Why mornings run late, and what helps at the last minute

Leaving the house on time depends on a prediction: how long will getting ready take? People in general are poor at that prediction, and mornings add two further problems. Adults with ADHD report more difficulty with punctuality, but the reasons studied so far are mostly ones everybody shares.

What the evidence says

People underestimate their own tasks. In a well-known study, fewer than 30% of students finished their thesis by the date they predicted ¹, and even their worst-case predictions were shorter than the time it actually took ².

Punctuality is lower in ADHD. In an online survey of 774 adults, those who reported an ADHD diagnosis rated themselves lower than the others on arriving on time and meeting deadlines ³. In the same study they did not differ in their use of organising strategies, and the researchers suggested the difficulty is in using a strategy consistently ⁴.

The first minutes after waking are slow. In a small study that asked people to press a button straight after waking, adults and children with ADHD did worse than comparison groups, more clearly in children ⁵. The authors point to sleep inertia, the grogginess after waking. They report that, among the healthy children only, those who did the task within two minutes of waking were also more physically active in the first ten minutes ⁶.

The body clock may not match the timetable. “Social jetlag” is the gap between your biological timing and your work or school schedule; later types build up more sleep debt on weekdays ⁷. In 396 healthy young adults, more social jetlag was associated with more ADHD symptoms and impulsivity ⁸.

What we don’t know

We found no study testing a morning routine for adults with ADHD. The link between social jetlag and ADHD symptoms comes from a survey ⁸, so it does not show which causes which.

Things to try

These come from research on planning in general.

• Use last time’s real number. In one study, students who were told to connect relevant past experiences with their prediction of when they would finish an assignment showed no optimistic bias ⁹. Time your morning once and plan with that figure.
• List the steps. Breaking a task into its parts can bring overlooked steps into view. Tests of this have had mixed results ¹⁰.
• Plan backwards from the door. In four studies, people who planned from the end point backwards predicted longer completion times, and in the one study that measured it, their predictions were less biased ¹¹.
• Do not rely on the first few minutes. Given sleep inertia, anything that must be remembered at the moment of waking is at risk ⁶. Setting things out the night before moves the remembering to a better time.