I have ADHD, which affects my short-term memory a lot, and my most valuable tool while working is a notebook and a pencil. I rarely look at the previous pages, and they invariably end full of scribbles, but it helps me a lot to keep my current goals in the current page and looking at it while thinking. Once it gets too messy I turn to the next blank page and copy whatever part of the text/diagrams that's still relevant.
I struggle similarly with ADHD but found that I prefer typing over writing. The valuable part of note taking is having somewhere external to use as an extra memory cache. With diagrams, I realized that using a digital tool made it easier for me to physically reorganize what I wrote down. I used pencil and paper in the past but my handwriting and organization were so messy that I never felt like revisiting it to extract information.
Yeah, I know a lot of other folks with ADHD who get a ton of use out of a bullet journal or something similar. The variance is not at all surprising considering that even the two primary symptoms, inattention and impulsivity, often aren't both present. These things aren't cut-and-dried, but these sorts of cognitive problems often impact writing: sometimes enough to make basic mark making a real chore.
