How to Do the Future Vision Exercise for ADHD, Step by Step

Between reading a method and saying “that makes sense” and being able to use it at eleven thirty on a Tuesday night, there is always a big distance for me. This article is meant to close that distance.

What vividly imagining the future is, and why it is a candidate worth trying in ADHD, I described in the article on vividly imagining the future. Here I will look only at how it is done. I took the steps from the method used in research, and then added small adaptations where I know my own mind gets stuck.

A note of honesty at the start: the studies showing that this exercise changes the value given to a distant reward were done with the general population, with people who have weight problems, and with addiction groups. In ADHD the value of a distant reward drops faster (Jackson and MacKillop, 2016), but the effect of the exercise on that drop has not yet been tested in an ADHD sample. So read what follows not like a recipe but like a plan for an experiment.

The two parts of the exercise

The setup in the research has two stages, and I think this separation is half of the work.

Preparation. In a calm moment, with no pressure of a decision, a few future scenes are written. In one study participants listed possible positive events for times matching the waiting times in the choice task (from one day to two years), rated how vivid each one was, and their descriptions were audio-recorded (Daniel et al., 2013).

Use. Then, while making choices, these recordings were brought in front of them as cues. That is, they did not have to build the scene from scratch at the moment of decision; they called up the scene that was waiting ready.

For ADHD this is very important. The moment of decision is the moment the impulse is strongest. Asking my mind at that moment to “build a nice future scene now” means asking for the hardest job at my most tired moment. The preparation part carries the job to a calm moment.

Step 1: Choose the time points

Five time points are enough: tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, three months from now, a year from now.

Why more than one? Because both the cost and the reward of the decisions you make stand at different distances. The cost of going to bed late is tomorrow morning, the cost of a purchase is at the end of the month, the cost of dropping a thesis is perhaps a year from now. If you have a ready scene for each distance, whichever decision you meet, you have something to take in hand.

I suggest you do not start from distant points like five years or ten years. Distant scenes are the hardest to build and the ones that already stand blurriest in ADHD.

Step 2: Put a positive and realistic event at each point

There are two words here and both matter.

Positive. In the meta-analysis, the effect was markedly larger when positive scenes were imagined; with neutral or negative scenes almost no effect was seen (Ye et al., 2022). The urge to write a “what happens if I don't” scene is natural, but it is not part of this exercise.

Realistic. Something that could really happen, even, if possible, something already sitting in your calendar. A meeting planned with a friend, a holiday, the day after a delivery. Not an imaginary award ceremony or a city you will never go to.

The event does not have to be big. What was asked for in the research was not big turning points; it was possible, positive, personal events. Small moments feel more real to me too: a morning, a kitchen, a quiet evening.

Step 3: Write the scene in detail

For each event, answer these five questions. Short sentences are enough.

1. Where? A room, a street, a desk. As specific as possible.
2. What time is it? Morning, noon, what is the weather?
3. Who are you with? Are you alone, is someone beside you?
4. How is your body? Rested, comfortable, where are your shoulders?
5. What do you see, hear, smell? At least two senses.

Write in the present tense: “I am sitting, it smells of coffee.” A scene written in the past or future tense always reads to me like a report; the present tense turns it into a moment.

Tell it instead of writing it. If writing feels heavy, tell the scene aloud to your phone. In some studies too, the scenes were audio-recorded and played at the moment of decision. Listening to your own voice at the moment of decision can be easier than reading a text.

Step 4: Tie the scene to your goal

In the standard method the scenes do not have to be related to the goal; any nice future moment works. But in a study with 104 young adults, goal-related future scenes had a stronger effect than general scenes (O'Donnell et al., 2017).

In practice this means: if the hardest area for you right now is sleep, let your scene for one week from now be a rested morning. If it is saving, let your scene for one month from now be a moment when you look at your account and breathe easy.

The only thing to watch is that the scene does not turn into a display of success. A scene like “the Sunday after the delivery, I woke up late, there is nothing to do” feels more real to me than “I have finished my thesis, everybody is applauding me.”

Step 5: Rate the vividness

Rate each scene from 1 to 5: how vivid is it in your head? Researchers also ask participants for similar ratings (Daniel et al., 2013).

If the rating is under 3, there are two options: add one more sense, or change the event. Some events do not come to life however much detail you add; leaving them is faster than forcing them.

Step 6: Link the scenes into a story

This step is optional but worth trying. In a study with 160 adults selected from among people who strongly discount the future, some of the participants set a goal five years away and wrote the scenes at the in-between times like a coherent story leading to that goal. This group discounted the future less than the group that wrote the scenes independently of one another (Epstein et al., 2021).

In practice: put your five scenes side by side and write a paragraph by adding the word “then” between them. A short story stretching from tomorrow to a year.

Step 7: Turn it into a cue and place it at the moment of decision

When the preparation is over you have five scenes. Now turn each one into something that can be called up at the moment of decision:

• A one-sentence summary: “A week from now, Saturday morning, I am rested.”
• A thirty-second audio recording.
• A small card sitting on your phone's lock screen or in your wallet.

Then tie the cue to the moment of decision. The cleanest way to do this is an if-then sentence: “If it is after midnight and I am about to open a new video, then first I listen to tomorrow morning's recording.” You can find how to build these sentences in the article on how to build an if-then plan; its glossary name is implementation intention.

Example: a five-line scene list

Say the area you struggle with most is going to bed late and the scattered days that follow. At the end of the preparation session you might have a list like this:

• Tomorrow: Eight o'clock, the alarm is ringing, my eyes do not burn, the curtain is ajar, tea is brewing.
• A week from now: Saturday noon, I am walking to meet a friend, I am not in a hurry.
• A month from now: End of the month, I have sent a job before its date, my desk is empty in the evening.
• Three months from now: Early winter, I am reading a book after dinner, the phone is in another room.
• A year from now: Getting up in the mornings is not as hard as it used to be; on a weekday morning I go out for a walk.

Each line contains a place, a time and at least one sense. None of them is a big event. The cue you listen to at the moment of decision can be only the first line, because the cost of the decision you make at midnight is paid mostly tomorrow morning.

To remember an intention: process or outcome

The only area in which the exercise has been tested in adults with ADHD is remembering something you will do when the time comes, that is, prospective memory. The use here is a little different: you are imagining not the distant reward but the moment you will do the task.

In a recent study with 196 adults, 98 of them with ADHD, participants recorded their daily intentions in one of three ways: in the usual way, by picturing themselves doing the task (process), or by picturing the moment the task is finished (outcome). Picturing was associated with more intentions being carried out in both groups. The strongest effect came in outcome-focused picturing; process-focused picturing gave a medium-level benefit only in adults with ADHD (Stelz et al., 2026).

The practical counterpart: when forming the intention “tomorrow I'll call the bank,” picturing for a few seconds both the moment you hold the phone in your hand and the moment you hang up and cross that item off the list.

Adaptations for ADHD

Keep it short. Let the preparation not pass twenty minutes in one session. For me, building a system can be more attractive than using it; lengthening the preparation is the easiest way to fall into this trap.

Refresh it. The same scene can lose its effect after a few weeks; its glossary name is fading of novelty. Plan from the start to change one of the scenes once a month.

Start with few. If even five scenes feel like too much, start with a single scene, for the decision you struggle with most.

Do not confuse it with daydreaming. At the moment of decision the scene should last thirty seconds. If it turns into a fifteen-minute daydream, the exercise has become another way of escaping.

Common mistakes

• Trying to build the scene from scratch at the moment of decision.
• Trying to frighten yourself with a negative scene.
• General sentences without senses, like “I will be happy.”
• Writing scenes only for the distant future and leaving tomorrow empty.
• Dropping the method altogether when you do not see its effect in the first week. In the studies too, the effect did not come out the same size in everyone.

How much the effect carries over into real behavior over weeks is a separate question; I took it up in the article on future vision in money, health and work.

Who it may not suit

The exercise assumes being able to build a good scene about the future. If you have felt low for a long time or the future looks empty to you, trying to write scenes can hurt instead of helping. In someone who experiences anxiety, the imagining can easily turn into a rehearsal of “what if it doesn't happen.” In such a period, dropping the exercise and talking to a specialist is a more right step. Diagnosis and treatment decisions are the doctor's job.

If you have thoughts of harming yourself, please do not stay alone: in an emergency you can call 112, and for psychosocial support you can reach ALO 183.

My plan for trying it

The path that seems most sensible to me is to set this up as a small experiment. Choose one decision area, write five scenes, listen to the cue at the moment of decision for two weeks, and at the end jot down a short note: what changed, what did not.

Until the evidence reaches ADHD samples, this small note is the most honest measure I have.