You sit down to deal with the inbox, and the productivity advice you bookmarked last week assumes you can read it first. The article on how to manage email is 1,400 words. The newsletter on time-blocking is 2,100 words. Somewhere in all of that is a tip that might genuinely help you, but you would need to read your way to it.
This is the loop most ADHD and dyslexia advice walks right past.
The strategy requires reading. The reading requires the strategy.
The International Dyslexia Association estimates roughly 30 percent co-occurrence between ADHD and dyslexia in either direction, and a 2024 University of Edinburgh study published in Molecular Psychiatry identified 49 shared genetic regions between the two conditions. So if you are an adult with both, you are not unusual. You are under-served by the SERP, which is mostly written for parents of kids and professionals doing evaluations.
TL;DR
Four questions adults with both ADHD and dyslexia usually arrive with, all stacked at once:
- What changes about standard executive function advice when the reading itself is expensive?
- Which nine daily-life strategies for adults with both ADHD and dyslexia actually hold past month one?
- Where does ADHD or executive function coaching end and a dyslexia specialist begin?
- Which workplace and college accommodations are worth asking for, and how do you ask?
A note before we get into it: nothing here is medical or mental-health advice. ADHD identification belongs with a qualified provider, dyslexia evaluation belongs with a structured-literacy or educational-psychology specialist, and this article is about daily-life options you can apply after that work, not in place of it.
Why ADHD and Dyslexia Need Their Own Strategy Stack
Most general productivity advice assumes a baseline that adults with both ADHD and dyslexia do not have. It assumes reading is free. It assumes that once you read the tip, the tip costs nothing more to use. For you, reading is the thing the tip is supposed to help with.
The two conditions also do not cancel each other out. ADHD makes it hard to start, stay with, and switch between tasks. Dyslexia makes one specific kind of task, decoding text, slower and more effortful than it should be. Put them together and the task that drains you the most is also the one you cannot afford to keep restarting.
This is why the standard advice often fails by month two. A reading-heavy tracker, a 12-week course you have to read your way through, a digital planner with 40 fields of small text. Each one looks like a solution and each one quietly adds reading load.
What works instead is honest accounting.
Build systems that minimize reading load where reading is not adding value, save your decoding energy for the reading that matters, and stop pretending the loop does not exist.
9 Daily-Life Strategies for Adults With Both ADHD and Dyslexia
1. Pick One Text-to-Speech Tool and Learn It Deeply
The instinct is to try every text-to-speech option, abandon them all within two weeks, and conclude text-to-speech does not work for you. The problem is usually the trying, not the tool.
Pick one. NaturalReader and Speechify are the common paid options. The built-in tools on your devices also work fine and cost nothing: Windows Narrator, macOS VoiceOver, iOS Speak Screen, Android’s Select to Speak. Use whichever one you already have access to, learn its keyboard shortcuts, and set the voice speed once. The tool that earns its space is the one you use without thinking.
2. Build an Audio-First Information Diet
Most adults with both ADHD and dyslexia eventually figure out that audio is the primary input channel that does not exhaust them. Audiobooks count as reading for comprehension and learning. So does a podcast. So does a YouTube video with the transcript open in case you need to grab a quote.
The practical move is to default to audio for anything where the goal is the idea, not the decoding practice. Audible is the obvious paid option. Libby connects to your public library and is free. Learning Ally is the dyslexia-specific membership with human-narrated textbooks. Save the eye reading for the things you actually want to read.
3. Use Dictation for the Writing Tasks You Keep Avoiding
Writing is the inverse of the reading problem. ADHD makes it hard to start and finish; dyslexia makes spelling and editing slow and shame-loaded. Together they can make a 200-word email take an hour, which means it does not get sent.
Dictation removes the slowest part of the loop. Speak the email, fix the obvious wrong words, send it. Dragon is the long-running professional option. Built-in dictation on every modern phone and laptop is usually good enough for emails, meeting notes, and first-draft writing. Dictate the rough version first, then edit. Aim for “good enough to send,” not “publishable.”
4. Externalize Working Memory in One Place, Not Five
Working memory is the executive function that holds a thought in your head long enough to act on it. Both ADHD and dyslexia tax it. The 2014 PMC review of adult dyslexia identifies working memory and phonological processing as core adult dyslexia markers, and ADHD adds its own load on top. Five capture apps make this worse, not better, because every app you skim is a small reading tax. Every app you don’t skim becomes a black hole where the captured thought disappears. The trick is not better apps. It is fewer surfaces.
Pick one capture inbox. A paper notebook, a single notes app, a voice-memo folder, whatever you will actually open. Everything goes there: tasks, half-thoughts, the appointment you just made on the phone. Once a day, triage it into wherever the items actually live. This rule is unglamorous, and it is also the single most repeated piece of advice I give in coaching with adults who have both conditions.
5. Pre-Decide Your Reading Triage
Most adults with dyslexia have an unspoken rule that reading is bad and to be avoided. This is not quite right. Reading is expensive, which is a different thing.
Three categories work well. Skim only: most internal company emails, most newsletters. Text-to-speech: long articles, reports, anything you would otherwise put off. Eye-read carefully: contracts, legal documents, anything someone will ask you to confirm you read. The decision happens once, by category, not every time something arrives.
6. Schedule the Dyslexic and ADHD Halves Separately on Hard Tasks
On a project that involves both heavy reading and heavy focus, doing the two together is a recipe for both halves failing. The dyslexic half wants slow, careful passes with text-to-speech. The ADHD half wants a 25-minute timer and a focused sprint. Those are not the same mode.
Split the work. One session: text-to-speech the source material, take rough audio notes, walk away. Second session, ideally on a different day: open the notes, set the timer, write the deliverable. The ADHD half produces; the dyslexic half already did the inputting.
7. Negotiate Workplace Accommodations via JAN (and What to Ask For)
Adults with both ADHD and dyslexia generally qualify for reasonable workplace accommodations under the ADA and Section 504, but the asking process is its own executive function task. The Job Accommodation Network is a federally funded, free service that helps you script the conversation with HR.
Specific accommodations worth knowing about: text-to-speech software approved on your work device, written meeting summaries when verbal notes are not enough, extended deadlines on long written deliverables (not all deliverables), permission to use dictation or noise-canceling headphones in open offices, and access to a quiet space for high-focus reading. Ask for the ones that fit your actual job, not all of them.
8. For College: Register With Disability Services Before the Semester Starts
The single biggest mistake adult learners with both conditions make in college is waiting until they are already struggling to register with the disability services office.
Register before classes begin. Bring whatever documentation you have: an ADHD evaluation, a dyslexia evaluation, a 504 plan from high school, a letter from a provider. The office cannot give you accommodations retroactively. AHEAD, the Association on Higher Education And Disability, maintains useful guidance on what to expect. Common college accommodations include extended testing time, audio versions of textbooks, permission to record lectures, and shared notes.
9. Build a 15-Minute Reset Between High-Reading and High-Focus Blocks
The last option is the smallest and the one most commonly skipped. If your day stacks a heavy reading task immediately into a heavy focus task, both will go badly. The reading drains the working memory you need for the focus work.
Fifteen minutes between them, with no screen and no text, resets enough capacity to make the next block work. Walk, stretch, look out a window, talk to a person about something unrelated. The absence of text during the break is what matters. If transitions also kick up stress dysregulation, the evidence-based ADHD calming techniques for adults we wrote about elsewhere are a useful pairing.
When EF Coaching Helps, and When You Need a Dyslexia Specialist
The most honest thing I can tell you is that the executive function coaching at Life Skills Advocate does not address dyslexia. We work the ADHD and executive function side: capture systems, task initiation, calming techniques, audio-first workflow design, accommodation conversations. That is genuinely the lane we can help in.
For the dyslexia side, you want a structured-literacy practitioner, usually trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach or a related method. The International Dyslexia Association provider directory lets you filter by location and credential. The Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators is the certifying body for that specific method.
If you are not sure which side you need first: lead with executive function work if the friction is about getting things done and finishing what you start; lead with the dyslexia specialist if the friction is specifically about decoding text. Most adults with both need both, sequenced rather than stacked.
If you want a sense of where your executive function load is highest before you commit to any path, the free executive functioning assessment we built is a short self-evaluation.
Quick Facts on ADHD and Dyslexia in Adults
Fact
Detail
Source
Shared genetic regions identified between ADHD and dyslexia
49 regions, confirming biological co-occurrence rather than behavioral coincidence (2024 study)
Čiulkinytė et al., Molecular Psychiatry, 2024
Adults with ADHD who also have dyslexia
Roughly 30 percent co-occurrence in either direction
International Dyslexia Association, 2020
Children with dyslexia who also meet ADHD criteria
20 to 40 percent, with 30 to 50 percent in the reverse direction (children with ADHD who also have dyslexia)
Lexercise, 2025
Adult dyslexia markers
Working memory, phonological processing, and auditory short-term memory remain the strongest markers in adulthood
Moody, PMC, 2014
Workplace and college accommodation rights
Both ADHD and dyslexia generally qualify as disabilities under Section 504 and the ADA, covering reasonable accommodations in employment and higher education
U.S. Department of Education, Section 504
Frequently Asked Questions
Can adults have both ADHD and dyslexia?
Yes, and it is common. The International Dyslexia Association estimates roughly 30 percent co-occurrence in either direction, and the 2024 University of Edinburgh study in Molecular Psychiatry identified 49 shared genetic regions between the two conditions. Adult presentations get missed because the two can mask each other: a person with strong ADHD-driven coping habits may compensate for slow reading without ever being formally identified as dyslexic, and a person whose dyslexia eats most of their concentration budget at school may look like they “just don’t try” without the underlying attention issue ever being separated out. Late identification is the norm, not the exception, especially for adults whose schools framed everything as “not trying hard enough” rather than a specific learning difference. The Edinburgh genetic finding is part of why this matters. Two conditions sharing 49 genetic regions is not behavioral overlap or vague co-occurrence; it is biological convergence. If you suspect you have both, the path forward is two evaluations, not one combined opinion.
How is support different when you have both?
Each condition needs its own track. ADHD support typically combines medication if appropriate, executive function coaching, and the kinds of daily systems above. Dyslexia support is structured-literacy work, usually Orton-Gillingham or a similar approach, done with a trained practitioner. EF coaching can hold the two sides together day to day, but it does not substitute for either professional track, and bundling the two interventions under a single provider tends to under-serve at least one side. Two providers, one daily-life system.
Do audiobooks count as reading for adults with dyslexia?
For comprehension and learning, yes. For building decoding skill, no.
What workplace accommodations can I ask for with ADHD and dyslexia?
Common reasonable accommodations include approved text-to-speech and dictation software on work devices, extended deadlines on long written deliverables, written summaries of verbal meetings, and a quiet space for focus work. JAN (askjan.org) is the free federally funded service that helps you script the request and narrow it to your specific role.
Is there a single approach that addresses both ADHD and dyslexia at once?
No. They are distinct neurodevelopmental conditions that happen to share genetic architecture, which is a different thing from being the same condition. ADHD intervention and structured-literacy intervention have separate evidence bases, separate practitioners, and separate methods. Anyone selling a program that claims to address both with one method is overclaiming, and the research base does not support it. The honest path is parallel work: one provider for the ADHD side, one practitioner for the dyslexia side, and a coordinated daily-life system to hold both together. If the daily-life coordination piece is where most of the friction lives, that is where executive function coaching tends to fit, alongside the two professional tracks rather than in place of either one.
Next Steps
The nine options above are organized so you can pick one and start this week, not so you can do all of them.
- Pick one option from the list and run it for two weeks. Pick the one that addresses the friction you noticed most. Two weeks is long enough to know whether it sticks.
- Bookmark the Job Accommodation Network even if you are not ready to request anything yet. Having the resource in your back pocket changes how the conversation feels when it does come up.
- If you have not been formally evaluated for one of the two conditions, prioritize that this quarter. Self-identification is enough for most daily-life options, but accommodations at work and school typically require documentation.
- If you want a single book to ground the dyslexia side: The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock and Fernette Eide is the most adult-focused, strengths-based overview of dyslexia in print, and the audiobook version exists for the obvious reason.
- If you want to see where your executive function load is heaviest before deciding which support route fits, the free executive functioning assessment is a short self-evaluation.
