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

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...