Remember: Better Attention = Better Memory
By Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA

It's ironic that people with ADHD often forget things because their memories are actually good.

Yes, that's right!

People with ADHD forget things because of their attention. Your memory is only as good as the information you put into it. To put it simply, you can't remember what you don't pay attention to, and the more able you are to pay attention, the more likely it is you will remember. As an adult with ADHD, you are prone to having interesting things hijack your attention. When that happens, you may not fully attend to something important, and so things don't make it into your memory.

To understand the connection between attention and memory, we need to talk about two different kinds of memory. When we refer to memory, we usually mean long-term memory, like the hard drive in a computer-you record the information and it stays there. This usually works quite well for folks with ADHD. The weak link is in another kind of memory, working memory, which is like the RAM in a computer. This is the memory that holds what we are paying attention to-we receive information from the world, pull information from our long-term memory, process it together and then either generate an output or input this new information into our long-term memory.

For example, our working memory stores what someone is saying to us. We build words into sentences and then into paragraphs. We use information from long-term memory to understand what someone is saying by relating it to other things we already know. Meanwhile, as the person speaks, we may also use our working memory to hold the comment we want to make when they stop talking. When it all works well, we're simultaneously holding this thought while we continue to take in what the person says. No wonder working memory has that name-it's the memory that's doing the most work. There is a constant flow of information through our working memories. We take information in, hold it briefly, and then let it go to make room for new information. Some say working memory and attention may very well be the same thing. If they aren't, then they work so closely together that they function as if they are the same thing.

As you might have guessed by now, people with ADHD tend to have weaker working memories as compared to their overall intelligence. I often say this gap is comparable to the gap people with ADHD have between their potential and their actual performance. People with ADHD tend to have "blinkier" working memory, so information is taken in but then dropped or knocked out before the information transfers into long-term memory. ("What? You never told me that!") This is especially true when your attention is on something else at the time (like the computer). If the new piece of information arrives when your working memory is already fully engaged (distracted) you can't take in the new information and transfer it into long-term memory. This is often why people with ADHD interrupt; you worry you'll lose your comment from your working memory if you wait for the speaker to finish. It also explains why you often find books uninteresting-it's very demanding on your working memory to assemble all those words into meaningful ideas.

Knowing that your memory problems are really attention/working memory problems, you can create better strategies to improve your memory. Actually, most ADHD-friendly strategies for better memory (and other things, too) boil down to two basic ideas:

1. Make unimportant information weaker or less likely to attract your attention and/or
2. Make important information stronger or more likely to attract your attention.

Realizing most strategies are just variations on these two complementary ideas makes long lists of strategies suddenly seem less overwhelming. Reducing distractions and eliminating clutter are ways of making less important information weaker, and suggestions for setting reminders and alarms, getting organized and using bright colors are really ways of making important information stronger. If you can remember these two basic ideas, you'll be able to remember a whole lot of other stuff too.

Dr. Tuckman is a psychologist in West Chester, PA. His third book, Understand Your Brain, Get More Done: The ADHD Executive Functions Workbook, will be available this fall. You can find more information about his books, free podcast, and upcoming speaking engagements at http://adultADHDbook.com.