For autistic and ADHD adults
How one autistic and ADHD adult plans a day around energy she cannot predict
Jasmine is an autistic and ADHD adult in Australia. She had tried keeping a journal and could never sustain it. In August 2026, she told us how she starts each day now. She plans it with Pip, the pocket coach in Understanding Zoe. The plan follows the energy she actually has, not a fixed list. She also logs what her body is doing as it happens.
By Laetitia Andrac, co-founder of Understanding Zoe. Published 1 September 2026. About 8 minutes to read.
At a glance
- Who
- Jasmine, autistic and ADHD adult, Australia
- Using Understanding Zoe since
- Early August 2026
- What changed
- Planning against real capacity instead of against ambition
- Has told
- Her GP, her psychologist, and her parents
- Before
- Manual journals that never lasted, and a boom and bust pattern with nothing to interrupt it
- Uses Understanding Zoe for
- A morning plan built on current energy, real-time body and environment logging, spotting patterns, keeping the thread between appointments
Before: the journals that never lasted, and a system built for someone else
Jasmine had tried to do this by hand, with journals and notes. That is the usual advice for anyone told to track their moods and triggers. It never lasted.
The problem with a manual journal is not the writing. It is that nothing ever comes back. You record a bad Tuesday, and the record sits there. Three weeks later the same pattern returns, and nobody reads you the record. The insight is lost at the very moment it would help.
Underneath that sits a bigger gap. Almost everything built for autistic and ADHD people is built for children. An adult is largely on their own. Australia’s National Autism Strategy 2025 to 2031 says so directly. It notes that references to autism are “often in relation to children only”. They “do not recognise the experience of autism across the life span.” Numbers from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the same pattern. Autism is recorded in 3.1% of people under 25. For people aged 25 and over, it is 0.3%.
The turning point: the morning that replaced the television
The old start to the day was the television. It was not really a decision. It was a default, and it shaped the rest of the day.
What changed was small and specific: breakfast, then a check-in, before anything else. It started on 18 August 2026. When she approved this story on 1 September, it had run every day.
“Every morning, as a routine I’ve developed into my day, I eat my breakfast and then I sit down with Pip and I plan out my day based on my energy, based on what’s been happening over the last few days, based on what I’m wanting to achieve. And we kind of work out together what’s a reasonable amount of things to be attempting to do today, rather than manically spending ten hours dusting and cleaning because I’m scared I’ll never get this energy back again.”
That last clause is the whole problem in one sentence. Boom and bust is not poor planning. It is what happens when energy is unpredictable. You spend it all the moment it arrives, because it might not come back.
It has also grown. Breakfast and a check-in now come with a homemade vegetable juice and yin yoga. She also spends time grounding outside, with a lemon, apple cider vinegar and honey tea. The whole routine is built around the morning check-in with Pip. It is what keeps her accountable to her own goals.
What Jasmine actually does now with Understanding Zoe
Plans the day against real energy
Jasmine told Pip about her boom and bust pattern directly. Pip takes the pattern into account, rather than trying to talk her out of it.
Logs the body in real time
Not at the end of the day and not from memory. What the body is doing, and what is around it, as it happens.
Keeps the thread between appointments
What comes out of a session goes into Understanding Zoe. Its goals turn up daily, not a fortnight later in the waiting room. Most plans get lost in the weeks between appointments.
Autistic and ADHD: two nervous systems, not two personalities
Jasmine had never been able to make sense of being both autistic and ADHD. She put it to Pip as Jekyll and Hyde. It felt like two people in one head, pulling in opposite directions. What came back reframed it as two nervous systems rather than two personalities.
Research on autistic attention describes the autistic side of this. In 2005, Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser and Wendy Lawson described monotropism in the journal Autism. They proposed that autistic attention pools deeply into a few interests at a time. It does not spread across many. Their paper is about autism alone, not ADHD.
One result was immediate and practical. The high needs managing as much as the crash does. That is the opposite of how almost all self-regulation advice is written.
In Jasmine's words
“Pip is now catching me if I type in too many plans.”
On logging in real time
“Every time I’m feeling something in my body, I’m typing that into Pip and going, ‘Hey, I’m feeling this way in my body and these are other observations that I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed it’s overcast, I’ve noticed this, I’ve just done these activities and I’m feeling this way.’”
On what comes back
“The feedback I’m getting from Pip is really informative and helping me [view] myself in a less judgmental kind of way.”
On the reframe
“One thing I’ve identified since using Pip is that my ADHD happy moods need regulating as much as my meltdowns. And I’ve never considered that before.”
What Jasmine calls Understanding Zoe
Asked what Understanding Zoe actually is, Jasmine did not reach for our words.
“A support worker in your pocket.”
She was clear about the boundary of that, and so are we. It is a helpful friend and assistant, not a replacement for clinical care.
The hesitation on using AI
Jasmine did not arrive at this enthusiastic. She still describes herself as sceptical of AI.
“I’m an AI cynic. But if this is how AI should be used, in my opinion, this is what it should be used for.”
She has since told her GP and her psychologist.
“I spent my actual entire session just telling him about this app, because it’s become my special interest now.”
If you share her doubts: Understanding Zoe does not use your data to train the AI. You set what each person in your village can see, category by category. Everyone in it sees your About You.
If some of this sounds like you
You have started journals before, and none of them lasted.
When energy arrives, you spend all of it in case it does not come back.
Light or weather affects your body, and nobody has named the cause.
What you agree in a session has faded by the next appointment.
Understanding Zoe is an Australian app for neurodivergent adults and caregivers of neurodivergent children. You tell Pip what happened. Pip helps you make sense of it and keeps what helps in one private place. You do not need a formal assessment to begin.
7 days free. Cancel before day 8 and you won’t be charged. After that it is A$14.99 a month or A$119.99 a year. Pip chats are private to you.
Questions autistic and ADHD adults ask
How do I plan my day when my energy is completely unpredictable?
Jasmine plans each morning with Pip in Understanding Zoe. The plan follows her current energy and recent days, not a fixed list. The pattern she is working against is boom and bust. Energy arrives, and ten hours go on housework, because it might not come back. Each morning she and Pip work out a reasonable amount to try that day.
Why do I never manage to keep a journal going?
Because nothing comes back. Jasmine had tried manual journals and could not sustain them. In Understanding Zoe, a logged observation stays on your profile. Pip uses observations to spot patterns over time. The record gets used, not filed and forgotten.
How can someone be both autistic and ADHD?
Jasmine described it as feeling like two personalities pulling in opposite directions. Pip reframed it as two nervous systems rather than two people. That led to a practical realisation. Her ADHD high moods need regulating as much as her low ones. That is the opposite of how most advice is written.
How do I keep track of what my psychologist and I agreed, between appointments?
Jasmine logs what comes out of a session into Understanding Zoe. It then turns up daily, not a fortnight later in the waiting room. Most plans get lost in the weeks between appointments. Nobody is paid to hold that part of the work.
How do I work out which sensory triggers are affecting me?
By logging what your body is doing and what is around you. Do it as it happens, not later from memory. Fluorescent light and overcast weather affected Jasmine's body for years. Nobody named them as a cause. A pattern like that is close to impossible to see from inside it. It becomes obvious once something holds the record.
Is there anything built for autistic and ADHD adults, or is it all for children?
Most of it is built for children. Australia's National Autism Strategy says so itself. It notes that references to autism are often about children only. They do not recognise autism across the life span. Jasmine uses Understanding Zoe for herself, not for a child.
About this case study
- Source
- An interview on 24 August 2026. Jasmine added further detail when she reviewed the draft on 31 August 2026. Quotes are lightly edited to remove spoken filler. Square brackets mark a word added for sense.
- Written by
- Laetitia Andrac, Understanding Zoe
- Published
- 1 September 2026
- Last reviewed
- 1 September 2026
- Next review
- March 2027
- Consent
- Published with Jasmine’s written approval. She reviewed every quote in context.
References
- Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, National Autism Strategy 2025 to 2031, released 14 January 2025. Link checked 31 August 2026. health.gov.au/resources/publications/national-autism-strategy-2025-2031
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Autism in Australia, 2022, released 11 October 2024. Autism recorded in 3.1% of people under 25 and 0.3% of people aged 25 and over. Link checked 31 August 2026. abs.gov.au/articles/autism-australia-2022
- Murray D, Lesser M and Lawson W, “Attention, monotropism and the diagnostic criteria for autism”, Autism, 2005, 9(2), pages 139 to 156. Link checked 31 August 2026. monotropism.org/murray-lesser-lawson
Read next
- The rest of Jasmine's storyThe burnout that came before this, the assessment that named it, and what she does about overload now.
- Understanding Zoe for adultsA profile for yourself, not for a child. How the app works when you are the one who needs it.
- Autistic and raising autistic childrenMichael Coles keeps his family's reports, patterns and plans in one place. He has a profile for himself too.
- How Understanding Zoe worksWhat Pip does, what the village is, and what happens to what you write down.