Infusing energy and playfulness into your routine is a wonderful way to get your ADHD brain moving and motivated. Just remember that trying to organize everything all at once can leave you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Try specific daily intentions instead.
Straighten Up in Spurts. If it's hard to concentrate on one task, such as folding laundry or washing dishes, all the way to completion, try doing it in increments. One of the easiest cleaning tips is to set a timer for 15 minutes, and stay on task until it goes off. If you think you can keep going, reset the timer.
People with ADHD who have a hard time keeping things tidy usually aren't being lazy or thoughtless. They have trouble with a group of skills needed to tackle cleanup tasks and stay organized. These skills are known as executive function.
I don't mean to reinforce stereotypes, but it's true that many people who have attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD) have difficulty with tasks like household cleaning and organization.
Place a wastebasket in every room. Place a magazine rack in rooms where you read. Spend 15 minutes a day de-cluttering (throwing and putting things away, filing, if necessary). Designate at least one junk drawer in every room.
Losing focus and being forgetful are common symptoms of ADHD. These, among other factors, can impact your ability to keep your space clean and organized. Managing your ADHD is the best way to learn to recognize thought and behavior patterns causing messiness and use coping skills to adapt.
an interest-based nervous system (motivated by what's compelling enough to get activated). He refers to the five motivating factors with the acronym INCUP: interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and passion.
ADHD can make cleaning and home organization challenging. The key to tackling your chores is to make each task clear, remove as many barriers as you can, create routines, and use lists, charts, calendar reminders, and other tools that help keep you on track.
Chores and other mundane tasks are even harder a child with ADHD to do because it typically doesn't stimulate them. In these cases, an effective motivator is to let them choose which tasks they want to do first, or which tasks they'll find the most fun.
The ADHD mind works in such a way to make organization very difficult. Unfortunately for everyone who may want to have an organized house, cleaning just doesn't always seem to work out for those with ADHD.
When you clean by junebugging, you pick a spot you want to clean and keep bringing yourself back to that spot, no matter where you wander through the cleaning process. The key is allowing yourself to wander but always coming back to your main spot.
Interest/Passion
Interest and passion turn the ADHD brain on. It gets the brain moving and drives it towards that interest. This means that the initiation hurdle, the thing that blocks you from starting, is more like a very gentle speed bump when you are interested in a task- you may not even notice it's there.
Individuals with ADHD tend to seek out intense experiences and find boredom very uncomfortable. They may create stimulation such as fidgeting, laughter, conflict or noise if none is available. People with ADHD may pursue pleasurable rewards as a form of self-medication.
As a result, ADHD brains search for stimulation that can increase dopamine more quickly and intensely. Ultimately, the pursuit of pleasurable rewards may become a potent form of self-medication. In fact, dependent brains exhibit similar dysregulation of the dopamine reward system.
Adults with ADHD often have problems dealing with day-to-day tasks. They tend to be forgetful, disorganized, and messy. This makes cleaning with ADHD nearly an insurmountable task, especially since cleaning seems like such a chore to neurotypicals themselves.
Trish Buscemi, a specialist who creates calm interiors for those with cognitive learning challenges, recommends blue, green, and muted brown towns for bedrooms of children with ADHD. These gentle hues actually work well with people of all ages seeking a space that inspires rest and calm.
So even when actively trying to focus on a task, DMN levels remain high in the ADHD brain, making it easy to slip back into that daydream or resting mode. That slippage could feel like the involuntary spacing out or zoning out that people with ADHD experience so often.
An ADHD-friendly home is set up to make it easy for family members with ADHD to manage daily stress and avoid emotional meltdowns. By following these strategies, you'll not only simplify your family's life, but you'll lower stress levels for everyone.
“Cluttering is another behavior typical in folks with ADHD. Leaving items out as visual cues is a common way of compensating for an unreliable memory or inadequate time-management system, but to the untrained eye it can resemble hoarding,” she says.
While ADHD and hoarding are separate mental health conditions, research suggests that people with ADHD may be at an increased risk for hoarding tendencies. In fact, according to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America (ADAA), ADHD is listed as one of the conditions most commonly associated with hoarding.
Meet the Toilet Wand cleaning kit from Clorox. The cleaning system comes with a wand, a discreet caddy, and six cleaning heads. To use, just click one of the Clorox disinfectant-packed heads that stack in the caddy onto the wand. Then, use the wand to scrub the toilet bowl clean from a comfortable distance.
ADHD apps are a great way to keep track of activities and prevent overwhelm. They can help people with ADHD in various ways. Firstly, they can help structure your thoughts into easy-to-read lists. Then, you can prioritize tasks and set reminders, so you don't need to worry about missing dates or essential things to do.