One of the more interesting things about ADHD is that some of the things ADHD sufferers call "coping strategies" (using calendars, writing documentation) are actually just really good ideas for anyone.
The twin demons of diminishing returns and hyperbolic discounting mean that people who don't need to have these systems in place for the current demands of their lives, usually don't have them in place. ADHD sufferers probably get more out of implementing and following these systems on the margin, so they're paradoxically more likely to reach for them than the average person. (I predict Getting Things Done is popular with both high powered executives of all kinds and middle of the road ADHD laden office workers.) But current demands being low rarely predicts future demands staying low, and having a habit of working with these things already deeply engrained is a really, really good idea even if your Todo list only has "Get out of bed", "Finish Breaking Bad S4" and "Get back in bed" on it.
I think the number of items that any given office worker in today's environment has to juggle far, far exceeds working memory, never mind that using working memory to maintain a running list of tasks precludes or at least contends with using it to actually think about the individual task at hand.
I haven't used the Getting Things Done method explicitly, but at a glance it looks like a more formalized version of what most of the people I know who are well-organized and have good time management skills seem to gravitate to naturally.
I don't think I know a single person who I'd consider "very on top of things" who doesn't have some mechanism, formal or informal, of noting/organizing/prioritizing thoughts and tasks. The idea that they are in fact coping with something and "regular" people just keep everything in their heads doesn't make any sense to me.
In the same way fire was discovered by an anemic woman, maybe. It seems most popular among my lawyer/paralegal friends, though, and "low working memory" is not a harbinger of success in those fields.
The twin demons of diminishing returns and hyperbolic discounting mean that people who don't need to have these systems in place for the current demands of their lives, usually don't have them in place. ADHD sufferers probably get more out of implementing and following these systems on the margin, so they're paradoxically more likely to reach for them than the average person. (I predict Getting Things Done is popular with both high powered executives of all kinds and middle of the road ADHD laden office workers.) But current demands being low rarely predicts future demands staying low, and having a habit of working with these things already deeply engrained is a really, really good idea even if your Todo list only has "Get out of bed", "Finish Breaking Bad S4" and "Get back in bed" on it.