The ADHD meeting survival kit

A meeting taxes three things at once: working memory to track the thread, stillness to sit through it, and transitions on both sides. The calendar says thirty minutes; your afternoon says otherwise.

You cannot remove the tax, but you can stop paying it in surprise. A tiny kit before, during, and after does most of the work.

Then there is the aftermath: you know something was agreed, you cannot say what, and the follow-up you owe never quite gets written. The kit fixes that part too.

Meetings go badly when you arrive cold. Two minutes beforehand, load the context while loading is cheap.

• Read the invite or agenda — or write one sentence: “why am I in this?”
• Name the one thing you need from it and the one thing they need from you.
• Open whatever document will come up, so you are not hunting it live.
• Decide your exit line if it runs long: “I have a hard stop at :55.”
• Check who else is in the room — names load slower mid-meeting.

Arriving with one sentence beats arriving with good intentions.

• Doodle-notes: boxes and arrows, not sentences you will fall behind on.
• A silent fidget below camera level.
• A parking-lot line for shiny off-topic thoughts — captured, not chased.
• Stand-up meeting? Actually stand — it is the one format with a built-in fidget.

On video calls, camera on can help — being visible makes drifting into a second tab more expensive.

Fidgeting is how some brains stay in the room. Give it a legal outlet and it stops looking for illegal ones.

The last two minutes of a meeting are worth more than the first twenty. Before you stand up or close the tab:

• Write every “I’ll do X” you agreed to — each with a date.
• Write the one decision that was actually made.
• Put the next action somewhere you will trip over it.
• Send or schedule anything you promised “right after this.”

Something you agreed to with no date does not exist yet. Give it one, even a rough one, before the call ends.