“Why Do I Keep Forgetting Things I Was Just About to Do?” Practical Strategies for ADHD Working Memory

You walk upstairs to get something and, by the time you arrive, you have forgotten what it was. You read an email, think “I’ll reply to that in a minute”, and then remember three days later. Someone asks you to do something while you are cooking, and despite genuinely intending to do it, the request seems to disappear from your mind.

For many people with ADHD, experiences like these happen so often that they become a source of considerable frustration. Other people may interpret them as carelessness, disorganisation or not listening. You may even start describing yourself as “forgetful” or wondering why you cannot remember apparently simple things.

Often, however, the difficulty is not with memory in the usual sense. You might remember conversations from years ago, obscure facts about something that interests you, or exactly what somebody said during an argument six months ago. The problem is more often with holding information temporarily in mind while you are doing something else.

This is where working memory comes in.

What Is Working Memory?

Working memory is sometimes described as the brain’s mental workspace. It allows us to hold information in mind for long enough to use it.

Imagine somebody tells you, “Before you leave, put the washing in the dryer, take the parcel by the door and remember that we need milk.”

You have not necessarily stored those instructions as long-term memories. Instead, your brain needs to keep them temporarily available while you finish what you are doing, move around the house and encounter other distractions.

For somebody with ADHD, that mental workspace can be less reliable, particularly when attention is being pulled in several directions.

This can create a frustrating situation: you genuinely intended to do something, but the intention was no longer accessible at the moment you needed it.

Stop Asking Your Brain to Be the Reminder System

One of the most useful ADHD strategies is surprisingly simple: if something matters, try not to rely on remembering it.

This can initially feel unnecessary. You might think, “Surely I can remember one thing.”

Perhaps you can. The problem is that remembering is not entirely under conscious control. Your intention may be perfectly clear now, but ten minutes later you may receive a message, notice something else that needs doing, start another task and lose the original thought.

Instead, try to move important information out of your head and into the environment.

That might mean putting an appointment immediately into your phone calendar rather than planning to do it later. It could mean setting an alarm while you are thinking about something rather than trusting yourself to remember it. At work, it might mean keeping one reliable task list rather than accumulating tasks across emails, scraps of paper and your memory.

The aim is not to become better at remembering everything. It is to make remembering less necessary.

Make the Reminder Appear When You Need It

There is an important difference between recording something and actually being reminded about it.

A beautifully organised to-do list is not particularly useful if you forget to look at it.

For ADHD, reminders tend to work best when they appear at the point of action. If you need to take something to work tomorrow, putting it beside the front door may be more effective than adding “take it to work” to a long list.

If you need to make a phone call at lunchtime, an alarm at lunchtime may work better than writing it down that morning. If you regularly forget something when leaving the house, keeping it beside your keys or shoes creates a physical prompt at exactly the moment it is needed.

This is sometimes called externalising executive functions. In ordinary language, it simply means allowing your surroundings and technology to do some of the remembering for you.

Be Careful With “I’ll Do It in a Minute”

One of the easiest ways for a task to disappear is to postpone it without creating a reminder.

You read a message and think, “I’ll answer that later.”

You notice that you need to order a prescription and think, “I’ll do that tonight.”

You remember that you need to book an appointment and think, “I must remember to do that tomorrow.”

The problem is that the thought itself creates a temporary sense that the task has been dealt with. But nothing has actually been put in place to bring it back to your attention.

When possible, either do a very short task immediately or create a specific prompt for later. Rather than “I’ll remember tonight”, that might mean setting an alarm for 7 pm saying “book dentist appointment”.

It is a small change, but it removes an enormous amount of uncertainty.

Reduce the Number of Places Where Information Lives

Many people with ADHD develop complicated organisational systems in an attempt to become more organised. There may be a diary, several notebooks, a calendar, reminders, emails marked unread, screenshots, notes on the phone and a collection of pieces of paper.

The problem is that every additional system creates another place you need to remember to check.

Simple systems are often more sustainable.

For example, you might use one calendar for anything that happens at a particular time and one task list for things that need doing. The precise system matters less than whether you consistently use it.

The best organisational system is rarely the most sophisticated one. It is the one you will still be using three months from now.

Use Visibility to Your Advantage

People sometimes try to become organised by putting everything away. For ADHD, this can occasionally have an unintended consequence: once something is out of sight, it may also be out of mind.

This does not mean your home or workspace needs to be cluttered. Instead, think about strategic visibility.

Medication might live somewhere you reliably encounter it as part of your morning routine, provided it can be stored safely. Items that need taking out of the house might have a designated place near the door. Important paperwork might have one visible tray rather than being placed into several different drawers.

You can design the environment so that it provides useful prompts without becoming visually overwhelming.

Create Routines That Reduce the Need to Remember

Repeated routines can also reduce the burden on working memory.

If your keys always go in the same place, you do not have to remember where you put them. If you check your calendar every morning while drinking your first cup of tea or coffee, you do not need to remember to check the calendar. If you prepare your work bag at the same point each evening, fewer individual decisions are required.

This is one reason routines can be particularly helpful for ADHD. They are not simply about being disciplined or organised. A good routine turns something that requires active remembering into something that happens more automatically.

The important word, though, is realistic. An elaborate morning routine involving twelve perfectly sequenced steps may look impressive on paper but collapse after three days. Start with one or two reliable anchors and build from there.

What About Other People?

Working-memory difficulties can sometimes create tension in relationships.

A partner may reasonably feel frustrated if they repeatedly ask for something and it does not happen. A parent may wonder why their child remembers everything about a favourite game but repeatedly forgets their PE kit. A colleague may feel that an important request has been ignored.

Understanding ADHD can explain what is happening, but it does not mean the impact on other people should simply be dismissed.

Instead, understanding the difficulty allows you to develop better systems around it. Written requests, shared calendars, reminders and agreed places for important items can reduce the need for repeated prompting.

The goal is not to decide who is at fault. It is to create an environment in which fewer things depend on somebody remembering at exactly the right moment.

A Final Thought

If you have ADHD and regularly forget everyday tasks, it can be tempting to conclude that you simply need to “try harder to remember”.

Usually, a more effective question is: why am I relying on memory for this at all?

Calendars, alarms, visual prompts, routines and strategically placed objects are not cheating. They are tools. We routinely use technology to compensate for things human brains are not particularly good at, and ADHD is no different.

You do not need to carry your entire life around in your head.

Sometimes the most effective ADHD strategy is to build a world that remembers things for you.

Dr James Glass
MBChB MRCPsych
Medical Director, WMI Psychiatry