You must log in or # to comment.
My wife and I both have ADHD and have a toddler. We navigate through tunnels like Mr Trebus
Hey, how’d you get a picture of my garage
That artist’s rendering of me is a little off. I haven’t gone gray yet.
Man, i try so hard to clean up. I’ve used up, tossed out, donated so much stuff. I reorganize, repack bins, sift out useless stuff. I’m not buying new stuff, either.
And yet the place always looks cluttered. I always have trouble finding something i know i have…somewhere.
When i de-clutter i always struggle with “where should this thing live?”
The cognitive load is devistating.
This is why my mom has been to my apartment all of twice
Whenever my mother is coming over I suddenly find the motivation to panic-clean and then she gets here and says “how can you live like this” and grabs the broom.
No this looks like depression to me. Dont ask how I know.
Yes, same.
Does anyone have resources for ADHD friendly clean-up techniques? And I don’t mean cleaning-up like in “removing dirt” but how to sort your stuff? My main chaos exists because I don’t know where to put everything.
5S your space. For the most part you only need to worry about the first two and the last one.
First, sort, and set in place. This is kind of a big project and you might want to start with something small first, like your desk. I don’t have any specific advice on how to get this done, but while this is a critical step it’s not the one most ADHDers have an issue with.
When that’s done:
Every time you pick something up, a before your put it back down, recite this mantra:
Don’t put it down, put it away. This is sustain, and is generally where most ADHDers fail at organization.
Don’t put it down. Put it away.
I have a strategy for getting rid of stuff without that “oh I could use that thing I just threw out last week” devastation. It’s not super handy for organizing, but it does make organizing easier when you have less stuff. Maybe it’ll help you or someone else :)
What I do is go through stuff in rooms I rarely use. That’s where the junk tends to accumulate because when I clean the rest of the house the junk without a home goes into a spare room.
When I go through that junk, I put anything I think I want to throw out (assuming it’s not just straight garbage; that gets tossed) into one box, and anything I think I want to donate in another box. Everything else either gets put away somewhere (I have a lot of dressers/shelves for junk) or goes into a box of stuff to keep, like mementos and stuff.
When full, even if it takes months to fill it, I write the date and target action (donate/toss) on the boxes. And then I let them sit for 6 months. Unopened.
The 6 months is important because it erases all that junk from your mind. If you just toss it, that stuff is front and center in your mind so anything you do will naturally use that thing as a solution. If you let that memory fade, and don’t renew it, you don’t have that problem. If you decide you want something in the box, open it, take the thing, and put the new date on the box, to restart the 6 months. Never add anything to an existing full box; this breaks the workflow. Start a new one for new junk.
After 6 months has passed without the boxes being opened, do the thing with them you meant to (donate it or throw it out) without opening it. You no longer really know what’s in it, only that you haven’t needed any of it for a long time and it’s ok to get rid of it.
Bam, ability to clean and downsize without the crippling obsession with not throwing out something you’ll need a week later.
my go to advice (that i struggle to remember myself 🫠):
- start by collecting and taking out all trash/recycling
- make a list of areas/tasks and CROSS THEM OUT AS YOU DO THEM
- a portable table that you can use as a work surface, and/or some empty storage bins, are worth their weight in gold. Just to have a temporary area to put stuff on while you clean/organize its home surface/container
I got stuff with drawers (dressers, am old armoire, a desk) and then got organizers for the drawers. Went a touch OCD with it (the cat’s medicine does that to me occasionally) to the point I have extra drawers inside the big drawers.
I would think about why you don’t want to decide where to put things. You can’t know if it is up to you to make that decision and you haven’t decided yet.
Mainly it’s my desk area that ends up cluttered because I got projects that I’m half working on everywhere, and sorting that stuff can be overwhelming when it’s on the entire table (floor, and other places).
But for some reason I’ve found dumping it in an ikea bag helps. Like clearing out before putting it where it belongs.
I think it’s because then I only see top of the bag and not everything at once, and I can go “oh yeah I know where to put that one thing”.
Note: don’t really have ADHD but got told I got symptoms that I should just handle with more “structure” so ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ymmv etc.
Before treatment, I literally told women on dates, “You can’t see my apartment, because then you wouldn’t want to see me again,” on at least 3 occasions. Thank god for Adderall.
where did you find a photograph of me in my flat?
Don’t tell anybody how I live
If it’s just me, no problem. My partner and child both have it and now it is just chaos because, while they’re still doing their best, I can’t keep up with them. I miss cleanliness.
