If you have ADHD, or a lot of the traits, and you’re known as the forgetful one, this piece on ADHD forgetfulness is for you. I’m dyslexic, with a lot of ADHD traits, and I’ve never had a formal ADHD diagnosis. I’m also not a doctor.
Is forgetfulness a sign of ADHD?
It can be. The NHS page on ADHD in adults lists “being easily distracted or forgetful” among the signs of being inattentive, along with “losing things often, like your wallet, mobile or keys”. Its page on ADHD in children and young people gives a younger version: “forgetting everyday tasks, like brushing their teeth or putting on socks”.
The NHS splits the signs into being inattentive and being hyperactive or impulsive. Most people with ADHD show both, and some only show one, so you can be forgetful without being the person who can’t sit still. The adult page says these signs “usually start before the age of 12”. It also says ADHD is thought to be recognised less often in women, maybe because women with ADHD more often have the inattentive type, which can be harder to spot than hyperactivity.
My own version is mostly ideas. A link someone sent me, a screenshot of a page I liked, a ChatGPT answer I swore I’d come back to. I’ll have seven ideas before breakfast, hyperfocus on one for 90 minutes, completely forget the other six existed, then remember them all at 2am.
What kind of forgetting is ADHD forgetfulness?
One kind researchers study closely is forgetting to do things. They call it prospective memory, which one 2013 paper describes as “the execution of delayed intentions in the future”. In plain English, remembering to do the thing you meant to do, when you meant to do it. Like replying to an email. I can build an entire analytics dashboard in a morning and forget to reply to the email that started it.
In a small 2019 study of 29 adults with ADHD and 24 without, the adults with ADHD “recalled and executed less of their own real-life intentions”, and the same study linked that everyday forgetting to procrastination (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders, via PubMed).
The 2013 study, of 45 adults with ADHD who weren’t taking stimulant medication and 45 without ADHD, split a lab task into steps: making a plan, remembering it, starting it on your own and carrying it out. The biggest difference was in the planning step. For remembering the plan, starting it and doing it, the researchers found “only negligible to small effects” (PLoS One, via PubMed).
Both studies are small, and neither says anything certain about any one person.
Losing the thread halfway through something is a different kind of forgetting, and I wrote about it in ADHD working memory. Things vanishing because they’re out of sight is in object permanence and ADHD.
When forgetfulness might not be ADHD
The NHS page on memory loss says “most people forget things from time to time”. It says memory problems are sometimes caused by something common, like stress, anxiety or depression, or sleeping problems, and occasionally by something more serious, such as dementia. Its advice is not to self-diagnose the cause, and to see a GP if memory problems are affecting your day-to-day life.
On the ADHD page, the NHS says a GP may also consider other conditions, such as autism, Tourette’s or anxiety. So don’t assume it’s ADHD.
For memory problems, the NHS says it can help to bring someone with you who can describe what’s been happening, and the GP may refer you to a memory specialist. For ADHD, the GP may refer you for an assessment with a specialist, and the NHS warns you may have to wait “several months or years”.
What I do about it
None of this is medical advice. It’s what works for me.
1. Make dates come to me
I don’t trust myself to go looking. So I set things up so they come to me. Anything with a date goes on a calendar I actually see.
2. Let other people hold some of the threads
For years, I compensated. Lists. Reminders. People around me who held the threads I dropped. The NHS lists “help from another person to plan and structure your tasks” as a reasonable adjustment at work. Another on the same list is “having written instructions as well as spoken instructions”.
3. Running and closing the laptop
The NHS’s general advice on ADHD includes exercise you enjoy and a regular bedtime. What works for me is boring: running, boundaries and actually closing the laptop.
If it’s getting in the way
If you think ADHD is affecting your studies, work or relationships, the NHS says to make an appointment with a GP to find out what support is available. Its page on ADHD in adults is the place to start.
I still lose things all the time, mostly ideas.
About Ultrathink
I built Ultrathink, for myself and for anyone who saves a lot.
You throw everything in, fast, without deciding where it goes first. That can be a page from the browser in one click, a voice recording, a file or a whole ChatGPT or Claude conversation. An AI pass tidies each entry afterwards. It fixes the spelling, writes a short summary and adds tags. When you want something back, you ask for it in plain English.
Ultrathink isn’t a medical product and makes no claim about ADHD.
