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Looking for #ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyAuDHD advice on morning routines. I find that as long as I have another human person in the house moving around and making noises to remind me there is an external world, I tend to mostly be able to do things in the morning, if chaotically.
When my wife is away or on campus though, I find it much harder not to get sidetracked into scrolling on my phone or reading. I start work on time but dishes pile up, laundry goes unhung, showers get missed.
@petrichor Sounds like it's the external noise acting as a bit of a clock, as well as some time pressure and external motivation.
There are some ambient audio channels and playlists around the place that have stuff like coffee shop noise, or office noise - you might have to dig a bit to find one that provides the right types and level of noise to match up, but that may help. Other option is body doubling streams but they're not always available, plus that's device time which could make it too easy to get distracted.
It also sounds like there's several tasks that you're trying to add back in to a routine - I've found that it never works if I'm trying to add in more than one thing. Easier to focus on adding in just one task (or even just one step of one task) and getting that solid. (Shower would probably be the one I'd prioritise - it's worth investing in a waterproof clock you can put in there as well to help.)
For intermittent tasks, I've always needed to do Calendar reminders or similar, otherwise I just can't keep up with it.
To be clear, because this is labour that is often gendered: these are things that I have significantly less trouble doing, unprompted, when she is in the house, even if she's on leave or sick and sleeping while I get on.
When we've lived apart during the week for work reasons at a few points, I've been able to work around this by creating a highly structured routine, but for some reason I just can't make that stick when it's only intermittently needed.
It feels like a classic #AuDHD paradox: craves routine but is unable to establish one.
Aside: in the past we felt able to afford a cleaner every couple of weeks, which made a huge difference to how manageable everything else felt. But between rising mortgage rates, rising cost of living and a decade of public sector pay erosion we've gone backwards in our disposable income and that doesn't seem so affordable now.
(Remember that whether they choose to side with workers or bosses, almost all managers are workers too.)
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