I’ve been struggling a lot with clutter and messiness lately, and I feel like I’m going in circles trying to get organized. It’s overwhelming, and every time I try to tackle it, it feels like I’m just moving things around without actually making progress.
I know ADHD can make staying organized tough, so I wanted to ask: how do you all manage it? What systems or techniques have worked for you when it comes to keeping things tidy? Would love to hear your experiences or any tips you have to break out of this cycle!
Written by
RoseZen
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
I’ve posted a couple of times on this over the last year. I had to become a minimalist to survive and work really hard at creating systems to help me stay organized and reduce the clutter- it isn’t easy, but I know you can do it! DM for specifics if you’d like.
Hi RoseZen, This is a hard one. I mean the correcting behavior to try to be neater and more organized part; having stacks and piles of stuff is the easy part until it's not. I agree a lot with NotAChevy in that being a minimalist helps but getting there might mean having to get rid of a lot of things. For me, the clearer I can get my living space, the less my eyes dart around looking for new distractions and the less noisy my thoughts become. If I can keep that connection, clearer space equals less head noise, that often gives me the path to staying neater.
Here’s two ideas I've posted before that might be helpful. If you have the time, we can schedule a few minutes to Zoom chat for other ideas: let me know if you'd be interested.
After getting a critical note back from a buddy of mine, who claims my techniques are way too difficult, I decided it was time to find an easier organization tool (technique) that we could all follow.
So, I racked my brain- nothing; I went back through the research- nothing; I even watched numerous Youtube videos! Finally, some 2-3 hours later, it finally hit me- baskets! A typical neurological brain would have come up with this in like 2 minutes, but not mine!
So, baskets you ask? Yes. The concept is simple. Put up to three baskets (designs up to you) in each room. The 1st one is for things staying in that room; the 2nd is for stuff going to another room, and the 3rd is for overflow. Then, you run around the room and put things in the proper basket. This is especially great if you have children- you can teach them to clean up.
Oh how I dream of the day I’m organized”, or “the only way I’ll ever get organized is if we add hours to the day”. I know we’ve all uttered these words at least a couple of times in our lives. Or, “ if I could only get organized I could___________”. Well, for those of us with ADHD, we seem to catch ourselves saying that even more than others. We know something needs to be done, yet don’t write it down, so we forget it, and then the anxiety sets in as we see it on the to-do list for the next day-ugh! What a vicious circle we live in.
But, I’m learning to overcome that feeling by spending the time to get organized . Today, while talking to my therapist about my progress, I mentioned a cool little stat I learned on YouTube from a professional organizer: in the time it takes to watch 2 tv shows, you could totally declutter the average room. For example, let’s say you sit down one night after work and watch NCIS and NCIS: LA (yes, 2 of my favorite shows). Instead, you could record the shows for another time, and clean out one room of your house. If you did that 5 days a week, that means 5 rooms would be organized and clean come the beginning of the next week. Do that for 1 month and you’d have 20 rooms clean- that’s a good size house, no?
And the cool part is you only have to work for 1 hour- that’s not that long. Use the Pomodora Method to keep yourself on track. I’ll come back to keeping it clean, but another question I typically get is, “where do I start?”. Pick a corner of any room and just get cleaning. I create piles: to keep (in another room), to keep (in this room), and trash (which I go ahead and put in black trash bags). I sort through everything and by the time I’ve worked through the room it looks 10000% better, and I feel so much better myself. I work for a total of 45 minutes then spend the last 15 cleaning up.
After totally finishing for the day, I look at my handiwork and pat myself on the back (I need some love too sometimes). I only work on this 5 days a week so I have 2 days to enjoy my handiwork and to do things I enjoy (hiking, spending time with my buddies, spending time with friends, or playing with the dogs in my life).
I almost forgot (that darn ADHD showing out again), I spend 10 minutes every night putting things back in their assigned place before I head to bed. That way, I come downstairs every morning to a clean house which makes me feel good, and puts me in a better mood.
Pick a room, gather all your clutter, all the mess, everything off the shelves, cupboard, strip the place of every bit of it and put it all on the floor. You should end up with a big pile. Then, get on your knees, look at everything you have, and make smaller piles of everything in their categories. Paper, pens, books, clothing, utensils, etc etc. You'll end up with piles of allsorts. Then, pick a pile, say paper, you make smaller piles of paper, letters, important, bills, etc. Do the same with all the piles... Then, it's about kitchen, living room, bathroom, study etc... then you find every pile in each room their place to live.
If you gather everything into one room, you can clean the whole place first, and then do it.
You'll find things you forgot about and never knew you had. You may also find you have 2 of a few things, and wonder why. It's fun
Work in one area at a time, that way you'll feel less overwhelmed. Once finishing that area, you can then work in another area and then it'll become a daily subconscious habit.
i did it in 30-minute daily increments. It took me quite awhile, but I could at least stay focused for that short of a time. I made 3 piles: keep, donate, and trash. After I went through everything in that room, I removed the piles, hung up the keepers, and got rid of the others. I only kept the stuff I really liked and anything I hadn't used/worn in the last year, I got rid of.
I got a lot of good ideas from 3 ladies on YouTube who are organizers, Cas the Clutterbug, Dawn the minimal mom, and Dana K White. Dana breaks down steps of determining where things go and tackling organization in small bites where you don't make a big mess and you can stop any time. Dawn is a minimalist and declutter queen and helps you determine what you need to keep and what you don't. She talks about the container concept-- what fits in the space you have is what you can keep. And she talks about the phase of life you are in--are you utilizing that item right now, or is it something that is not a part of your life at this time? Cas has developed a quiz to discover what kind of organizer people are to go with her main categories of organizational styles--some of us are visual and some hidden organizers, some of us are detailed and some are not. And there are exceptions, for instance, I like things in my home to be visually simple (hidden organizer) but in my work space I like everything visible for creativity. Cas happens to be ADHD and watching her program is how I got tipped off to my ADHD. The combination of the methods and advice from the 3 ladies was tremendously helpful for me to pick and choose what works for me and adapt it to my circumstances and way of life. I hope their knowledge and ideas can help you too!
Thank you so much for this. I watched all 3, today and went with Dawn's method to switch out my fall and summer clothes. Going to use your suggestion and combine all 3
I just joined this group and you are definitely my people. Glad to find posts immediately that are exactly relatable and where I'm at. So right now I'm in the process of trying to tackle my lists/papers/ideas that are clutter by using Google tasks- putting each idea in as a task so it is there, and then getting rid of the paper. Then I have Google task categories: 1)Urgent- do right now, 2) pending/thinking about, 3) routine/maintenance, 4) things to work with husband on, 5) house/projects, etc.
Reducing the paper clutter feels freeing, and also the ideas are organized and stored on my phone/computer, so that feels better, too.
I've also bought a bunch of colored dry erase pens and board that I use for the immediate day. I put date/ day on top, put boxes around things happening at a specific time, and an area on the side for to dos I'm actually going to do that day. And when something is done, I get the immediate gratification of erasing it off the board.
A lot of those goals/items will be redundant from Google tasks, which is nice because a) I can feel more accomplished when I select "completed" in Google tasks when I sort through them later (not delete because I want a record to show myself what I've accomplished), and b) there isn't anxiety from erasing it from my board too soon or making a mistake/forgetting something..the idea is still there. Hopefully that makes sense?
Another idea I really like right now with clutter is the game of 5 (or whatever # you choose). Set a timer for 30 minutes, pick a room, and find 5 things to throw away, put 5 things away that aren't in their correct place, and then pick 5 things to either recycle/donate. This way, it's not an all/nothing project where you run out of time or lose interest after trying to make a huge project out of it. You will always be able to make an improvement and feel good about it. And hen repeat when you have more time, no pressure.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
ADHD Clutter vs. Hoarding
Has anyone naturally adopted tools and coping with disorganisation or messiness?
coffee and adderall
Did meds make a difference to a lifetime of unread books and clutter? 
The Never-ending Cycle — Impulsivity and Regret
