Why Did I Come Into This Room? ADHD, Working Memory and Everyday Forgetfulness
Walking into a room and immediately forgetting why you are there can be funny, but for people with ADHD it can also be part of a much broader pattern of working-memory and executive-function difficulties.
You walk into the kitchen.
You stop.
You look around.
Absolutely no idea why you're there.
So you walk back into the other room and, somewhere halfway there, your brain helpfully remembers what you wanted.
You turn around again.
Or perhaps you pick up your phone to do something important, see a notification, reply to a message, somehow end up on Instagram and emerge ten minutes later with absolutely no recollection of what you originally picked your phone up to do.
Sound familiar?
I posted a Reel about this recently with the caption “Anyone else do this daily… hourly?” and it clearly struck a chord. It has become one of my most viewed and shared posts.
And I suspect part of the reason is that these tiny moments capture something about ADHD that can be difficult to explain.
Because yes, forgetting why you walked into a room is funny.
But when your brain does versions of this all day long, it can also be incredibly frustrating.
So, why does this happen?
One of the cognitive processes involved in ADHD is working memory.
Working memory is essentially your brain's temporary mental workspace. It allows you to hold information in mind for long enough to actually do something with it.
For example:
“I'm going upstairs to get my charger.”
Your brain needs to keep GET CHARGER active while you stand up, walk out of the room, climb the stairs and arrive in the bedroom.
Simple enough.
Except your ADHD brain may encounter approximately 47 other pieces of information along the way.
There's a cup on the stairs.
I should take that down.
You notice the washing basket.
I need to put a wash on.
You remember someone needs a clean PE kit tomorrow.
You walk into the bedroom.
Why am I here?
The charger hasn't disappeared from your memory completely. The original intention has simply been knocked out of your immediate mental workspace by everything that happened between deciding to do it and getting there.
It's not that you weren't listening
This distinction is really important.
Working-memory difficulties can sometimes look like someone hasn't listened, doesn't care or simply isn't trying hard enough.
You might recognise things like:
Being given three instructions and remembering approximately one and a half.
Losing your train of thought halfway through a sentence.
Opening an email to reply and somehow forgetting to reply.
Walking upstairs repeatedly because you keep returning without the thing you went to get.
Putting something somewhere “safe” and apparently ensuring it will never be found by another human being, including you.
Reading a paragraph and realising you've absorbed none of it.
Thinking “I absolutely must remember that” and then immediately not remembering that.
Starting one task, noticing another, beginning that one instead and eventually discovering the abandoned remains of several partially completed jobs around the house.
For someone with ADHD, these aren't necessarily occasional quirky moments. They can form part of a much broader pattern of difficulties with attention regulation and executive functioning.
And when they happen repeatedly, they can affect work, relationships, parenting, studying and everyday life.
The particularly annoying bit: you might actually have an excellent memory
This is one of the contradictions people can find confusing.
You might be able to remember something incredibly specific that somebody said to you twelve years ago.
You may know vast amounts of information about something you're interested in.
You might remember obscure details, conversations, song lyrics, facts or experiences with extraordinary accuracy.
And yet you cannot find your keys.
Again.
This doesn't necessarily mean your memory is generally poor.
ADHD is much more about the regulation of cognitive processes than simply being unable to pay attention or remember things.
Your ability to retrieve information from long-term memory is different from your ability to keep information active in working memory while you're doing something else.
Which is why “but you remembered that!” doesn't prove that you should also have remembered the appointment, the form, the school email or why you opened the fridge.
Brains are inconveniently more complicated than that.
“But everyone does that sometimes”
They absolutely do.
People without ADHD forget why they entered rooms. They lose their keys. They get distracted. They procrastinate.
None of those things individually means somebody has ADHD.
When we assess ADHD, we aren't looking for whether someone has ever experienced these things. We are interested in the overall pattern.
How frequently does it happen?
How long has it been happening?
Was there evidence of similar difficulties during childhood?
Does it occur across different areas of life?
How much effort does the person put into compensating for it?
And, crucially, what impact does it have?
There is an enormous difference between occasionally losing your keys and structuring your entire household around increasingly elaborate systems because otherwise you would lose them every morning.
Many adults with ADHD have also developed very effective strategies over the years.
They may appear extremely organised precisely because they know what happens when they aren't.
Calendars. Alarms. Lists. Notes. Things placed strategically by doors. Multiple reminders for the same appointment.
Sometimes what looks like effortless organisation from the outside is actually a carefully constructed external support system holding everything together.
Stop asking your brain to do a job it isn't very good at
One of the most helpful shifts after understanding my own ADHD has been recognising that I don't have to keep proving that I should be able to remember things.
If my working memory is unreliable, I can externalise some of that work.
That might mean:
Putting something somewhere visible rather than somewhere “sensible”.
Setting the reminder when I think of the thing, not trusting myself to remember to set it later.
Keeping important items in consistent places.
Writing something down immediately.
Asking for information in writing.
Breaking instructions into smaller steps.
Using visual prompts.
Leaving the object I need somewhere that makes it impossible to ignore.
Is having something sitting directly in front of the door aesthetically pleasing?
Not particularly.
Will I remember it if it's tucked neatly away in a cupboard?
Also no.
Sometimes the best ADHD strategy isn't the most elegant one. It's the one that actually works.
Understanding changes things
This is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about helping people understand their neurodivergence rather than simply giving them a list of symptoms.
I'm a Clinical Psychologist, but I also have ADHD myself.
I know both professionally and personally how easy it is to interpret these difficulties as character flaws.
I'm disorganised.
I'm lazy.
Why can't I just get myself together?
Everyone else seems able to manage this.
When you understand the cognitive processes underneath some of these experiences, the question can begin to change.
Instead of:
“Why can't I just remember?”
it becomes:
“If my brain doesn't reliably hold this information, what can I put in place so it doesn't have to?”
That's a much more compassionate question.
And, usually, a much more useful one.
So the next time you confidently march into a room only to stand there wondering what on earth you're doing...
Welcome.
Apparently we're all just going to have to walk back out again and hope it comes to us.
Wondering Whether ADHD Could Explain More Than the Occasional Forgotten Charger?
Working-memory difficulties are just one possible aspect of ADHD. ADHD can also affect attention regulation, organisation, time management, task initiation, motivation, impulsivity, emotional regulation and many other aspects of everyday functioning.
Experiencing some of these things does not necessarily mean that you have ADHD. A comprehensive ADHD assessment considers your developmental history, current experiences and functioning across different areas of your life rather than relying upon individual traits or an online checklist.
At I.N. Therapy Berkshire, we provide comprehensive, neuroaffirming ADHD and combined autism and ADHD assessments for adults.
You can also access focused neurodivergence support if you already know or suspect that you are neurodivergent and would like practical support to better understand how your brain works.
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