If you have ADHD, or a lot of the traits, and you keep losing the thread (of a conversation, a task, the reason you opened this tab), this is for you. It’s what ADHD working memory actually means, what the NHS and the research say, what it looks like in my working day, and the habits that help me pick the thread back up.
What is working memory, and does ADHD affect it?
Working memory is the part of your mind that holds information while you’re using it. The MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge describes it as “vital for holding information in mind in the course of many everyday activities”. In plain English, it keeps something in your head long enough to use it. Like the end of the sentence you’re halfway through saying.
A 2013 review of 38 studies found adults with ADHD did moderately worse than adults without ADHD on working memory tasks, and concluded that the differences “persist into adulthood” (Neuropsychology, via PubMed). That’s an average across a lot of people, and it says nothing certain about any one person.
The NHS doesn’t use the phrase “working memory” on its page about ADHD in adults. It describes ADHD as “a condition that can affect how you focus”, and its list of signs includes “being easily distracted or forgetful” and “finding it hard to follow instructions or finish tasks”. I’m not a doctor, so that’s the end of the science bit.
What losing the thread looks like for me
I’m dyslexic, with a lot of ADHD traits, and I’ve never had a formal ADHD diagnosis. I wrote about that in dyslexia and ADHD at work.
I lose track of conversations mid-sentence. 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.
For me the hard part has always been continuity: holding a thread across time, so I can pick something up on Wednesday and remember what I was thinking on Monday.
These days I run up to 20 AI agents at once, each in its own terminal window. I’ll dump a half-formed idea into one, switch to something urgent and come back two hours later. The first thing I type is “remind me what we were doing”. And it tells me.
I’ve called AI agents “external working memory” before, and I still think that’s right: the agent holds the thought while my attention is somewhere else.
What helps me hold the thread
None of this is medical advice, just what works for me. Much of what you’ll read about working memory and ADHD is about training programmes or medication, which is a conversation for your GP.
1. Get it out of my head in seconds
If saving takes longer than the thought, I don’t bother, and then it’s gone. So getting something down has to take one click, or a voice note. When my fingers are slower than my head, I talk instead.
2. Sort it out later
Deciding where something belongs is the step that loses it. I save first, badly, and leave the sorting for later, or for software.
3. Let something else hold the thread
For work in progress, I let the agent I’m working with keep track of where I stopped, what we’d tried and what was next. Then “remind me what we were doing” gets me back in. If you only try one thing, try this one.
4. Ask for things back in normal words
I can’t tell you which folder something is in, but I can usually tell you roughly what it was about. So I search the way I’d ask a person.
Where Ultrathink fits
I liked having my context held so much that I built my own app to keep it. Ultrathink is the knowledge base I built for my own scattered brain, and for anyone who saves a lot and struggles to find it again.
Everything goes into one place: pages from the browser with one click, notes and files dropped onto a small desktop widget, voice recordings, and whole ChatGPT or Claude conversations. The browser extension saves automatically after three seconds, so there’s no save button to miss.
Then an AI pass tidies each entry. It fixes my spelling, writes a short summary, adds tags and picks up dates, so “chase this Friday” gets a due date. When I want something back, I ask in plain English and get an answer with links to the entries it used.
I’ve put over 1,300 things into it since January, most of them messy.
Ultrathink isn’t a medical product, and it won’t change how anyone’s working memory works. I use it so the things I save have somewhere to live until I come back for them.
There’s more on choosing a note-taking app for ADHD and on object permanence and ADHD elsewhere on this blog.
If this sounds like you
If losing the thread is getting in the way of your studies, work or relationships, talk to your GP. The NHS says to make an appointment “to find out what support is available”, and its page on ADHD in adults is a good place to start.
I still lose the end of my own sentences. I just don’t ask my head to carry everything any more. If that sounds like you, get it out of your head fast, and keep it somewhere you’ll look again.
