Taming The Chaos Decluttering Tips
Adults with ADHD aren’t the only people who have problems with clutter, but we seem to have more problems than most people do for a variety of reasons. I.e., being more impulsive, distractable, disorganized and having more trouble than most people doing boring repetitive tasks, ie cleaning up stuff around the house.
One thing I’d emphasize is the importance of doing one room at a time. Or a portion of the room. Bite off a small sized chunk vs trying to eat the whole elephant at once. ADDers can often see the entire picture and get overwhelmed by it instead of seeing just one piece and working on that.
Adults with ADHD brains are understimulated (not enough dopamine) and thus we avoid boring repetitive things much more than most people do because boring task + understimulated brain= distract out, procrastinate out or shut down.
One way to make it easier to declutter is to crank up your dopamine in order to help you focus by getting some exercise before decluttering, or turning on some music you like.
Also try setting a timer for 10-15 minutes and just spending that long decluttering then stopping. If you want to more you can but you’re only committing to 10-15 minutes vs 3 hours.
What are some of your favorite tips for taming clutter?
Popping an Adderall works for me!
Comment by Justin April 30, 2008 @
Yes, the ADD meds do boost dopamine that helps us focus
Comment by Pete Quily May 1, 2008 @
I found a cool Meme called Tackle It Tuesday which works really well for me. Each Tuesday you pick one task to “tackle”, you do it, and then you blog about it. Since I love blogging, Tackle It Tuesday gives me the motivation I need to do one piece of a bigger project every week! Cool, right?
Comment by Nicki May 1, 2008 @
Hi Nicki,
Yes, very cool meme. I guess you’re talking about this one here? http://www.5minutesformom.com/category/feature-columns/tackle-it-tuesday/
82 people participated in the last one. Very good idea.
Comment by Pete Quily May 10, 2008 @
I had a friend come over, sit on my bed, and pretty much tell me to throw everything out. I threw out 2 80l black bags, and 7 25 liter plastic bags, all full of who-knows-what, and I can only think of ONE THING that I threw away that I think I should have kept- and it was only an old t-shirt. When you are getting listless, having a good friend to pull you back in is great- and having someone to chat to while I do it keeps me there in my room, emptying my wardrobes. I guess having Aideen there distracts me from how bored I am!
Comment by Shera August 16, 2008 @