It's never been easier to give your ADHD brain the structure you need to succeed
Your phone is the best tool out there to keep the train on the tracks
I wrote this post up originally in Notion without the intention of publishing it because I was interested in cataloging all of the ways I’ve created structure for myself so that I can live as a normal human being even though my brain doesn’t really like doing that. But then I see people on ADHD subreddits talking about problems they’ve run into that could be solved by some of these behaviors and I felt like I might be able to help someone by putting this out there in the ether.
I would like to make this a living document, so if there are handy tools you use that you’d like to add to the list, just comment on the post. I’ll add things as I create them for myself, and maybe I’ll do some more in-depth posts about specific things I do as an offshoot of this post.
This is going to be iOS focused because that’s my ecosystem. There are probably ways to do all of these things on Android phones, but I don’t know what they are.
Without further ado, here are a bunch of ways you can use your phone to make sure you don’t forget things.
Siri
Low friction because it’s handsfree, you don’t need to open your phone and risk getting distracted
Add things to the shopping list when you use the last of them
Sync the list with your roommates or family members so they can add things too
Set the timer for the laundry
Reminders
Water the plants
Charge devices that can go weeks between charges, leading you to easily forget about them until they’re dead
Set reminders not just for times and dates, but also for leaving/arriving at places
Remind me to call X when I leave the house
Remind me to get the grocery bags out of the back of the car when I get to [grocery store name]
Grocery lists
The new iOS update has a way for you to specifically create a list as a grocery list and it will automatically create sections and group items together into similar sections. It’ll create a produce section and a dairy section, etc., so that you don’t go from asparagus to flour back to tomatoes.
When you run out of something, ask Siri to add it to your grocery list. Do it as you’re throwing the container away so that you don’t forget to add it later.
Automation
Turn the lights off and pause the television when you need to get in bed
Gives you an environmental change and doesn’t require that you exercise self control
Turn off lights when you leave the house
Turn the lights in the bedroom on at a certain time of day to push you to get out of bed
Shortcuts
I haven’t found a ton that help take things off my plate or that reduce friction to do things. They’re mostly either tools to accomplish a particular task (download a Twitter video, open an article in a web archive, etc.) or semi-gimmicky morning routine-type shortcuts that are more for the thrill of setting up the shortcut than the value it provides daily.
I do have a shortcut set up to help me log my gas mileage that allows me to simply put in the mileage on the trip odometer and the amount of gas I put in the tank to fill up and it automatically logs those in a new line in a spreadsheet I keep in iCloud and calculates the MPG.
This reduces friction to do a task that I do want to do but don’t necessarily *need* to do
I have a shortcut set up to wake up my work computer so that when I’m inevitably rushing around trying to dry my hair five minutes before my first meeting starts, it’s already logged in and ready to go when I sit down.
This saves time but like maybe twelve seconds
Built-in iOS tools
Medication tracking and reminders
Not only does it remind me to take my ADHD meds, the new OS (iOS 17) will send you a follow-up 30 minutes after the scheduled time, which you can then snooze for 10 minutes if you still haven’t taken it yet but can’t do it at that moment.
I’m often out running when I have the medication reminder scheduled, so the follow-up is an incredibly valuable addition to the new OS and I actually updated to the dev beta just for that feature when it was released
Calendars
Create the calendar entry as you are making the appointment.
If there is a follow-up email that is sent with appointment information, the calendar can often read that and suggest an event be created for that. You shouldn’t rely on this, but it can be helpful
Create a family calendar that everyone in your household can access and add to
Flight information, hotel stays, doctor and dogtor appointments all go on here. It helps increase visibility for everyone and mentally, it feels like I’m sharing the household organizational load a bit.
Don’t be afraid of having too many calendars! I have my personal calendar, my work calendar, a calendar from the city that I subscribe to that reminds me when trash day is and when I can put out the bulk trash, our family calendar, and have had many more over the years. Chronicle, a bill tracking app, had a calendar that told me when to pay things. Songkick has a calendar that I can add shows to that I want to attend. Garmin had a calendar that would put all of my scheduled workouts in there.
Notes
Folders! Create folders for organization so you know where things are. I split them between work notes, personal/household notes, and personal/business notes.
Share notes. If you’re going on a trip, create a shared note with confirmation numbers, hotel addresses, reservation information, itineraries, ideas for places to eat or visit and anything else you might want to give to your travelling companions so they don’t need to ask you for the information. This is another way I share the mental load and don’t feel like I have to be the only resource for people.
You can embed nearly anything in Apple Notes. Emails, PDFs, URLs, Maps locations, images, videos, anything. Just plug and play, no reformatting needed.
Just once, make a packing list, and then duplicate it and modify it for every trip after that.
Doing the work once and modifying it is so much easier than trying to do it from scratch every time, and results in a lot less forgetting things than not making a list at all.
I like to separate my packing list into sections. It feels less daunting that way, and by doing that, I can more easily see if I’ve forgotten anything for that section because I’m just focusing on a subset of the list rather than the whole thing.
When I travel, I usually section the list into something like: Running stuff, Toiletries, Stuff I Need for Being A Human, and Tech Stuff. If I’m travelling to a race, I’ll add a special section for what I need for race day specifically.
Files
Keep documents in the cloud
This is not infosec-approved advice. Keeping copies of usually boring but occasionally incredibly necessary documents in the cloud can be very useful in the worst situations. They don’t get lost in an old computer or shunted off to an external hard drive where I can only access them from a computer at home. This means that if someone gets into your phone and finds the documents, they can wreak havoc on your life even worse than before, but you can decide if the trade-off is worth it.
Some cloud providers also allow you to have password protected folders. If that’s an option, please use it. And maybe don’t name your password protected folder containing important documents something obvious. Call it like Receipts or something innocuous.
Keep a Dump folder in the cloud
I love dump folders. Most of my files are organized extremely carefully and clearly, and I hate having file clutter. But sometimes you just need A Place To Put Stuff and this is what that is. Carry around the headshot you use as a profile picture everywhere and the picture of your grandmother’s banana bread recipe and other random things that you don’t have a good place for in the same folder. You know they’re there, you can get to them when you need to, and the clutter is contained. It’s like the box next to the back door where I keep my running gear and the dog treats and the 30 keys on a keyring that no one in the house knows anything about. I know where it all is even though none of it goes together!
Please back your phone up nightly.
Just buy the iCloud storage and back your phone up. Most people have never even plugged their phones into their computers in 2024, and I only do a hard backup on the computer once or twice a year. It’s an ADHD tax to buy the cloud storage, but IMO it’s worth it for peace of mind. For the sake of every text message and photo that happens in between those hard backups that you would lose without it, do yourself a favor and make sure it’s backing up.
Misc
Turn on Find My. Right now. Make sure it’s enabled. Do it for every device you can.
Settings > [Your Name] at the very top where you manage your Apple ID > Find My > Find My iPhone ON.
Manage your notifications!
You don’t need every single notification that every app wants to send you. Stop letting them steal your attention. Go into Settings > Notifications and turn off the ones that don’t deserve it. Bitmoji doesn’t need to send you notifications. There’s literally no reason for it.
You can leave notifications on for apps, but not let them send them to you all willy-nilly. Apple calls this scheduling notifications, and each app that has notifications turned on has the ability to be directed into a scheduled notification group that pops up with all of the notifications in that bucket at a time that you pick instead of getting to send you notifications whenever it wants.
Set up focuses
My work focus has a completely different home screen than my regular one, and it only has the apps that I might need for work on the main page. Most normal notifications don’t get delivered while I’m in this focus so my phone isn’t lighting up every time I get an email. It turns on automatically when a meeting on my work calendar starts and it turns off after it ends. Unless you’re on a whitelist, my phone won’t ring for you and your texts will be delivered quietly.
Conversely, my personal focus mutes work email and calendar notifications, which even removes the little red counter on the email. You can override this in the app if you need to look at your work calendar or something temporarily, but it’s nice to wake up and not see work emails first thing in the morning.
Thank you so much for this list!! I have never been diagnosed with ADHD, and can't say for sure that I have it, but my mind wanders so often that I no longer find it weird for me to walk across the TV stand when I was supposed to finish up laundry an hour ago.
On a side note, I started up my Substack because of Notion as well! I never thought of publishing my writing, but after compiling a list of entries and catalogs, I thought, why not? Glad to see that notion has benefited us in more than one way (God bless its creator, I don't know what I would have done without him).
Absolutely! I hope it’s beneficial somehow, and good luck finishing the laundry one day 😂