Before I write about evening routines I owe you an update. Last week I wrote about ADHD Success Club Module #21, planning Effortless Events. The event, my beach trip, was effortless because my husband, an amazing man who efficiently plots his course and mine, planned before I could. Working through this week’s ADHD Success Club module, “Rocking Your Evening Routine,” I realize my husband’s good habits and routines have kept me afloat for years.

Thinking forward to going back-to-school in the fall (my husband and I are teachers with two school-aged children), I realize that planning a consistent evening routine could support my entire family. Instead of being the mom who lies about being on her way home and who delays dinner most nights, I could be the mom who is present and consistent.

Plotting the course of a consistent evening routine seems like an unreachable utopian vision, and I know making changes will be challenging, but these changes are well overdue, and I finally feel like I’ve been given the building blocks to work towards incremental and lasting change. As I began working through this module, I followed Dana’s lead by brainstorming how I wanted my evenings to look, mapping out a specific plan, and jotting notes and insights.

I brainstormed by thinking of my current evenings and listing what I’d like to do consistently each evening. The list included getting home in time, preparing meals, spending quality time with my husband and children, keeping the house cleaner, exercising regularly, taking time to wind down, doing less work at home. While brainstorming, I realized how work and home are alike. Working with simplicity and consistency makes me a better teacher, and running a household with simplicity and consistency will make me a better wife and mom.

To map out my evenings, I drew two paths that led to the same destination–bedtime: Plan A is the path of a normal day and Plan B is an untypical evening (a day with after school meetings/grade deadlines, practices, or events). What I felt jotting out the events for the evening routine is a sense of peace and longing for the life I’ve always craved but never created.

My new evening routine include important pieces like transition time, dinner and chore time, human being time, getting ready for tomorrow and bed time.

Writing about my evening routine fills me with both anxiety and hope: anxiety because I’m afraid of continually falling short in this area and hope because this evening structure is new and makes sense. This new clarity and insight shows me how I can begin simplifying and structuring tasks at home to live successfully with ADHD.

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