Here’s What Happened When I Tried Using ChatGPT to Plan My ADHD Day Around Executive Function and Self-Care
Here’s What Happened When I Tried Using ChatGPT to Plan My ADHD Day Around Executive Function and Self-Care
It’s promising, but not quite there yet.
I’ve read a lot of people talking about using ChatGPT as a personal assistant or coach. I’ve also been exploring ways to better understand my own daily schedule in terms of the executive functions needed and my “capaciTEA”.
There’s a lot on the internet about both executive function and capacity, including my own writings, but in a nutshell: Executive Functions (EF) are the skills needed to accomplish tasks during the day such as working memory (verbal and visual), time awareness, organization, or self-motivation. There are different models out there depending on your favorite ADHD researcher, so it’s not even a theory as much as a concept. Think of them as the parts of an engine that you need for getting things done.
Meanwhile, capaciTEA (borrowing from the Time, Energy, and Attention metaphor from Charlie Gilkey) is the fuel in the tank that lets the engine run — but I took it a step further because to my mind it’s not just how much TEA you have, but also what kind of TEA is needed for the tasks you’re trying to do.
We already know there’re different kinds of time and different kinds of attention (think of “time flying”, “time dragging”, “flow states” and “zoning out”, for example). I haven’t found much written about different kinds of energy, but there is quite a bit written about different kinds of rest — which implies different kinds of energy.
That’s all just to give you a framework for why I did what I did the other day with ChatGPT.
Step one: Let ChatGPT know my schedule
For the ChatGPT nerds: I was using ChatGPT plus, creating my own “agent” to help me with my work as a nonprofit development director.
For the app nerds out there: I have separate Google calendars for my personal and work life, so I use Fantastical to manage them. One of the features of the app is under “Edit → Copy Day as Text” — which I did, and then told ChatGPT that I was going to do so.
It looked something like this:
Step two: I asked it to break down the tasks in terms of executive function and willpower.
This is the first place that this becomes a bit more experimental than useful. I’m making several assumptions here:
That ChatGPT will use an accurate (or at least useful) model of executive functions.
That ChatGPT will be able to correctly correlate that list to the tasks as I put them in my calendar.
That ChatGPT will be able to accurately estimate how much “willpower” (my word for self-regulation) each task takes. I didn’t make it too broad; just asked it to break things down in terms of low, medium, or high.
The results were surprisingly good. I’m not going to paste them all, simply because I don’t think the web needs a lot more AI-generated text, but here are a few examples:
Journaling (5:30 AM — 6:00 AM): Executive Functions: Reflection, organization. Willpower: Low (personal, reflective activity)
ADHD OS Post & Video/Podcast (6:15 AM — 7:15 AM): Executive Functions: Planning, creativity, time management. Willpower: High (creative and time-sensitive)
Morning Planning & Admin (9:00 AM — 9:55 AM): Executive Functions: Planning, organization. Willpower: Medium (requires focus and organization)
Work on Donor Deposits (2:00 PM — 4:00 PM): Executive Functions: Concentration, detail-oriented work. Willpower: High (requires sustained focus)
Inebriated Illuminators on Discord (5:30 PM — 6:30 PM): Executive Functions: Social interaction, relaxation. Willpower: Low (social and leisure activity)
It was interesting to me to notice that it could tell things like my drawing group (the Inebriated Illuminators) was a social and leisure activity. It also did a surprisingly good job of noting what kind of willpower was needed for the tasks. At the same time, it was aware of its own limitations: “ Remember, these are estimates and individual experiences may vary!”
So far, so good.
Step three: I asked it to tell me which executive functions I was going to need the most during my day.
This idea borrows from the whole concept of “theming” your days, which has been around for a while but I learned first from Marie Poulin’s Notion Mastery program. Rather than design the days around activities — which I don’t have much control over — I’d rather know what kinds of executive functions I’m going to need.
Again, the AI came through pretty well. A couple of quotes:
Analyzing your schedule for January 3, 2024, it appears that the most demanded executive functions throughout your day will be
Time Management: You have a full day with back-to-back activities, including appointments, work-related tasks, and social engagements. Efficiently managing your time to accommodate all these events will be crucial.
Planning and Organization: Your day involves a mix of professional and personal activities, such as morning planning, administrative work, creative hour, and managing tasks like the AT&T account. This requires a good deal of planning and organizational skills to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Interestingly, it also got a little judgy about my schedule when it listed “Flexibility” last:
With such a packed schedule, being able to adapt and switch focus between different types of activities — from work-related to personal, from creative to administrative — will be important…Given these demands, it’s advisable to prepare mentally for the day, perhaps incorporating breaks where possible to avoid burnout.
“Haha!” I exclaimed. “Jokes on you, ChatGPT, I’m already well into burnout!” Then I totally didn’t cackle maniacally. No, instead, I asked if it had any other suggestions for self-care for the day.
Again, it did pretty well — not telling me anything new, but definitely reminding me of things I already knew but likely wouldn’t have thought of given my “packed schedule”.
For example:
Mindful Transitions: Allow yourself a few minutes between different types of tasks to mentally switch gears. This can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths or a brief moment of stretching.
Or
Scheduled Breaks: Incorporate short breaks between tasks. Use these moments for deep breathing, stretching, or a quick walk. This helps in resetting your mind and avoiding burnout.
Breaks? I schedule breaks all the time! But too often I go on my phone, or work on some personal project — breathing, stretching, walking, having a computer remind me of that actually helps.
It also again understood that my drawing group was helpful: Your evening plans with the Inebriated Illuminators on Discord seem like a good opportunity to unwind and enjoy some lighter moments.
And finally, it reminded me of the hardest truth for any recovering workaholic to accept: Let’s make sure you’re not just busy, but also well taken care of!
Step four: SPREADSHEET!
All of this text was lovely and interesting, but getting a bit unwieldy. I’d heard that ChatGPT was good at generating code and could make CSV documents as well, so I decided to try and get the results in a format I could play with in Notion:
“Using table headers of time, task, executive function, willpower, and self-care, please export my schedule as a CSV with the appropriate data in each column.”
It did. In fact, I ended up with a lovely little spreadsheet:
I’m skipping a few steps here, because the way it exports CSV files turned out to work well with Numbers (Mac’s spreadsheet program) but not so well with Notion. It’s just a matter of formatting, though, and I simply ran out of time to play around with the system.
Conclusion: promising, but not ready to ship.
My dream is to have everything automated, of course — where after I make my schedule during a Sunday planning session, the AI would analyze each day and both warn me about what kind of day it would be (“lots of socializing today, Gray, better make sure you get some alone time!”) and also ways to build up my reserves of TEA in ways that would specifically meet the needs of the day.
We’re not quite there yet, obviously. Right now we’re still at the point where doing it “by hand” (or rather, “by brain”) would be faster than trying to cajole ChatGPT to play nice with Fantastical and Numbers and Notion. If I’m fiddling with quotation marks in a CSV file, it ain’t ready yet.
But it’s promising — and as people talk about creating ChatGPT “agents” and the ability to connect things gets better, I could see more promise of this being a helpful thing for neurodivergent folks, especially those who don’t have access to the coaching and programs that can help with executive function deficiency.
Addendum: the day was a mess.
In case you’re wondering, the hidden warning from the ChatGPT oracle that I missed was in the “packed schedule” comment. Everything went great up until the appointment to get my tires — then there had been some mis-communications between their phone appointment system and the actual stores, that threw off both my schedule and my mood. The delay had a cascading effect, and while I made most of my meetings and did get things done, the emotional regulation required to manage my growing frustration with both systems and my own brain was exhausting.
Did it help to have that overview from ChatGPT, though? Yes, I believe it did. Here’s how:
When I was fuming with anger, driving across town on the donut to a different tire location, I recognized this as a chance to implement some of the scaffolding I had in place to manage it. Putting on music and doing box-breathing kept me from rage-driving or snapping at the counter-person.
By the end of the day, when I might have decided I was too tired for the drawing group and just couch-potatoed, instead I remembered how socializing with those friends helps me recharge. I attended, it did, and it made me much more pleasant for my partner during dinner and the rest of the evening.
It was a reminder: I pack too much into my days. To go back to Charlie Gilkey’s analogy, I’m trying to put so many things in my pack that the slightest stumble makes them spill all over.
What do you think? Would having a day analysis like this help you out? Or is it creepy the way a machine seems to be evaluating these things?
These are the kinds of discussions we’re hoping to have in Madison, WI on January 20th, 2023 at the first ADHD Open Space Unconference. Find out more, and register to attend, by clicking below:
This substack will go into “archive” mode as of January 21st, 2024. You can always read more about ADHD in adults as we continue to post at http://adhdopen.space as well as continuing the podcast. You can also read more by Gray Miller by following him on Medium