The first weeks of a new ADHD medication — or a dose change — are the most decision-dense window of treatment. Your clinician needs ground-truth data to titrate well. You need a way to capture that data that takes 30 seconds, not 30 minutes.

This guide covers what to log, what to ignore, and how to make tracking actually stick past week one.

The four fields that matter

Most ADHD-medication trackers ask for too much. The fields a prescriber will actually use to adjust your dose are short:

  1. Time of dose — when did you take the medication? This drives every other variable.
  2. Dose — in mg. Crucial during titration when the dose is changing.
  3. Focus rating, 1–10 — your overall functional rating for the day. Imperfect, but trackable.
  4. Side effects — short free-text. "Mild dry mouth," "jitters around 11am," "appetite gone until 6pm."

Add sleep hours if you're tracking response to a stimulant — sleep is one of the most common confounders, and your prescriber will want to see it. Everything else (mood, exercise, caffeine, food, screen time) is optional.

The minimum viable habit

The hardest part of tracking is doing it consistently. Three patterns work for most people:

  • Log at the end of the day — one entry, in the evening, summarizing how the day went. Best for retrospective patterns.
  • Log when you take the dose — captures time-of-dose accurately, but you have to come back to fill in focus/side effects later.
  • Log at one fixed checkpoint — e.g. "after my second coffee" or "right after lunch." Pick a moment that's already a habit and attach the log to it.

Whichever you pick, set a phone reminder for the first 14 days. Habit formation research suggests you need about two weeks of consistent cuing before a routine becomes automatic.

What to skip

You don't need:

  • Multiple entries per day — one is enough. Your prescriber wants daily trends, not hourly noise.
  • A complete diary of "what I did today." If it didn't directly relate to the medication, skip it.
  • Fancy mood scales. "Focus today, 1–10" is more actionable than five subscales.
  • Trying to log 100% of the time. 80% is plenty — clinicians can read patterns from gappy data.

What "1–10 focus" actually means

This rating is unavoidably subjective. Some calibration helps:

  • 1–3: Could not focus on tasks even when motivated. Distracted by everything. Felt mentally foggy.
  • 4–6: Could focus on things I cared about but anything boring slid right off. Normal-ish bad day.
  • 7–8: Could focus on most things including ones I didn't want to. Smooth working day.
  • 9–10: Easy concentration even on dry/boring tasks. Sustained over hours. Felt steady, not over-stimulated.

Don't agonize over the rating. Your trend matters more than the absolute number — a steady 7 across the week tells your clinician more than one perfect 10.

Side effects: what's worth writing down

Short keywords beat full sentences. Common worth-noting side effects on stimulants include:

  • Appetite suppression (and the time window — "no appetite until 6pm")
  • Sleep onset trouble
  • Dry mouth
  • Jaw clenching / teeth grinding
  • Mid-afternoon "crash" or fatigue rebound
  • Mood flatness or emotional blunting
  • Anxiety / restlessness
  • Cardiovascular: racing heart, palpitations

If you're on a non-stimulant (atomoxetine, guanfacine, viloxazine, clonidine, bupropion), the side effect profile is different — daytime sleepiness, GI upset, low blood pressure, and dose-up effects in the first 4–6 weeks are typical. Ask your prescriber what to specifically watch for.

How long to track

Most clinicians need at least 4 weeks of consistent data before making meaningful titration calls. Some take longer, especially with non-stimulants which have a slower onset. Once you've reached a stable, satisfactory dose, you can drop to weekly check-ins instead of daily entries.

If something changes — new dose, switched medication, stress event, illness — start daily again until things stabilize.

Bring the data, don't bring the spreadsheet

When you go to your visit, bring a one-page printable summary with date, dose, focus rating, sleep, and side effects in a table — not a 50-page export. Clinicians have 15–30 minutes; the easier you make pattern-recognition, the better your titration discussion will be.

The trackadhd.org tracker exports exactly this — one page, four columns, ready to print.

Open the tracker →