone, and it is one of the better-supported techniques for getting started. Also called: if-then plan.
Interest-based nervous system: A phrase from psychiatrist William Dodson describing how many people with ADHD are moved to act by interest, novelty, challenge or urgency rather than by importance or reward. It is a useful description rather than an established scientific model, and it explains why a routine that relies only on "it matters" tends to fade.
Launch pad: A fixed spot by the front door where everything you need to leave the house lives: keys, wallet, bag, badge, medication. It turns "what am I forgetting" from a memory task into a look-at-one-place task. Read the full guide →
Live Activity: An iOS feature that lets an app show live, updating information on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island without being open. For a routine app, it means the current step and its timer stay visible while you are in the shower or making breakfast. Read the full guide →
Medication routine: The set of cues and steps that make sure medication is taken at the right time, including a second dose if prescribed. Tying the dose to an existing anchor — breakfast, a first coffee — works better than relying on remembering, which is the very thing ADHD makes unreliable. Read the full guide →
Morning routine: A fixed sequence of steps between waking up and starting the day. With ADHD, mornings combine the hardest conditions for executive function — low arousal, time pressure and many small transitions — which is why a short, fixed and externalised morning routine tends to beat an ambitious one. Read the full guide →
Novelty effect: The early boost in motivation that comes from anything new — a new app, planner or system — which fades after days or weeks. With ADHD the drop-off is often sharp, so a routine has to be designed to keep working once the novelty is gone, around day nine rather than day one.
Object permanence (ADHD): In ADHD communities, shorthand for things ceasing to exist mentally once they are out of view — food in the back of the fridge, a task in a closed app, a friend you have not seen lately. The term is borrowed loosely from child development, where it means something different; the practical fix is to keep important things visible. Also called: out of sight, out of mind.
Pomodoro technique: A time-management method developed by Francesco Cirillo: work for a fixed interval, traditionally 25 minutes, then take a short break, with a longer break after several rounds. For ADHD the value is less the exact numbers than having a visible end point that makes starting feel smaller. Read the full guide →
Procrastination: Delaying a task despite expecting to be worse off for it. With ADHD, much of what looks like procrastination is difficulty with task initiation and emotional regulation rather than poor time management or lack of care.
Revenge bedtime procrastination: Staying up later than you want to, not because of anything specific, but to reclaim free time that the day did not give you. The phrase spread in English in 2020 from a Chinese expression. It is common with ADHD, where the evening may be the first unstructured, low-demand time of the day. Read the full guide →
Routine: A set sequence of actions you perform in the same order, usually at a similar time — a morning routine, a shutdown routine. Unlike a habit, a routine does not need to be automatic to work: it can be followed deliberately, from a list or an app, which makes it a practical tool even when habits are slow to form. Read the full guide →
Routine builder: An app that lets you define a routine as an ordered list of steps and then walks you through it, showing the current step and moving you to the next. It differs from a to-do list, which stores tasks, and from a habit tracker, which records them afterwards. Read the full guide →
Schedule: A plan that assigns activities to specific times of day. A schedule answers "when"; a routine answers "in what order". Many people with ADHD do better anchoring routines to events (after breakfast) than to clock times, because clock-time plans break the moment the day runs late.
Shutdown routine: A short routine at the end of the working day that closes open loops — capturing loose tasks, choosing tomorrow's first task, closing tabs — so work stops following you home. Cal Newport's "shutdown complete" ritual is the best-known version. Also called: end-of-day routine. Read the full guide →
Streak: A count of consecutive days on which you did something. Streaks motivate through loss aversion — you do not want to lose the number — which works until the first missed day, when many apps reset the count to zero and many people stop entirely. Read the full guide →
Streak anxiety: Stress about keeping a streak alive that outgrows the habit itself: doing a task badly just to tick it, or quitting altogether after a break. It is a known side effect of streak mechanics and hits people with ADHD particularly hard because missed days are more likely. Read the full guide →
Streak freeze: A feature that protects a streak on a day you miss, so the count survives instead of resetting. In Orbit, you earn one freeze for every five days in a row you complete a routine, and when you come back after a miss the app asks which streak you want to rescue. Read the full guide →
Sunday reset: A short weekly routine to put the house and the coming week back in order: laundry, a quick tidy, a look at the calendar, food for the first days. With ADHD the useful version is timed and capped, so it resets the week without eating the weekend. Also called: weekly reset. Read the full guide →
Task initiation: The executive function of starting a task at the right time without excessive delay. Difficulty with task initiation is one of the most common ADHD complaints and is often mistaken for laziness or poor motivation. Read the full guide →
Task switching: Moving attention from one task to another. Every switch has a cost, and with ADHD the cost is often higher — which is why routines tend to break between steps rather than during them, and why a clear cue for the next step matters so much. Also called: transitions. Read the full guide →
Time blindness: Difficulty sensing how much time has passed or how long something will take. The term is informal, but it describes a well-documented ADHD difference in time perception and future-oriented planning, which Russell Barkley has described as a kind of nearsightedness to the future. Read the full guide →
Time optimism: Consistently underestimating how long tasks take — the ten-minute shower that takes twenty-five. The fix is not better estimates but measuring: time a step a few times and plan with the real number.
Transition time: Deliberately planned space between activities for changing context — getting up, finding things, resetting attention. ADHD plans that leave zero transition time run late by default, because the switching itself takes time nobody scheduled. Also called: buffer time. Read the full guide →
Visual schedule: A schedule shown as pictures, icons, colours or a timeline instead of text. Common in education for autistic and ADHD children, and increasingly used by adults, because a day you can see is easier to follow than a day you have to hold in your head. Read the full guide →
Visual timer: A timer that shows remaining time as a shrinking shape or colour rather than digits. It helps with time blindness because you can read it at a glance without calculating, and it avoids the startle of a timer that only announces itself when it ends.
Waiting mode: The ADHD experience of being unable to start anything because something is scheduled later — a 3 pm appointment that swallows the whole day. It is an informal community term, not a clinical one, and is closely tied to time blindness and task initiation. Read the full guide →
Wall of Awful: A metaphor from ADHD coach Brendan Mahan for the emotional build-up of past failures, shame and dread around a task, which you have to climb before you can start it. The wall grows every time the task is avoided, which is why the same small task can feel harder each week.
Working memory: The mental space for holding and using information for a short time — remembering why you walked into a room. It is frequently weaker with ADHD, which is why routines kept "in your head" fall apart at the first interruption and routines kept outside it survive.