You Can Plan the Whole Damn Thing and It’ll Still Go Sideways (And That’s Okay)

Lessons in Delegating, Letting Go, and Surviving Large-Scale Event Chaos as a Recovering Control Freak with ADHD

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The Planner’s Spiral

There’s a special kind of unraveling that happens when you’re planning a large-scale event and also trying to keep your real life intact. The spreadsheets multiply. Your notes app becomes your second brain. You wake up at 3:00 AM wondering if you remembered to buy duct tape.
Spoiler: you didn’t.
And that’s okay.

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1. Delegating Feels Like Losing Control—Because It Is

When you’re used to being the one who holds it all together, handing off even one piece can feel… wrong. Or worse—risky. What if they forget? What if they don’t care as much? What if they do it differently?

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way:
People will forget things.
They will do it differently.
And most of the time… it will still turn out just fine.

✨ ADHD fun fact: Delegating can feel like disarming a bomb—blindfolded—while someone hums off-beat next to you. Because for us, giving up control = giving up our mental scaffolding. We’ve spent hours (maybe weeks) constructing the perfect mental map. Letting someone else hold a piece of it? That’s terrifying.

But here’s the twist: our ADHD brains are so used to juggling, adjusting, and fixing on the fly, that when we finally do delegate… we often surprise ourselves by rolling with it. It’s just getting past that initial “no one can do it like me” fear that’s the kicker.

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2. You Can Do All the Things—And It Can Still Go Off the Rails

You can have the perfect checklist, color-coded bins, backup signage, and still hit a glitch. A power cord won’t work. The cooler will leak. Someone will hand out the wrong tickets.
It’s not a failure.
It’s an event.

Your brain might scream “THIS IS A DISASTER.”
But from the outside?
It’s just a funny little blip.

✨ ADHD fun fact: Our brains are like high-speed event planners—with zero concept of how long things actually take. We can visualize the whole layout, the vibe, the emergency plans… but we also forget to eat lunch or buy batteries for the megaphone.

ADHD gives us an edge in creative problem-solving and quick pivots—but also means we might catastrophize small issues or fixate on that one thing that went wrong, even if 98% went well. Let it go. Seriously. Everyone’s still having fun.

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3. The Attendee Perspective is So Different From Yours

What you see: that a game was missing bean bags.
What they see: their kid laughing and running around with a snow cone.

We tend to spiral from the inside. But guests aren’t inside your brain. They’re just there—having fun, seeing the good, soaking up the atmosphere you worked so hard to create.

✨ ADHD fun fact: Rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) is REAL. If one person mildly frowns in your direction, your brain might decide you’ve ruined the entire event, your reputation, and your future as a functioning adult.

But in reality? They probably just needed to pee. Or were squinting in the sun. Your brain’s worst-case-scenario lens is not always reliable. Sometimes the best thing you can do is zoom out—and let someone else remind you what actually happened.

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4. Asking for Help Isn’t Weakness. It’s Wisdom.

This year, we were short on volunteers. I was drowning. So I did something I usually hate doing: I asked for help.

I messaged my village—friends, family, amazing moms—and they showed up. Not because they had to. Because they wanted to. Because they saw me trying and said, “We’ve got you.”

Turns out, people will back you up if you let them.

✨ ADHD fun fact: Independence is often our coping mechanism. We’ve learned not to rely on others, because past experiences of being “too much,” “too messy,” or “forgetting again” have made us self-sufficient to the point of exhaustion.

But asking for help doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’re healing. You’re learning that your people love you not because you do it all—but because you’re you. And when you let them in? Magic happens.

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5. Notes App MVP: Write Down Everything (Even the Chaos)

No matter how organized you are, something will break, get missed, or be wildly miscommunicated. That doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’re human.

Pro tip: Keep your notes app open all day. When something breaks, gets skipped, or magically works better than you thought, write it down.

Your future self will thank you when you plan next year’s event without the 3AM duct tape panic.

✨ ADHD fun fact: If it’s not written down immediately, it’s gone. Your brain is a glitter tornado of ideas, observations, and panic snacks. Future You will not remember that amazing fix or hilarious hiccup—unless Present You jots it down somewhere visible.

Bonus tip: Dictate into your voice notes, leave yourself chaotic emojis, or screenshot the weird thing that worked. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to be captured. Your future ADHD brain will be so, so grateful.

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6. Don’t Forget the Recovery Phase (It’s Not Optional)

The event ends. The adrenaline fades. And suddenly… your body feels like a potato with a migraine. Your brain is fogged. Your emotions are all over the place. And somehow you’re still getting texts about lost sunglasses and missing leftover snacks.

Rest. Is. Required.

✨ ADHD fun fact: Our brains love the urgency and energy of “go time”—but once it’s over? We crash. Hard. Not just physically, but emotionally too. We’ve been holding so many tabs open: conversations, worries, logistics, feelings, vibes.

Recovery time is not being “lazy” or “unproductive.” It’s processing time. Your nervous system needs it. Your body demands it. So cancel a few things. Order takeout. Let the laundry pile up. You just ran a mental marathon.

And trust: the next time you do something this big, you’ll build recovery time into the plan. Because burnout isn’t a badge of honor—it’s a warning sign.

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The Event Wasn’t Perfect. But It Was Beautiful.

Not everything went to plan. But people laughed. Kids smiled. The vibe was there.

And I survived.

It’s not about perfection—it never was.
It’s about doing your best, learning what matters, and letting the rest be what it is: part of the messy, beautiful story.