With ADHD you have a limited amount of mental RAM. This is to say theres only so much you can keep in your head at one time and makes it far more likely that you’ll forget something.
For example you might sit down to your computer to do some work then five minuets in you get a message on WhatsApp. You take a quick look and think “ok I’ll respond to that in a moment, right now I’m working“, but you maybe you feel like you’re low on caffeine so you go to put the kettle on. While thats boiling you notice there are dishes to put away so start doing that. As you scrape off left over food into the bin you notice it needs to be emptied so you take the bins out and then you get a phone call. You answer the phone and it’s a client, your boss or someone that demands something from you so you get to work on that thing.
After a series of distractions you forget what your primary task was and you find yourself saying “what was I doing?“
You’ve essentially opened a bunch of tabs on your mental browser and lost track of your intentions.
Malcoming & Changing the Light Bulb
This situation is horrendously frustrating. A friend of mine calls this “Malcoming” due to this Malcom in the middle clip where the dad starts a bunch of tasks but doesn’t complete any of them. He forgets his original task which was to simply change a light bulb.
The mental RAM in his mind held the task “Change the light bulb” but with limited RAM available this gets replaced with “Fix the shelf” pretty quickly and so on.
Focus & Increasing Mental RAM
This clip its self has helped me a lot. When I’m half way through a task and am tempted to be distracted by an email let’s say, I say to myself “Nope, just change the lightbulb!“. Changing the light bulb might be finish this bit of work or finish the dishes etc.
However, when a lot of small tasks come in at once that really do demand my attention I increase my mental RAM by using a small white board that I hang next to my desk. On this white board I’ll have a heading that says “Mental RAM”. I might have the first task say…
“– Build the home page for client X“
Then if an email comes in from a client asking to price up a job, I won’t deal with it at the moment I will add it to my RAM ( the white board ). It will now say…
“– Build the home page for client X“
“– Price up job for client X“
“– Reply to client X’s email with price“
This free’s your mind from having to hold all these demands in your head at one time, relieves anxiety and lets you get on and change the light bulb before talking the next task.
If you found this helpful and think this strategy could help you too check out this free standing A3 white board. It comes with pens with convenient erasers on the backs.
Or if you wanted one you could take around the house with you maybe this A4 lap white board would be better.