Good post by Gretchen Rubin on the 11 myths of De-cluttering. Clutter is often a very big problem for many ADHD adults and often causes a lot of stress and irritation for their spouses.
He are a few
5. “I can’t get rid of anything that I might possibly need one day.” How terrible would it be if you needed a glass jar and didn’t have one? Do you have gigantic stores of things like rubber bands or ketchup packets? How many coffee mugs does one family use?
6. “I might get that gizmo fixed.” Face it. If you’ve had something for more than six months, and it’s still not repaired, it’s clutter.
9. “I need to keep this as a memento of a happy time.” I’m a huge believer in mementos; remembering happy times in the past gives you a big happiness boost in the present. But ask yourself: do I need to keep all these t-shirts to remind me of college, or can I keep a few? Do I need to keep an enormous desk to remind me of my grandfather, or can I use a photograph? Do I need fifty finger-painted pictures by my toddler, or is one enough to capture this time of life? Mementos work best when they’re carefully chosen – and when they don’t take up much room!
Adults with ADHD quite often have many problems with clutter due to the nature of ADHD. We’re easily distracted, impulsive, forgetful, often have trouble planning and organizing etc. For many ADHD adults the costs of clutter can be very expensive and not just in the financial sense of the word.
Physical clutter often leads to mental and emotional clutter. Byproducts may include overload and overwhelm, stress, time wasted, and social isolation due to being too embarrassed to invite friends over to your place because of the clutter.
I have some of my adult ADHD coaching clients that are reluctant to hire a professional organizer to help them reduce their clutter because they’re too ashamed of their clutter, or feel they have to get organized first before inviting a professional organizer over to their place to help them get organized.
One thing I tell them is that the more clutter they have, the happier the professional organizer will be, because more clutter = more business for them.
What are some of your tips on reducing clutter and keeping your paper and other physical things organized well enough? Versus the “perfect organization” that never occurs outside the fantasies inside your head?
Than you might consider defining exactly when someday might be Hailey. I.e., 1 year 2 years etc and put it in a box with that date on it and schedule a reminder to review it on that date