How to Make Time For Fun: 3 Strategies for Adults with ADHD

You know it’s important to make time for rest. You’ve heard about the benefits of fun. But as a busy ADHD brain with a more-than-full schedule, how do you create space for it? How do you make time for fun?

Let’s be honest; as driven, creative humans, we rarely find ourselves sitting around bored, waiting for something to do.

On the contrary, most of us have an endless to-do list, face several encroaching deadlines, and don’t even know what we like to do for fun, let alone make time for it.

And yet, there’s a part of us that still craves the freedom of play.

If this sounds familiar, episode 212 of the I’m Busy Being Awesome podcast has your name on it.

Tune in now and discover practical strategies you can use today to prioritize more fun in your life.

You can listen to the episode above or stream it on your favorite podcasting app here.   

Prefer to read? No problem! Keep scrolling for the entire podcast transcript. 

In This Episode, You Will Discover

• What’s blocking you from making time for fun and play in your life
• Why it’s important to intentionally carve out this time
• Three flexible scheduling strategies so you can use the one that’s best for your life

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Episode #212: How to Make Time For Fun: 3 Strategies for Adults with ADHD (Transcript) 

This week is part two of our series on fun, and I’m so curious to hear what you’ve discovered so far.

Last week we explored why it’s often quite challenging for many of us to make time for fun in our lives, which can seem somewhat surprising on the surface.

Then we also talked about why it makes so much sense that we do. So many of us have a lot of stories and judgments wrapped up around the idea of fun and play and rest.

With that in mind, we also explored some questions to help you uncover what your specific stories and beliefs are around this idea of fun and play.

• What does it mean to slow down and make time for fun?
• Do you have any judgment of it?
• Do you actually enjoy yourself when you do?
• Does it come naturally, or do you notice a lot of resistance from your brain?

From there, we dove into the process of identifying what we like to do for fun. Because, again, so many of us struggle to know what we like to do for fun generally.

We’ve been so focused on getting things done, or taking care of everyone else, or we simply haven’t been able to get off the hamster wheel, that we’ve forgotten what it means to have fun – or what we like to do for fun.

And so we went through an exercise where we used the categories of self-care and relaxation, connection, physical activity, creativity, and travel and adventure to brainstorm ideas and create a list of things of fun activities for us to do.

If you haven’t had a chance to do that yet, no sweat. Be careful of your all-or-nothing brain thinking that you’re behind or that you should have done this already.

Check out last week’s episode and then I invite you to take a breath and then write down one possible thing for each category right now. 

Think of one fun activity for:

• Self care or relaxation: Reading, playing solitaire, listening to a podcast etc.
• Connection: Getting coffee with your sister, call up your friend, attend book club that month.
• Physical activity: Going for a walk, dancing to your favorite music, horseback riding.
• Creativity: Sign up for a ceramics class, crochet something, try a new recipe.
• Travel and adventure: Go to the science museum, book an air bnb for a weekend getaway, etc.

As you’re finishing this up, I want to pause and go on a little tangent to highlight what we just did here.

It’s so easy for our brain to wait to do tasks things like this.

We think we need to light candles and get out our journal, and play relaxing music, and have at least 30-60 minutes devoted to this practice.

And while you CAN do that if you want to, don’t use whatever that perfectionist fantasy is against yourself. Because the truth is that you could also take 1-3 minutes to brainstorm a handful of ideas, and let that be plenty.

Let that be exactly what you need to get started having FUN.

We’ve talked about the idea of doing B/B+ work on the podcast before, right? For those of you who are new to this idea, it’s essentially a way of thinking about the saying, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”

We don’t have to go for the A+ all the time. In fact, often, B or B+ work is more than enough.

Now, I know this is a tough concept for MANY of our brains to really get on board with – mine included. Many of us have tried to overcompensate for the obstacles we face with ADHD by overperforming and perfecting constantly to keep us safe.

So it makes sense that we don’t want to release what feels like a supportive habit of perfectionism.

But if we can be gentle with ourselves when we keep this understanding in mind – that perfectionism did serve us at one point in our lives – perhaps a safe place to explore the concept of doing B+ work is right here with the homework and challenges I offer you on the podcast.

Heck, let yourself show up at C or C+ work. Show your brain how showing up and doing C or C+ work persistently is so much more effective than demanding A+ work and then never having time to get started on it.

B+ work out the door is a heck of a lot more impactful than A+ work that never sees the light of day. 

I think about that with this podcast. I believe I mentioned about a month or month and a half ago that I decided to start recording my podcasts so that I could share them on YouTube as well for visual learners and people whose brains do better learning when watching.

Now are these videos perfect? Oh, heck no!

They are nowhere near perfect. I don’t have fancy editing or lighting or anything. I’m literally talking into my microphone while looking at my computer camera. That’s it.

Now will I ever get fancier with editing or new cameras? Eh, maybe. But for now, as someone doing all the recording and editing myself – this is good enough.

I’m not going to let perfectionism stop me from getting a video out there if it could help someone who learns better by watching than strictly listening.

I invite you to do the same in one area in your life and perhaps that one area is practicing the things we talk about on the podcast here.

What if you released the demand for A+ work – from the belief that you have to do all of the strategies and ideas – and instead let yourself focus on the one sentence or idea that stood out to you the most that week and explore what it would be like to implement it that week.

What if that is more than enough? And see the impact that makes. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

Alright – let me get off my soapbox and back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Hopefully, you have a few ideas that could be potentially fun for you to explore because today, we are diving into the question of how we can make time for fun.

What’s Getting In The Way Of Making Time For Fun?

How do we actually Make Time For Fun?

For most of us – when we’re living with such full schedules – we have much more luck when we intentionally set aside that time rather than simply hoping it will happen.

So step one of the process was creating a list or a menu of fun activities we may want to pursue (last week’s episode), and step two in our three-part process is to figure out what’s in the way of doing this now.

Identify the Friction 

To help us uncover the answers to that question, ask yourself,

• What’s getting in the way of me making time for these fun things?
• Why am I not calling up my friend to chat?
• Why am I not horseback riding?
• Why am I not reading that book from the library?

What’s getting in the way here?

Remember, we’re asking these questions from a curious, judgment-free place, right?

We’re asking to genuinely understand what’s in the way.

We’re seeking to find the sources of friction that keep us from moving forward on what we want to do. And sometimes, that friction seems so small or inconsequential when we pause to think about it, and the natural inclination is to judge ourselves for it. When in reality, finding that friction is a great sign because then we can adjust for it.

For example, I was thinking about this question for myself with horseback riding.

That was one of the first things I wanted to start doing once I moved back to Minnesota.

I used to ride horses a lot when I was younger, but I haven’t since my early 20s, and I’ve always wanted to get back to it, I now live in an area where I have several stables within easy driving distance, but I haven’t moved forward.

So I stopped to ask myself, what’s the friction? What’s in the way here?

I realized that, first of all, my weekends have been full of moving and unpacking and family stuff over the last several weeks, and I just now have the capacity to really think about it.

And now that I am, I’m realizing the few times I started looking into it, I saw that none of the stables I found online had an official website – they’re just listed as businesses in Google, and a few have reviews.

For my brain that loves researching everything ahead of time, that creates friction.

I can’t research all the ins and outs of the stable and decide ahead of time what questions I need to ask based on what I’ve learned when I don’t have a website to research, so instead, I just have to call.

I’m literally working through this as I’m talking to you, and I’m realizing the steps to move myself forward…

• Choosing three stables that are closest to me
• Identifying the questions I want to ask and writing them down
• Scheduling a specific time to call.

In fact, I think I will schedule the time for me to call during the body double session I hold each week for my clients, so I have that extra support to pick up the phone and call.

So it’s Monday as I record this, I know that tomorrow by 3:00 or 4:00, I will have taken that next step to move forward on creating this space for fun with horseback riding.

Honestly, if I hadn’t slowed down to find the friction as I did here, I probably would have kept the idea of horseback riding as a “someday” item on my list for much longer rather than something I will actually pursue in the coming weeks.

Take a moment and think about some of the items on your list

Look with curiosity and ask yourself, what’s in the way here?

• Is it a logistical obstacle?
• Is there a timing issue?
• Are there fears or worries involved?

All of the answers are absolutely acceptable, and what’s more, we can solve for all of them, too.

It might require logistical problem-solving, asking for help, or coaching through some fears or worries, but we can solve for all of them, which is great news!

And the first step for all of it is figuring out that friction.

How To Make Time For Fun By Scheduling It In

Okay, so now that we know the friction and we are ready to move forward, it’s now time to actually schedule time for fun.

I know this may seem silly – that scheduling time for something like “fun” seems like the opposite of fun. However, as I mentioned earlier, we have super busy schedules, and many of our brains are prone to working and taking care of everyone else first.

So it’s really important that we’re intentional about making time for play and fun and rest – at least at first until it because a more regular part of your lifestyle.

And for those of you like me – it may be something you will always do intentionally.

I know for myself, it’s simply much easier for my brain to fill open space things it thinks are “productive” than fun. And I don’t make this mean anything about me.

Instead, I just use that as information to inform how I schedule my days to make sure I’m intentionally creating that downtime, too.

So how do we do this?

Define How Much Flexibility You Want In Your Schedule

Well, the first area for us to explore is one that I look at frequently with my clients, which is…

How much flexibility do I want in my schedule?

What level of structural support feels good for me?

Again, every brain is different and every brain desires a different level of structural support.

So you can ask yourself…

• Do I need a high level of structure with a lot of specificity and decisions already made?
• Do I need a lot more flexibility with room to weave in fun when the opportunity arises?
• Is is somewhere in between?
• What level of scheduling feels good for me?

3 Ways To Make Time For Fun

Today, we’ll look at three different approaches to scheduling time for fun that speak to different levels of structural support.

As you listen, I encourage you to notice which examples feel most supportive for you and your situation right now.

Which ones sound like they might be a great fit for you, your brain, and the type of fun you want to incorporate in your life more often, and which suggestions have you pushing back or feeling some resistance?

Make note of this because, again, there’s no right or wrong way. We just want to uncover what feels most supportive for you in this current season of life.

1. Create a Fun Menu

The first approach I want to share is what I’m calling a Fun Menu.

Great for: People who want a little more flexibility in how they schedule time for fun and play.

Their biggest friction point: Making a decision about what to do when the time for fun arises.

For Example

Maybe your kids go to camp or school, and you know you have four hours of fun or relaxation ahead of you before you need to pick them up.

But then you find yourself spinning, trying to decide what to do, and then that beautiful pocket of time disappears before you ever chose the activity. If this sounds like you, then the Fun Menu could be a great option.

The best part is that if you’ve already created your list of fun things in step one, you’re basically done.

Essentially what we do with this approach is:

• Create a list of fun activities or projects you want to do, people you want to see, books you want to read, classes you want to take, etc.
• You list out all those things that you’d like to do over a specified about of time – say over the next two weeks, or the next month, or the next quarter.
• Whenever those pockets of time open up, you simply open up your menu of fun and you choose the next thing on your list.
• Or look at the list and you ask yourself: what sounds like the most fun right now? Connection? Self care? Movement? Creation? Adventure? Choose that category and pick the option that best fits your current timeline. 

The beautiful thing here is that we’re reducing the demand on your executive functions – you don’t have to make a bunch of choices.

Instead, you pick the thing at the top of the list or the one that fits the amount of time you have and you get started. Decision made. Time for fun.

Tip: If you’re a person who can easily spin in decisions, I’d recommend making that menu quite small. Maybe you have one or two options in each of those five categories. Or limit your categories to creating, connection, and self-care, and you have a few options of activities in each.

That way, you have many less options to distract or overwhelm your brain. Rather than the Cheesecake Factory menu, we have a fine dining menu with a few options you know will be good.

2. Monthly or Quarterly Plan

Great for: People who like to do activities with specific dates and times attached, who have super busy schedules, or who want more structure in their lives generally.

This approach is creating a biweekly, monthly, or quarterly plan.

For Example

Let’s say many of the ideas on your list focus on time-specific activities.

Maybe you love…

• Attending concerts in the summer
• You take a lot of community ed art classes.
• Volunteering with different groups
• You and your friends love going to see live comedy,

Having an approach of creating a biweekly, monthly, or quarterly plan can be super supportive.

Just as it sounds, you pull out your calendar, digital or paper, and you mark off the dates ahead of time for the different shows or events you want to attend or classes you want to take.

This helps ensure that you’re blocking off the time AND having this bird’s eye view helps ensure you’re doing it more intentionally. It helps you not double book yourself with seeing a show on the same day you have your family reunion in August.

And of course, you can also do this for non-date specific things, too.

If you have a really busy schedule with a family that has a lot of things going on, and you also know you want to intentionally save time to read the books you got from your last library run on Thursday after work and Sunday mornings, do it! That’s awesome. Use this scheduling approach for you.

This birds-eye view approach also help you to pace yourself

You can see that overview and check in with yourself.

Hey look, I’m doing something with other people four nights in a row – normally my body and mind feel best when I have a night of downtime between my evenings out.

Do I want to space this out? Do I want to move things around? Maybe, maybe not.

Or maybe you’re on the other side of the spectrum where I tend to hang out, which is,

Gosh, I haven’t done anything fun out of the house in a long time, and I don’t have anything specific planned all month ahead.

But also, I want to aim for one fun thing per week out of the house, so that means I want to schedule a few more things in the calendar for the month that feel like a full body yes to me.

What looks and feels like so much fun that I am excited to put on the calendar over the next few weeks?

Because so many of us deal with time blindness, and we have a hard time seeing time and estimating how much we’re committing to, having this visual representation of our activities and commitments can be a really valuable tool. It ensures we’re making time for fun regularly, and we’re doing so sustainably without overcommitting ourselves by accident.

3. Digital Schedules and Reminders

So the third tip that I want to offer in regard to scheduling time for play and fun is using digital supports.

Whether you make the most of the digital apps already built into your tech like the calendar app or your reminders app, or you use more advanced apps and task managers like to Todoist or Asana or Google tasks, using a digital app can be really supportive in a few different ways.

1. It can help you remember the specific events you have coming up
2. Act as a reminder to make time for the less time and date dependant activities that you want to do but might find yourself pushing off or simply forgetting about

So what might this look like?

Well with the first reason, you might use the reminder app on your phone or you set up recurring reminders on your digital calendar to send you a notification or ping you the day before and then 30 minutes before an upcoming event.

Or maybe you’ve signed up for a watercolor class at your local library, but it’s not for a few months, and you need to bring your own supplies. In this case, maybe you use your task manager or your reminders app to send you an alert a few weeks before the class to order the supplies or get them from the craft store so you have them before the class.

And then you could also use the reminders again to remind you of that class the day before, the day of, or both. So that’s one way that these task managers and apps can help you both be prepared for and attend the fun things you’ve planned out for yourself.

On the other hand, let’s say I wanted to make time to read those books from the library – and my goal is to carve out a few minutes most days a week.

There’s a lot of flexibility here – it’s not 30 minutes 6 days per week, but a few minutes most days.

Or maybe I want to finish a crochet project that I’m making for someone’s birthday, so I have a timeline and need to work on it pretty regularly to make sure I finish on time.

In situations like this, you might use a digital reminder slightly differently.

Use Prompts To Remind You

In this situation, you might choose a handful of different prompts and set them as reminders to go off on different days throughout the week.

So maybe on Mondays, you have a reminder that goes off at noon that says, “What time do you get to read today?”

Tuesdays, you write, “What are you excited about reading today?”

On Wednesday, you might write, “What time do you want to crochet today? Do you have all the yarn you need?” Etc.

Or maybe you keep it more general, and you have a few prompts that go off throughout the week like, “what are you doing for fun today?” and “how are you taking care of you today?” and “what fun things are you looking forward to today?”

By scheduling these different questions to appear, perhaps at your lunch hour or after work or whenever they might be most supportive for you, you have that gentle nudge to remind the brain.

“Oh, yeah! I wanted to make some time for working on my calligraphy, or I wanted to see if my neighbor wanted to head to the dog park after work.”

Having that little nudge can be really useful for those of us who struggle with our short-term working memory, and these fun things can quickly fall into the realm of “out of sight, out of mind.”

When we use technology to our advantage, we can give our brain that reminder of these fun things we want to do, and when we intentionally set aside time for them, it becomes even more likely that they’ll happen.

Recap

So as a quick recap today of all the things we’ve explored around making time for fun, we first want to…

1. Make a list of things we WANT to do for fun. Get that list of options front and center so you’re not forcing your brain to think of things, make a decision AND take action all at once.

2. After you have your list of fun activities, then check in with yourself. What’s the friction in the way right now? What’s blocking me from doing this now, and how can I solve for that?

3. And then finally, carve out time in your calendar for it to happen. We have such full schedules, and if we want to make time for fun, it’s so important to be intentional about it.

So check in with the level of support and structure that feels best for you, and then play around with any or all of the options we explored today.

• Create your Fun Menu so you have all the ideas at the ready when your free time opens up
• Create more structure and intentionally schedule activities with a birds eye view of the weeks, month or quarter ahead
• Use an app or your digital calendar to remind you to set aside time on a regular basis so you don’t have to think about that time later.

As always, I’d love to hear what’s working for you! Head over to Instagram – I’m @imbusybeingawesome and leave a message on the post for this episode or drop me a DM. I can’t wait to hear about it.

If you’re ready to take these concepts deeper and apply them to your life. If you’re ready to learn how to support your ADHD in a way that works for YOU, then I invite you to check out my small group coaching program, We’re Busy Being Awesome. And if it sounds like a great fit for you, you can add your name to the waitlist so you’re the first to know when the next cohort begins. 

Also, have you grabbed the podcast roadmap yet? It has the most popular episodes all detailed for you so you can get yourself up to speed and ready to work with your ADHD brain, you can grab it HERE!

Until next time, keep being awesome. I’ll talk with you soon.