The Disorganized Mind

Its full title is The Disorganized Mind: Coaching Your ADHD Brain to Take Control of Your Time, Tasks, and Talents. It came out from St. Martin's Press in the spring of 2008; in publisher and bookseller records the release date is April 1, 2008. One library record dates the print book to 2007 and lists it as xiv + 283 pages, while e-book records give between 304 and 371 pages. The records do not agree with each other, so I am not giving a single number either. The following year a paperback edition came out from St. Martin's Griffin.

I could not find a verified Turkish edition; I am writing it under its original title.

Let me say one thing at the start. This piece rests on the book's table of contents, the publisher's description, an openly available preview section of the book and published reviews by coaches and readers. I do not claim to have read the book from cover to cover. Where I could not see inside the chapters, I will write that I could not.

Who the author is

Nancy Ratey has a master's degree in education from Harvard (Ed.M., 1991) and got her bachelor's degree from Ohio State. In her own biography and in sources close to her, she is named as one of the founders of the ADHD coaching profession. She is a former president of ADDA, the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, chair of the national committee that drew up a statement of principles for coaching, and a Master Certified Coach. All of this information comes from her own account or from pages that introduce her. I could not verify it from an independent source, so I read it as "in her own account."

In the preview of the book's first chapter, she describes getting her dyslexia diagnosis at Ohio State and her ADHD diagnosis at Harvard. So she, too, is looking from the inside. She was previously among the co-authors of Tales from the Workplace (1997), Coaching College Students with AD/HD (2001) and AD/HD Throughout the Lifespan (2003).

The foreword was written by John J. Ratey, co-author of Driven to Distraction. The afterword is by Sam Goldstein.

The starting idea

The book is not built as an ADHD textbook. The verb in the subtitle, coaching, says it all: it tries to put into the reader's hands the work a coach does in a session. The publisher's description says that most adults with ADHD live in chaos and that it does not have to go on that way. John Ratey's foreword also carries the idea that people can change their lives through coaching or self-coaching.

This distinction sets the tone of the book. It is concerned less with the question of why than with the question of what you will do. Someone expecting brain science or diagnostic criteria should look elsewhere.

In the piece what is ADHD coaching on the site, I wrote in detail about what coaching solves and what it does not. In short: it is a structured support focused on day-to-day functioning, and it does not take the place of therapy or medication. Ratey's book is the book form of this genre.

Time, procrastination, impulsivity, distractibility and transitions are the headings of the book's second part. These are the everyday counterparts of executive functions. But I could not tell from the table of contents whether the book uses this term as its own theoretical language. I am the one setting up the frame.

Part one: the coach and the method

Part one carries the name "Coaching" and consists of four chapters. Let me underline the chapter titles and page numbers, because the proportion says something.

The first chapter, "How I Came to Coaching," tells how the author came to coaching: the diagnosis, the importance of the name, the Harvard years. About twelve pages. The second chapter explains how coaching works, around sixteen pages. The third chapter, "Self-Coaching," eighteen pages. The fourth chapter, "Finding the A-N-S-W-E-R," thirty-six pages and the longest in the part.

I calculated the page ranges from the table of contents. ANSWER is a six-step acronym that Ratey proposes for self-coaching. According to the summary in one coach's review, the steps are: accept your ADHD and its challenges, focus on one or two issues at first, build a plan that rests on your strengths, carry out the plan, evaluate your progress regularly, repeat the cycle. I did not see the exact meaning of each letter of the acronym on the book's own page, so this summary should be counted as secondhand.

I learn one more thing from reader quotes: Ratey suggests changing a few things at a time and says that trying more sets a person up for failure from the start. Among her suggestions is also, when a strategy does not stick, noting what you actually did and rebuilding the plan around your own strengths. And a logbook: in a visible place, in a fixed spot, with its pen next to it and with a reminder.

These three ideas make sense to me. One pen, one notebook, a few goals: even if the book said only these things, it would be a useful book.

Part two: five problems

The heart of the book, "Coaching the ADHD Brain," starts on page 85 and runs to 211. About half the text. Five chapters, each one a single problem.

Time Mismanagement. About twenty pages. As far as I can see from a summary relayed by a coach, the suggestions include these: planning breaks in advance because hyperfocus can block the way, setting aside time blocks for tasks, accepting that doing two tasks in a day rather than ten can be realistic, finding an accountability partner and measuring how long a constantly repeated task, such as getting ready for work, takes. One idea readers quote from Ratey is this: the perception of time does not change by apologizing or making promises, it changes when you separate the problem from yourself and take action. It looks at the same place as the piece on time blindness on the site.

Procrastination. Thirty pages; the longest chapter of the second part. I could not verify its content. Even its length shows where the book stands: for the author, this is the real knot. On the site I wrote about the types of procrastination one by one, because in ADHD procrastination is often less a character flaw than a problem of starting and sustaining.

Impulsivity. Twenty-four pages. I cannot say anything about the content.

Distractibility. Twenty-eight pages. One review relays that Ratey asks the reader three questions: what could get in the way of my main commitment, how do I keep myself from getting caught up in the distraction, how do I prevent it from happening at all. I liked the order of the questions. Finding the obstacle in advance is easier than resisting it once it appears.

Transitions. Twenty pages. That difficulty with transitions gets its own chapter is, to me, one of the book's best decisions. Difficulty with transitions stays a subheading in most ADHD books. Here it has its own chapter.

Parts three and four

"Strategies for a Balanced Life" is about thirty pages: the home environment (about eight pages), physical health (ten) and spiritual and mental well-being (six). Much shorter than the second part. So at the center of the book is day-to-day functioning, and life balance stands as an addition.

Part four, "Living or Working with Someone with ADHD," is devoted to loving and working with someone with ADHD. The title of chapter thirteen is "Loving Someone with ADHD, or, Did I Sign Up for This?", so it comes with the question of whether I would have agreed if I had known it would be like this. Chapter fourteen is about working for or with someone with ADHD. Its subtitle is a joke: a right-brained manager needs a left-brained right hand. The split between the right brain and the left brain is a pattern circulating in popular psychology; there is no such sharp division in neuroscience. The phrase in the title can be read as a joke, but it should not be read as a real model. I could not see the content of the two chapters. Still, the existence of such a part shows that the book thinks of the reader with ADHD not only as an individual but also as part of a relationship.

The book closes with "Final Thoughts" and Goldstein's afterword. Appendix A, named "Index of Strategies," is an index of the strategies; appendix B is ADHD resources. According to the records, the bibliography is only two pages, 274 and 275.

Its strongest sides

The most obvious strength is that the book comes from a coach's hand. Ratey's book deals with a different job from a researcher's or a therapist's book: breaking a practical problem into small pieces. Ideas such as a few changes at a time, noting what you actually did before dropping a strategy that does not work, and putting the logbook in a visible place speak at the level of practice.

Because the five problems are spread over separate chapters, the reader does not have to read the book from cover to cover. If it were me, I would give one week to time and the next week to transitions. The index of strategies in appendix A also turns the book into a resource to open and look at again. I do not always see this in ADHD books.

Part four is a separate plus. Having a chapter that can be handed to someone who lives or works with a person with ADHD makes the book something that can be talked about within a family or a team. Finally, the author has ADHD herself. I know this does not automatically make the book good, but a coach knowing this work from the inside affects the reader's trust.

Its weak sides and the evidence

The evidence for coaching is still thin. A review that gathers coaching research says the results are consistently positive, but the samples are small and the designs do not resemble each other. In Prevatt and Yelland's 2015 study, 148 university students who took part in an eight-week program were followed, and there was no control group. The authors also wrote that randomized designs are needed. A research summary on one of the coaches' professional sites, on the other hand, gives two conference posters and a book as its sources. For comparison: there are randomized trials of cognitive behavioral therapy in adult ADHD. Coaching has not been tested at this level.

The book came out in 2008, that is, before these studies and reviews. I cannot see how the book leans on evidence. According to the records its bibliography is two pages, and that cannot reflect today's body of coaching research either.

The seller's book. The author's profession depends on the approach she describes existing. This does not make the book bad. But it calls for reading its claims about evidence more closely. One review says that skills are more important than medication. I cannot tell whether this is the book's stance or the reviewer's. In any case, in ADHD coaching does not take the place of medication.

The reader record is mixed. On Goodreads, around 3.9 from about 900 ratings; on Everand, 3.5 from fifty-three ratings. The summary on Everand says it may be repetition for those who know the productivity literature and that the author's personal anecdotes feel scattered to some readers. This is an AI summary, and I give it weight accordingly.

Age. It is a book that came out about ten months after the first iPhone. I could not see the examples in the distractibility chapter, but I think today's state of phones, notifications and the never-ending feed is not there.

The irony of using it on your own. Keeping a logbook, setting reminders, repeating the cycle: exactly the things ADHD struggles with. The book seems aware of this, because it mentions reminders and visibility separately. But a book cannot give the structure that a weekly appointment with a coach brings from outside.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

For an adult who has a diagnosis, has understood what it is and now wants to look at how they function. For someone who does not have the money or the energy to hire a coach, but who needs a voice that will ask questions like a coach. One coach's review also recommends the book to exactly such readers.

The book can also be good preliminary reading for someone who wants to see what the method is before starting to work with a coach.

It is not for someone who has just been diagnosed and is in grief or shame. That person first needs a book of recognition like Driven to Distraction. Nor is it for someone looking for why ADHD arises, how medication works or the evidence for treatment.

Its place on the shelf

There are three separate voices on the shelf. Driven to Distraction introduces: this is you, this is normal. The Adult ADHD Tool Kit offers the tools of cognitive behavioral therapy and leans on tested components. Ratey's book is a third voice: the questions a coach asks. The question comes first, not the tool.

The difference is this: the Tool Kit takes its tools from a clinical team's therapy experience and from tested components, Ratey from the coaching profession. One lines up tools, the other lines up problems. They do not exclude each other, but they are not read with the same confidence. Then there is Mastering Your Adult ADHD: a measured program that proceeds in weekly modules. In terms of level of evidence, Ratey's book, to me, stands at the bottom of this trio.

My stance

If it were me, I would not read this book from cover to cover. I would go from part one to ANSWER, open the chapter of the problem that catches me most, then close the book and work for a week with a single change. Weighing a method with thin evidence not by its claim but by what it does for me is more honest.

I see the book not as a treatment method but as a study partner who asks good questions. In this role it is valuable. When it is put in the role of treatment, the evidence it has is not enough for that.