Case Study
As a family photographer, Melissa has this incredible ability to capture raw emotion, making you feel all the feels.

While her clients were obsessed with the photos, getting through the shoot was sometimes complicated because Melisa struggled to remember names.

She’d literally start the session with: “I’m going to forget your name,” and then go and ask them their names.
Since she couldn’t remember their names, she end up calling people whatever came to mind first “you in the blue shirt” or just call everyone “sweetie” Which meant getting people into position always took much longer and was very draining.

Sure, she laughed it off and made the most of the session. But things took longer than they had too. Which meant both Melissa and her clients were super tired by the end of the shoot.

Melissa genuinely believed she was just bad at remembering names.
After all, her whole life she had a hard time with it.

What Melissa didn’t know was that to do any task, including remembering names, you’re using some of the 28 thinking skills.

If the thinking skills you need to use are weak, doing the task becomes hard for your brain.

In Melissa’s case, she was struggling with the thinking skill of working memory and so she struggled with remembering names.
Once we strengthened Melissa's working memory, remembering names was easy and photoshoots went much smoother.


Working Memory

Working memory is memory needed to do a task.
Once the task is over, you don’t need that information anymore.

For example,
If you’re making macaroni and the box says the macaroni needs to stay in the pot for 9 minutes.
You need to remember 9 minutes just until those 9 minutes are up.

Or if someone gives you their phone number and you're typing it into your phone, you only need to remember the numbers as they are giving it to you and putting it in your phone. Once it's in your phone, it's already saved.

In Melissa's case, she just needed to remember the names of her clients while she was doing the photo shoots.


While so many people with ADHD struggle with working memory, working memory does not need to stay a struggle forever.
It’s simply a skill your brain hasn’t learned yet.


Improving Working Memory

Before we were able to do any work to help Melissa remember names, she had to switch from a fixed to a growth mindset.

I found that especially when it comes to remembering names, we tell ourselves, we’re bad at remembering names and so we end up being bad at remembering names.

I had Melissa change her introductory sentence from “I’m going to forget your name” to “I’m working on getting better at remembering names. If I forget will you help me out.”

It breaks the awkwardness the same way but actually gets your brain to try to remember the names instead of just shutting it out.

Once I could see Melissa switched to a growth mindset on remembering names, I began adjusting the brain exercises we were doing in session so that Melissa had to remember multiple shapes in her brain at the same time.

Since that means nothing to you, as you’re not in session right now, I’m gonna share with you 3 other ways for you to improve your own working memory.

Take what works for you, leave what doesn’t.

3 Ways to Improve Working Memory 

1) Every time you’re about to walk into your house, give yourself 3 things to do (unpack groceries, respond to a text and take out meat from the freezer)

Then as you go into your house there will be distractions.
Your kid will want something from you.
You’ll notice an Amazon delivery.
You’ll have to use your working memory to remember the 3 things you gave yourself to do and do them.

Once you feel comfortable doing 3 things, give yourself 4 things to do then, 5


2) Working memory really shows it colors when it comes to numbers.
When you’ve got a number to remember, whether it’s a verification code, a credit number or phone number, instead of freaking out or going one number at time, challenge yourself to remember 2 numbers at a time. And then as you’re able to remember that well, move up to 3 number, and 4, 5 and 6.

Don’t be shocked the first time you get a verification number and you’re able to put all the numbers in the right way the first time.

3) We have a much easier time remembering when we use more senses and associations. So next time you’ve got to remember something, take a second to say out loud what you’re trying to remember.

Don’t just read the macaroni box before you throw it out. Pause. Say out loud, “The macaroni needs to be in the pot for 9 minutes.” This helps your brain actually process the information.

When Melissa asked a client their name, she’d tell them back their name, with a compliment that also helped her with associations
For example, "Emma, what a beautiful yellow dress you’re wearing the yellow dress.” Or “Sofia, I love your braids."

This helps with more senses and with associations at the same time.



If you’re thinking: "But some people are just naturally good with names and I'm not one of them." you’re not ready yet to do the exercises.
You’re still stuck in a fixed mindset.

Show your brain that it is possible. For the next week, anytime you meet someone new, tell them you’re working on getting better at remembering names. See what happens with that simple switch.




After the 90-day cohort Optimize Your ADHD Brain was done, I was speaking with Melissa when she told me, “It’s crazy how I remember names.Even when I forget, I don’t panic, I know it’s gonna come back to me. I’ll literally tell the other person, give me a minute, and I magically remember.”


I know it seems like Magic, it’s really just working memory... working.


Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!