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

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.

The best organizational system for someone with ADHD is the one that is most efficient, streamlined, most convenient, and the fastest/easiest to maintain, because it requires the fewest number of steps and materials.

No organizational system will work if we don’t maintain it.

The Rules of Organizing 1. Inventory must conform to storage.

Don’t overcrowd shelving, cabinets, and drawers–make putting things away easy. Don’t keep building storage, instead reduce inventory.

2. Make things easy to access and EASIER to put away.

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.” Take advantage of vertical storage space by using tall shelves and tall bureaus, so there is space to store items where they are used. Store things on the wall or on a shelf, never on the floor.

3. Only touch (or sort...

Duplicate where necessary to store things where they are used

5. Eliminate items that unnecessarily duplicate functions

6. Name each cabinet and shelf

7. Make sure the “rough storage” areas in the home are well lit, easily accessible, and are never completely full.

8. Schedule projects, allow extra time to finish, and plan to do only one at a time.

Putting a project on the calendar will help solidify space for it. Organizing is all about finishing. Scheduling extra time for unforeseen hiccups will ensure that we won’t run out of time, leaving a disruptive half-finished project to linger and depress. 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.

9. Embrace R...

Name the days like ‘bill paying Monday’ and ‘laundry Wednesday.’ Attending to these jobs routinely keeps them small and underwhelming. In

10. Get Help, Work as a Team.

Consider this: Just because something is “organized” doesn’t mean that it is efficient.

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?

Creating the Most Efficient System

We should never make the mistake of equating beauty with ADHD-appropriate organization. Unfortunately, some people with ADHD struggle with “perfectionism” (often tragically, frustratingly unattainable, given the nature of ADHD) that makes them quite vulnerable to this misguided yardstick of organizing success.

Que lucha!

In order to achieve this, for most of the systems in their home, the imperative must be efficiency. When an area becomes messy, they must ask themselves: Has the number of my possessions been reduced enough, and my organizational system streamlined enough, that it can be picked up in a matter of seconds? Because for people with ADHD, seconds may be all that is available before the next beguiling and thoroughly captivating thought commands their attention.

Organizing is an equation of time, money, space, and effort. An efficient organizing system should save us time, effort, space, stress, and overall, it should save us money. But let’s be clear: Although we want to reduce overall spending by eliminating impulse shopping and overstock supplies, perfect frugality is not our goal. Instead, if possible, we’ll use some of those saved funds to acquire services to support our new peace of mind and organized home.

IN THE MODERN AGE, OUR SOCIETY’S RAREST COMMODITY IS NOT GOODS, BUT TIME, AND THOSE WITH ADHD—WHO MAY REQUIRE MORE TIME ON AVERAGE TO COMPLETE A TASK—MUST GUARD THEIR TIME AS THE MOST PRECIOUS OF ALL THEIR POSSESSIONS.

THE MODERN AGE, OUR SOCIETY’S RAREST COMMODITY IS NOT GOODS, BUT TIME, AND THOSE WITH ADHD—WHO MAY REQUIRE MORE TIME ON AVERAGE TO COMPLETE A TASK—MUST GUARD THEIR TIME AS THE MOST PRECIOUS OF ALL THEIR POSSESSIONS.

Being resourceful with the few tools at hand will keep clutter at bay while playing to one of their greatest strengths—ingenuity. Procure the attention

HELPFUL HACKS FOR STAYING ON TRACK 1. Body doubling and teamwork.

Music, timers, and alarms.

Bright colors, glow in the dark stickers, digital trackers.

4. Play to your strengths.

5. Pick your battles.

Another great hack is to consider the cost of what you are asking and decide what is really worth ‘the ask.’ Find those one or two issues that really bug the non-ADHD family member, or make it hard for the ADHD person to function, and then lovingly and supportively ask each other to make that extra effort. Then cut everyone some slack on the rest of it. The issue might be, “I hate it when the dirty dishes don’t make it to the sink/dish pan.” But recognize that someone with ADHD is going to have limited resources to spend on maintenance, so decide on the one or two herculean efforts you will ask of your loved one, and let the rest go.

6. Sticky f...

7. Setting up the system.

8. Routine. If the household has a routine of bill-paying Monday, laundry Tuesday, or nightly kitchen clean-up, then nobody must go through the mental energy of picking a time for regular weekly projects. Everyone will know what to expect and be able to pace themselves.

9. Small project plans.

10. Humor.

ALWAYS SHOP WITH A SHOPPING LIST AND PRACTICE STRICT ADHERENCE TO THE LIST. TO AVOID OVERBUYING. LIMIT PURCHASING TO THOSE ITEMS ONLY FOR WHICH WE HAVE AN ALREADY IDENTIFIED IMMEDIATE NEED OR USE.

Adhering to a shopping list eliminates the habit of shopping as recreation.

Make Purging a Priority Efficiency, which is to say reduction of effort, is our ultimate goal. The most efficient organizing systems for anyone—not just those with ADHD—requires a substantial pruning of materials as the straightest path to efficiency is reduction of possessions resulting in reduction of EFFORT. We have discussed how to keep things from entering our homes; now we are going to address those things that are already in our homes, because a house, closet, or garage that is stuffed with possessions will never be convenient to use, efficient, or restful.

Many of my ADHD clients seem to have a substantial and happy advantage over the general public when it comes to purging: They have been misplacing all their most precious possessions since babyhood, so they know from experience that you can live without most things and replace the rest. Thus,

1. When It Comes to Sentiment, Size Matters

When It Comes to Sentiment, Size Matters In our bid to create and maintain an organized, ADHD-friendly home, purging all items that don’t serve a practical purpose should be a no-brainer. EVERY home would be more manageable if we didn’t keep ANY sentimental (nor decorative) items.

Object Memorabilia: When keeping an object strictly for sentimental reasons, size matters. Sentimental items should never be larger than a deck of cards. Try to limit yourself to keeping no more than three items from a departed family member, none larger than a (you guessed it) deck of cards. 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. Your mom’s sideboard may be of excellent quality, and in seventy years it may be a valuable antique, but to store it for seventy years in the hopes that the grandchildren will like it, or see a small profit, is an inefficient use of effort and space.

Photos, Paper, and Digital Memorabilia: 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. Sorting existing paper photos and other paper memorabilia for “keep and go” is a time-consuming task that is in no way urgent. Just toss it all in a box marked paper memorabilia and you can go through them in your retirement (or never). Going forward, prioritize high-quality photos and keep only the truly meaningful pieces of paper memorabilia. Limit sentimental photography and if you take big groups of pictures, delete the ones you don’t like immediately after taking them. Two pictures of any birthday party are enough. Six pictures from any vacation are more than enough. The goal should be to document each year in fifty photos. If you live to be 80, that’s a whopping 4,000 photos! Don’t volunteer as the family events photographer—let others take on that role. By stepping back, we’ve eliminated that repetitive chore of scrolling through and deleting scores of photos after every event. Paper photos (a subset of paper memorabilia) can go into the paper memorabilia box or tossed in a designated box marked “Photos”—no further sorting, label...

For children’s schoolwork that feels special, keep ONLY a few items that are autobiographical—a drawing of “My Family” and essays entitled “What I’m Going to Do When I Grow Up,” “My Favorite Things,” and “My Vacation.” For the small number of children’s artwork that you will want to permanently keep; try to limit it to two easily storable 8 x 11 works per year. These can be thrown in each child’s designated paper memorabilia box. As for the rest, designating a magical art drawer that never fills up (because every now and then the parent quietly removes and tosses the bottom inch of now forgotten artwork) is a thoughtful and discrete way to avoid a mountain of finger-painting clutter.

2. It’s the Thought That Counts Do we trust that the sentiment has value

Protocols of Gift Giving 1. When you receive a gift, thank the giver. Once you’ve thanked the giver, your obligations to the gift and the giver are over. If you like the gift, use it. If you don’t like the gift, get rid of it discreetly. If you don’t like the gift, but the giver is always around, use it once or twice and then quietly get rid of it. 2. If you’ve been thanked and know your gift has arrived, you must never again inquire about it. Do not tell the recipient to give it back if they can’t use it. You gave it away, so you are not allowed to control its fate anymore; now someone else gets to decide what happens with it. Realistically, there will be some number of gifts for which the sentiment is greatly appreciated, but the object is not to the receiver’s taste. It is unfair to put someone on the spot by making them confess that they don’t like your gift, especially when they are in debt to you for a generous gesture.

3. Live in the Now