Am I Planning or Am I Ruminating?

Jun 3

If you live with both OCD, and challenges with planning or executive functioning, you probably know this moment well: you sit down to make a plan—maybe for your day, your week, or a specific task—and ten minutes later you’re knee-deep in what-ifs, worst-case scenarios, and the growing feeling that everything might fall apart if you don’t get this plan just right.

You started out trying to get organized… but somehow, you ended up spiraling.

So what happened?

Everyone’s situation and set of beliefs are different, but what I tend to see happening is this: as you project your plan onto the future, a difficult thought about the future arises, doubt creeps in, and you end up in an engrossing story about what could potentially go wrong. This is likelier to happen to ADHDers because attention tends to be captured by interest, novelty and emergency, rather than values and priorities. Believe it or not, as distressing as it can feel, a horror story about your future is more interesting (and it is certainly more urgent) than your 4-step plan. It takes a big mental lift to pivot attention to priorities when it wants to wander away to the louder, more intense experience.

In general, OCD tends to have one main function: to protect from difficult or intense feelings by diverting into thoughts and the imagination. Feelings that tend to trigger OCD when you have ADHD? More often than not, they are rejection, overwhelm, and frustration. These are particularly difficult feelings to tolerate when you move a little differently in the world (and are constantly called out for it) and some of the most likely feelings to gather the attention and interference of OCD.

The trap when you have both ADHD and OCD

When ADHD and OCD show up together, you might see a particular interplay between them.

ADHD involves executive functioning challenges, meaning it is hard to get started, direct mental effort to places that don’t hold natural interest, and prioritize. I tend to see OCD enter the scene right about when the person with ADHD’s demands start to dramatically exceed the capacity of their executive functioning.

We can picture OCD as an annoying B list superhero flying in with some funky solutions. It is right that this is a bad situation and some help is needed, but the help is not super competent. Instead of prioritizing, OCD will help you come up with rigid rules, thinking sequences, and disaster scenarios + hacks that will have you feeling at first like you are Doing Something Important to avoid danger. That’s what really matters, right?

Unfortunately, OCD ends up diverting a ton of mental bandwidth, while leaving all of the problems leading to overwhelm unsolved. Now we don’t have a plan AND we are hypervigilant, scared, and doing compulsions all the time. Thanks, but no thanks, OCD.

OCD will tell you that what you need to do is more compulsions, more thinking, more getting ahead of all possible danger. That will only dig the hole deeper.

If you find yourself in this situation, you are not alone. It is a situation where anyone would need some support. You can think about the following scaffolds to help you get to a manageable place

Executive functioning support - like coaching, assistants for managing tasks, aps to help you get organized

Emotional regulation support - like therapy, somatic self-care, yoga, time in nature

Burnout support - like removing demands, communicating your needs to others, resting

OCD support - help understanding your OCD cycles and reducing compulsions, evidence based therapy

Planning vs. Rumination: Why They Get Confused

One way that anyone can start to assist themselves with regulating the OCD-ADHD combo is to start distinguishing between planning and ruminating. You DO need a plan, and you DO NOT need to ruminate. On the surface, planning and ruminating can look similar. Both involve thinking about the future, going over details, and trying to make good decisions.

But underneath, they’re very different processes:

Planning focused on action steps; Ends with a decision or schedule; May include brief anxiety but moves forward; Helps you get something done

Rumination Focused on preventing disaster or achieving certainty; Never feels “done” - just leads to more questions; Is driven by anxiety and keeps circling back; Leaves you emotionally drained and frozen

The key difference is the impact of the thinking—and whether it’s helping you move forward or keeping you stuck.

Signs You Might Be Ruminating Instead of Planning

Here are a few red flags that your plan might have quietly turned into rumination:

You’re stuck revisiting the same ideas or steps without adding anything new.
You’re overly focused on “what if this doesn’t work?” instead of “what’s my next step?”
You can’t move forward until you feel 100% certain (which never really comes).
You find yourself mentally reviewing mistakes or rehearsing outcomes endlessly.
You finish your “planning session” feeling more anxious than when you started.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not doing anything wrong—it just means your planning process needs a bit more structure and support.

How to Get Back to your plan: 6 steps

These strategies can help you stay anchored in helpful planning and gently shift out of rumination when it sneaks in:

1. Ask - am I regulated? Do I have what usually helps me do a focused task like planning?

If not - do a quick activity to bring you back to baseline. That might involve moving your body, deep breathing, or a few minutes with a source of joy and interest.

2. Start with your actual needs—not your fears.
Instead of asking, “How do I prevent everything from going wrong?” try:
→ “What do I need to figure out right now in order to move forward?”

Focus your plan on next steps, not possible disasters.

3. Use time-boxed planning.
Set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Your only job is to make a rough draft plan and write it down. When the timer goes off, stop—even if it’s imperfect—and start taking action.

This helps your brain practice moving from thinking to doing.

4. Make space for imperfection.
You can always revise the plan later. For now, remind yourself:
→ “I don’t need a perfect plan. I just need a good-enough place to start.”

5. Label rumination when it shows up.
It’s okay to notice and name it:
→ “This doesn’t feel like planning anymore. I’m trying to feel certain—and that’s a trap.”

Naming it gives you the power to pause and shift gears.

6. Externalize your plan.
Write it out. Say it aloud. Use a visual planner. The more you get your thoughts out of your head, the easier it is to spot when you’re going in circles.

Final Thoughts: You’re Navigating a Complex Brain and deserve patience and grace

If your brain tends to over-plan, over-check, or overthink, it’s not because you’re flawed—it’s because your brain is wired to seek both stimulation (hello ADHD) and certainty (hello OCD). That’s a tough combo, but it also means you’ve probably developed some incredible creative and detail-oriented thinking skills.

The challenge is learning how to channel those skills into helpful planning instead of anxiety spirals—and that takes practice, compassion, and support.

You don’t have to figure it all out alone.

Looking for more support?
I help neurodivergent folks (especially those with ADHD and OCD) build flexible, realistic planning systems that work with your brain, not against it. Learn more about how we can work together at www.justrighttherapy.com.