So, You Have ADHD: A Chicago Home Organizer Reflects
Does it feel like everyone you know is being diagnosed with ADHD in their 30s, 40s, and 50s? It does to me, and I’m one of them! The real question is, how was this missed for so long? In my case, I had no idea my daily masking and adaptations were out of the ordinary. It never occurred to me to share about how I do everyday things to a therapist, because it seemed normal to me.
I figured it out on my own after I became a professional home organizer. Famously, many organizing clients have ADHD, so I read up on it as part of my training. But the more I learned, the more I realized the authors were talking about me. I had gradually developed almost all the hacks and adaptations they recommend for ADHD organizing clients throughout the course of my life, and I was good at them!
My hunch led to a formal diagnosis and a lot of reflection on my prior, 20-year fundraising career. Former colleagues largely came to accept my extremes. On the one hand, I was a chronic procrastinator, often overwhelmed by the chaos of a demanding workplace, yet could barely hide my boredom in meetings. On the flip side, people seemed thrilled by my problem-solving skills, creativity, and high-quality work products. I was also hyper-verbal and energetic, which worked well for my profession.
Now, I have a career that is much better suited to my need for novelty, stimulation, and challenge. I also have the pleasure of working with many people who are learning their own ADHD adaptations for a happy home life. Part of the problem they face is that all the conventional wisdom runs contrary to how their brains work. They’ve struggled along trying to do things the “right” way, when the best thing might be to do the complete opposite.
Here are four adaptations that work well for me and others with ADHD.
DO IT WHEN THE MOOD STRIKES
People with ADHD like me can be mulish about doing a task if we’re not in the mood for it. On the flipside, once we get into a state of hyper-focus, we’re nearly unstoppable. If there’s no scary deadline to stimulate our brains into action, there’s a chance we’ll put things off indefinitely. When this is the case, I delay starting the task until the mood strikes me.
Every now and then, I wake up in the mood to take everything out of the mudroom, purge, clean, and put it back beautifully organized. But I can guarantee you I had no idea that was going to happen until after I had already started.
Do random fits of home organization confuse and confound my family when they’re chilling on a Saturday morning? Yes! They really wonder what is wrong with me. But who cares? It works for me, and maybe it can work for you, too.
The point is to work with your ADHD instead of fighting it, and some tasks can easily wait until the mood strikes.
FIND THE RIGHT STIMULATION TO SPARK ACTION
People with ADHD aren't keen on low-stimulation, repetitive tasks and we're not particularly motivated by "should." This can make daily or near-daily chores such as doing dishes, laundry, cleaning, yard work, and mail processing problematic. Using myself as a case study, let's examine laundry.
To say I hate doing laundry is an understatement. I loathe and despise it. It's a never-ending, boring, thankless job that I would gladly use a wish from a genie to make go away. However, as fate would have it, I'm responsible for doing the laundry in my home. Putting it off makes things a lot worse, too, so I've had to come up with strategies to make it less boring for myself and keep that boulder moving back up the hill each day.
Here are my go-to strategies in order of preference.
Phone a friend. Once I'm chatting with a friend, the rest of the world goes away, and I can do laundry and many other chores without even realizing I'm doing them. Unfortunately, younger generations may never know this amazing, wonderful hack because they don't talk on phones like us old-school folks. Fortunately, I still have people I can call.
Listen to a podcast. This is almost like talking to a friend because some of my favorite, long-time podcast hosts feel like intimate acquaintances. It usually provides enough mental stimulation to get me started and keep me going on laundry and other chores.
Gamify it. Sometimes, I can't reach anyone by phone, and I'm burned out on my usual podcasts. That's when I start playing games with the laundry. I'll tell myself, it's not so bad, I'm just going to fold and take 10 pieces, and only 10 pieces of laundry upstairs, which I then repeat until the job is done. Breaking 80 items of laundry into groups of 10 (aka, doing it weirdly and inefficiently) is sufficient stimulation for my brain. "Whatever gets the job done," is my motto.
Add novelty. Sometimes, I'll create a whole new system just to make a boring task more interesting for myself. For instance, I acquired and labeled laundry baskets for each member of my family's clean laundry so I could sort and put it away in groups. This was a great motivator until the newness wore off. I still use the baskets, but not in the same way.
Get a body double. When all else fails, I will ask my husband to come babysit me while I do what needs to be done. We usually make this fun by singing a silly song. Again, "whatever works."
The casual observer probably wouldn't notice anything too strange about my habits. They would see someone who's relatively on top of the household chores and doesn't seem to have too much trouble getting them done. Little do they know all the ways I trick myself into doing odious tasks.
Do you need to trick yourself into doing things? If so, you're probably doing something right!
EMBRACE PROCRASTINATION
There's a reason why people with ADHD procrastinate and, spoiler alert, it's not because we're lazy. The seemingly reasonable behavior of doing things gradually and steadily on a pre-planned timeframe just doesn't work for us. We crave stimulation, and what better stimulation can there be than putting something off to the last minute and making it an epic challenge? We love to be the heroes of our own stories and carry off feats mere mortals think impossible. We do our best, most-creative work when we're under the gun. And this is definitely the story of my school and work life.
I've noticed that some of my Chicago home organizing clients can suddenly get organized and clear years’ worth of clutter when they're under a deadline such as moving or preparing to host a large family gathering. It's like a dam break and suddenly they let things go left and right. It's miraculous to see! Would this happen without the external pressure of a deadline? Maybe. But, then again, maybe not. Who cares? If you do your best work under pressure, embrace it! Some people melt under pressure. But not you!
MAKE IT OBVIOUS
Out of sight, out of mind is a common phrase. But for people with ADHD, it’s quite literal. If we can’t see it, it’s not just put away, it no longer exists. We can forget certain people exist for long periods of time, if we don’t see them every day, not to mention the many things we own that may be in drawers, boxes, and storage areas.
Take me for example. I put everything on my calendar and regularly check it, but there’s still a good chance I’ll miss appointments without additional support. Unless I’m physically looking at the calendar appointment, it doesn’t exist to me. So, here’s my workaround. When I commit to do something at a specific time, such as a client intake call, I also set an alarm for that day and time. I’ve disciplined myself to set the alarm as soon as I put the appointment on my calendar, or I will forget. This is how I make it obvious.
Many of my Chicago organizing clients have ADHD. After we have decluttered, categorized, and determined the best location for their items, I look for ways to make these new categories and locations obvious to them. Two of the best tools for this are clear containers and labels. I don’t want to hide anything away from them.
CLICHÉ TIME: ADHD IS A SUPERPOWER
To say ADHD is a superpower has been done to death, but it’s true. I and others with ADHD have different gifts and abilities. While it can be hard for us to navigate a world that tells us we’re doing everything the wrong way, my hope is that increased awareness will drive self-knowledge and public knowledge of our differences, not our deficits.
I still have a lot to learn about helping my Chicago area clients with ADHD who are struggling to find systems and strategies that work for them in their homes, but I’m up to the challenge!