AFM-3 · RE-ENTRY COLLAPSE
You opened your Claude project and didn’t recognize a single prompt
DESKRUNE
For when you come back.
Here's what it looks like.
The pattern: you open a Claude project from 14 days ago. You have no idea what state it was in, what the goal was, or where you stopped. You read the last few messages, get overwhelmed, close the tab, and tell yourself you'll start fresh tomorrow. You don't.
The cost isn't the time.
This is the single most expensive ADHD-AI failure mode, because it kills work that was already 80% done. The cost isn't the lost time inside the thread — it's the abandoned momentum, multiplied by every thread you've abandoned. Cumulative.
Three ways you'll know you're in it.
Hook by hook. If you recognize even one of these in the last week, this is the failure mode that's costing you.
- 01You open the project and immediately click 'New Chat' instead of scrolling
- 02You retype the first prompt from memory, then delete it because it feels wrong
- 03You start reading old responses like they’re someone else’s writing
The protocol that breaks the loop.
When you walk away from a Claude project, you must leave three anchors: 1) A one-sentence summary in the project title, prefixed with [STATUS]. Example: [STATUS: Waiting on client feedback] Client onboarding flow — draft v3. 2) A pinned note with exactly one action item and one person. Example: Sam: confirm if we’re using HubSpot or Notion for tracking. 3) A timestamped comment on the last response: 'Pausing here. Next: test output with real client data.' No fluff. No 'thinking'. Just the next physical step. This isn’t documentation. It’s a neural handhold. You’re not organizing. You’re building a bridge back to your own mind.
You're not the only one in the room.
Every AFM hits four people. The ADHD adult living it. The partner watching it. The coach explaining it. The boss pricing it. Every kit speaks to all four — because the reader is sometimes one of the people watching.
You opened your Claude project and didn’t recognize a single prompt
You found three unfinished Claude projects on their laptop, all labeled 'final', none of them finished
Your client restarted a Claude project three times in two weeks because they couldn’t recall what they were testing
The team lost 18 hours last month rebuilding Claude outputs because no one could trace the last decision
Often shows up with these.
AFMs cluster. If this one hits, the next two probably also do.
Kits that solve this directly.
Log a moment when this hit you.
Most ADHD-AI loops feel random until you can see them next to each other. Log a moment in the form below — intensity, time, AI tool, brief context. After three or more entries, you'll see your own pattern in the recap. Stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to us.
When did Re-Entry Collapse last happen?
You don't have to be precise. The point is to capture enough that the pattern becomes visible. Future-you reading this in three weeks will have something concrete to work with.
Deskrune. For when you come back.