ADHD and...Overwhelm 😬

When I didn’t know I had ADHD, I sought out a therapist because I couldn’t quite get a handle on my overwhelm and anxiety.

I felt overwhelmed by life and just couldn’t keep up. It was the full-time job, the kindergartner, the household upkeep, the cooking, the maintaining of friendships, having time for hobbies that light up my brain…it all came together in a big ball of anxiety.

Despite my best intentions, my house was messy, I was late for appointments, I forgot to text friends back, my husband (and I, to be honest) was confused by my inability to complete basic tasks, and I kept misplacing things (my bike lock keys were lost for about a year).

I wished so hard to just be whelmed for once.

Cue the ADHD paralysis

With a busy life like that, it’s easy to understand why anyone, neurodivergent or not, would feel overwhelmed.

But for ADHDers, life can go from challenging to practically impossible to manage very quickly without some support and guidance. You can basically shut down and move into a state of constant ADHD burnout and exhaustion:

Because my brain is so busy and my executive functioning is impacted by ADHD, I struggle to prioritize tasks, keep track of everything I’m supposed to keep track of, and generally function in the way adults are expected to function in the world.

And all of that leads to (you guessed it!) being super overwhelmed by life.

While I don’t have an answer that’ll just magically cure your overwhelm, I have learned some coping mechanisms that help reduce my overwhelm and keep me from nearing shutdown.

How I reduce my ADHD overwhelm

Here are the top coping strategies I use to keep ADHD overwhelm from completely taking over my life.

(Obligatory note: I’m not a medical professional and my strategies won’t work for everyone!)

1. Create that calendar event or note immediately.

Thanks to an ADHDer’s limited working memory, we forget stuff. And it happens quickly.

I’ve learned to never, ever assume I’ll remember something later. If I set an appointment, RSVP to a party, or confirm a playdate for my kiddo, it goes in my Google Calendar IMMEDIATELY. I don’t wait for a reminder email, wait until I’m out of the therapist’s/doctor’s office, or wait for any reason at all. Period.

That way, I’m outsourcing some of my memory and executive functioning to the calendar. I know everything gets put there immediately, so I’m not feeling overwhelmed by the thought of forgetting events or suddenly being reminded of them last-minute.

Everything is right there in my calendar, which also sends me reminders of events before they happen.

2. There’s magic in a well-placed brain dump.

The biggest factor in my overwhelm is often alllll the stuff rolling around in my head. ADHD brains, according to Dr. Ed Hallowell, are like Ferraris with bicycle breaks. They work quickly and intensely and aren’t so good at stopping to let all those thoughts simmer.

So, when I start to feel overwhelm coming on, I’ll take my notebook and just dump all of my thoughts out into it. Whether it’s just a bullet list of tasks or sentences describing everything that’s going on (or both), getting everything out onto paper helps me breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t have to hold onto all of that anymore, because I’ve outsourced keeping track of that jumble to my notebook.

3. Try a nervous system reset.

When I start work in the morning, sometimes I get overwhelmed by emails, tasks, and scrolling LinkedIn before I even begin the real meat of my work day.

This is just one example of when I need to reset my nervous system before I can get started on something else, like writing an article. There’s no way I can task switch when overwhelmed by all the input I’m getting! So, I try a reset to reduce that overwhelm.

Here’s an example I posted recently on LinkedIn:

4. Break tasks and thoughts into different categories.

Sometimes it helps with my overwhelm to categorize my tasks into separate buckets. It just makes it easier to focus on them separately rather than together in one big, overwhelming lump.

So for example, each week, I make two different lists—one for work and one for home. If that still feels like a lot, I’ll break them down further. So maybe the task list for home gets categorized into errands, cleaning tasks, and other.

Now, I can compartmentalize things and focus on one list at a time rather than feel like everything is piling on me at once.

5. Lessen the load.

Sometimes, there are sneaky tasks hanging on my list that are adding to my overwhelm, but could actually just be removed for now (or I could ask my husband to jump in and help with them).

So, if the overwhelm breaking point is feeling close, I’ll think more critically about the tasks that are on my list and just let a few go that aren’t current priorities. Prioritizing is another difficult thing for ADHDers, but I just do my best in that moment.

This sometimes helps:

6. Journal.

Similar to a brain dump but not quite the same, journaling sometimes helps me tease out what it is I’m actually overwhelmed by.

For example, it’s not always the list of tasks in my planner. If I sit down and just start writing, I might write about an upcoming appointment, meeting, or event and realize that I’m actually feeling a bit nervous about it and THAT’S what’s actually feeding my overwhelm.

7. Do a quick 5- or 10-minute tidy of a space.

I like to pretend I don’t care when a space is a little bit messy, but in reality, it’s a visual cue that adds to my overwhelm. And it’s easy to feel like I can’t tidy up because I don’t have the time. But really, a 5- or 10-minute tidy is all it takes to make a surface look less cluttered and do a quick dust-swipe.

This is especially true for my work space (usually my desk). It doesn’t take long to quickly declutter the surface, and it usually helps clear up some space in my brain, too!

That’s it–those are some of the top things I do to reduce my ADHD overwhelm. Please let me know what some of your go-to methods are!

Now, on to the recs.

ADHD Rec #10: 2 solutions to email overwhelm

One of the worst offenders of overwhelm for me is my inbox. With my multiple ADHD special interests, I’m a sucker for a good newsletter…on multiple different subjects.

And with the recent rise of people sending newsletters, of course I’ve oversubscribed and completely overfilled my inbox.

Luckily, I’ve found a couple of solutions. Here are my two inbox-busting recs: