One thing about having ADHD is that you always have something in your head. The problem is that it’s not always the same thing; there’s always something new popping up.
This is why people with ADHD have such poor working memory. Ideas or tasks quickly get pushed out by other thoughts. So they forget.
The key to managing forgetfulness is to take the ideas you want to keep and get them out of your head.
Being organized and having ADHD sometimes feels like oil and water.
ADHD is characterized by forgetfulness, lack of focus, impulsivity, poor time management, and poor prioritization. You won’t find these under the dictionary definition for organized.
One of the pillars of ADHD is impulsivity. And while in children that may manifest as being loud, disruptive, and annoying, for adults, it can affect finances.
In my article about parenting ADHD children while you have ADHD, I touched on mindfulness playing a role in preventing and mitigating conflict.
What is mindfulness? How is it related to ADHD?
It can be challenging having a child with ADHD. It can be challenging being a parent with ADHD. It can be seemingly impossible to be a parent with ADHD who has a child with ADHD, let alone 6.
One thing that people struggle with when they have ADHD is holding down a job. People with ADHD often get bored with their jobs, especially if they’re pretty monotonous. This can lead to job dissatisfaction, which, in turn, can lead to poor performance. Ultimately, if they’re not laid off or fired, they might move onto another job on their own.
This certainly applies to me. The longest I’ve ever worked at a job is 9 years. The next longest was 3 years. Beyond that, never more than a year. There have been at least twice where I’ve had 3 jobs in one year. And my jobs are rarely related:
One hallmark of ADHD is poor working memory, which is responsible for holding information temporarily until the brain can process it and which helps us reason and guides decision making and behaviour.
One area where ADHD affects me the most is my memory. I have to use to-do lists, reminders, emails, and so on just to get things done and not miss appointments. Even then, I still forget things.
After 45 years of having ADHD and not realizing it, I’ve unknowingly developed coping strategies to help me function productively. In addition to the tools I mentioned above, I use habits to help me remember.
Before we had our oldest child tested for ADHD, they repeatedly insisted to us that they had ADHD. Our understanding of ADHD was limited at the time, and while we did realize that it wasn’t just about being distracted, our understanding still centred around hyperactivity and academic performance.
In an effort to change our minds and to convince us to arrange for testing, our child would often give us examples of their behaviour that they thought were manifestations of their ADHD. We often responded in disagreement, saying such things as, “That behaviour is just normal. We did the same thing when we were your age.”
Here’s the thing though.
Now that I have been diagnosed with ADHD, I can recognize that the behaviours our child was highlighting for us were indeed ADHD symptoms.
The reason why I didn’t recognize them before is because it didn’t cross my mind that I had ADHD. I mean, I did relatively well in school, I wasn’t hyper, I didn’t fit any of the stereotype I had created in my mind (or seen reflected in society).
Because I didn’t have ADHD—in my mind—my behaviour wasn’t ADHD behaviour; it was just common behaviour. And if my behaviour was normal, and my child mimicked my behaviour, then their behaviour must be normal, too.
This is why it’s important for parents of children who think they have ADHD to be open to the possibility. Just because you don’t recognize your child’s behaviour as ADHD behaviour doesn’t mean it isn’t. Especially if you don’t truly understand the complexity of ADHD behaviour.
For every 4 children diagnosed with ADHD, 1 of them has at least one parent who also has ADHD. The connection between ADHD parents and ADHD children is pretty strong.
Be open to your child having it. Not only because it shows support for their concerns, but also because it shows you’re willing to accept it if you have it, too.
One area that I hyperfocus on is organization. It has helped me a lot as an adult. It helps me to remember appointments, accomplish tasks, follow up with assignments, and so on. As I developed my system over the years, I didn’t realize I was coping with ADHD; I just thought I was making sure I didn’t forgot things or procrastinated things.
My entire adult life, I have tried to keep organized. I had a day planner in my late teens, a planner on my mission, and shortly after we were married, we started using an electronic calendar. Email became a critical organization tool of mine, too.
I wanted to take a few moments to run through the system I have set up in the Reminders app on my iPhone. This helps me mostly with getting tasks done