I remember the moment with great clarity. My friend looked across the room at me and asked how I’d never been diagnosed with ADHD. I was confused, so he began to list traits he’d noticed that aligned with an ADHD diagnosis.
The Mayo Clinic lists the following signs of adult ADHD:
Impulsiveness Disorganization and problems prioritizing Poor time management skills Problems focusing on a task Trouble multitasking Excessive activity or restlessness Poor planning Low frustration tolerance Frequent mood swings Problems following through and completing tasks Hot temper Trouble coping with stress
I could easily see my disorganization. I struggled with time management and focusing on a task until it was completed. I was easily overwhelmed and often impulsive.
Now, my friend isn’t a doctor or therapist. He couldn’t officially diagnose me. But it was the first time in my life that someone pointed to the chaos around me and suggested that it might have more to do with how my brain works than with me being lazy, careless, messy, or irresponsible. My constant state of stress, overwhelm, and inadequacy could be attributed to the fact that I had been putting neurotypical expectations on a neurodivergent brain.
8 Easy Ways to Get Organized
Over the next few months, my friend would teach me some tricks that he used to manage his own ADHD and keep a tidy environment. I have been so grateful for this. In an absolute wreck of a year, this emerged as one of the better aspects of it. I’ve learned to manage my self-professed chaos gremlin tendencies with simple routines that keep me from feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated.
1. Start Small
My tendency was always to tackle an enormous project. I would pick a whole room and then give up about halfway through the organization process because of how overwhelming it became. I learned to start small instead of trying to organize my whole house.
Instead of picking a room, I might pick a corner of the room or a messy drawer. I start there. If I have the time and energy to pick a second small project or even a third, that’s great, but I set the expectation to complete one small thing.
“Given their automatic tuning out, ADD children forever find themselves being told to “pay attention” — a demand that completely misunderstands both the nature of the child and the nature of attention. The obvious monetary connotation of “pay” is that attention is something the child owes the adult, that the child’s attention belongs to the adult by right. The phrase takes for granted that being attentive is always a consciously chosen act, subject to one’s will. Both of these assumptions are faulty.” ~Gabor Maté, Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder
2. Make Daily Progress
Getting organized is not the work of a day; it’s the work of every day. Every day, I have to make a conscious effort to tidy up. I no longer let dishes sit in the sink for longer than a day. I don’t let laundry pile up beyond a single pile.
Even if all I do is wipe down the counters, I look for intentional ways to make my environment a little calmer and more organized. That doesn’t mean I’m tackling an organizational project every day of my life, but it does mean that I try to do a little something around my house every day. It might seem small, but to the person that I was, this is a huge step forward.
“I should absolutely act on this email, which means I’ll let it age like fine wine in my inbox instead, adding a layer of guilt each day.” ~Jesse J. Anderson
3. Remove Blame or Shame
On days when I’m not feeling well, the house sometimes reverts into a mess. I do have children, after all. I have to remove the tendency to blame or shame myself for being human.
I do what I can, and I ignore the rest until I’m feeling better. This keeps me from getting too overwhelmed regarding the state of my house when I’m already struggling. Usually, when I start to feel better, I also feel ready to get things back on track.
I’ve had to create new routines in my day. I didn’t set an enormous expectation here, either. I don’t commit to getting up an hour early to exercise or drastically changing my day in any way. Instead, I look for small, healthy routines that could become a habit.
It’s as simple as choosing to wash my coffee cup when I’m done rather than sitting in the sink. It’s taking the time at the end of the day to walk around my living room and do a quick tidy of anything that’s out of place. I make it as easy on myself as possible, and I add in a little flexibility for days when I don’t feel up to doing them.
One of the new routines I’ve developed involves my children. I’ll tell them that we’re going to pick a day and do a quick tidy in the afternoon. We all go to our rooms and look for things to straighten up. I’m teaching them to care for their environments in a low-pressure kind of way. I want them to take pride in their surroundings and develop healthy habits, but I don’t want to do it by making the process miserable for everyone.
“Sometimes I have all this energy, I’m unstoppable and I can do all these things at once, really fast, and then it keeps going, like a whirlwind and I can’t stop it. Then other times I’m so muddled and I can’t manage, so confused and angry and upset. I don’t understand it.” ~Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind―A Memoir
5. Pick a Number, Any Number
One tip I’ve picked up is to choose a number and then organize that many things. For instance, if I choose the number 17, I might then go and tidy 17 things around the house or choose 17 items that I could donate. It helps to have a number to focus on, and it makes the task feel more manageable.
In fact, I’ve noticed that my daughter, who also has ADHD, feels more capable of cleaning her room when I give her an exact number of things to tidy rather than expecting her to do the whole room immediately. It's less overwhelming. She feels capable of handling that number, and when she's done, she'll come back to request a new number to tackle.
I’m a big fan of putting on a playlist when I have to do chores around my house. I don’t love cleaning, but it’s so much more painless if I can do it while singing or dancing to my favorite songs. It helps me do what I need to do while doing my best to enjoy the time. I will never consider laundry a good time, but if I can get it done efficiently while singing along to Taylor Swift, I call that a win.
“It feels like we’re living in a time where neurodivergence is more broadly understood, or even accepted — with people, learning about the ways conditions like Autism and ADHD have historically been underdiagnosed, or underreported, especially in women.” ~Holly Smale, Cassandra in Reverse
7. Create an Aesthetic
One of the most powerful things I have noticed is how much better I feel when the house is tidy, and each room has a particular aesthetic. My kitchen has a bright and happy feel. My living room is warm and cozy. My bedroom is all soft blush tones and textured fabrics. Creating an aesthetic can help us better manage the environment we’re in and help reduce our stress.
For instance, in my kitchen, I organized my coffee bar with a bright, happy, and soothing color scheme. Everything is in its place, and I also light candles around the room to add fragrance and light to the look. It makes it easier to keep the room tidy when it maintains the aesthetic that makes me feel good. Deciding how we want to feel in each room is so much better than just choosing a look.
“Your life purpose is not to have a super-tidy house. It’s to accept yourself and be happy.” ~Richard Pink
8. Set Alarms
Right now, I have only one alarm set. Alexa reminds me to take my medication every day. It’s a reminder that's necessary to manage my chronic illness. Without the reminder, I am very likely to forget.
Alarms can help keep us on track and organized, and we can have a little fun with it. She doesn’t tell me to take my medication. She says to take a chill pill. It always makes me smile, and it helps me stay a little more organized.
“People with ADHD have an unbridled sense of urgency about everything, because if it isn’t tackled immediately, it is likely to be forgotten or lost. Instead of being able to prioritize based on importance, we start tasks from what is easiest or most immediately engaging, thus making the rest of the process complicated and occasionally redundant. This is why it can be difficult to commence, continue, and conclude tasks without getting totally overwhelmed.” ~Sasha Hamdani, Self-Care for People with ADHD: 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress, and Prioritize You!
ADHD and Me
I don’t have an official ADHD diagnosis, but I can see the obvious signs. I’m doing what I can to use the tools and resources I have to stay more organized. Over the last few months, I’ve enjoyed a tidy home.
When my chaos gremlin ways creep back in, I take a deep breath and remind myself that it’s not about making my home pleasing to others. Instead, it’s about creating an environment that won’t make me feel overwhelmed or overstimulated. I put away the dishes or clean off the counters. I do something that makes me feel a little better when I sit down to work or to have dinner with my children.
I’ll never be a person who just enjoys cleaning. An orderly environment might always be something I have to remind myself to prioritize. But I like the way things look now. What I like even better is knowing that all those years of living in chaos had nothing to do with me being a slovenly person who just wasn’t trying hard enough. With a passing comment from a friend, I learned to develop some self-compassion while simultaneously learning that my brain might just be wired differently and might require different processes than the people who keep everything going with apparent ease.
Crystal Jackson is a Master's level trauma-focused mental health clinician for Hope Springs Counseling in Monroe and Athens, Georgia. Her work on relationships, mental health, and personal growth has been featured on Medium, Thought Catalog, Elite Daily, Your Tango, and Elephant Journal.
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