Autistic Adults May Need More Routine, Not More Discipline
April Ratchford, Occupational Therapist, Registered and Licensed, is an autistic occupational therapist and the voice behind Adulting with Autism. She supports neurodivergent adults across the world with relatable storytelling, lived wisdom, and empowering strategies for real-life challenges.
Happy fall from Kentucky, otherwise known as the seven realms of hell because apparently nobody told the weather that summer is supposed to be over. Our time together with these articles is winding down, and honestly, that makes me a little sad. I hope you have found something useful in all the things I have thrown at you: college, finances, housing, and surviving adulthood without setting everything on fire. Today, we are talking about something that sounds simple but can make or break your entire day when you are autistic: routine.
Sometimes you do not need more discipline. You need more routine.
My son was warned – did he listen? Absolutely not
My son took one class over the summer. It was completely online. Do you know what else he had? Absolutely no routine. None.
He did not have to get dressed and go anywhere. He did not have to interact with anybody. He did not have to walk across campus or transition from one classroom to another. He could pretty much structure, or not structure, his day however he wanted.
I kept telling him, “You need to start scheduling some things during your day because when fall comes, you are going to have a meltdown.” His response? “Uh-huh. Okay.”
Parents, you know that “okay.” That is the “I heard sounds come out of your mouth, but I have no intention of implementing any of this information” okay.
Fast-forward to fall. Now he has four classes. Three are in person. One is online and does not even start until October. His classes can start at 8 a.m., and some days he is not finished until 2 p.m. We were not even three weeks into the semester before we had multiple meltdowns.
Because here is the thing: he did not suddenly become lazy. His nervous system went from almost no externally imposed structure to all the structure: waking up, getting dressed, getting to class, dealing with people and noise, transitioning between buildings, paying attention, remembering assignments, eating somewhere in there, and somehow still functioning afterward. When an autistic person struggles with that transition, people often reach for discipline: try harder, manage your time better, be more responsible. Sometimes what that person actually needs is scaffolding while their brain adjusts to the new routine.
Four neurodivergent people walk onto a cruise ship
Let me tell you about our family vacation. There were four of us: my son and me, who are autistic, and my sister and nephew, who are AuDHD.
That is right. Four neurodivergent people boarded a cruise ship together. What could possibly go wrong?
Interestingly, we all handled routine differently. My nephew is very routine-oriented. He figured out when he wanted to go to camp, what activities he wanted to do, and when he needed to be where. This child basically created his own cruise itinerary.
My son? Schedule? Never heard of her. He did whatever. That matters because neurodivergent people are not interchangeable. One autistic or AuDHD person may desperately need a written schedule. Another might hate one. Someone else may need structure but struggle to create that structure independently.
Needing routine and being able to build a routine are two completely different skills.
Then I ignored my own advice
Before the cruise, I actually did something intelligent. I knew I would need time to transition back into regular life, so I purposely scheduled two days off after vacation. Look at me being an occupational therapist and using occupational therapy principles on myself.
Beautiful. Then I fucked it up.
I work PRN. If I do not work, I do not get paid. I had just missed an entire week of income, so my brain immediately went, “We must play catch-up.”
I picked up more hours at a second building that is nowhere near my regular building. I still had podcast interviews. Then my boss’s significant other had a stroke, which understandably affected staffing, and suddenly we were down another occupational therapist.
My routine was gone. I had shit here, shit there, and shit everywhere. My podcast room looked like a hurricane had come through and then circled back around because it forgot something.
Thank God I have marketing help with posting because that might have been the thing that finally sent me over the edge.
My vacation was July 29 through August 4. It took me about a month afterward to feel like I had returned to anything resembling my normal routine. A month. I know better.
Apparently, having nearly three decades of healthcare experience does not prevent you from looking directly at your own professional advice and saying, “That is adorable. I am not doing that.”
Routine reduces decisions
Routine is useful because it does more than tell you what time to do something. It reduces the number of decisions your brain has to make.
If I always shower at a certain point in my morning, I do not have to spend mental energy deciding when I am going to shower. If Tuesday evening is laundry, I do not have to continually think about when I am going to do laundry. If I have a designated time to answer emails, work on my podcast, or handle paperwork, those tasks have somewhere to live.
That means fewer decisions, fewer transitions, and fewer things floating around in my head yelling, “Do not forget me!”
When your executive functioning is already being used for work, school, masking, sensory regulation, communication, and simply existing around other humans, removing a few decisions can be a beautiful thing.
Predictability can also make transitions easier. Knowing what comes next gives your brain a chance to prepare instead of constantly switching gears without warning.
Then a crisis shows up and kicks over the furniture
Here is where routine becomes both a gift and a pain in the ass.
When something disrupts mine, especially a crisis, I switch gears. Whatever the crisis is becomes the thing. Everything else? I leave it to burn in the fires of hell.
The problem is that when the crisis ends, all those other things are still sitting there waiting for me. Now I am not simply returning to my routine. I am returning to my routine plus the backlog created while I was dealing with the crisis.
That is when overwhelm can start multiplying. Sometimes people look at an autistic adult struggling afterward and wonder why they have not “gotten over it.” The original disruption may be finished. That does not mean the person’s routine has recovered.
Transitions deserve recovery time, too. Going from vacation to work, summer to school, one job schedule to another, or even a quiet weekend into a packed Monday can take more adjustment than it appears to from the outside.
Sometimes even tiny routines are hard to get back
I have been trying to get my facial care routine back for a couple of years. Years.
I used to be rigid about that routine: morning products, night products, everything had its place. Then life went sideways, my routine disappeared, and I still have not completely gotten it back. Does my skin look great? For now. Could it look better? Absolutely.
This is a perfect example of something I want younger autistic adults to understand: knowing how to do something does not mean you will always be able to do it consistently.
Losing a habit does not mean you failed. Sometimes you need to build the scaffolding again.
Start small, I mean stupidly small
If you wake up every morning with absolutely no idea what you are doing that day, do not start by creating a seventeen-hour, color-coded productivity schedule. You will piss yourself off by Wednesday. Start small.
If you need to schedule your shower, schedule your damn shower. Put brushing your teeth on the calendar. Schedule dinner if you forget to eat. Schedule study time. Schedule grocery shopping. Schedule when you are going to answer emails. Yes, schedule your gaming time.
Rest and recreation belong in a routine, too.
You can also build routines around events instead of exact times. Maybe you take your medication after brushing your teeth. Maybe you check tomorrow’s schedule after dinner. Maybe you put your keys in the same place every time you walk through the door.
Alarms, calendars, visual schedules, checklists, timers, and reminders are not cheating. They are tools. We do not give people bonus adulthood points for remembering everything using nothing but the squishy computer inside their skull.
Routine should support you, not control you
I am not saying autistic adults need every minute of every day scheduled. That is not a routine. That is prison with a Google Calendar.
Your routine should make your life easier, not become another demand you are terrified to violate. You also need some flexibility built into it because life is going to life.
Classes get canceled. Bosses call. Cars break. People get sick. Appointments run late. Sometimes you are exhausted, and the laundry can wait until tomorrow without society collapsing.
It can help to have a “minimum routine” for bad days: the few things that truly need to happen even when the full schedule falls apart. Eat something. Take your medication. Handle basic hygiene. Check tomorrow’s obligations. Everything else can be rebuilt when you have more capacity.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is having enough predictable structure that when something does go sideways, you have something familiar to return to.
Don’t be me
I spent my 20s flying by the seat of my pants. Then my 30s. Apparently, I continued portions of this experiment well into my 40s before I finally got the clue.
I am sometimes amazed my kid survived and made it into his 20s. But here we are. So do not be me.
Whether you are living independently, living with your parents, starting college, attending vocational school, working your first job, or trying to manage an entire adult household, give your day some structure.
Our attraction to patterns and routines can be one of our gifts. It can also be our curse because one unexpected thing can knock everything completely off course, and sometimes getting back on course takes far longer than anybody, including us, expects.
Build your routines. Start small. Change them when they stop working. Give yourself transition time when your schedule changes. When life knocks everything sideways, do not assume you suddenly need more discipline.
You might just need to rebuild your routine.
Happy scheduling
I hope this helped, guys.
If you have questions, or you want to tell me about the ridiculous thing you have to put on your calendar so your brain actually remembers to do it, I would love to hear from you. You can contact me through my website at Adulting With Autism.
May your routine survive longer than mine did after vacation. Until next time, happy scheduling.
Read more from April Michelle Ratchford
April Michelle Ratchford, Occupational Therapist & Podcast Host
April Ratchford, Occupational Therapist, Registered and Licensed, is an autistic occupational therapist, writer, and global advocate for neurodivergent adults. As the creator and host of Adulting with Autism, an internationally ranked podcast with over two million downloads, she blends clinical expertise with real-life lived experience. April specializes in supporting autistic young adults as they transition into independence, higher education, and adult identity. She is known for her clear, empowering approach that makes complex neurodivergent challenges accessible and manageable. April is currently advancing her studies in neuroscience through King’s College London to further elevate her work in autistic well-being and adult development.
