Caitlin ADHD Mentor
The cover of Too Much, with the Slate palette in five bands across the top, the counts 27 pages, 27 to colour and levels 1 to 3, and three example pages: a coloured scene of a cat and a character under a table, a portrait wearing ear defenders, and a supermarket aisle

Too Much

An ADHD colouring book for sensory overload

Cover palette, one of 10 in the book

  • Slate
  • Mist
  • Charcoal
  • Pearl
  • Moss

Every design faces a guide page carrying five colours already chosen for it, and the book works through 10 different palettes, so no two pages hand you the same decision. They are suggestions. Ignoring them completely is a perfectly good way to use the book.

27
Pages
27
To colour
0
To solve
A5
Size
Choose your format

A PDF, by email, to the address you give at checkout.

Delivery and how long it takesReturns and refunds

Some days the world is turned up too loud. The supermarket, strip lights, a hand dryer going off beside you, four people talking at once, and a label in the back of a jumper you cannot stop noticing. None of it is dramatic and all of it adds up.

So every page in this book is one of those, drawn with almost nothing in it. Twenty seven pages to colour, at A5, coil bound so it lies flat on your knee. Nothing in it needs more than a pencil, and there is nothing anywhere to work out.

It stops at level three on purpose. A page that asks for a whole evening is the wrong thing to hand somebody who has had enough by four in the afternoon, so the two hardest levels in the range are simply not in here. The pages get emptier as the book goes on.

Every left hand page is a guide to the design facing it: five colours already chosen with their names, one practical thing I actually say to people in mentoring sessions about sensory overload, and a line giving you permission to stop.

It names the thing

Every page is a situation that is genuinely too much: the supermarket, strip lights, a hand dryer, a label in a jumper. Most books for overwhelm avoid the subject and offer flowers instead. This one says out loud that a supermarket is hard, and then hands you the quietest page in the range to sit with while it does.

The reverse of every page is the useful bit

Colouring books are printed single sided so ink does not bleed through, and every other one on the shelf leaves that reverse blank. This one uses it. Facing each design is its colour guide, an ADHD tip about sensory overload that belongs to that page, and a permission line.

It stops at level three

Each design carries an effort level and a time in minutes, and the levels count DECISIONS rather than detail. The top two levels in the range are missing here rather than forgotten: a page that asks for a whole evening is the wrong thing to hand somebody who has had enough by four in the afternoon.

Nothing to solve

No mazes, no puzzles, nothing with a correct answer, which is why the third number on the cover is the effort range instead. When you are overstimulated, parsing a puzzle is work.

Look inside

5 real pages out of 60, exactly as they print. Swipe, or use the arrows.

Drag across the shapes to colour them, or tap one to fill it and tap again to clear it. On the maze, drag to draw and the walls will stop you. Every page has its own five colours, so the same button is a different colour on a different page.

BEFORE YOU START There are no finished examples Most colouring books print a perfectly coloured version somewhere near the front. The moment you see it, your page becomes a comparison. There isn’t one here, and that is deliberate. The five colours on each left hand page are a suggestion that removes the first decision, which is usually the one that stops people starting. They are not a rule. The small moon who turns up through this book is called Pip. Pip is not on every page, and the pages without Pip are not missing anything: this is a book about there being too much, so some of it is one cup, one jumper, one empty room and nobody in it at all. Whatever you make of a page is what that page was for. Pencils and gel pens suit this paper best. Alcohol markers will show through to the other side, and the other side is a guide page rather than a design, so nothing is ruined. Every printed copy comes with the PDF, so you can reprint any page you want to do again.
Page 3A guide page, which faces every design
Slate Mist Charcoal Pearl Moss PAGE 20 Ear Defenders 20 minutes Five colours that work together. There is no right place for any of them. Loop earplugs, ear defenders, headphones with nothing playing: all of them work and all of them are more socially acceptable than they were five years ago. If the barrier is what people will think, wear them once somewhere nobody knows you and see how it feels. Just the face and the ear defenders is a complete go. The room behind can wait.
Page 42A guide page, which faces every design
Page 43A page to colour
Blush Apricot Plum Chalk Mint PAGE 27 Enough 20 minutes Five colours that work together. There is no right place for any of them. You got through it. That is the entire achievement and it does not need to have been done gracefully to count. Most of the days that felt like failures were days you survived something genuinely hard while nobody watching had any idea. However much of this you did, that is how much it needed. There is no last page to reach.
Page 56A guide page, which faces every design
Page 57A page to colour

5 pages previewed, from 60 in the book

What the levels mean

Every design carries one of these before you start it, so you can pick a page that matches today rather than starting at the front. The dots count decisions, not detail.

  • 5 min. Almost no choices. Big shapes, lots of air.
  • 10 min. A clear rhythm. You can stop mid row.
  • 15 min. Enough going on to hold your attention.
  • 25 min. A proper sit down page.
  • 40 min. For an evening when you have the capacity.

If you are here, these might help too

Questions about Too Much

Does colouring help with sensory overload?

Not as a treatment, and I would not sell it to you as one. What it does is give your hands something to do that has a defined end, does not need charging and does not open an app, at exactly the moment when more input is the last thing you need. That is a smaller claim than most things sold for overwhelm make, and it is one I can stand behind.

What is actually in it?

Twenty seven pages, all of them to colour. Nothing to solve and nothing to work out. Plus front and back matter, so sixty printed pages in total.

Why does it only go up to level three?

Because the two levels above it would be the wrong pages for this book. The effort dots count decisions rather than detail, and a level five page is a whole evening of them. If you have opened this book, you have probably had enough decisions for one day.

Do I need special pens?

No. Coloured pencils and gel pens suit the paper best. Alcohol markers will show through to the reverse, and the reverse is a guide page rather than another design, so nothing is spoiled if they do.

How is this different from your other books?

Same format and same guide pages, different problem. Waiting Mode is for time you cannot use and Wind Down is for the end of the day, which are both about when. This one is about how much, so it applies at any hour. Off Duty is about rest and the guilt around it.

Is this suitable for children?

It is written for adults and teenagers. The artwork would suit a younger person and the tips are about work, appointments and the things adults find unbearable, so the writing is not aimed at them.

The tips in this book come out of real sessions

Every guide page carries one thing I actually say to people I mentor. If they land, the sessions themselves go a great deal further, because a book cannot ask you a follow up question. The first call is free.

Book a free discovery call