Dyslexia and Working Memory: Why You Forget Words, Names and Instructions.

If there is one topic I come back to more than any other in my coaching, it is working memory. It is the area of dyslexia that affects the most people I work with, and it quietly touches almost every part of adult life. The good news, and I want to say this early, is that it is also the area I have developed the most strategies for, and small changes here often make a real difference.

Working memory is your ability to hold and juggle information in the moment. When it is under strain, here is how it tends to show up.

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Meetings feel overwhelming. Trying to listen, process, remember what was just said and think of your own response all at once is a huge load on working memory. It is no wonder meetings can leave you frazzled or blank.

Organising your thoughts is hard. Holding several ideas in mind and putting them into a clear order is exactly the kind of task working memory struggles with. The thoughts are there, but arranging them on the spot is the difficult part.

Certain conversations fill you with dread. Your dyslexia and working memory is heavily affected by stress, so speaking to specific people, a senior manager, someone who makes you anxious, can make it noticeably worse. The pressure eats up the very capacity you need, which is why those conversations feel so much harder.

Ad hoc questions catch you out. Being put on the spot with an unexpected question leaves no time to prepare, and working memory does not perform well under that kind of sudden demand. You know the answer, but it will not come when you need it.

Dates and details slip through. Remembering dates, times and small pieces of information is classic working memory territory, and errors here are common. It is not carelessness, it is capacity.

You feel forgetful, like your memory is failing. Names, words, why you walked into the room. This constant, low-level forgetfulness is one of the most disheartening parts, because it can feel like something is wrong with you. It is not. It is working memory doing exactly what an overloaded working memory does.

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The encouraging part about your dyslexia and working memory

If you recognised yourself in that list, here is what I most want you to know. This is the area I have developed the most tools for, and there is a great deal that helps.

Here are a few simple starting points:

• Learn your capacity. Get to know your own limits and work with them rather than against them, so you catch overwhelm before it takes hold rather than pushing on until everything falls apart.

  
  

• Build your confidence. So much of the blanking happens under stress, so the steadier and more confident you feel, the less likely your working memory is to desert you at the crucial moment.

  
  

• Protect your focus for fine detail. When you are doing something that needs precision, like sending a meeting invite, do not let your brain get pulled in ten directions at once. Close the other tabs, literal and mental, and give it your full attention.

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Dyslexia in Adults

Dyslexia in Adults was created to help people stop struggling in silence and finally get the understanding and support I could never find myself. If you are ready to take the next step.

Here are a few ways to start:

Read the book. My book Dyslexia Unlocked, published by Bloomsbury, explores all of this in much more detail, and is a good place to begin making sense of your own dyslexic mind. 

Grab the free resource. Our free guide has been downloaded over 8,000 times and is full of practical, simple strategies you can start using straight away.

Explore coaching. If you would like more personal, tailored support, coaching works through exactly these challenges with you. You can find more details here.