Squirrel's Guide to Morning Routines: The ADHD Science You Need To Have a Better Day

Every morning, I wake up and unintentionally choose my new personality for the day.

Who am I gonna be? The best version of myself or the worst? If I open my email first, I'm productivity robot glued to my computer for the next 16 hours, workaholic-ing myself into a tech-induced spiral and giving myself a permanently furrowed brow.

Okay? If I open Instagram, I'm trapped in the content creator identity, social media-ing myself into oblivion, reaching for my phone at all hours of the day.

I know you guys know what I mean when I say this.

If you go on Instagram first thing in the morning, somehow it also ends up being the last thing you see before you go to bed.

Like, as somebody who prides herself in being very offline, when I deviate from my phone-free habits and I check social media first thing or I go on my phone right away, that seems to always be the pattern for the rest of the day, and I got frustrated [chuckles] with that.

I hate that activity.

Because I know if I do my morning pages like a good little creative and I transform into my writer with a capital W identity, I'm obsessively jotting down every thought.

I'm feeling creative.

I'm following every idea that comes to mind.

I'm squirreling all over town, but in the most thrilling way possible.

And recently, I started to notice the trend that what I do in the morning seems to dictate what I'm interested in doing the entire day.

So if I head straight for my office the second my hatch goes off, I tend to not get up from my desk for hours, and I feel focused on work, work, work all day, and I, like, don't wanna do anything else.

But if I scroll first thing, which like I said, rare for me for the reason I'm about to share, but I find myself feeling extra addicted to my phone all day.

So I thought to myself, because like I said, I'm a neuroscience nerd, there has to be a connection here.

So I did what that little nerd self does best, followed my curiosity down a neuroscience rabbit hole to see if there's any truth to my suspicion that what we do first thing in the morning somehow triggers our brain into thinking that's the only thing worth doing for the day.

And let me tell you, when I found out I was right, my ego was huge.

Like, am I a neuroscientist? Should I quit my copywriting career and start interviewing for a job at Gray Salon? [chuckles] All right.

Jokes aside, here's what I learned.