Getting your life organized can seem like a daunting task for anyone. But to those living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), staying on top of things often feels impossible.

ADHD manifests in diverse and often overwhelming ways. For Catherine Avery, a former Wall Street professional, it has meant a lifelong struggle with persistent disorganization, mental fog, and constant searches for documents and details — challenges that can disrupt daily life unexpectedly.

Avery’s daily struggles were further compounded by the fact that her condition remained undiagnosed for decades.

“I grew up thinking my brain was broken — that something was wrong with me,” she says. 

“The average neurodivergent child has heard 20,000 more negative messages by the age of 12 than a neurotypical child. You can imagine there's some trauma that comes with 20,000 more negative messages. They hear a lot of things like ‘You're crazy,’ ‘You're stupid,’ and ‘You're lazy.’ ‘Why can't you get your work in?’ ‘When are you going to get this thing done?’”

Avery spent a lifetime putting basic systems in place to manage her unrecognized ADHD, which is no small feat.

With ADHD, Organization Is a Huge Challenge

According to ADHD writing coach Susanne Schotanus, finding the right organizational systems and keeping them in place can be a colossal challenge for those living with ADHD.

“Many people with ADHD have bad working memories. That is why many ADHDers have trained themselves to keep all important things or unfinished projects around them in sight: when they're in sight, you're less likely to forget them,” Schotanus says.

“When the objects and paperwork become too much of a mess, and they have the energy and mental bandwidth, ADHDers will often go on a cleaning spree, in which they might throw or file away large numbers of materials at a time. Their desks might be clear, but that important document they decided weeks ago that they needed to not forget about will now be either thrown out or filed in a place where they can no longer find it.”

For Avery, that struggle was all too real. But it wasn’t until a bout with breast cancer that she realized her brain wasn’t “broken.” Her symptoms were all connected, and it was time to take action.

“With the cancer, I had chemo brain. It was really severe. I thought something was really wrong with me. I just could not remember things. I couldn't function. I started seeing that I was having executive function challenges, and it wasn't really until a few years later that I was like, ‘This looks a lot like ADHD.’”

Avery was finally tested and diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s, joining the 15.5 million US adults living with the condition. 

Like Avery, half of those people weren’t diagnosed with ADHD until adulthood, and it inspired her to achieve a series of specialist qualifications in neurodiversity, trauma, and productivity to kickstart a brand-new coaching career where she could support others struggling through similar experiences.

“I started picking up some clients who said, ‘I'm fine at work. I manage to make ADHD work. I get home, and I'm a disaster because I have no spoons left — no energy left. There's nothing in the tank. And I can't get my home organized. Can you help me?’” she says.

“And my goal for them is twofold. The big goal is recognizing they're not broken. The other high-level goal is to free up time because 90% of the people I work with are borderline or are already burned out.”

That means working with clients to establish systems that declutter their lives and create a sense of organization, subsequently freeing up their time to focus on self-care, maintaining their relationships, and doing things they actually love.

Trustworthy Makes Staying Organized Simpler

And while analog strategies like color-coded files definitely have a role to play, Avery says technology offers a critical lifeline toward creating peace of mind for neurodiverse individuals trying to keep their families organized.

That’s when she discovered Trustworthy.

Trustworthy's innovative Family Operating System® uses a range of dynamic automations, artificial intelligence, and top-level security features to help families manage daily life. Users can upload and create digital versions of everything from passports and insurance policies to estate plans, medical records, and investment documents. 

Avery says this all-in-one approach is a game-changer for people living with ADHD — creating a single source of truth and vastly simplifying the organization process for families.

“I had never put all that stuff in one place. So now, imagine your house has a fire, and your information about your automobile is downstairs in the file drawer in your husband's cabinet, and the information about the wills and estate planning and long-term insurance is upstairs in my file cabinet,” Avery says.

“And you're leaving the house, and you need to rapidly grab all these important documents before you leave, but they're in six different places. You're screwed, right? You're gonna have to decide. And really, what you really wanna do is grab the cat and go. What I love about Trustworthy is it's all in one place — so you can just go.”

Every document users upload to Trustworthy is protected by bank-level, AES 256-bit encryption. However, the platform also enables users to collaborate with family members and professionals so they can grant and control access to certain documents, which helps to lighten the load and share responsibility for important life management.

Automated Reminders 'Like a Godsend'

Meanwhile, Trustworthy automatically analyzes your documents and creates reminders when something needs to be renewed or reviewed.

“The renewal reminders are an ADHDers dream come true, right?” Avery says.

“Anyone who struggles with executive function challenges or struggles with memory issues — and this could be whether you have ADHD, or whether you're more senior and your memory is starting to go — having those reminder functions is like a godsend.”

Likewise, Trustworthy’s innovative Autopilot feature uses AI to name, categorize, and summarize uploads to streamline the organization process and ensure users always know where to find the important documents in their lives.

“Whereas ADHDers have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees and the trees for the forest, AI can help bridge that gap,” says Schotanus, the writing coach.

“It can help ADHDers take a problem they have right now and both suggest and implement systematic solutions that will help the ADHDer avoid that problem in the future, instead of always feeling like they need to put out the same fires.”

That being said, it’s important to remember that AI can only take users part of the way — particularly if they’re struggling to manage ADHD. That’s why Avery decided to take the next step and become a Trustworthy Certified Expert™.

Trustworthy Certified Experts™ are a handpicked and vetted team of professional organization specialists who are on hand to help platform users get (and stay) organized both online and offline. Experts like Avery support clients with onboarding documents, offer essential advice or coaching, and can even connect clients with other specialists like attorneys or estate planners.

According to Avery, putting those support systems in place can go a long way toward creating a sense of organization for neurodiverse clients.

Getting on top of life's details can be stressful for anyone, and for a lot of people living with ADHD, that stress may feel insurmountable at times. That’s why, above all else, Avery says it’s critical that people show patience and “give themselves grace.”

“People really are just so hard on themselves. But the biggest thing my clients don't even know they're coming to me for is to be heard, to be seen, to be honored for who they are,” she says.

“At the end of the day, we all need to be a little kinder to ourselves.”