Have you ever 

taken a ride on the 

Clutter-Go-Round?

Have you ever heard the saying, a cluttered mind is the sign of a cluttered life? If you are a person living with ADHD, the opposite can also be true…a cluttered life can be the sign of a cluttered mind. ADHD symptoms such as procrastination, forgetfulness, poor time management, and general disorganization are a huge challenge to people living with ADHD. As a result, tasks, both simple and complex, often lead to an unwanted collection of chores, bills, and things. A cluttered mind and a cluttered life, working in tandem, can create a vicious circle of clutter…a clutter-go-round that never stops to let its passengers off.

ADHD and clutter, both physical and emotional, often go hand in hand. For a person with an ADHD brain, physical clutter + emotional clutter =CHAOS! The chaos resulting from all this “stuff” can be very damaging to your life and relationships. Both types of clutter can cause you to lose focus and have difficulty concentrating, which can lead to you having to work longer to complete simple tasks. Clutter can cause injuries, missed deadlines, lost objects and chronic lateness. Yes, clutter can adversely affect your productivity and eat away at your time, which usually results in feelings of frustration and anger.

If you are someone with ADHD, clutter isn’t necessarily confined to your home; it likely spills over into every aspect of your life, professionally and socially. Clutter can affect your performance at work. Clutter can impair your ability to manage your children’s school activities, ordinary business transactions, and interactions with those in your community. Clutter can negatively influence relationships with friends and family. Clutter can keep you socially isolated as well…because you don’t want others to see the pandemonium in which you exist. A disorganized environment can make you feel overwhelmed, which often leads to stress and/or anxiety.  

So why not attack your clutter? The simple answer is…a person with ADHD doesn’t function in the same way that a non-ADHDer does. As much as your friends and family advise you to de-clutter, not understanding how you can live in such chaos, most ADHDers cannot look at a disorganized room and just decide to do something about it. All those self-help books that you bought because “this was the one that was going to work” only add to the clutter. What works for the masses, simply does not work for you. Not only is the cleaning process confusing and time consuming, but it is also emotionally draining.

If you are like me, you have read enough books about eliminating/organizing clutter to make your ADHD head spin. You have purchased planners, organizers, bins, shelves, containers, and whatever else would help you put your environment in order once and for all. I bet it has cost you a lot of money over the years…without helping. I can’t tell you how to de-clutter your life, because mainstream organizing tips do not work with an ADHD mind, and there is not a one-size-fits-all method of de-cluttering an ADHD life. I can, however, offer some suggestions to get you started.

Again…I am not going to give you cleaning or organizing tips…because they won’t work. The only thing that will help you de-clutter your life is to come up with YOUR OWN game plan to sort things out. That being said, here are a few steps you can take to de-clutter your life.

1.   Own the clutter – make it yours. You have to accept your clutter in order to come up with your own perfect solutions. Ask yourself how the clutter got there in the first place, and then attack the very behavior that is causing the pile-up.

2.   Ask yourself…if you could have things just the way you would like to have them…what would that do for you. What would an organized environment feel like, both environmentally and emotionally? What are you missing out on because of the clutter in your life?  Visualize a de-cluttered life. Imagine, as specifically as you can, how you will feel. Imagine what it will be like not to waste hours looking for missing keys and papers. Imagine what you can do in all the free time you will gain by not digging through piles of stuff. I bet it feels pretty good.

3.   Identify the barriers you are facing regarding eliminating the clutter in your life. Figure out what is causing you to get stuck. What is getting in your way and preventing you from living an uncluttered life. Is it lack of storage, laziness, time? There is a very real chance that you are in denial about what might actually causing you to be stuck, and you won’t be able to change your habits until you are ready to face them head on.

4.   Ask yourself…what impact is this clutter having on you, your relationships, your business, etc? What is the worst part about having all this clutter? How long have you been living a cluttered life? What are you losing because of your clutter? Time, money, a chaos-free life? If you don’t do something about the clutter, what else will you lose?

5.   Imagine yourself living a clutter-free life. Be specific with the details. How will your life be different? How will it feel?

You aren’t alone. There are many, many people, with and without ADHD, whose lives are being controlled by clutter. YOU can take back the control by having crystal clear written goals, developing an action plan, having greater personal awareness and identifying your hidden challenges. Add a shot of extreme motivation, and you will be on your way to finally getting off the clutter-go-round!

New Year, New You

New Year, 

New You?

New Year, 

New You!

The ball dropped less than two weeks ago in NYC, symbolizing the beginning of a New Year. For many, the New Year is symbolic fresh starts…a time when many, if not most, people make New Year’s Resolutions…promises to do better in the coming year. If you are like me, the dropping ball has often been a metaphor for crushed failures of the previous year…failures which often happen within weeks after those resolutions are made. By now, most people have compromised those ubiquitous January promises. Although people have the best intentions when making their New Year’s Resolutions, the success rate is less than 15%. Perhaps the success rate would be higher if we approached the concept of these goals or promises in different way.

The most important thing to remember is not to become overwhelmed by New Year’s Resolutions. Accept your anxiety. Often times, anxiety just leads to more anxiety, so don’t fight it. Go with the flow, and this too shall pass. Below are a few suggestions to help you keep those New Year’s Resolutions…once and for all.

• Change your thought process. Work from the inside out. What you tell yourself is just as important as what you do. Work on your self-talk in order to minimize those limiting beliefs.  If you don’t believe you can accomplish your goals, you probably won’t. It is important to give yourself positive reinforcement. Tell yourself, as often as you can, that you can do whatever it is you want to accomplish. When it feels like you are running out of steam, take a cue from “The Little Engine That Could” and keep telling yourself, “I think I can, I think I can,” A positive attitude and approach produces much more successful results than “I can’t."

•  Focus on behaviors that will help you achieve your goal, rather than the goal itself. If you gradually change your actions, the end result you desire will be achieved within time. Set yourself up for success, rather than failure. Small steps lead to longer journeys. The trick is to make your journey sustainable along the way.

• Try not to multitask. We are a society that has to do ten things at once. Some people are very skilled at doing several things at one time…most are not. The result usually being that nothing gets completed at all. Focus on one thing at a time and stick with it until it is finished before starting on the next task. You will probably find that by focusing on just one task at a time, you actually get more done.

• Have a strong commitment to change your behavior in order to change your outcomes. If you are not determined to keep your resolutions, you won’t.  Put your resolutions in writing…it usually makes things more real when you put it to paper. Yes…paper. Don’t put it into an electronic device…although it’s not a bad idea to use that as a backup. WRITE your commitment. Feel the pen as it forms the words of your promise to yourself. Say the words as you write them. Then…put the paper in a place where you will see it several times a day.

• Schedule a time to work on your resolution and stick to it. “Exercising more” is a very vague goal. Walking on the treadmill at 7:30 AM on weekdays is more specific. The more you can narrow your goal, the more likely you are to follow through.

• Focus on today without worrying about tomorrow. Focus on the task that you are doing NOW. The only way you will be able to achieve your goal is to focus in the moment. Forget everything else for just 15 minutes and work on the task at hand. When that 15 minutes is up…do the same thing for 15 more minutes. See how long you can do this without losing concentration. It is a lot easier, and far less overwhelming, to attack goals when you bite off smaller pieces. You don’t eat a slice of cake in one bite; however, you usually manage to finish the whole thing. Apply this principle to your resolutions, and notice how much easier it is.

• Try to figure out what your obstacles are and devise a plan to overcome them as they arise. For example, if you have a tendency to answer every text message right away, you might turn off your phone while you are working on your resolutions.

• Keep track of your progress. Even the tiniest forward movement is reason for celebration.  Set up a reward system…not just for reaching your ultimate goal, but for smaller successes along the way.

•  Allow for some missteps without giving up entirely. One of the reasons people don’t succeed with long-term goals is that they give up completely if they have any small moment of failure. It’s ok to not be perfect as long as you get yourself back on track as soon as possible. Give yourself permission to fail on a smaller scale, but promise yourself that it won’t be a death knell for your ultimate goal. 

Even if you have already “blown it”…it’s not too late to start again. We have to stop being so quick to negate our accomplishments with our shortcomings. It’s all a matter of perspective, and if you acknowledge even the tiniest of achievements, you will set yourself in motion to accomplish your bigger, long-term goals. Breathe and reboot. Tomorrow is another day.