Why don't alarms work in ADHD?

An alarm does not start a task; it only says “now.” When what to do is not clear, it is easily silenced, either because time blindness makes the remaining time look plentiful or because too many alarms go off during the day.

How should an alarm be set?

Let its name be an action: instead of “meeting,” “save the file, take the keys.” Set it not for the appointment time but for the time you need to leave home, and add a preparation alarm about fifteen minutes before leaving.

How many alarms a day should I set?

Research does not give a number for this. In my view only the critical ones should stay: fixed moments such as leaving, meals and medication. If everything rings, none of them carries meaning.

How does an if-then plan combine with an alarm?

The alarm becomes the “if” part of the plan. You write down in advance the small action to take the moment it rings, like “If the 09.10 alarm rings, I finish my sentence and put my bag by the door.”

What should I do if the alarm rings and I still cannot start?

Make the action smaller: “open the file” instead of “start working.” If you cannot break away from the work because of hyperfocus, pair the alarm with a physical action, like turning off the screen. If that is not enough either, it is worth talking to your doctor about the situation together with medication and treatment.

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How to Set Up Alarms and Reminders for ADHD

Why are alarms silenced in ADHD? A setup that works: turning the alarm's name into an action, a two-stage departure alarm and the link to an if-then plan.

Cansu20 October 20268 min readMedium

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Say it is 17.40. The phone vibrates, and the screen says "Meeting." Your finger goes to the dismiss button by reflex, you say "okay, I know" to yourself and go back to the tab that was open. At 18.10 you look again. Your shoes are still not on your feet, and the laptop is still open.

The alarm rang, you heard it, you dismissed it. What broke was not the alarm failing to ring. It rang and gave you only a piece of information; it did not make you do anything.

Why alarms get silenced

An alarm says "there is something right now." But starting a task asks for more than information: letting go of what is in your hands, making the transition, finding the first move. In ADHD this transition is already expensive, and the alarm does not make the transition for you; it only knocks on the door. And you say "in a moment" without opening it.

In my view, silenced alarms have three reasons in common.

The first is that the alarm does not say what it wants. If the screen shows a time or "Meeting," the moment it rings you first have to work out why you set it. This is a small but real job, and postponing is the cheapest way out.

The second is that time blindness wipes out the meaning of the alarm. The information "forty minutes left" does not make you feel anything in the body; it feels like plenty of time. The second alarm says "twenty minutes left," and that feels like plenty too. The real feeling of urgency only comes after the departure time has passed.

The third is habituation. If fifteen alarms ring a day, the sound stops being information and turns into noise. I do not know of a study that tests this directly in adults with ADHD; I am speaking from a general principle. It is known that the response weakens when you are exposed to the same stimulus again and again; it is very likely that this holds for an alarm sound too, but I cannot say for certain how pronounced it is in ADHD.

Turn the alarm's name into an action sentence

The cheapest and most effective change is this: write not the topic but the movement in the alarm's title.

Instead of "Meeting," "Save the file, take the keys and the bag." Instead of "Medication," "Fill the water, take the pill." Instead of "Study," "Open the notebook, start the stopwatch." When the alarm rings, you do not have to think about what will start; the sentence has done the thinking for you.

This is where the if-then plan comes in. The trigger of the plan should be a noticeable moment that comes in the same form every day. The alarm is exactly that: audible, with a fixed time. What was missing is the "then" part. The written version could be this: "If the 17.40 alarm rings, I finish the sentence I am on, save the file and put the bag by the door."

The meta-analysis by Gollwitzer and Sheeran shows that plans written in advance like this generally increase reaching a goal. Most of the studies were done in the general population, and their adaptation to ADHD has been less examined. Still, the logic is simple and trying it is free.

I add a small rule: turn the alarm off after you have done the action. Let the dismiss button be the "done" button. Silencing first and saying I will do it afterwards postpones half of the work.

How many, and at what times

A single alarm is usually not enough, and a hundred alarms are not enough either. In the chronic lateness article I talked about writing the departure time backwards from the arrival time; alarms sit on top of that calculation.

Say you have an appointment at 10.00. The road takes twenty-five minutes, getting ready to reach the door takes ten, and you leave a ten-minute margin for the unexpected:

09.10, preparation alarm: "Finish what you are doing, take the keys and the bag"
09.25, door alarm: "Leave through the door"
10.00, appointment: no alarm needed, because you are already on your way

The preparation alarm gives you room to finish. The door alarm asks for only one action: going out. The gap between the two is fifteen minutes, because what you call "finishing," because of the problem of estimating time, often takes longer than you expect.

The question of how many critical alarms there should be in a day has no answer in the research. In my view three to five is reasonable: waking up, a meal, medication, leaving and the end of the day. For everything else, use places, not alarms. The keys always hanging on the same hook and the shoes sitting by the door use less energy than setting alarms.

Reminding without an alarm

For some things an alarm is simply the wrong tool. Think of the keys, the wallet, the charger, a parcel to take when you go out. These have no time; they have a place. If you set an alarm as the reminder, you will live with twenty alarms a day.

Instead, put the reminder at the place of the object. Leave the parcel on top of your shoes, clip the book you will take tomorrow to the zip of your bag, put the medication box where you make your morning coffee. This too is an if-then: "If I bend down to put on my shoes, I will see the parcel and take it." The moment your eye catches on something works like an alarm that makes no sound.

Barkley's approach is close to this: in ADHD the knowledge is there but it does not come into play at the moment of behavior, so he suggests that cues be visible at the place and at the moment where the task will be done.

Sound, place and the snooze button

Small details make a big difference.

Give each kind of alarm its own sound. Let the departure alarm have one sound and the meal alarm another. When a sound carries meaning, the question "what is this for?" is answered the moment it rings.

Do not use the snooze button. Snooze turns the alarm from information into bargaining. With snooze off, you dismiss it and do the action. With it on, five-minute negotiations can eat half an hour. The same goes for the morning alarm; in the morning routine article I described putting the alarm at the other end of the room.

Try to be able to dismiss the alarm without opening the phone. There are studies on the effect of interruption on work and stress (Mark et al., 2008), but applying this directly to a phone alarm is my interpretation. Still, it is very easy to get caught on the first notification that appears on the screen as you dismiss the alarm. So it seems sensible for the way of dismissing to be short, and if possible for it to be possible without unlocking the phone.

Tie the moment of setting the alarm to something too. The moment you write the appointment in the calendar, set the departure alarm too. Setting an alarm is also a job that has to be remembered, and working memory struggles with this job as well.

Where an alarm is not enough

An alarm does not solve everything, and it needs to be said openly.

In hyperfocus, an alarm that rings just as the work is flowing feels like an obstacle. It is very easy to silence the sound and carry on. Here it helps to tie the if-then sentence to a physical action: "If the alarm rings, I save the file and turn off the screen." Turning off the screen makes going back to the work one step harder. If that is not enough, agreeing with someone near you, "when the alarm rings, get me on my feet," is also an option.

Medication reminders are a different matter. An alarm is a good tool for reminding you of the time of a medication, but do not shift the time of the medication on your own; talk about adjusting medication with your doctor.

The arrangement you set up can wear out after a few weeks. The same sound, the same text, the same time. In my view, changing the sound and the text now and then is nothing to be ashamed of; it is the maintenance of the system.

A one-week trial

Do not try to set up everything in one day. Spread it over the week.

On Monday, list all the alarms on your phone. What is each one there for? Delete the ones you do not know the answer for. On Tuesday, turn the names of the rest into action sentences. From Wednesday on, set aside two minutes every evening and ask: which alarm did I silence today, and why? Was the label unclear, was the time wrong, was the sound boring, or was I in the middle of another job? Then change one thing, not everything.

At the end of the week, look at how many alarms are left. In my view the most useful result will be the number of alarms going down.

What stays with me

Blaming the alarm is easy, but in my view the fault is not in the alarm. The alarm is a good trigger, just a trigger that does not know what you will do. An alarm whose name is an action and an alarm that says "Meeting" are not the same tool.

If it were me, I would keep few alarms. I would give fixed moments such as leaving, meals, medication and the end of the day to alarms, and leave the rest to place and habit. It sounds ordinary once written down, but silence is a tool too: when there are few alarms, something really happens each time one rings.

The silencing of alarms is not a matter of character, it is a matter of design. If the system does not fit you, it is not you who has to change, it is the system.

Frequently asked questions

Why don't alarms work in ADHD?: An alarm does not start a task; it only says “now.” When what to do is not clear, it is easily silenced, either because time blindness makes the remaining time look plentiful or because too many alarms go off during the day.
How should an alarm be set?: Let its name be an action: instead of “meeting,” “save the file, take the keys.” Set it not for the appointment time but for the time you need to leave home, and add a preparation alarm about fifteen minutes before leaving.
How many alarms a day should I set?: Research does not give a number for this. In my view only the critical ones should stay: fixed moments such as leaving, meals and medication. If everything rings, none of them carries meaning.
How does an if-then plan combine with an alarm?: The alarm becomes the “if” part of the plan. You write down in advance the small action to take the moment it rings, like “If the 09.10 alarm rings, I finish my sentence and put my bag by the door.”
What should I do if the alarm rings and I still cannot start?: Make the action smaller: “open the file” instead of “start working.” If you cannot break away from the work because of hyperfocus, pair the alarm with a physical action, like turning off the screen. If that is not enough either, it is worth talking to your doctor about the situation together with medication and treatment.