ADHD: Stop Organizing Like Everyone Else Tells You To
If Traditional Organizing Advice Has Never Worked, It Might Not Be Your Fault
If traditional organizing advice has never worked for you, it may not be your fault.
Organizing is never One Size Fits All. If there was a perfect way to organize, no one would struggle with it. Each home and family has different routines, different preferences, and different stuff. The most effective organizing strategies are the ones that work for your life and your space, not the ones the so-called experts provide.
It’s not you, it’s them.
I’m not saying traditional organizing advice is bad, but I am saying that it may not work for you, especially if you are organizing with ADHD symptoms or executive functioning challenges.
Many organizing books, blogs, and influencers assume that everyone will remember where they put things, finish every project they start, and naturally maintain their systems even if that maintenance takes several steps.
If you’ve bought the bins, printed the labels, and file-folded all your clothes but you struggle to keep it up, the problem may not be your effort; it may be that the system was not designed to work the way your brain does.
ADHD-friendly Organizing Systems
These are some of my top tips for organizing with ADHD that can help you create a system that works with your brain, not against it.
Tricks like setting a timer for tasks and body doubling can be very effective when you have ADHD.
Visible Storage - For people with ADHD, out of sight is literally out of mind! Traditional organizing systems that pack everything in bins inside closets likely won’t work well.
Make it Easy - Multiple steps to complete a project can often lead to failure with ADHD organizing. The systems that will work best have the least amount of steps to completion. An example of this is using an open bin rather than one with a top.
Reduce Decisions - Keeping something as close to where it’s used, in a place that makes sense will be far more effective than putting it where you think you should, based on someone else’s advice or system.
Don’t Organize for Your Ideal Self - Chances are your regular self is great, so please organize your stuff for the current version of you. Making your organizing systems for an ideal person who doesn’t exist can lead to shame, which I’m guessing is not the feeling you’re going for.
Make Maintenance Easy - Using tools like body doubling, external reminders, and timers can help tremendously when working to maintain your organizing systems.
Reduce Friction
Friction is truly the worst enemy of folks with ADHD symptoms or executive functioning challenges. Using the principles above can help you create realistic organizing systems. For more on the value of organizing support when you have executive functioning challenges, check out this post.
When I have given my clients permission to buck the traditional organizing advice for systems that work with their brain, we’ve been able to make real progress. Exchanging Pinterest-worthy systems for ones that match how they actually live has given them freedom and reduced shame.
If the organizing advice you’ve seen online or in books hasn’t worked, I can help you build systems that fit your brain instead of expecting your brain to fit the system.
Click the image to visit my contact page and set up your free consultation.
