Guidance for: Something changed and I can't reset

Rebuild the picture before you rebuild the plan

You had a version of today loaded, and something overwrote it. The distress isn't about the new plan being worse — the old one is still running, and there's nothing to replace it with yet. Until a new picture exists, everything costs more than it should.

Then, if you have room for it

• Get the new shape written down somewhere you can see it. A picture you can look at beats one you're holding.
• Name the specific thing you lost. "I was going to have two quiet hours" is workable; a vague sense of wrongness isn't.
• See whether any of it can be recovered later. Often the thing itself is fine, just moved.
• Expect the cost to be real. Rebuilding the day takes energy you had budgeted for something else.

Watch

Read

• Order, predictability and routineNational Autistic SocietyWhy an unplanned change costs so much, and what makes one easier to absorb.(opens in a new tab)
• Monotropism, from the people who named itMonotropism.orgAttention as a single deep channel. Explains hyperfocus and hating interruptions as one thing.(opens in a new tab)