My psychiatrist recommended Gabor Maté for what it's worth, but I prefer a really reductionist "it's all about dopamine" model. It might be simplistic, but it has the advantage of being concrete.
As a preface, just so you don't think I don't understand what you're talking about—my dad struggled to hold down a job for most of my childhood and finally got diagnosed with ADHD and started medication after he turned 50. I'm intimately familiar with the impairments that ADHD can cause and the real harm that is possible.
That, said, what you're describing is exactly the kind of modern overhead that I'm talking about—the modern world imposes a million little things to keep track of that ultimately shouldn't be required, which leaves us chronically falling behind on menial tasks. That leads to anxiety and depression that makes things even worse.
In the present reality, medication may be an appropriate patch to quickly restore sanity to people who need it, but I'm unconvinced that we should treat medicating a full 5% of the population for ADHD as a reasonable end goal. There are huge social movements for making accommodations for a portion of the population much smaller than that. There's no reason we can't make substantial changes to accommodate ADHD, especially given that said accommodations would really benefit everyone.
I've got no problem with the OXO Good Grips argument ("accommodations help everyone"). The only thing I'll take issue with is laying the blame at the feet of the modern world, because I know I'd be just as much of a flake if I lived in a village of 75 people and grew turnips for a living.
In fact, here's a quote from Chapter 1 of Hallowell's book:
>In the decades since that time, research has ballooned. Probably the most up-to-date and definitive account of the history and current state of the field is to be found in a book written by one of the great researchers in the area, Russell Barkley; currently in its third edition, his book is entitled, simply, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Maybe their tone is slightly different, but their descriptions of what ADHD is (not a society problem) and the solution they offer (lifestyle changes and medication) are pretty much the same.
This is the problem. Just because he is an expert doesn't mean ALL of his views are correct. For instance Dr. Russell Barkley believed earlier in his career that having sugar in the diet will make ADHD symptoms worse. Years later after much more research he found out that he was wrong and that people with ADHD should sip in a bit of sugared water to focus better.
This is the problem with building a cult around a personality. Science is basically built off of hypothesis. Some of which will be proven wrong by much further research.
There is this thing called Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) developed by Edward Taub, a behavioral neuroscientist. There was extreme skepticism and resistance from the established medical and scientific communities. Taub's work challenged the prevailing belief that little could be done to improve function in limbs affected by neurological damage. At the time, it was widely believed that once certain neural pathways were damaged, they could not be repaired or compensated for effectively. Over time, however, through persistent research and clinical trials, CIMT gained evidence-based support and has become a recognized therapy in neurorehabilitation.
My point is that we should not build a cult of personality and take everything an "expert" is saying as absolute truth. He is right about many things. He could be wrong about some things as well. That's not a bad thing. That is how progress is made.
There is research being done by those who have analyzed nomadic tribes and they found high levels of ADHD like characteristics in those tribe members. The study noted that the traits associated with ADHD, such as impulsivity and a short attention span, which are often seen as challenges in modern structured environments like schools and workplaces, might have been beneficial in the unpredictable and varied challenges of a nomadic lifestyle.
Just like when you are blind or lost an arm. It's not a problem because society is build around the assumption that people have two arms, it's not a problem because society is build around the assumption that you can see. We should help people to deal with this issues, but saying society is the problem is the wrong way to think about it.
You should look up other prominent ADHD experts like Ed Hallowell who have a more positive take.
Richard Feynman famously wrote "Science is the Belief in the Ignorance of the Experts". He meant, and explained that "science - a.k.a. research - is in the making, belongs to the (unknown, yet to be discovered) future, while expertise is based on the past, with in-built obsolescence".