Planning Is Self-Care
Insights from ADHD Success Planner author and top executive coach, Antonia Bowring on episode 167 of the ADHD Big Brother Podcast
Planning is often misunderstood as a tedious or purely practical exercise. However, according to my good friend and successful executive coach Antonia Bowring, planning is an act of profound self-care, especially for adults with ADHD.
And she wrote an ebook to help us with it! It’s called ADHD Success Planner: Your Simple Guide to Boost Productivity with Less Stress. This is a must have for every ADHDer.
Here are some great insights from when she was on the ADHD Big Brother Podcast.
Planning as a Form of Emotional Support
Self-care isn't just about indulgences like bubble baths or spa days or telling the mirror how much we love ourselves; it’s about lowering stress and equipping yourself to face life with a sense of calm and control. When you dedicate time to plan your week, you’re actively reducing cortisol levels—the stress hormone—by creating clarity and organization in your life. For someone with ADHD, this can be transformative.
Planning isn’t about just about ticking boxes on a checklist—it’s about showing yourself kindness by eliminating the overwhelm of daily chaos. In other words, it’s self-care!
Could you imagine having a day/week where you aren’t overwhelmed with the swirling of everything you need to do, feel you should do, want to do, have to do…and you actually had a plan?!
The ADHD Perspective: A Lifeline to Structure
Adults with ADHD struggle with executive function, making time management and goal setting feel like insurmountable tasks. Antonia’s concept of weekly "buckets" offers a simple, ADHD-friendly system to break down these challenges. By organizing tasks into broad categories, planning becomes less about rigid schedules and more about creating a flexible roadmap for success.
From my personal experience with Antonia's methods, I've found that failing to plan often leads to overwhelm, increased stress, and a sense of losing control. In the podcast I mentioned a week when I was feeling depressed and while I was still getting a lot of work done, I wasn’t managing my ADHD very well, and the things I was getting done weren’t necessarily the most important. As it turns out, that week I never put together my weekly plan! Surprise, surprise! Not.
Why It’s Self-Care, Not a Chore
Planning allows you to focus on what truly matters. Whether it’s carving out time for personal growth, health, or connecting with others, this process helps you align your actions with your values. For adults with ADHD, this alignment can foster a sense of accomplishment and self-worth, which are vital for mental well-being. This is where I’d put a hashtag: dopamine.
Takeaway: Start Small, Make it Yours
“You find your time. I try to encourage you to start with an hour, but now I can do it in 20 minutes. You have your calendar, you have last week's to-do lists and bucket lists, you have anything else that's come up, and you sit down and you go, okay, what are my buckets this week?” ~Antonia Bowring
If you’re new to planning, start small. You could try and just set aside 20 minutes to outline a few key tasks or goals for your week. As Antonia often advises, make it enjoyable—grab a cup of coffee or tea, find a quiet spot, and treat it like a moment of self-reflection rather than a duty.
If you'd like to dive deeper into this topic, check out the full conversation with Antonia Bowring on my podcast, where we explore her ADHD Success Planner and how it has helped the ADHD Big Brother Community. We were given her book as a beta to try it out and we continue to use the system to date! It’s a must have for adults with ADHD.
You can pick it up by visiting www.ab-strategies.com. It also comes with a pdf checklist so you can know that you’ve completely planned your week! For that, alone, I was more than happy to pay $7.99 for her ebook!
Here is the full episode:
If you prefer to WATCH our conversation….here’s the video version:
Are you good at planning your week? Or do you tend to fly by the seat of your parents, doing whatever feels the most urgent and/or the most fun? Leave a comment and let me know!
And if you would like the accountability to create consistency with utilizing your planning system, that is exactly why I built the ADHD Big Brother Community. It’s ADHD coaching by community. You can learn more here.