More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
February 16 - March 6, 2025
One of the most difficult parts of any job—getting started—must be confronted and overcome multiple times for someone with ADHD to accomplish even the most banal of tasks. The attentionabled need to overcome inertia and motivate themselves only once to begin a task, while those who experience ADHD paralysis and executive dysfunction may have to motivate themselves four, five, or six times.
This is the golden rule of organizing, but in an ADHD home, inventory (our “stuff”) shouldn’t just fit in storage, our inventory should be less than storage. Don’t overcrowd shelving, cabinets, and drawers–make putting things away easy. Don’t keep building storage, instead reduce inventory.
Reduce inventory enough to store things where they’re used—no crossing rooms or going to another room to put things away. Arrange possessions within activity areas or “zones.” Give everything a “home.”
Only touch (or sort) it once. Efficiency means fewer steps, so for example, sort or toss mail as soon as it’s opened. Don’t add it to a pile that has to be sorted again later.
Name each cabinet and shelf (dish cabinet, sock drawer, etc.) as a reminder that only those items are stored therein.
Thoroughly complete one project before starting another. The act of organizing can tear up a space, and we only want one space compromised at a time.
Name the days like ‘bill paying Monday’ and ‘laundry Wednesday.’ Attending to these jobs routinely keeps them small and underwhelming.
In designing the most efficient organizing system, we must ask ourselves: Can I find what I need? Is it conveniently located? Is it easy to retrieve and, more importantly, easy to put away? Does it require little or no maintenance?
Don’t hold onto an item just because it cost a lot of money. That item is now costing you time space and stress. Don’t let it continue sucking you dry of these valuable resources.
If you can’t use a hand-me-down or heirloom, or you don’t like it, give it to someone who can or does.
When keeping an object strictly for sentimental reasons, size matters. Sentimental items should never be larger than a deck of cards.
The bottom line is that we should keep any object that appeals to our taste and that we will use. If we like it but can’t use it, or if we can use it but won’t because we don’t like it, then get rid of it.
To scan or not to scan, that is the question. Scanning reduces paper clutter while producing effort clutter, and typically in the ADHD home we want to give priority to reducing effort. For the most part, it is less work to just keep things in the form in which they arrive—so don’t print out pictures and don’t scan (or take pictures of) children’s schoolwork or art unless storage space is very limited.
Place donations in the car. Items that are targeted for charitable donation but are left to linger in closets will be forgotten and will forever clutter your home.
For example, if I told an ADHD client to set an empty shampoo bottle aside so they can run it downstairs to the kitchen recycle bin later, that bottle would remain in the shower indefinitely.
Old food, garbage, and human and animal waste are the line between untidy—which we can live with—and squalor, which leads to isolation and depression.
THERE IS NO ORANIZING SYSTEM THAT WILL WORK IF WE DON’T MAINTAIN IT. DAILY MAINTENANCE TASKS SHOULD BE CONFIGURED FOR HYPEREFFICIENCY.
Way Station Staging Area: Items in a way station staging area are actively in transit. An effective way station must be in the direct path of the object’s journey and should be so obvious (irritating, in fact) that we are motivated to move the item along.
Interim Storage Staging Area: Items in the interim staging area need temporary storage until a specific date.
Project Staging Area: Dedicated project staging areas can help those with
ADHD keep their paints, pastels, graphics, and paperwork off the kitchen table and away from the family room couch.
Open shelving is an invaluable ADHD organizing tool because it allows us to put things away in one easy step.
Guard your rough storage areas—they have a price above rubies, for they are your only defense against distracting and inefficient clutter in your living spaces.
Opaque tubs are particularly bad for stacking because anything inside goes “off radar” completely. It requires too much effort to remember what is stored in which or to access the bottom bins, so the contents are rarely—if ever—used again. We might as well just put our possessions in the trash.
If it is problematic to reach or even see the back contents of upper shelves and cabinets, then a fold-up stepstool is a necessity in not just for the kitchen, but in every storage space—be it closets, garage, or basement—that has unreachable storage. No one is going to put anything away if they must grab a step stool from another room.
Be it large (the garage) or small (a single kitchen cabinet), all organizational projects require the following approach:
1 Schedule and Prepare. Block out a generous time slot on your calendar for a project. It is never a problem to finish early, but a disaster to start and not finish.
2 Weed and Sort. Keep a large lined trash handy to take care of any rubbish—as always we want easy access to the trash.
Be as brutal as you can—owning less stuff means less work.
3 Remove and Clean. Relocate the other area piles, putting things where they belong. Put donations in the car and trash in the outdoor bins. Or if there is no curbside pickup, put it in the car as well. Once the space is empty, clean it (wash down the interior of the cabinet, sweep out the garage, etc.).
4 Name and Return. Name the space and designate areas within the space.
5 Containerize and Bask. Purchase, scrounge, or otherwise acquire, install, and assemble any organizational tools that will make the space more restful and efficient.
Sorting and Organizing Roadmap First: Always start on the floor; a clear floor immediately provides a more restful and efficient project environment because you can easily move about. Next: Clear the surfaces as these provide staging areas for sorting. Finally: Tackle interior spaces like drawers and cupboards. Defining What We Do Tidy Up/Picking Up = getting a room to look somewhat neat by putting things away. Cleaning = washing floors, vacuum dust Organize = schedule and prep, weed and sort, remove and clean, name and return, containerize and bask
KITCHEN-ORGANIZING COMMANDMENTS Use the kitchen for cooking and eating only. Designate and name storage areas such as “snack shelf” or “flatware drawer.” Designate areas for activities and their tools into, like a “coffee bar.” Do not overshop. Buy only those items that are on the shopping list and for which there is an imminent plan. Do not overstock. Get rid of old, excess, china, food, and novelty cookware. Locate china and cookware, not food, in areas that are convenient to the sink and dishwasher. Clean out the fridge once a week, on the night before garbage pickup. Keep an ongoing
...more
Easy Utensil Organizing Remove “intruders” from the cooking utensil storage area. Get rid of duplicates and rarely used novelty pieces. Store the most often used cooking utensils in a canister.
But we know that good organization is NOT about being prepared with the perfect tool for every job, it is about being resourceful with the few tools at hand.
Storing lids on their containers and stacking only like-sized containers allows retrieval and storage in one simple motion. More importantly, reducing the containers to a reasonable number eliminates the stress and clutter.
Use resealable plastic bags for leftovers where possible. It is not as green as Tupperware, but if it helps keep your kitchen and fridge clean, usable, and free of rotting containers of food, it’s a reasonable accommodation for those with ADHD.
Steps to Tupperware Reduction 1 Reduce Tupperware inventory. Five to ten pieces are sufficient for many families. 2 Throw out all of Tupperware’s poor second cousins—old yogurt containers, butter tubs, etc. 3 On garbage day eve, eat or ruthlessly purge the Tupperware contained leftovers in the fridge.
Spice Sense Throw away any spice that hasn’t been used this year—ground spices lose their potency after six months. For this reason, in future, buy the smallest container of any spice you can find—one that you will use up in six months if possible. Get rid of decorative spice racks and install a simple, shallow, shelf-style rack large enough to comfortably hold all the remaining spices with space left over. (Gourmet cooks may need to use two racks or a longer rack that runs the height of a door.) Or insert an expandable drawer organizer in a drawer near the prep area to hold the spices.
...more
Simple Rules for Small Appliances Look over the small appliances and get rid of anything not currently, regularly used, no matter what it originally cost, or who gave it to you. If it hasn’t been used in more than a year, out it goes. Identify small appliances that duplicate the functions of other tools and then eliminate any redundancies. Be wary of impulse gadget purchases. Many small appliances are not used often enough, or are not versatile enough, to justify the amount of counter and cabinet space they require. Rely on fresh ingredients; tasty meals are the result of fresh produce, not
...more
A magnetic strip that is screwed into the wall near the food-prep area is THE MOST convenient knife storage method.
Pot Protocol Designate an area near the sink for pot storage. Eliminate specialty pots and reduce the pot collection to no more than four to eight pots. Store pots so that no one pot blocks another and, if possible, avoid nesting. If nesting, install small press-on hooks or screw small cup hooks to the side or door of the pot cabinet and hang the pot lids of the bottom pots from them. Pots that are very occasionally used but are still wanted can be stored in a more remote (high) cabinet or between the top of an upper cabinet and the ceiling. Use a paper towel as a dust cover and keep a step
...more
If a cabinet no longer has empty shelf space for groceries, then it is time to eat down our stock or make some donations to the food pantry and garbage can.
Food Cabinet Rules 1 Never buy anything that you aren’t actively planning to eat in the coming week. 2 Avoid impulse shopping by purchasing only those items noted on the running grocery list (on the pad of paper you keep in the kitchen specifically for this purpose). 3 Don’t allow your cabinets to fill up; maintain empty shelf space. 4 Don’t worry about running out of something—running out is a triumph of organization! It means that you didn’t tie up your money in overstock or clutter your cabinets with excess; it means that you are frugal, resilient, and resourceful enough to cheerfully work
...more
Food Cabinet Cleanup Here’s an easy way to organize a single food cabinet: 1 Empty the food cabinet and clean the interior. 2 Sort through the contents and eliminate old or novelty food items. 3 Cast your eye over the remaining food and divide it as best as you can into as many categories as you have empty shelves or further subdivide into pantry bins. 4 Name the empty cupboard shelves after those categories using the named aisles in the grocery store as your guide. For instance, one shelf might be called Snacks, with a nut bin and a sweets bin, another will be Breakfast, and a third will be
...more
5 Do a quick survey of the other kitchen cabinets to move snacks, cereals, and canned goods found elsewhere into their new permanent home. Toss out items you haven’t touched in six months or are expired, so that you do not litter your newly organized cabinet with the old, the novelties, and the mistakenly acquired. 6 Place all of the food that was formerly housed in the newly organized cabinet and that does not now adhere to the cabinet’s new designation, in a more appropriate cupboard. 7 Take out the garbage and, if applicable, put a food-pantry donation bag in the car or in front of the door
...more
Decluttering Dish Cabinets 1 Remove anything from this cabinet that does not qualify as an everyday dish; we should be left with a stack of plates, salad plates, bowls, and, if the cabinet is large enough, glasses and mugs. 2 Discard any dishes that do not stack comfortably. It is acceptable to hold on to a series of bowls that are the same size but different colors, but we want to dispose of bowls that vary in size. They might tempt us to nest smaller stacks on top of larger stacks. We never want to have to lift one dish to get to another. 3 Reduce the dish collection to a number that will
...more
Make putting away dishes as fast and fluid as possible by designating the cabinet nearest to the sink/dishwasher as the cabinet for frequently used dishes. Items that are rarely used can be banished to more remote cabinets.
Avoid moving food and dishes out of the kitchen. If you must have entertainment while you cook or eat, put a TV or radio in the kitchen, or bring your hand-held device to the table. It is easier to find a corner for a small TV than to be constantly picking up dirty dishes all over the house.
