CBT for ADHD - Bonus Session: Getting to Bed, Getting Up, and Getting to Work on Time

Main points, no filter:

🚨  ADHD + Time = CHAOS. If you’re always running late, hitting snooze 10 times, or stumbling into work half-asleep—you are not alone. The good news is, you can fix it.

🔥  Why You Struggle:

• ADHD messes with time awareness & executive function.
• Going to bed on time seems boring and impossible
• Mornings = frantic, stressful, and exhausting.

✅  How CBT for ADHD Helps:

• Identify why you can’t stick to a schedule.
• Build strategies to wake up and get out the door (without a crisis).
• Tactics that are designed just for you and your routine

💡 Real Talk: Steps to Fix It

• Prioritize sleep—set a bedtime and actually follow it.
• Reduce friction: pick clothes, prep lunch, and check your planner before bed.
• Use alarms (even sneaky ones that wake up your partner 😈).

Stop the cycle. Start showing up on time. Let’s make mornings suck less. 💥

Want more details? Keep reading.

Mornings used to be pure chaos for me. Even as a kid, I could never get my sh*t together. No matter how much guidance I had, I was always frantically chasing the bus. And honestly? Not much changed when I became an adult.

For years, I was always 10–15 minutes late to work. Then, once I got there, I needed another 30 minutes to settle in before actually being productive. Thankfully, my supervisors gave me a pass—probably because I worked my ass off once I did start. But if I had been both late and bad at my job? Game over.

As life got busier and the consequences of tardiness got worse, I overcorrected. Suddenly, I was showing up way too early—sometimes a full 30 minutes before my shift. I could never quite hit that sweet spot of right on time. And honestly? Constantly arriving either comin’ in hot or ridiculously early was exhausting. I wanted things to be different, and I needed to figure out where the points of friction were so I could do something about it. I knew this tempo was not sustainable.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

ADHD and Time Management Struggles

A lot of folks, especially those with ADHD, struggle with honoring their time commitments. This has an impact on mental and physical health, safety, employment, and relationships with others.  So, if we know that being on time is important, why can’t we just do it?

👉  Because ADHD isn’t about knowing what to do—it’s about doing what we know.

ADHD messes with executive functions, making it harder to track time, gauge how long tasks will take, and start or finish things on schedule. It’s not laziness. It’s not carelessness. It’s ADHD.

It’s the same reason why so many of us know we should eat healthy and work out… but there’s a big gap between knowing and doing.

Our executive functions are responsible for us doing what we know. I have talked in previous blogs about the executive function deficits that come along with ADHD. Our executive functions are responsible for effectively track the passing of time, gauge the amount of time that it takes to do tasks, and start and complete tasks. When you have ADHD, you just can’t do these things as well as you would like without putting in some serious supports. You can read more about the seven executive functions here. 

How can CBT for ADHD help?

Through the first twelve sessions of CBT for ADHD, we practice skills to effectively manage time and tasks. As a bonus session, we use all these skills to get a grasp on honoring our commitments and getting to work on time.

We talk about:

🎯  Why you might have difficulty getting up and getting to work on time

🎯  Develop strategies to address these problems

The Hard Truths:

1. Being late to work is common problem for folks with ADHD.

2. You can’t get to work on time if you don’t wake up in time.

3. You can’t wake up in time if you don’t go to bed on time.

In CBT for ADHD we talk about why getting to bed on time is so hard. Here are some common responses:

✅  It’s hard to stop what you are doing.

When you are on a roll with a task, it is very tempting to just keep going until you are finished. This is especially true if it is something that you find rewarding and enjoyable. This is where the “just one more episode” scenario happens. Netflix makes it so easy to just keep watching. Plus, it takes less energy to sit and watch than it does to get up and go to bed.

✅  You finally have alone time to enjoy or finish work.

Sometimes our day gets away from us. We have every intention of tackling that to do list, but then urgent tasks take over. Or, we get stuck in the avoidance trap and have spent the past hour doing tasks in the “not important not urgent” category. The day slipped away, your to-do list got hijacked, and now that it’s late, you finally have peace and quiet. Whether you’re catching up on work or just existing without interruptions, bedtime can feel like the enemy. To learn more about task prioritization check out the blog on session four of CBT for ADHD.

✅  Erratic bedtime and wake time means that you don’t feel sleepy when it’s time to go to bed.

Stay up late → Wake up late → Feel like a zombie → Stay up late to catch up → Repeat.

The Fallout of Not Getting Enough Sleep

✅  Fatigue

✅  Vulnerability to physical illness

✅   Effects on executive functions that are already compromised

In CBT for ADHD, we personalize this discussion. Because when you see how sleep deprivation screws you over, you’re more likely to make changes.

So now what?

If you Google how to get to bed on time, you will find the common sleep hygiene responses. I will give you a quick recap:

💤  Have a distinct bedtime and stick to it

💤  Plan to start relaxing and getting ready for bed an hour before bedtime

❌  Turn off sources of stimulation like computer, phone, and TV. And be sure to avoid heavy meals and exercise an hour before bed.

✅  Turn on sources of relaxation like a warm bath, relaxing music, and taking a book to bed

These are great, but ADHD brains often need more.

✅  Allow more “me time” during the day or early evening . If late-night scrolling or work catch-up is a problem, carve out time before bedtime instead.

✅   Make a list of consequences of staying up too late and put it in a spot that is visible.

Consistent Morning Routine

🛑  Skipping the sleep step won’t work. If you don’t fix bedtime, mornings will stay chaotic.

Here’s how we structure mornings:

Step 1: Know How Long Things Actually Take

ADHD time blindness is real. We practice time estimation in CBT for ADHD—because most of us wildly underestimate how long things take.

As with other elements of our day, it can be helpful to plan your pre-departure routine. That means that we have a good estimate of how long that routine actually takes. You want to move efficiently through your morning without feeling rushed.  We learn about time estimation in session one of CBT for ADHD. You can read more about that here.

Step 2: Prep the Night Before

Do Future You a favor:

✔️ Check your planner before bed – Know what’s coming the next day. Bonus: If you use Google Calendar or Outlook, set it to email you your agenda. 

✔️ Pick out your clothes – Eliminate one decision. (Pro tip: If you wear athleisure or work out in the morning, just sleep in your clothes.) 

✔️ Make your lunch – Saves time and money. 

✔️ Set up your workspace – If you work from home, put everything where you need it so you’re not hunting for stuff in the morning.

Step 3: Set Alarms That Force You to Get Up

📱 Put your alarm out of reach so you have to get out of bed. 

📱 Set a second alarm somewhere inconvenient—like near a sleeping toddler or a grumpy partner who will 100% make you turn it off.

Or, if you need a bedtime cue: 

📱 Set an alarm for when you should stop binge-watching, then leave your phone in the bedroom. No one wants to sprint across the house at 10:05 PM to stop a blaring alarm.

Why CBT for ADHD?

CBT for ADHD is not a cookie cutter approach to managing symptoms. You get to figure out what works for you and why it works. We use this bonus session to create a list of arguments for going to bed on time that are personal to you. If we make the strongest case possible that is relevant to you, you will be more likely to stick to your routine.

Your Take-Home Exercise:

Track your bedtime routine for a month. Yep, a whole month. Sounds excessive? Maybe. But seeing your patterns on paper makes it way easier to spot problems and make changes.

Ready to learn more? Read my earlier blog to get more information about CBT for ADHD or schedule a consult and I’ll give you the Clif’s notes.