Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD, 3rd Edition: Tips and Tools to Help You Take Charge of Your Life and Get Organized

by Susan C. Pinsky

Tips for a Happy Holiday Families with an adult ADHD member need to find ways of reducing chores around the holidays, not creating them. Try these useful tips to ensure a happier holiday: Do not allow Christmas supplies to grow out of the Christmas shelf and resist the American insanity of turning your house exterior into Santa’s village. String one set of lights on a bush, and use the time saved to see the Christmas displays downtown. In this way, we will create a warm and happy Christmas memory rather than a marital spat and burdensome obligation that lasts into late spring. If opaque tubs are owned, use them to store Christmas decorations. We never need to retrieve something from our Christmas tub in July—everything comes out at one time—so it is not critical that you see inside year round. Let a growing supply of tubs serve as a visual reminder to limit the seasonal decorations. Once our supplies don’t fit in our tubs (or our tubs don’t fit on the Christmas shelf), we will know it is time to winnow. Buy tubs that are small enough to fit in shelving (no storing tubs on the floor), and make sure they aren’t too large to handle or carry. Reconsider Christmas cards and gifts. The ever-expanding Christmas gift list (teachers, colleagues, etc.) can make gift giving a burden and clutter the home with unwanted items while killing the planet. Restrict gift giving to the immediate family. Inform the rest of the list that we are no longer exchanging gifts, and instead send a sing...