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Throughout my 5+ years at Meta, my entire workday was built around time.
Stand-ups at 10 am. 2-week sprint reviews. Meeting blocks scheduled by the half hour.
I was always running behind, feeling like I wasn't doing enough.
Managers told me to block off my time. But somehow, the only productive time I could find was late at night or on weekends. When I wasn’t already exhausted by someone else’s schedule.
Here's the issue with time blocking: it only works if you have reliable time perception and strong executive function.
With ADHD, I have neither.
Let’s take an entirely different approach.
Part 1: Follow Your Energy, Not the Clock
Imagine you're in the middle of a deep sleep, and at 4:47 am, someone shakes you awake. "Do 15 jumping jacks, then go back to sleep.”
You do those jumping jacks half-assed. Your sleep quality? Ruined.
That’s what time blocking (planning very specific tasks, down to the minute) effectively asks you to do.
Instead of scheduling your time, schedule your energy.
Research on circadian and ultradian rhythms shows that most humans, ADHD or not, function in energy cycles of around 80-120 minutes. Start by noticing your own patterns:
Do you have more motivation in the morning?
Are you more creative at night?
How are your physical, emotional, or mental energy levels right now?
Are you in the mood for fast-paced, reactive work, or slower, deeper work?
For example, my energy schedule usually matches something like this:
Deep focus block 11 am-1:30 pm
Meeting/scattered block in the early afternoon
Focus/creative block 4-8 pm
Creative spike in the late evenings
Part 2: Define Your Energy Categories
Once you’re paying attention to your energy, the next step is to match tasks to it.
Some example buckets:
Creative — writing, brainstorming, building something from scratch.
Deep focus — debugging, analyzing, anything that requires holding a complex thought.
Scattered/admin — email, Slack, quick tasks, can be stacked back to back.
Collaboration — meetings, calls, back-and-forth.
Physical — working out, taking a walk, getting up to eat a snack.
Task switching is hard for everyone, but it’s especially expensive for ADHD brains.
One way to improve your productivity is to improve your ability to stop and start tasks.
The other way is to remove the need to switch.
Think of each category like a phone battery.
It’s much more productive to use a fully-charged creative battery than a half-charged one. And when you stop trying to use a little bit of energy everywhere, your other batteries recharge faster in the background.
When you start feeling drained in your current category, that’s your cue to switch.
Part 3: Prioritize, the ADHD Way
We always talk about “doing the most important task first.” But what if you have to fight your own energy to do it?
Barring hard deadlines and commitments, the order you complete tasks doesn’t matter.
If you're mentally drained but have physical energy — do the workout first. The neurochemical boost from moving your body may actually make you want to focus afterward.
If a small task has been nagging you in the background all week, spend 30 minutes clearing it. Then fly through your main work with a less distracted brain.
Getting two tasks done in the “wrong order” beats 4 hours forcing yourself through one “most important thing” your brain really doesn’t want to do.
You can even assign a different most important task to each energy category. So when you sit down to work, you have options.
The Energy Checklist
Get plenty of sleep to maximize your energy, not your time
Learn what your daily focus rhythms are, schedule around your natural energy
Categorize your tasks by energy first, then urgency
Match your current state to the right task category
Stay in one category until your battery runs low.
Fewer switches + more intentional rest = more done, with less friction.
This Week: For You
If you’d like custom 1:1 help with your schedule or unique situation, let’s walk through it together! Book 20 mins with me here ➝
P.S. ADHD Tools that Actually Work: Wispr
Your inbox is full. Slack is piling up. Client messages need a response yesterday. Typing thoughtful replies to all of it takes hours you don't have.
Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, professional text you can send the moment you stop talking. Speak like you would to a colleague — tangents and all — and get polished output. Emails, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, whatever's open.
89% of messages sent with zero edits. Used by teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. Works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.
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— Kat