ready time

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You've been awake for 30 minutes. You're still in bed.

The alarm went off. You're not asleep. But you're not up either. You're in the scroll zone: checking notifications, reading articles, watching one video. It feels like 5 minutes, and then you look up and 40 have passed. You're awake. You're just not vertical yet. A backward plan closes that gap.

Stimulation before movement

Your phone is the first thing you reach for because your brain wants stimulation before it wants movement. One notification becomes ten minutes of scrolling. Then you check the weather. Then email. Each micro-task feels productive, but none of them get you out of bed. The morning doesn't start until you stand up, and nothing is nudging you to stand up.

The plan in Ready Time

  1. Set the deadline. That's the time you need to be ready.
  2. Add your steps and how long each one really takes.
  3. Ready Time works backward and gives every step a start time.
Get Out of Bed
2 min Sit up & feet on floor 6:40 AM
3 min Bathroom 6:42 AM
3 min Drink a glass of water 6:45 AM
5 min Stretch or walk around 6:48 AM
7 min Get dressed 6:53 AM
Get Out of Bed 7:00 AM

Make the first move automatic

Ready Time sends a notification for your very first action: sit up and put your feet on the floor. Then: bathroom. Then: water. Each step is so small it barely feels like effort, but the sequence builds momentum. By the time you're drinking water in the kitchen, you're up, and the scroll trap is behind you.

Getting out of bed if you have ADHD

Awake at 7:20, still horizontal, phone in hand. A plan helps here because the first step can be small enough to do lying down: sit up, feet on the floor. Every step after that has a start time attached, so the decision doesn't have to be made again at each one. There is a circadian piece as well: roughly 73 to 78% of people with ADHD run a delayed sleep-wake cycle, with the biological markers shifted about 90 minutes later. A start-time notification doesn't change any of that. It handles the part after you're awake.

How to get out of bed when you don't want to?

Make the first move smaller than "get up and start your day." Sit up, feet on the floor, then bathroom, then water, each with its own start time. Phone scrolling counts as staying in bed; put stimulation after you're vertical, rather than before.

Why can't I get out of bed when my alarm goes off?

Often you're awake enough to negotiate and not awake enough to move. The alarm ends; the plan should continue with a next step that doesn't need motivation. A 15 to 20 minute get-up sequence beats one big leap that you keep snoozing past.

Ready Time 6:40 AM
Sit up & feet on floor. Out of bed in 20m
Ready Time 6:45 AM
Drink a glass of water. Out of bed in 15m
Ready Time 6:53 AM
Get dressed. Out of bed in 7m

Alerts when it's time to start

Get a nudge at the right moment, while there's still time to act.

Each step gets its own alert, so you know what's next and how long you have.

“I have ADHD and have difficulty estimating time myself, a real issue for me.”
Ready Time user, 2021
Ready Time app icon

Ready Time

You know what you need to do. Ready Time helps you know when to start.

Keep planning

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