This blog post is adapted from Episode 111 of the Grandma Has ADHD podcast with Dr. Daniella Karidi
I'm getting ready for another conference, and I already know what's going to happen.
Someone is going to walk up to me with a big smile. We may have shared a meal. We may have had a full, wonderful conversation. And I'm going to look at them with absolutely nothing behind my eyes.
As NASMM president, people know who I am. So when I can't place them, it feels humiliating. Worse, I worry about what it says to them: you weren't important enough for me to remember. That could not be further from the truth.
If you've ever walked into a room and wondered why you're there, missed a friend's big day you genuinely cared about, or hidden something "somewhere safe" and never found it again, this one is for you.
Because here's the reframe I got from my guest on Grandma Has ADHD: most of us don't forget because we don't care. We forget because remembering is genuinely hard, and remembering the future is harder still.
Meet Dr. Daniella Karidi
Daniella was first on the show more than 100 episodes ago, and she's one of only a handful of guests I've invited back. At every ADHD conference I attend, her room fills up so fast that people end up begging at the door. (I may have been one of them.) And whenever I talk with anyone in the ADHD world, her name comes up.
She holds a PhD in communication disorders from Northwestern University and a master's in learning disabilities from the University of Haifa. She's a certified professional coach and the founder of ADHD Time, where she helps kids and adults with time, money, organization, impulsivity, and goals. She also offers retirement coaching, created the course How to Remember the Future, and hosts the podcast ADHD Time On Air.
Her path into memory research started with her own forgetting. Growing up, she was told she couldn't have ADHD because she was a girl. She was diagnosed with severe dyslexia first, and ADHD only in college. In graduate school she kept missing appointments with her professor. Finally he asked whether this was a "her problem" or an ADHD problem. That question sent her down a months-long rabbit hole, where she discovered how little research existed on ADHD and remembering future tasks.
Oh, and that dyslexia? She got through 122 books last year, mostly as audiobooks at two and a half to three times speed. As she puts it, nobody said reading has to happen with your eyes.
Memory isn't one thing
Daniella's first point surprised me: "memory" is one word for many different systems.
Short-term memory lasts less than a minute. Anything held longer has already moved into long-term memory. Think of short-term memory as the front door of your house. Nothing gets into long-term storage without passing through it first.
Inside short-term memory is working memory, the part that actively juggles information. Making change from $100 in your head. Figuring out the time difference before a call with someone in New York. Choosing between two options when you can no longer see them.
Research consistently shows that, on average, people with ADHD have weaker working memory. That isn't true of every individual. (When you've met one person with ADHD, you've met one person with ADHD.) But it helps explain why decision fatigue hits so many of us so hard.
It also explains something I've felt for years. Verification codes, passwords, logins: we're asked to hold far more in our heads than we were even 10 or 20 years ago.
Can we train working memory to get bigger? Not much. Daniella explained that most people can hold about seven items at once, give or take two. Even researchers who practiced for decades only stretched to about nine. Picture a small train with a few seats. When it's full, something gets left on the platform.
The good news: what we can improve is how well we move information off the train and into long-term storage, which has room to spare. And how well we label it when we do.
You can't remember what you never took in
This is the line I had to let sit: you can't remember what you don't attend to.
Imagine meeting someone in a loud conference hall. Seventy conversations are happening around you. Your shoes hurt. You're a little anxious about meeting new people. They say their name, and it's gone. Not because you didn't care. Because your brain was flooded, inside and out, and their name never fully made it through the front door.
That's exactly my conference problem. And Daniella's next strategy goes right at the feeling underneath it: reduce the shame.
She describes memory as Swiss cheese. Things are going to fall through, period. Forgetting is a feature, not a bug. Our brains are built to let information go, and if we remembered everything, we'd be overwhelmed. (Nobody needs to remember who sat next to them on the bus in fourth grade.)
So when you forget something, swap "How could I be so terrible?" for a better question: why?
Did I not pay attention? Daniella once forgot a close friend's big event. She cared deeply. She just never really took in the date.
Did I store it without a label? She compares this to a library with books dropped everywhere. They're all in there, but no one can find them.
Her advice: treat future you like a stranger who will have to find what you left behind, and leave that stranger good clues.
I pushed back a little here. I talk about "future Jami" all the time, and I take care of her because I know exactly how she'll feel. (Like the time she boarded a plane with no hotel reservation and had to text my fiancé as the doors were closing.) Daniella agreed that's great for motivation. But for finding things later, assume you won't remember why you set that paper on the desk. Leave clues for someone who doesn't know what you know.
Remembering the future: the tree experiment
Daniella's specialty is prospective memory: remembering to do something later. Researchers sort these tasks into two kinds.
Time-based: take your medication at 7:00 PM, pull the cookies out in 20 minutes, join the Zoom at 4:00.
Event-based: when you see the mailbox, drop off your taxes.
In the studies that exist, people with ADHD struggle more with the time-based kind.
I finally got the story behind the famous assignment from the talk I couldn't get into. At the start, Daniella asks the audience to raise a hand when she's 30 minutes in. No other instructions. Almost no one sets a timer; they just assume they'll remember. The few who do tend to be the doctors without ADHD, the spouses who came along, or seasoned coaches. Some ADHD folks admitted they were afraid an alarm would bother her.
Then she says: raise your hand when you see a tree. A few minutes later, a tree appears on a slide, and someone always catches it. Some wrote "tree" on their paper. Others kept repeating "tree, tree, tree" in their heads.
Then comes the trick. A second tree shows up, and almost nobody notices. "You didn't say there'd be two!" That, Daniella says, is what it's like running into someone out of context at the grocery store. You weren't looking for them, so your brain scrambles.
A third slide shows a child hugging a tree you can barely see. Does it count? People aren't sure. The lesson: the clearer the cue, the better we remember.
The milk test: clear, meaningful, and in the right place
Daniella walked through a simple request, "Pick up milk on the way home," and showed how to make it far more likely to happen.
Give the why. "We need milk for the kids' cereal tomorrow" beats "get milk." ADHD brains love a reason, especially one that helps someone else. Keep it positive; threats of consequences rarely motivate us.
Trace the path. Ask, "Which store will you stop at?" Picturing the grocery store with the green awning across from the gym plants the cue exactly where you'll need it.
Be specific. In a house with seven kinds of milk, "almond milk for your daughter's breakfast" completes the puzzle.
Put the reminder where the action happens. A sticky note in the kitchen is where you use milk, not where you buy it. Put it in the car instead, or add the store as a stop in your navigation app.
Location-based reminders on your phone are a favorite for both of us. Daniella hasn't returned a library book late in two years because her phone pings her when she drives past the library.
One honest caveat: every one of these strategies takes energy. Our capacity is limited, so some days we won't have it, and we'll forget anyway. That's where forgiving yourself comes in.
The same idea explains the screenshot problem. When I speak to audiences, I ask how many screenshots are sitting on their phones. The gasps are real. Boring tasks give us no reward and no trigger, and "someday" never cues anything. "On my five-hour flight, I'll clear my photos" at least gives your brain a moment to hook onto. No guarantees, but better odds.
Tag your memories, and use your strengths
I asked the question I most needed answered: how do I tag a memory so I can find it later? (I'm the parent who hides something from the kids and then forgets the hiding place.)
Daniella's answer: make the tag distinct, clear, and meaningful in more than one way, then back it up outside your head. Here's her example. Say someone named Betty recommends a great book at a conference.
Make it memorable. "Betty Boo recommended a book." Silly, rhyming, and easy to picture.
Add an image. Picture Betty holding the book.
Say it out loud. Repeat the title, just like repeating a new person's name.
Pause. Take a two-second breath, close your eyes, and say it again without everything else around you.
Back it up. Send yourself a message. Daniella texts herself on WhatsApp; I pin a text thread to myself at the top of my messages. Pick one spot, so you always know where to look first.
Think of tags like hashtags on a post: three to seven useful ones, not a thousand. And for anything unusual, like hiding a laptop before a trip, take a photo and text it to yourself with a note. Half of Daniella's photos are of where she parked her car. Why put yourself through the stress of relying on Swiss cheese?
Finally, use your strengths. Daniella is severely dyslexic, so names are hard for her. But she remembers faces, places, and what everyone was wearing, and she leans on those cues. Her husband is the opposite. Her bookshelves are color-coded because that's how her brain finds things. No one said we have to follow anyone else's rules for remembering.
The takeaway
No one's memory is perfect, and it isn't supposed to be. If you're forgetting the same kinds of things over and over, don't beat yourself up. Become a detective. Ask why, then put the support right where your memory needs it.
I've lived with ADHD my whole life and built plenty of systems, and I still walked away from this conversation with new tools. I hope you do too.
This matters even more in the second half of life. Retirement, downsizing, and big transitions are exactly when we're asked to remember a hundred new things at once. If you or someone you love is navigating one of those transitions, my team at Silver Linings Transitions and my ADHD coaching work are here to help.
To learn more about Daniella, visit adhdtime.com or find ADHD Time On Air wherever you listen to podcasts. And listen to the full episode of Grandma Has ADHD for the whole conversation.
It is never too late to make the rest of your life the best of your life.
