Gift Planning for ND Moms: Using AI When Executive Function Has Left the Building

By the time my baby’s monitor finally went quiet, it was 10:47 p.m., and I was welded to the couch under a blanket that had seen better days.

My browser had 18 tabs open: Target, Amazon, a spreadsheet I swore I’d keep updated this year, three text threads about Secret Santa rules, and a half-written note titled “Gifts???” with exactly zero actual items on it.

My brain felt like it was buffering — spinning rainbow wheel, no progress — while the quiet part of my mind whispered, “Good moms probably handled this weeks ago.” Meanwhile, I was still trying to remember if I’d already bought something for my sister-in-law or just thought about it really hard.

That’s the moment it hit me: it was not that I “didn’t care enough” to plan gifts. It was that my executive function had left the building days ago, and gift season is basically an executive function stress test designed to expose that.

I wasn’t just picking presents — I was juggling finances, family politics, unspoken expectations, shipping timelines, and my own perfectionism. And I was doing all of that while working full-time and keeping a small human alive. My brain was fried, but not failing.

For neurodivergent moms especially, gift season is an executive function stress test dressed up in twinkle lights. There’s decision fatigue — a hundred tiny choices, each with emotional stakes. Who gets a gift? What’s the budget? Is this thoughtful enough? Will this offend someone?

Then there’s analysis paralysis: my autistic brain wants the “right” answer, so I open all the reviews, compare every single option, and chase “just a little more information” until I’m so overwhelmed that doing nothing feels safer.

Sprinkle in time blindness and suddenly it’s December 22 and the shipping cutoff is laughing at me.

On top of that, the sensory and emotional load is next-level. Holiday music in every store, crowded aisles, flashing lights, social obligations, and the constant low-level hum of “this is your child’s magical memory, don’t screw it up.”

If you’re neurodivergent — diagnosed, self-identified, or ND-adjacent — you might also be trying to gentle parent, manage burnout, and show up as the “organized one” even though your brain is a pile of browser tabs. The mental load of gift season isn’t just about stuff — it’s about identity, relationships, and old scripts about being selfish, forgetful, or flaky.

📌 Planning gifts while your brain is fried? Pin this for later.

Why I Finally Let AI Help

So here’s where I confess something: I’ve been using ChatGPT since I was pregnant. As a software developer with a forensic psych master’s degree and an autistic/ADHD brain, I love systems and tools — especially ones that help me make sense of messy human patterns.

But for a long time, I treated AI like a work thing, not a “mom thing.” I’d use it to debug code or outline a project, then sit there drowning in gift decisions like I needed to prove I could handle it without help.

It took one particularly chaotic night for me to finally type my gift stress into ChatGPT instead of another Notion page.

The shift was weirdly emotional. I had this guilt that using AI for gift ideas was cheating, like it made the gifts less personal. But once I got over the shame spiral, I realized what I actually needed wasn’t “more inspiration” — it was an extra brain.

I started thinking of AI not as a magic solution, but as an executive function prosthetic: something outside of my tired mind that could hold structure, remember constraints, and feed me small, doable decisions instead of an infinite decision buffet.

What Actually Works: Prompts That Meet You Where You Are

When I say “AI helped,” I don’t mean I typed “gift ideas for moms” and called it a day. That kind of vague prompt usually makes everything ten times worse because it explodes my options instead of shrinking them.

What actually works for my ND brain is using very specific, structured prompts that meet my executive function where it actually is. Not what it should be. Not what it is on a good day. What it is at 10:47 p.m. when my baby is finally asleep and my frontal lobe is running on literal fumes.

The first time I tried this, I couldn’t even start a gift list. I knew there were people I “should” buy for, but every time I tried to assemble the list from memory, my brain just threw up static. So I told the truth to the AI and let it scaffold for me:

TRY THIS PROMPT (for building your list):

“I’m a neurodivergent mom who gets overwhelmed by gift planning. Help me make a simple, categorized list of people I might want to buy gifts for this year. Include family, in-laws, childcare, coworkers, and anyone I might be forgetting. Then leave some blank slots for ‘optional’ people that I can decide on later.”

What came back wasn’t magic, but it was manageable: categories like “immediate family,” “extended family,” “childcare/support,” and “work/social,” with bullet points I could fill in or delete.

The power was not in the ideas — it was in not having to generate the whole structure from scratch. From there, I asked it to turn the list into a tiny table with columns for “budget,” “gift idea,” and “status” (not started / ordered / wrapped).

It was basically an executive function snapshot my brain could refer to instead of re-remembering everything every single night.

Then there’s the classic neurodivergent challenge: the one impossible person. For me, it was a relative I love but find confusing — strong opinions, very specific tastes, and a long history of gifts that landed wrong. My perfectionism wanted the elusive Perfect Gift, which meant I kept researching and second-guessing until I did nothing. So I gave AI the whole messy context:

TRY THIS PROMPT (for the one impossible person):

“Here’s everything I know about my [relative]: what they like, what they definitely don’t like, and what I’ve already gifted them in the past. My budget is [$X]. I get overwhelmed with too many choices, so give me 5 specific gift ideas with links and a one-sentence explanation of why each fits. Then, help me rank them by ‘lowest effort for me’ first.”

The “lowest effort for me” line was a game changer. It gave me permission to value my capacity as much as their preferences.

AI spit back five options with tiny explanations and an order that put digital, easy-to-send gifts at the top. The first time I ran the prompt, I forgot to cap the number of choices and it gave me a list of 25. I could actually feel my brain short-circuit. That’s when I realized I have to hard-limit options in my prompts, or the tool will mirror the chaos instead of calming it.

Building a System Instead of White-Knuckling It

At some point, I realized I didn’t just need individual gift ideas — I needed a whole system that didn’t require me to be the project manager of everyone’s joy. Trying to hold timelines, tasks, and budgets in my head was burning me out. So I tried this:

TRY THIS PROMPT (for a 4-week system):

“I need a very simple gift planning system for the next 4 weeks. Assume I have about 20 minutes at night and a brain that is done. Create a weekly plan that breaks tasks into tiny steps (brain dump, choosing, ordering, wrapping). Make it realistic for an exhausted neurodivergent mom and include ‘skip’ or ‘fallback’ options if I fall behind.”

What came back was basically a tiny, kind project plan: week one was listing and rough budgeting, week two was choosing and ordering, week three handled stragglers and backup options, week four was wrapping and messaging.

I copied it into a doc, highlighted tasks I actually did, and when I inevitably fell behind, I pasted the whole thing back into ChatGPT with: “I missed half of week two. Please compress this plan into what’s most important now.” It recalibrated without shame — no passive-aggressive “you should have started earlier” energy.

Using AI to Help Build Communication Scripts

One more underrated use: scripts. As a neurodivergent mom, the emotional side of gift season costs me almost as much as the logistics.

TRY THIS PROMPT (for boundary-setting scripts):

“I need to send a message to [family member/friend/group] about simplifying gifts this year because my capacity is low. Here’s the context: [brief explanation of your situation]. Draft 2-3 short, kind message options that set a boundary without over-explaining or apologizing. Keep the tone warm but clear, and make sure it sounds like me, not a corporate email.”

I’ve used AI to draft short, kind messages like, “Hey, our budget and bandwidth are low this year, so we’re keeping gifts very simple, but we love you and still wanted to mark the season.” Or, “Your gift will be late — my December brain overestimated my capacity — but it’s on the way.”

I tweak the wording so it sounds like me, but having a starting point keeps me from spending 45 minutes staring at a blinking cursor, marinating in guilt.

I’ve sent versions of these messages, and exactly zero people have responded with disappointment. Most said, “Girl, same.”

None of this makes gift season effortless. I still forget things. I still have moments in the Target aisle where the lights and music and choices are too much and I just abandon the cart and walk out before I cry in front of the wrapping paper.

Last week I ordered a gift for my nephew and realized two days later I’d sent it to my own address. Again.

But there’s a huge difference between white-knuckling my way through December with vibes and shame, and letting a tool catch my brain when it taps out. For me, success isn’t “I remembered every single person and nailed every gift.” It’s “I respected my brain’s limits and still showed care in the ways I could.”

If you’ve made it this far and still feel overwhelmed by the idea of using AI for gift planning — here’s a gentle, low-stakes prompt to get you started:

“I’m overwhelmed and can’t even figure out where to start with gifts. Ask me 5 simple questions, one at a time, to help me get unstuck.”

If your executive function has left the building, you’re not failing the holidays.

Your brain is responding exactly how a neurodivergent brain would respond to an overloaded, high-stakes, multi-tasking season. You’re allowed to borrow structure from anywhere you can find it — from AI, from checklists, from prompt packs, from scraps of routines — so you can save your energy for being with your child, not just curating their memories.

“Good enough” is still generous. And honestly, you deserve some of that generosity, too.

Written by Shae — AuDHD alt millennial mom, developer, M.S. in Psychology. Fascinated by using AI to translate developmental research into survival tools for parents. Real experience where she’s lived it, evidence-based prompts where she hasn’t.