# How to Plan Your Week With ADHD > Weekly plans with ADHD often fall apart by Tuesday. A 15-minute plan built around fixed points, three priorities, your energy levels and a midweek reset. Source: https://www.getmindie.app/blog/plan-your-week-with-adhd (published 2026-10-29) Sunday night you make a beautiful plan. Colour-coded, hour by hour. By Tuesday lunchtime it's in pieces, and by Thursday you've stopped looking at it. Usually the plan was built for a week that never happens. Here's a lighter way to plan that survives contact with an ADHD week. ## Why detailed weekly plans fall apart Detailed plans assume three things: that you can predict how long tasks take, that your energy is steady, and that nothing unexpected happens. With ADHD, none of these are reliable. So when one task overruns, the whole schedule shifts. You feel behind by 10am, the plan starts to feel like a list of failures, and you stop opening it. Then the week runs on whatever is loudest. A better weekly plan is looser. It decides a few things that matter, and leaves the rest flexible. ## The 15-minute weekly plan Do this once a week, at the same time. Sunday evening and Monday morning are common choices. Keep it short. A long planning session is easy to skip. ### Step 1: Brain dump (3 minutes) Write down everything on your mind for the week: tasks, errands, worries, appointments, half-remembered things. Don't sort it. The aim is to get it out of your head so you can see it. ### Step 2: Mark the fixed points (3 minutes) Look at your calendar and note what can't move: - Work hours and meetings. - Appointments. - School runs, pickups, classes. - Bills or deadlines due this week. These are the skeleton of the week. Everything else fits around them. ### Step 3: Pick three priorities (3 minutes) From your brain dump, choose three things that would make the week feel successful if they got done. Only three. If you finish them by Wednesday, you can pick more. Good priorities are specific: - "Submit the expense claim" rather than "work admin". - "Book the boiler service" rather than "house stuff". - "Finish the first draft of the report" rather than "report". ### Step 4: Give each priority a day and a rough time (3 minutes) A priority with no time is a wish. Give each one a slot: - Expense claim: Tuesday after lunch. - Boiler service: Monday at 9:30am, when the office opens. - Report draft: Thursday morning, your best focus time. Pick slots that match your energy. Hard thinking in your sharpest hours. Calls and admin in the slump. ### Step 5: Set the cues (3 minutes) The plan only helps if it reaches you at the right moment. Set a reminder for each priority slot, worded as the first step. Then close the planner and stop thinking about it. ## Plan around energy, not just time Most ADHD days have a rhythm. Notice yours: - **Peak focus.** When are you sharpest? Protect that time for priority work. - **Slump.** When do you fade? Use it for easy tasks, errands or rest. - **Transitions.** Arriving at work, after lunch, getting home. These are good moments for short reminders. You don't need to plan every hour. Knowing your peaks and slumps is enough to put the right task in the right place. ## Leave space on purpose Leave at least one unplanned block a day. Things will come up, tasks will overrun, and you'll need recovery time. A plan with no slack breaks at the first surprise. A plan with slack bends. Some people leave all of Friday afternoon open as a catch-up block. Anything that slipped during the week has somewhere to go. ## Add a midweek reset The most useful addition to an ADHD week is a short reset on Wednesday. Five minutes: 1. Look at your three priorities. Which are done? 2. Move anything that slipped to a new day. 3. Add anything urgent that came up. This stops the "the week is ruined" feeling. You adjust on Wednesday instead of giving up on Thursday. ## Close the week, lightly At the end of the week, look back for two minutes. What got done? What's carrying over? You don't need a full review, just enough to know what next week's plan should include. If you want a longer version of this, [how to do a weekly review in 20 minutes](/blog/weekly-review) has a step-by-step structure. And [time blocking for busy people](/blog/time-blocking-for-busy-people) goes deeper on giving your days shape. ## A sample week Here's Mia's plan after fifteen minutes on Sunday: - **Fixed:** Work 9 to 5, dentist Tuesday at 4pm, rent due Friday. - **Priorities:** Pay the parking fine (Monday 12:30), finish the grant application (Wednesday morning), clear out the spare room (Saturday 10am). - **Energy:** Sharp in the mornings, foggy after 3pm. - **Slack:** Friday afternoon. - **Reset:** Wednesday at 5:30pm. That's the whole plan. It fits on a sticky note, and it still works when Tuesday goes sideways. ## How to do this with Mindie Mindie lives in WhatsApp and can carry the cues from your plan, so you don't have to keep checking a planner. Set reminders for each priority slot: - "Monday at 12:30pm remind me to pay the parking fine online, the letter is in my bag" - "Wednesday at 9am remind me to open the grant application and finish section 2" Set the midweek reset as a weekly reminder: - "Every Wednesday at 5:30pm remind me to do my midweek reset" Ask what's coming up whenever you need it: - "What's on this week?" If you connect Google Calendar or Outlook, Mindie can tell you what's on your calendar too. You can also turn on a weekly review. Mindie's [weekly recap](/features/weekly-recap) looks back at your week, with the reminders you finished and the ones still open, and you can reply to move anything that slipped. There's also an optional morning briefing if you'd like the day's reminders in one message when you wake up. ## Reminders worth setting - [Quarterly goals reminder](/reminders/quarterly-goals): A check-in every few months to see whether your weekly priorities still point the right way. - [Weekly report reminder](/reminders/weekly-report): A fixed slot each week for the report that otherwise lands on Friday at 4:59pm. - [Pay rent reminder](/reminders/pay-rent): A heads-up before rent is due, so it's a fixed point you never have to remember. - [Meal prep reminder](/reminders/meal-prep): A weekly cue to plan meals, which takes one more decision out of busy weekdays. ## FAQ ### What is the best planner for ADHD? The one you'll actually look at. Many people with ADHD do better with a simple plan, a few priorities and reminders that come to them, than with a detailed paper or app planner they forget to open. ### How do you plan a week when you have ADHD? Spend about fifteen minutes once a week: dump everything out of your head, mark fixed appointments, choose three priorities, give each a time that suits your energy, and set reminders for those times. ### Why do my plans always fall apart? Detailed plans often assume steady energy and accurate time estimates. Leaving slack each day, keeping priorities to a few, and doing a short midweek reset make a plan much more forgiving.