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Friday, August 10, 2018

Cleaning Up for Adults with ADHD

If you have ADHD, it's likely that you fall into one of two categories of housecleaners.  Either you clean sort of obsessively, to the point of it sort of taking over things that are more important, or you are the classic "messy".  I don't want to pretend to have all the solutions for you, but I do have some household tested tips that might help you.

A place for every thing.  Everything might not be in it's place all the time, but if you make it a rule that everything must have a home before you acquire it, or it gets tossed, it can help limit the stuff you need to keep track of.  Also, if you do create places for your things, it makes it easier to put them away when the time comes.  For example, if you place labels on boxes for say "winter accessories", "summer accessories", "winter shoes", "summer shoes" then your coat closet will be easier to clean up and it will be easier to find the things you want when the season arrives.  I personally recommend clear plastic boxes so that you do not have to bother labeling.  However, cardboard is infinitely cheaper if you have boxes laying around and a sharpie is sometimes fun to use.

Make your cleaning supplies easy to get.  It's hard enough to get motivated to clean without having to search for your cleaning supplies.  Keep what you need for the kitchen in the kitchen, for the laundry in the laundry room or in the clothes basket.  If you have more than one bathroom, consider either a caddy for your stuff or just have duplicate supplies for each bathroom.

Get rid of excess stuff.  The more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to clean and put away.  Everyone has their own ideas for simplifying possessions.  My own rule is that if I haven't used it for more than 2 or 3 years, then it probably needs to be put back into circulation to make someone else happy.  If it makes you feel bad to give stuff away, donate it to charity and take a tax deduction.

Do a little every day.  If you hate cleaning, doing a little every day can actually help you.  When you let cleaning get out of hand, you start to have this huge mountain of stuff that you just never want to address.  When you clean a little every day, things can't accumulate as badly.   But the key is to make it a task that has a definite end.  For example, set a timer for 5 minutes.  Clean a single room as hard as you can without stopping until your timer goes off.  When it goes off, you can stop.  Or, challenge yourself to throw out 5 things every day for a month.  Or even, pick up and put away 5 things in your room every night before you go to bed.  Don't forget to reward yourself for doing your part!

Key into hyperfocus.  If you like cleaning, its possible to key into you hyperfocus and just clean until it's done.  The main thing is to get started, which is probably the hardest part.  The key to getting going is to break this seemingly overwhelming task down into a smaller goal at first.  Instead of cleaning the kitchen, maybe focus on dumping all the expired and gross stuff out of the fridge.  Once you have that task done, you'll be on a roll--or--if not, at least your fridge is clean.

Happy cleaning!  And happy enjoying your cleaned space!

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