Most of us can relate to the struggle of not knowing what to make for dinner while staring down a fridge full of mismatched ingredients.
For people with ADHD, meal planning can be even more difficult. Trips to the grocery store can get lost in our hectic and busy lives, and time to cook can be easily forgotten.
One Tiktoker, however, found a secret to solving this problem for good. Chelsea (@parttimewellness) showed off her freshly devised method of utilizing the workspace app Notion to not just plan for a week's worth of groceries but an entire month's.
@parttimewellness executive function clearly on 💯 this week lololol #adhdhack #notion #mealplan #taskbatching #adhdtips #adhdinwomen ♬ original sound - Chelsea - Wellness ADHD Coach
How did she do it?
Chelsea created a table within Notion that structured the meals she was responsible for preparing that week (with half of the days' responsibility belonging to her husband).
After determining the days she would be cooking, she filled the table with various recipes she's stashed in a dinner database she's been expanding for some time. Within the database are meals pulled from all over the internet from TikTok to Pinterest.
"I made sure to link them so I don't lose them," Chelsea says in her video.
After deciding what the meals would be for the week (and for the rest of the month), she created a grocery list template (still within the Notion app), filled with all of the ingredients necessary to prepare the approximately 39 breakfasts, snacks, and dinners she'd need to make.
"I love batching tasks," Chelsea adds, referring to the technique of reducing decision fatigue by performing several similar tasks during one time period. Her enthusiasm for batching tasks is genuine, given she introduces the video by saying, "I just ADHD hacked the Hell out of my life!"
Why such a focus on meal-prepping?
Perhaps it comes as no surprise, but without proper meal planning, food waste is inevitable. Not only is sending once perfectly good produce into the trash bad for your wallet, but it also represents a needless drain on resources required to create those foods.
On top of all that, food that ends up in landfills releases greenhouse gases as it decomposes, which exacerbates the problem of a warming planet.
What are people saying?
The top comment on the original TikTok reads, "This is genius! I'm a new food content creator and I often find myself overwhelmed. This is going to help me tremendously. Tysm! 💗💜💕"
Another commenter writes, "This is very impressive. Are you by chance a project manager? Lol."
Luckily, with the proliferation of note-taking and planning applications, you don't need to be a project manager to effectively and efficiently stock your fridge.
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