How to Build an If-Then Plan: Step by Step

When I built my first if-then plans, they all went more or less like this: "If I have time, then I will write." "If I feel like it, then I will go for a walk."

On paper they were in the right form. But none of them worked, and I understood why only afterwards: "if I have time" is never a moment that arrives. It is a possibility that always stands a little further ahead.

I described what the method is and why it draws interest in ADHD in the article on if-then plans. This article is the kitchen of the job: how you build the plan, which words you choose, where you stumble.

Step 1: Is the goal really yours

The plan's strength comes from the wish behind it. In one study, if-then plans worked only in people who were really committed to the goal; in those whose goal intention was weak, the plan made no difference (Sheeran et al., 2005).

At first this felt like a disappointment to me. Then it was a relief. Because the common point of some tasks that did not budge even though I had built a plan was this: I did not want them, I thought "I ought to do them."

The question you can ask yourself is this: If this got done, what concretely would change in my life? If the answer comes clearly, continue. If the answer is "everyone does it" or "if I don't, I'll be a bad person," you may first need to look at the goal itself.

Step 2: Choose a single goal

The excitement of finding a new method in ADHD is familiar. It is very easy to write ten plans on the first day.

In a study on snacking habits, participants who made a single plan were able to change their behavior; this effect was not seen in those who made multiple plans for several different situations that trigger snacking. According to the researchers the problem arose at the implementation stage: the plans got mixed up with one another in the moment (Verhoeven et al., 2013). This study was done with the general population, not tested in ADHD. But for someone whose working memory is already full, I find it worth taking this finding seriously.

One plan to begin with. If it holds in the first week, you add the second.

Step 3: Choose the trigger

The "if" half of the plan is more than half the job. A good trigger has four features:

It comes every day. "If I get bored" is a moment whose arrival is uncertain. "If I walk in and put down my keys" comes every day.

It can be seen or heard from outside. Internal states can also be triggers, but at the beginning external moments are easier to catch: a door, a sound, a cup, an alarm.

It is specific. "In the afternoon" is a range. "When I get up from lunch" is a moment. In a field experiment showing the power of date and time, a company's employees were sent a reminder letter for a free flu shot. One group was only asked to write down the date on which they planned to get vaccinated; the vaccination rate of this group did not rise significantly compared with the control. In those who wrote the date and the time together, the rate rose by 4.2 points (Milkman et al., 2011). The only difference was a piece of information about the hour.

It is attached to something you already do. Making coffee, brushing your teeth, turning on the computer. These happen every day without needing you to remember. Putting the plan behind them is the same logic as the habit stacking I described in the article on building habits.

To find the trigger, for a week you can look at this: at exactly which moment does the task you stumble on stumble? If you cannot start the report, do you scatter when you sit down at the desk, or do you never sit at the desk at all? The two call for different triggers.

Step 4: Choose the action

The "then" half of the plan has to be small, physical and a single movement.

"Then I will write the report" is a project. "Then I will open the report file and read the title" is a movement. Shrinking the action matches the whole logic of starting in ADHD; in the articles on the two-minute rule and on task paralysis I came to the same idea from different places.

When choosing the action I ask this question: Could I do this on a tired, unwilling and somewhat scattered day? If yes, the plan is ready. If no, the action is still big.

Step 5: "I will do this" instead of "I will not"

When building a plan for a behavior you want to give up, the most natural sentence is a negative one: "If I feel like snacking, then I will not eat chips."

In a series of studies, an ironic effect of such negative plans was seen: the behavior that was meant to be given up got stronger instead of weaker. This happened especially when the habit was strong. Plans that put a new behavior in place of the negative sentence did not have this problem (Adriaanse et al., 2011).

So instead of "I will not eat chips," "then I will take an apple" or "then I will drink a glass of water." Instead of "I will not look at my phone," "then I will put the phone in the drawer."

This finding comes from the general population too. In an experiment with children with ADHD, a negative plan such as "I will not press the button" had worked; but there was no old habit to break there, there was a new computer task. For settled habits in daily life I find the substitution sentence safer.

Step 6: See the obstacles in advance: WOOP

The psychologist Gabriele Oettingen combined the if-then plan with a thinking exercise. In research it is called mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII), and in everyday language WOOP. The four letters describe four steps:

1. Wish. An achievable but meaningful wish for the coming week. "Getting the methods section of the thesis into draft form."
2. Outcome. What would be the best thing if it happened? Really imagine this for a minute or two. "On Sunday evening that section would not be spinning in my head."
3. Obstacle. The thing that will stop you, especially the obstacle inside you. Not the outside conditions, your own reaction. "When I sit down at the desk I say 'let me look at one thing' and read sources for hours."
4. Plan. An if-then sentence for that obstacle. "If the urge to look at a source comes, then I will note it down on the side and go back to the draft."

The order matters. In Oettingen's approach, first imagining the good outcome and then looking at the obstacle is the way to weigh how reachable the goal is.

A meta-analysis combining twenty-one studies found that this method increased goal attainment at a small-to-medium level (g = 0.34). Applications done with another person gave a stronger result than those done with only a written document. The authors also note that because of publication bias the real effect may be somewhat smaller (Wang et al., 2021).

On the ADHD side there is one study: sixth and seventh graders were taught this method. After two weeks, according to parents' ratings, compared with a training on learning styles given as a comparison, self-regulation was better both in students at risk for ADHD and in those not at risk; the benefit was especially marked in those at risk (Gawrilow et al., 2013). In this study the children did not have a diagnosis; there was risk screening. I could not find a similar study in adults.

A one-card plan. On the front of a card write your wish and your obstacle, on the back your if-then sentence. Put the card where the trigger is: on the desk, on the inside of the door, on the kitchen counter. In the glossary we call this an intention card. Seeing the plan is far more reliable than remembering it.

Step 7: Write it, say it, place it

In research, participants usually write the plan or repeat it several times. In experiments with children with ADHD, the children repeated the sentence to themselves three times.

The order I have found worth trying is this: write the plan, say it aloud once, put it near the trigger. Somewhere your eye will see it, not buried in a note on the phone.

Let me give an example that brings all the steps together. I make the meals at home, and the moment I walk into the kitchen in the evening is the moment when all the tiredness of the day piles up and turns into the question "what will I cook today." Wish: to get through weekday evenings without decision fatigue. Obstacle: reaching for the phone while thinking about what to do when I enter the kitchen. The plan can be built like this: "If I turn on the kitchen light, then I will choose the first meal from the weekly list I hung on the fridge." The trigger comes every evening, the action is a single movement. The only precondition is that the list was written in a calm moment at the start of the week.

Building it together with someone

There is a detail in the meta-analysis that I think should not be overlooked: when the method was applied by talking with a person, it gave a stronger result than when applied only on paper.

We do not know the reason. But in ADHD, structure that comes from outside often stands more firmly than structure built from inside. Saying to a friend, a coach or your therapist "this week I have this plan, my trigger is this" both makes the plan clearer and carries it from inside your head to the outside. The person in front of you can also help with a question: "Does that moment really come every day?" Asking yourself this question is much harder than hearing it from someone else.

Common mistakes

Tying the trigger to a feeling. "If I feel motivated" is never a reliable moment.

Confusing the action with the goal. "Then I will be more organized" does not count as an action.

Leaving the plan to remembering. In ADHD "I'll keep it in mind" is the weakest link. The plan should stay in a visible place.

Blaming yourself when the plan does not hold. If the plan did not work, you have obtained data. Either the trigger did not come, or it was not noticed, or the action stayed big. Finding out which is more valuable than building a new plan.

Making a plan for a task you avoid. If even looking at a task hurts, the plan is often not enough. I made that distinction in another article; as I said there too, in such tasks taking a person alongside does more work.

After a week

Review the plan after a week. Three questions are enough: did the trigger come, did you notice it, did you do the action? According to the answer, change only one part.

When a plan becomes automatic, I do not know; there is no study that gives a duration for this in ADHD. Some plans became invisible to me within a few weeks. For some the card is still on the desk months later. Both happen.

I collected concrete examples of building plans under the headings of work, school, home and relationships in the article on if-then plans in daily life.