If that sounds like you, you have a lot of company. While building Ciao!, we read hundreds of Reddit threads about keeping in touch. Forgetting people who aren’t around was the complaint that came up most, and it came up most in r/ADHD and r/adhdwomen, often in the same words: out of sight, out of mind, for people too.
This post is about habits. It isn’t medical advice.
What “out of sight, out of mind” means here
Online, people often call it “ADHD object permanence”. The term comes from child development. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget used it for the stage when babies learn that a hidden toy still exists. It isn’t a clinical term, and it isn’t part of an ADHD diagnosis.
Adults with ADHD know perfectly well that their friends still exist. What people describe is that nothing prompts them to get in touch, so a few weeks turn into a few months. Without context, the other person can read that as not caring.
Why the gap makes it harder
After a few weeks, a message starts to feel like it needs an explanation. After a few months, it feels like it needs an apology. So you wait for a better moment, and the gap keeps growing.
Two studies suggest the gap feels worse from your side than from theirs. Lara Aknin and Gillian Sandstrom found that the main thing stopping people from writing to an old friend was a worry that the friend wouldn’t want to hear from them. A team led by Peggy Liu looked at the other side: people appreciated being contacted more than the senders expected, especially when the message came out of the blue.
Put people where you’ll see them
If people disappear when they’re out of view, the most direct fix is to keep them in view.
- Pin a few chats to the top of WhatsApp or Messages.
- Keep a short list of names somewhere you look every day.
- Put photos of the people you want to stay close to where you’ll see them, like your lock screen.
Pick one moment a week
Choose a time you already have every week, like Sunday coffee or the bus home on Friday. Go through your list then, and write to anyone you haven’t heard from in a while. Plenty of people already do this by hand. It helps that the moment comes round on its own, so there’s nothing to remember.
A repeating calendar reminder can help too. The catch is that it rings on a fixed date, even if you talked to that person yesterday, and reminders that are often wrong soon get ignored.
Lower the bar for what counts
A message doesn’t have to be a proper catch-up. A meme, a photo, a voice note on your walk, or “this made me think of you” all keep the thread going, and they’re easier to send on a low-energy day.
When someone writes to you and you can’t answer properly, reply small straight away: “Saw this! Answering properly tonight.” There’s more on that in our post on being bad at texting back.
Tell your friends how you work
Simply Psychology’s guide to ADHD and object permanence suggests being honest with close friends about how easily you lose track of people who aren’t around. It can be one line:
“If I disappear for a while, it’s never about you. I think about you a lot more than I text you.”
It gives them a kinder way to read the next gap.
Let birthdays do some of the work
Birthdays are an easy reason to get in touch, and you don’t have to explain anything. In Aknin and Sandstrom’s research, a friend’s birthday was the reason people rated highest for writing to an old friend. Put birthdays somewhere that will remind you on the day.
Questions
Is “out of sight, out of mind” an ADHD symptom?
It isn’t a diagnostic term. Many people with ADHD use it to describe how friendships go for them, and plenty of people without ADHD say the same. If it’s affecting your life a lot, it’s worth talking to a doctor or a therapist.
Am I a bad friend if I forget to text?
Forgetting to text and not caring are two different things. You can care a lot and still need some help from outside your head, like the habits above.
How can I be a better friend with ADHD?
Most of the advice in our post on how to be a better friend still works. Ask follow-up questions, call now and then, and say the nice thing out loud. Add the habits above to bring people back to mind.
Sources
Guy-Evans, O. (updated 20 May 2025). Object permanence & ADHD: "Out of sight, out of mind". Simply Psychology, reviewed by S. McLeod. https://www.simplypsychology.org/object-permanence-and-adhd.html
Aknin, L. B., & Sandstrom, G. M. (2024). People are surprisingly hesitant to reach out to old friends. Communications Psychology, 2, 34. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00075-8
Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2023). The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(4), 754-771. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000402
Where Ciao! fits
Ciao! is an iPhone app for keeping in touch. You choose how often you’d like to hear from each person, and it counts from the last time you talked, so once you log a chat it leaves that person alone until it’s been a while again. When someone’s due, you get a note that evening, and on Sunday there’s a short look at who you haven’t talked to. A widget puts the faces of who you haven’t talked to on your home screen. Each person is a card: swipe right when you’ve talked, or left for “Not now” and they come back next Sunday. No red badges, and no account to make. The Yearly plan starts with a 7-day free trial.
For people whose brain works on out of sight, out of mind
Get Ciao!