Scaffolding the ADHD Brain: How Habits Fail and Systems May Save Us
Hey Team!
When I moved into my neighborhood, most of the houses weren't built. So I got to see over the course of a few years, a lot of the work that went into putting those houses up, all the day-to-day progress that always kept happening, and how every step seemed to set them up for the next step. Now, nobody expects a brick wall to just materialize out of midair on pure willpower or a house to get completely built with no effort. yet when it comes to managing our daily routines, that’s exactly what we try to do. We expect our internal motivation to keep us on track despite our own track record, and then we get frustrated when they fall flat.
In this episode, we’re taking a look at why our attempts to build traditional habits often doesn’t work with ADHD, and why it isn't a moral failure or a lack of trying. We’re going to explore the critical mechanics of external scaffolding versus internal habits, digging into how we can stop burning through our limited supply of daily executive function and start building physical infrastructure that does the heavy lifting for us.
If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/298
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
One of the hardest parts of talking about systems is finding a good definition to go with because what I want from a good definition is a better understanding of what I'm talking about. But a system, broadly defined, is just any set of parts that interact with one another, generally to a greater effect than any of those parts alone. Or even more simply put: once put together, the system is greater than the sum of its parts.
And this definition isn't wrong or misleading, but it doesn't really give me a whole lot more understanding beyond the "whole greater than the sum of its parts" angle. It fails to convey the actual mechanics of what's happening.
Instead we might define it as a series of interconnected actions or processes which work together to produce specific results.
But again, this feels too high-level for my brain to really wrap itself around in any meaningful way. Sure, I can grab some sense of the concept here but if I tried to put into practice I'd fail at creating anything worthwhile.
But then I landed on this: a system is a recurring solution to a recurring problem. And if we combine that with our other definitions, now we're cooking. Because here we finally get the why behind why we'd even want to set up a system in the first place. What we've got are interconnected pieces that work together to solve a recurring problem. And then the most important part, it can do it over and over again. It's not just a one time solution - you don't need to build a system to solve a one time problem, but if it's reoccurring you want something that'll hold up over time.
But let's make this more concrete and take a classic engineering example: a four-way traffic intersection.
At its most basic, you have cars that just drive through when things are clear. No lights, no rules. But as things grow more complex, there needs to be an intervention. There are too many people trying to get through at once and taking turns is just leading to huge traffic jams. Let's say we add a traffic light. Now we have a system where the light is timed to be green at certain times and red at others, allowing cars to come and go at fixed intervals.
But even this could be iterated upon and we eventually get to a system where we add in sensors to tell when cars are actually there, when they need to turn, and let's not forget to add in ways for pedestrians to cross the street. What was once just a chaotic four-way intersection is now a complex system that modulates the flow of traffic depending on what the needs at the time are. In systems thinking, we call those sensors a feedback loop. The system takes in data from its environment, processes it, and changes its behavior based on that data.
And that is really important for us to think about when we're talking about systems we want to set up. We can start off with a very basic system that gets us from A to B. But as we work with it, we can add in the other features that help us. It's important to remember, too, that we might not know what those features are at the beginning. With our traffic example, instead of a traffic light, we could have gone with a roundabout, and for certain communities, that would be a much better option but for others could be a nightmare. Just like for our systems, some of the time what works for someone else will not work for us.
To be functional, a system is comprised of three parts: an input, a process, and an output. Now, this sounds a lot like a habit loop, which looks like a trigger, an action, and a reward. But the difference when we're talking about systems is that a system is external scaffolding, while a habit is largely internal.
The reason this distinction is important in regards to ADHD is that in a neurotypical brain, the reward of a finished task (like putting away laundry) provides a reliable hit of dopamine that seals the habit loop. In the ADHD brain, that reward chemistry tends to be completely inconsistent. We might feel a "win" one day and absolutely nothing the next. It's one of the reasons that for many of us, the idea of having a habit be so ingrained that we "don't even think about it" seems completely alien.
This is why you can do something every single morning for three months, and on day 91, if you get distracted by a text message, the "habit" seems to completely evaporate. It was never truly on autopilot; it was just a high-effort routine. You were burning executive function to force it to happen. Now, don't get me wrong there are absolutely things we can end up doing on autopilot it's just the mechanics of actually forming a habit are much more difficult and complex than the "just doing it every day for 21 days" kind of advice we often see online.
But with systems, the idea is that we're not relying on an internal habit loop to keep us going. Instead, it's all about how our external environment is directing our behavior. We are intentionally designing the path of least resistance.
If you were to have a total "brain-fog" day where you can't remember how old you are, a habit would likely fail you. A system, like a bright orange note on your door that says "KEYS", would still likely work because it exists entirely outside of your cognitive state. Of course, I can see times when I'd just completely disregard a note in front of me, so perhaps instead I might attach the note directly to the door handle so I can't open it without removing the note.
Regardless, when we're looking to build our systems, what we want to try and focus on is creating a certain inevitability. In design psychology, this is called a forcing function, a physical roadblock that forces you to conscious awareness before you can proceed. That's that note on the door handle.
Or, let's say you're trying to fold more laundry, and you want to bundle it with watching TV. To help with this, you place the clean laundry basket directly on the couch where you would normally sit. This means to sit down and watch TV, you must either move the heavy basket or fold the clothes. The environment is forcing the interaction. That is a forcing function.
Now, could you simply move the basket to the floor and ignore it? Absolutely. But by changing the environment, you are forcing your brain to at least consciously negotiate with the task.
So in this example, we're taking care of the when (while watching TV), the where (the couch), and the friction (having to move the basket). And we need all three of these because we need to trigger the system when it's contextually appropriate. If you're being reminded to fold the laundry three hours before you actually have time to do it, that's not helpful. If you are being reminded to fold the laundry when you sit down, but the laundry is still in the dryer upstairs, again, not helpful. And the friction of you having to physically move it means that the system can't just fall apart because you simply "didn't notice it." It could still fall apart at the level of you "choosing" not to do it right now, but the a system is never going to be able to directly "force" you to do anything. Instead what we are really looking for is better ways to get our intentions in front of our face and into our hands.
Alternatively, there are also examples of when you want to lower the friction for something. Like setting up a key basket by your front door to drop your keys into right when you walk in. You want to make that step as effortless as possible by removing any friction points. If you have a three or four step process in putting away you're keys that's going to be three or four steps where you can inadvertently get distracted by something else. But if you just have, drop keys in basket, nothing else goes in that basket, well you're making far more likely that you'll be able to follow through with your original intentions of always putting your keys away.
And of course, we can set up our systems to tackle more complex problems, with the caveat here that I just mentioned above, the more complexity we add, the more spots for failure we introduce. Let's take something like creating an end-of-day shutdown workflow to move us out of work mode and into the rest of our day.
Now, this is where something like a phone alarm would be a great way to remind us that it's time to start getting ready to close out. However, you and I both know how easy it is to just ignore a phone alarm when it goes off, hit snooze, and keep hyper-focusing on whatever it is we're working on.
To counteract this, we want to create a tightly coupled system, where the trigger and the action are physically linked. Instead of an alarm on our phone right next to us, we set up an alarm across the room that we physically have to get up and turn off. This interrupts whatever we're doing to force us into the next stage - or at least endure the alarm until we just get up. By standing up and walking, you are physically breaking the "circuit" of the desk environment. You have moved your body into a new space, which makes it infinitely easier for an ADHD brain to transition to a new task.
And right there, next to that far-away alarm, we can have our physical checklist of our end-of-day shutdown routine. This could include:
Writing down exactly what we were working on so we know where to start the next day.
Clearing off any trash from our desk.
Closing out the 45 browser tabs that are no longer relevant.
Turning off the computer completely.
Now, could we skip these steps? Yes, yes we could. But again, the point of the system isn't to magically control us; it's to force us to interact with our own past intentions. It's not simply about a passive reminder; it's about the physical action involved.
When push comes to shove, it doesn't matter what we've set up, we still are in charge of all the things we choose to do, and what we choose not to do. However, the more inevitability we can build into our physical environments, the better off we're going to be when we have bad brain days.
And this is vital to keep in mind because not all the systems in our lives were intentionally set up by us. Think about how easy it is to just pick up your phone and start scrolling when it is always directly next to your hand. That siren's call is a lot easier to ignore when the phone is physically out of reach.
Or imagine having 20 sticky notes stuck around your monitor to remind you to do things. Of course, now none of them remind you to do anything, because your brain can't process 20 competing triggers. They’ve just become part of the background wallpaper of your desk.
The way we set up our environments dictates more of our actions than we realize. And so we've got to be very cognizant of what those environments are making easier and what parts of them are making things harder. Specifically, in regards to what we do and don't want to be encouraging.
If I want to drink more water, having a water bottle right next to my mouse means I am highly likely to do that when I feel a phantom echo of thirst. Having a trash can readily available right under my desk makes it easy to keep things clean. But if my water bottle is across the room, I'm probably not going to get up until I am actively parched. And if my trashcan is around the corner and hidden inside a kitchen cabinet, well, we can just let some stuff pile up on my desk until I really need to get around to it.
If we don't pay attention to these environmental design choices, then we allow sub-optimal, accidental systems to run our lives and direct us into actions we say we don't want.
A well-designed system is ultimately an act of self-kindness. It's a gift that your "Good Brain Day" self builds to protect and support your "Bad Brain Day" self. While having that readily available trash can doesn't mean I'm always going to immediately throw my trash away, it does mean that it's much easier for me to follow through with my intentions when I want to. If there's no space to put the crap that lives on my desk, of course it's just going to live on my desk.
We need to pay attention to our environment and understand that it will direct our behavior whether we choose to design it or not.
This Episode's Top Tips
Traditional habits rely on an internal dopamine reward to lock them onto autopilot. Because ADHD reward chemistry is wildly inconsistent, that "autopilot" switch rarely flips. Instead, we want to work on designing our environment through systems to help make our intentions inevitable.
Passive reminders are entirely too easy for an ADHD brain to ignore. Instead, use design psychology to create physical roadblocks that force conscious awareness. Putting your clean laundry basket directly on the couch cushion where you want to sit forces your brain to actively negotiate with the task before you can proceed.
Human brains naturally drift toward the path of least resistance. Take advantage of this by manipulating that friction. Lower the friction for positive intentions by creating one-step solutions, like a dedicated key basket by the front door, or crank up the friction for distractions by doing things putting your phone completely out of reach so you can’t just pick it up without thinking about it.
Your physical environment is never neutral; it is actively directing your behavior right now, whether you designed it or not, which means relying on willpower is a losing game. Treat environmental design as a handoff between two versions of you: let your "Good Brain Day" self build a physical world that protects and supports your "Bad Brain Day" self.