Lily, an architect with ADHD, stares at her half-finished lunch. She’s been on a quest to form better habits—like a quick daily stretch, hydration breaks, and journaling—but every new routine seems to vanish under the weight of her unpredictable schedule. Then she remembers something she read about “habit stacking”: the idea of anchoring a new behavior to an existing one.
Intrigued, Lily decides to experiment. Over the next few weeks, she transforms the way she tackles daily tasks, layering new mini-habits onto old routines. Let’s dive into how it all played out—and how you can harness this same magic to track your progress and build lasting habits, ADHD style.
What Exactly Is Habit Stacking?
At its core, habit stacking is pairing a desired behavior with something you already do automatically. If you make coffee every morning, that’s a stable “anchor.” Maybe you insert a new habit (like writing a quick gratitude note) right after you press the brew button. Over time, the coffee ritual and the gratitude note become inseparable. For ADHD minds—where routine often dissolves under novelty or distraction—habit stacking can ground those new behaviors.
Why It’s a Game-Changer
Less Willpower: You’re piggybacking on an existing cue. No need to remember from scratch.
Built-In Reminder: The anchor habit (coffee) triggers the new behavior (gratitude note).
Automatic Over Time: Repeated enough, the new action melds seamlessly with your established routine.
Lily’s Experiment: A Story of Tiny Wins
Week 1:
Anchor Habit: Brushing her teeth before bed.
New Habit: She decides to do a 30-second shoulder stretch immediately after setting her toothbrush down.
That first night, she nearly forgets. But the second she finishes brushing, she sees her reflection, cues up the new habit in her mind, and does the quick stretch. She logs it in a small notebook to track consistency.
Week 2:
She layers on a second habit: writing one line in a personal journal right after her shoulder stretch. Now, brushing her teeth triggers a micro chain—teeth → stretch → one-liner.
Her brain starts linking “toothbrush in hand” with “quick nighttime routine.” She finds the stretch and journaling feel weird if she skips them.
By Week 3, Lily’s already got a neat little bedtime ritual. She’s excited by how easy it feels to fold more habits into existing routines. That momentum inspires her to consider adding a morning anchor, too.
Overcoming ADHD Pitfalls with Micro-Steps
For many with ADHD, big leaps can trigger overwhelm. Micro-steps can sidestep that mental rebellion. Instead of saying, “I’ll do 20 push-ups,” start with 1 push-up. Instead of “write in my journal for 15 minutes,” do just 2 minutes. The smaller the friction, the more likely you are to begin—and consistency is everything for habit stacking.
Lily’s Example:
She originally wanted to do a 10-minute nighttime yoga flow but recognized that might be too much when she’s tired. She scaled it down to a mere 30-second stretch. It felt so laughably doable that she rarely resisted. That’s the hallmark of a well-chosen micro-step.
Tracking Progress When Time Slips Away
ADHD brains excel at losing track of time. Even if you’re nailing your new habit daily, you might not feel progress because you forget the cumulative wins. That’s why you need a system that shows proof.
Paper or Digital?
A simple paper tracker by your bathroom mirror can be enough—check a box each night.
For those who want something more dynamic (or who keep misplacing journals), a digital ally can automate logs and reminders.
A Perfect Companion: Forget
Forget is an ADHD-friendly productivity platform that helps you:
Set Up Repeats: Turn a daily mini-habit into a recurring task. Once you link it to your anchor routine, you’ll see it pop up like clockwork—no manual rewriting.
Visual Progress: The floating window and progress bar keep you aware of time passing. Great if you’re prone to “I’ll do it later” illusions.
Micro Nudges: Assign a small timer to your habit or set a quiet chime that reminds you, “Hey, it’s bedtime routine time.”
When Lily discovered the “Repeat Task” feature, she turned her micro-habits into automatic tasks labeled “Stretch + Journal.” Each night, a subtle pop-up reminded her, right after brushing, to do that mini-sequence. She loved crossing it off and seeing her consistency build over the week.
Stacking on Different Anchors
You’re not limited to bedtime or morning coffee. You can anchor small habits to nearly any routine:
Commute Home → Listen to a language podcast.
Lunch Break → Do a 2-minute walk.
Right After Zoom Meetings → Jot down 3 bullet-point notes from the discussion.
The key is picking an action you reliably do most days. That anchor becomes your unstoppable trigger—like a fuse that lights the new habit.
Lily’s New Anchors:
Morning Anchor: She ties 2 minutes of gratitude journaling to her daily coffee.
Work Anchor: Every time she ends a project call, she does 5 deep breaths before diving back into tasks.
She uses Forget to keep these mini-habits visible, plugging each into the “Today” section so they appear next to her primary tasks. That simple layering ensures she doesn’t overshadow her real anchor with unrelated to-dos.
The Snowball Effect: Habit Stacking Your Way to Big Results
A single micro-habit might feel trivial, but the magic lies in compound growth. One tiny routine, repeated daily, can unlock motivation for the next. Over months, you suddenly realize you’re doing four or five daily positive behaviors—without that trademark ADHD struggle to remember them.
Little Wins Fuel Big Dreams
Confidence grows: Each time you complete a stacked habit, you prove to your ADHD mind that consistency is possible.
You see patterns: Maybe you realize you’re more likely to do your new habit if you do it right after a certain trigger.
You refine: Once a habit is locked in, you can adjust it—stretch from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, or expand from 1 journaling line to a paragraph.
For Lily, the bedtime routine was just the start. A couple of months later, she found herself feeling more in control across her day. The nightly success bled into better morning focus, which shaped her confidence at work, and so on.
Avoiding Common Stacking Traps
Don’t Overload
Excited about a new approach, many ADHDers stack five new habits onto a single anchor. The result? Burnout. Start with one micro-habit. Add more only after it’s second nature.
Wrong Anchor
If you anchor a new habit to something that’s inconsistent, you won’t have a reliable cue. For example, if you only cook breakfast once a week, hooking a daily habit to that anchor will fail.
No Tracking
If you never log your daily wins, you risk ADHD time-slips where weeks pass and you forget how often you actually did the habit. That’s a recipe for discouragement—track it, even if briefly.
Workaround: Rely on an automated or near-automated system, like Forget, to ping you and record completions so you don’t lose track.
Real-Life Applications: Quick Examples
Home Office: Pair your morning login (anchor) with a 2-minute “desk declutter.” Over time, a tidy environment helps you stay calmer, especially if you’re combining with tips from Remote Work & ADHD: Setting Up a Distraction-Free Workspace.
Fitness Start: Right after walking in your front door post-work, do 5 squats. The anchor is “arriving home,” the micro-habit is a short burst of exercise. No need to muster big gym energy.
Emotional Check-Ins: Every time you close your laptop for lunch, do a quick mood check. That anchor makes emotional self-awareness part of your routine, boosting overall mental health.
Bringing It Together: An Invitation to Start Small
If Lily’s story resonates, consider how you might replicate her success:
Identify one reliable anchor: Brushing teeth? Booting up your computer each morning?
Attach a small, single new habit—something so easy you can’t help but do it.
Log it for visible proof of your progress. Try Forget to manage daily tasks, set repeat reminders, and keep them top-of-mind.
Once it feels natural, add another micro-habit or scale it slightly larger.
The beauty is in the incremental approach. ADHD brains love novelty, but they also crave routine. By using anchors from your existing life, you turn daily activities into unstoppable triggers for positive change.
Final Word: Build Consistency with Tiny, Intentional Steps
Habit stacking isn’t flashy. There’s no immediate fireworks display the moment you do a 30-second stretch at night. But that humble act, repeated often, builds a foundation of self-trust—something ADHD folks often struggle to maintain.
Soon, you’ll realize it’s not so hard to add a second or third micro-habit. And as you see your streaks grow—especially with an app that keeps track for you—motivation snowballs. Each small routine becomes a stepping stone for the next, guiding you toward big goals and a life less dictated by forgetfulness or inconsistency.
So if you’re tired of well-intentioned habits dissolving after a week, anchor them to routines you already do on autopilot. Track them with a system that understands ADHD needs, like Forget. Before you know it, those “tiny” habits will become second nature—and your sense of accomplishment will stretch far beyond 30 seconds a night.