I find transitioning from one activity to another tricky. I struggle with planning my time and understanding and the order in which I need to do things. This is particularly hard when I’m tired, so bedtime is often a flash point.

It’s frustrating and I often get impatient with myself – surely something as simple as going to bed should be straightforward and not a source of anguish. But no matter how hard I try, these transitions remain challenging. I need my support workers to step me through the process calmly but firmly. For some this comes naturally, while others find it hard because it involves being assertive and not letting me get distracted.

Because several different people provide my support, it’s also tricky to maintain a consistent routine. To help with this, I made a checklist of what needs to happen each night, but while this was something my support workers could follow, I found it hard to engage with a written list. So, I decided to create something more visual!

This drawing is on the wall in the support workers room and in my bedroom and we’ve been using it for several weeks – it’s made a big difference to how stressful the bedtime transition can be, and it also means that important things are forgotten less often.

In the past I’d have been resistant to using a tool like this, but as I’ve got older, I feel much less self-conscious about organising things in ways that I know work for me. I’m sharing my night-time routine in case it’s useful to others, and to show a different way of managing schedules and transitions. I wish I’d thought of doing this sooner – it would have saved a lot of frustration.