Summary: You can help someone with ADHD stay organized by learning what type of symptoms cause them the most problems and working with them to develop skills that address those specific areas of difficulty.
Note: while prescription pharmaceutical medication can help a person with ADHD manage most symptoms, including those related to organization, this article is about behavioral support that can help a person with ADHD whether they take medication or not.
Key Points:
- There are three types of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive, and combined.
- Two have distinct types of symptoms, while the third has both types.
- All three types can have a negative impact on organization.
- Behavioral strategies can help a person with ADHD stay organized regardless of the type of ADHD they have.
What Are the Three Types of ADHD?
For an in-depth look at the different types of ADHD, please visit our ADHD Treatment page.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognize three types of attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD):
- Mostly inattentive type
- Mostly hyperactive/impulsive type
- Combined type
The inattentive type and the hyperactive/impulsive type have distinct sets of symptoms:
- Inattentive type symptoms include, but are not limited to:
- Problems focusing on details
- Difficulty concentrating on task at hand
- Problems following instructions
- Difficulty staying organized
- Problems completing tasks that require sustained focus
- Difficulty maintaining consistency with daily responsibilities such as chores, homework, communication
- Hyperactive/impulsive type include, but are not limited to:
- Difficulty staying still
- Excess high energy, i.e. being all on all the time
- Excessive talking
- Difficulty listening
- Inability to wait
- Constant interruption of others in conversation and/or activities
- Combined type:
- People with the combined type show symptoms from both symptom categories
People with the hyperactive/impulsive type of ADHD show symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity, and usually receive a specifier along with the diagnosis, such as:
- Mostly hyperactive/impulsive type with hyperactivity
- Mostly hyperactive/impulsive type with impulsivity
All three types of ADHD, along with the two subtypes of the mostly hyperactive/impulsive type, can cause significant problems with organization across various areas of life. When you help someone with ADHD stay organized, you can help them avoid problems related to staying organized such as:
- Forgetting to finish homework assignments
- Missing work deadlines
- Losing important objects: keys, wallet, backpack
- Losing important documents: driver’s license/identification, school materials
Learning about the different types of ADHD and how they appear can help you help someone with ADHD stay organized. When you offer help and support, understand that how you help also depends on your relationship to the person. Friends can help in different ways than family members and teachers can help in specific ways related to classwork.
Three Tips to Help Someone with ADHD Stay Organized
The tips below can help a friend, family member, classmate, or student with the organizational challenges posed by attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Tip #1: Find out Their Type
A person with the inattentive type of ADHD generally has more problems with basic organization than a person with the hyperactive/impulsive type. However, the mix of symptoms is different for each individual. The best thing to do, if you want to help, is talk to the person about how their symptoms impact organization.
Whereas a person with the inattentive type may benefit from external structure and aid – the calendars and other tools we’ll discuss in Tip #2 – a person with the hyperactive/impulsive type may benefit from building sufficient exercise and/or activity into their daily schedule.
One approach to support improves organization directly by supplying practical tools, while the other supports organization indirectly by helping the person with ADHD channel and release their excess energy, which in turn allows them to focus on staying organized and on track.
Tip #2: Use All Available Means
What we mean here is that the best way to help a person with ADHD stay organized is by casting a wide net in order to find out what works, focusing on those, and tailoring them to the specific needs of the person with ADHD. With regards to organization, resources from Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) shows the following tools can help:
Day Planners
These are very effective tools for a person with ADHD. They’re available in various forms:
- Bound, hard copy, pen/pencil and paper. These are helpful for people who need something tactile combined with something visual. Taking the time and energy to write items in a day planner also reinforces the memory consolidation process, which can help a person with ADHD remember key tasks.
- Smartphone apps can help people who don’t like to write things down longhand, and prefer a digital interface.
- Time management software for laptops and desktops are also excellent for people who prefer a digital interface. Software accessed remotely has advantages and disadvantages
To-Do Lists
These can help people with ADHD create a plan for the day, week, or month, and stick to it. In addition to the fact that writing something down helps consolidate memory, some people with ADHD report that having a list written down ahead of time makes all the difference. The most important part of a to-do list is making sure each item is achievable in the time allotted.
Post It Notes
These can help remind a person with ADHD what they need to focus on and when. You can help someone with ADHD decide – strategically – where to put their post it notes. School and work items may belong on the desk or laptop, reminders to eat healthy food may belong on the fridge, and reminders about keys, phone, and wallet may work best near the door on the way out of the home.
Phone Calendars, Alarms, Timers
These help people with ADHD who prefer a digital interface rather than a hard copy like a post it note. Phone alarms are great for short and recurring items. For instance, a person with ADHD on a study break probably needs a timer or alarm to remind them to get back to work. They also can benefit from a daily alarm with reminders like these:
- Get ready for school
- Take your medication
- Check homework assignments
- Do yoga
- Eat lunch
Other People
This includes you and anyone the person with ADHD has a good rapport with. Other people can help in various ways:
- Accountability partner. This relationship works both ways: you can call or text each other to give timely reminders about important daily or weekly tasks. Or, for a person with ADHD, this can work one way: the person without ADHD can make the calls or send the texts, with the goal of supporting the person with ADHD.
- Body double. This is different than an accountability partner. With a body double, you find a friend, peer, or coworker who agrees to be present while working on a task, school project/homework, or work deadline. The idea is that the other person has a task to work on, too, and together you model good, on-task behavior. Body doubling can happen:
- Virtually, on a phone or computer app.
- In-person at someone’s home.
- In-person at a location like a library or coffeeshop
When body-doubling, it helps to decide on a length of time – short, medium, long – and to schedule break. One well-known technique suggests working for 25 minutes, then taking a five-minute break. These short, five-minute breaks restore focus and help increase productivity during the 25 working minutes.
Tip #3: Create Routines
With all the information above, you can help someone with ADHD stay organized by helping them create a routine. Although it may seem counterintuitive, people with ADHD don’t have problems keeping a routine. In fact, it helps them in several ways:
- Reduces stress by eliminating uncertainty about what’s coming up.
- Increases focus by removing the need to make decisions about what to do when.
- Improves completion and follow-through by creating dedicated times to get things done
When you want to help someone with ADHD stay organized, talk to them about routines. If they’re resistant to the idea, they can start with one routine that addresses one problem, and see how it works. For instance, if completing homework is a problem, they can create a daily study routine that ensures they complete their daily assignments.
External Executive Support: Your Role and Your Goal
People with ADHD have impulse, behavior, and attentional issues that override the executive function capacity of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for thinking, analyzing the pros and cons of behavioral options, and regulating behavior. When you help someone with ADHD with the tools we suggest above, what you’re doing is helping them create a series of external executive assistants that stand in for the executive function impaired by ADHD.
These are fail-safes built into daily behavior that help a person with ADHD stay on track with things that matter and have consequences, like school assignments, school projects, family responsibilities, and doctor’s appointments. In other words, your role is to act like a backup prefrontal cortex, in human form, and your goal is to help the person with ADHD become accustomed to using all the available tools at their disposal to manage their symptoms and stay organized.
