Home Neat Home
If you have ADHD and are trying to de-clutter your home, getting organised may be a struggle. It is challenging but not impossible. These tips will help you change your mindset about de-cluttering and staying de-cluttered.
Home neat home: an ADHD organisation plan is by Lisa Woodruff, ADDitude magazine, 10 February 2022.
Home neat home: an ADHD organisation plan is by Lisa Woodruff, ADDitude magazine, 10 February 2022.
Three steps to de-cluttering
If clutter overwhelms you, before you can make any progress in organising your room, walk into your room and do one thing — and only one thing.
Once the trash is gone, decluttering should be easier. You don’t need to be a minimalist, but keep only the things you love and use. It doesn’t matter whether an item still works, or that you paid good money for it. If you don’t love it or use it regularly, let it go.
Now that you’ve gotten the obvious items out of the room, it’s time to allocate 15 minutes each day to staying organised. Some examples: go through all the DVDs or collect all the pens and pencils scattered around and put them away.
You might be shocked at how much clearer your space looks.
- Session 1: The first thing to do is find everything that is trash. Take a trash bag and chant, “Trash, trash, trash.” When you chant “trash,” even if your mind starts to wander, you are saying “trash” which snaps you out of it.
Once the trash is gone, decluttering should be easier. You don’t need to be a minimalist, but keep only the things you love and use. It doesn’t matter whether an item still works, or that you paid good money for it. If you don’t love it or use it regularly, let it go.
- Session 2: The next time you come into the room, you’re going to chant, “food and dishes.” Collect all the food and put it away. Collect all the dishes and take them to the sink.
- Session 3: On the third time through the same space, focus on clothing items. Say, “Clothing, clothing, I’m picking up clothing,” and take it all right into the laundry room.
Now that you’ve gotten the obvious items out of the room, it’s time to allocate 15 minutes each day to staying organised. Some examples: go through all the DVDs or collect all the pens and pencils scattered around and put them away.
You might be shocked at how much clearer your space looks.
Three steps to staying clutter-free (in only 15 minutes per day)
Use a Sunday Basket
The Sunday Basket is the system to help get you on top of all the paper and daily to-dos. A Sunday Basket is a container — like a basket, a box, or a bag — in which you toss all your paper each week. You will check this container regularly. It may be Sunday or Tuesday. Here’s how you can create and use your Sunday Basket:
The Sunday Basket is the system to help get you on top of all the paper and daily to-dos. A Sunday Basket is a container — like a basket, a box, or a bag — in which you toss all your paper each week. You will check this container regularly. It may be Sunday or Tuesday. Here’s how you can create and use your Sunday Basket:
- Step 1. Grab a laundry basket and go on a scavenger hunt around the house. Pick up every piece of paper from every room and put it in the laundry basket. Finding your paper does two things:
- it gets all the paper out of your rooms, so wherever you go, you’re not going to see the paper - that will bring down your stress level and give you some breathing space, and
- you’ll know where to look for things. It might take you 15 minutes to find something, but it won’t take an hour.
- it gets all the paper out of your rooms, so wherever you go, you’re not going to see the paper - that will bring down your stress level and give you some breathing space, and
- Step 2. Make yourself a cup of coffee or have a glass of wine, turn on mindless TV, and sort through the laundry basket, one piece of paper at a time, and divide the pieces into piles: trash, “to file” (e.g., insurance statements, tax returns), or shredding. The only thing left in the laundry basket will be actionable items—an invitation to a graduation party, permission slips that have to go back to school, and so on.
- Step 3. Work on the actionable items in your basket, setting aside time in your calendar weekly to do this. Some weeks it might take two hours; other weeks it might only take 15 minutes.
