ADHD, Cleaning, and Giving Your Stuff a Home

Cleaning is hard. If you have ADHD, like me and many others, it’s probably very hard. It’s so much easier to pull things out, use them, and leave them where the task ends. Unfortunately, when we do this, we end up with a messy home full of distractions and the oppressive weight associated with “I should clean” thoughts. It wears us down. For many, it can feel like failure, “Why can’t I keep a clean home like everyone else?”

Well first, let’s get rid of the guilt and the shame. It’s useless anyway. We are who we are. And honestly, everyone struggles with tidiness sometimes. The question is, how do we get our homes to the level of cleanliness we want? I’ll write many articles on this topic, but to start with, I wanted to talk about making sure everything in your home has its own personal home. I mean, do your pots & pans have a designated place that they belong? What about your hat, keys, yoga mat? I mean everything.

Everyone has limited energy in the day. With ADHD, we often have to spend more of our limited stock of spoons to start or stay on task. If we decide to devote that energy to cleaning, the last thing we need to do is burn even more energy making decisions about what goes where. That part at least should be mindless. Once you decide to pick it up, the rest of the process should be automatic because you know exactly where it goes.

The cleaning process is easier the less you own, which is why I always advocate a minimalist lifestyle (as much as you can) for anyone with ADHD. Fewer things mean less cleaning and fewer places to remember (and fewer distractions). You can shorten your list of where everything goes by grouping like things together. I have a bag on a shelf that holds just about everything that qualifies as “electronic” that doesn’t specifically belong somewhere else. The bag contains headphones, chargers, extension cords, an external CD/DVD player for my computer, etc… However, the blender lives in a cupboard in the kitchen because it has its own home, and I classify it as a “kitchen electronic.” The point is, I never wonder where I might have put an extension cord or a spare set of headphones. They all live in the bag. No, a bag is not the best way to store your stuff, but it made sense to me at the time, and eventually it will get a pretty (or clear) container.

The categories can be as big or as small as you want. Ideally though, no category should have more than can fit in a decent sized box (clear bins are best). If music is a passion, you may have different areas for sheet music, accessories, records, etc… while someone who isn’t that into music may not need a music category at all. It only has to make sense to you.

Once a decision has been made about where a thing lives, it frees up brain resources because you never have to decide where to put it again. Making the decision is a one-time task. After that, while cleaning will likely never be easy for us, it’s just a tiny bit easier because the only decisions are whether to start cleaning and where. Once in motion, we can basically tune out with some music or a podcast if we want. If something isn’t in its home, take it there.

When we get up to go to the kitchen, sometimes we notice a dirty dish and automatically think to take it with us. Now we can do this with other things because they too have a place where they belong.

It seems like such a small thing, but when our brains actually encourage us to clean, even just one, small thing being put away, we can reclaim the feeling of being in control. We can experience a small moment of success and get a little boost of energy to maybe do just a little bit more. Give all of your possessions a home to give yourself the comfortable home you deserve.

Good luck out there everyone.