YOUR ADHD GAME PLAN

Strategy 1

Change the Context

YOU ARE HERE

Strategy 2

Let Them Design It

Strategy 3

Make the Deadline Real

Strategy 4

Make It Harder

Strategy 5

You're Not in Trouble

Strategy 6

Drop the Command

STRATEGY

OF 6

Memory Hooks

“There are three cups and a plate in their room right now, and the charger is gone again.”

The same items float through the house every day, and the reminders bounce off. That pattern isn’t disrespect. “Bring the dish down” is four separate steps: remember the dish exists, know where it goes, get up, and do it. A tired brain drops step one before you’ve finished the sentence. A Memory Hook is a physical cue that holds the memory instead: a tray, a basket, a hook, one spot that never changes. The environment remembers, so nobody has to.

You’re not building an organized house this week. You’re picking one item and giving it one home.

Pick Your Moment

One Landing Zone: the same item migrates every single day.

Co-Presence Without Control: you’ve asked, and nobody moves.

Shrink the Ask: the ask keeps failing.

This Week's Moves

Situation 1

The Same Item Migrates Every Single Day

One Landing Zone. Pick the one item that makes you want to scream, dishes, chargers, keys, and give it one obvious home, placed where the item actually lands, not where it should go. If dishes live on the desk, the tray goes on the desk. Open beats closed. Visible beats organized. Then say it once, without a speech.

“Hey, I made a landing spot for chargers right here. Now we’re not hunting for them every day.”

One item, one home. No labels, no color coding, no second zone this week.

Don’t say: “It’s not that hard to put things where they belong.” They hear: your memory is a choice you’re making at me.

Situation 2

You’ve Asked, and Nobody Moves

Co-Presence Without Control. Be in the same space, each of you doing your own task. You’re not supervising and you’re not helping. Starting next to a calm person costs less than starting alone, and parallel action doesn’t give them a command to push against. If they stay on their phone, you still modeled it. That was the move.

“I’m grabbing dishes. Want to help, or keep me company?”

Do your task and stop there. No correcting their technique, no pointing out the cup they missed, and no “See how much easier this is?” The lesson lands better unspoken.

Situation 3

The Ask Keeps Failing

Shrink the Ask. If the behavior isn’t happening, the ask is still too big. Find the smallest version and make that the whole job, attached to something they already do.

“Next time you walk past the kitchen, grab one cup. That’s it.”

Attach the ask to something already in motion. Already plugging in their phone? That’s the moment the charger hits the basket.

One item, one moment, one action. Momentum starts smaller than you think.

Why This Works

A teen brain holds only so much at once, and stress shrinks that space. The most chaotic week produces the most forgetting, which is exactly when the reminders fly hardest and land worst. A landing zone works because it takes the remembering off their shelf and gives it to the basket. And every “where does this go?” is a small decision; a stalled teen is usually stalled at the deciding, not the doing. One obvious home removes the decision.

What you get back is evidence. A dish that makes it to the tray without a word from you is proof the skill is in there. You’ll see more of it once the system stops asking their memory to do the work.

For Your Archetype

For Their Teen OS

Quick Summary

Stop

Repeating yourself, item by item, night after night.

Change

One item, one obvious home, placed where the item actually lands.

Impact

You watch something land in the zone without a word from you, and you know it was them.

What to Watch For

You'll Catch It When

You built the beautiful version: labels, bins, sorted zones. That’s your organization, not theirs, and a system that takes more from their brain than the mess does will not get used. One open basket wins.

Early Signs

An item lands in the zone without prompting, even once, even late. The hunt for the charger gets shorter.

If Nothing Shifts Yet

Pathways take repetition, not perfection. Move the zone closer to where the item actually lands and give it another week. A zone used once this week means the system is starting to take.

Saige

Tell Saige which item keeps migrating and where it actually ends up. It will help you pick the spot for the zone.