ADHD and home organization can present challenges. People with ADHD generally struggle with organization in most areas in life, with the home being no different. Moms in particular find home organization always on their mind.
If you are a mom or parent and have a child recently diagnosed with ADHD, you might be at your wit’s end trying to keep your home organized while at the same time trying to get them to focus on, well homework for example. With everything that happens each day, it seems inevitable that no matter what you do, your home ends up a wreck each night.
Part of you hates it, and part of you stresses out over it constantly. It's going to take some time also for your child to get onboard with your newly discovered ways of communicating, especially in terms of repeatable redundant tasks.
Our goal is to provide you with some high-level tips that you can implement together with your son or daughter while putting some structure and focus around home organization.
This article outlines a few quick tips to start getting home organization under control. Use these tips as tools to make a step forward and eliminate some of the stress of home organization.
Start Small
No matter how much we might aspire to it, not many of us can rise to the level of Mary Poppins’ organization.
When we think of getting ADHD and home organization under control, we might be tempted to think of having a pristine and perfect house top to bottom.
Regardless of the size of your home, though, organizing everything at once would provide a momentous task. No matter how hard you try, your child will never be on the same page with you, until you've implemented some of these strategies and have had some time for both of you to get used to them.
Instead of trying to do everything at once, focus on small things first and work towards the whole house one task at a time. Sure, this way might take more time, but by working slowly, you will feel more accomplished and make more progress each day.
Trying to take care of everything at once, on the other hand, will burn both of you out and make them want to give up (and you the same).
Work One Room at a Time
That old saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” comes to mind when thinking of tackling whole home organization.
To figure out ADHD and home organization you need to focus intently on one room at a time. Take a room and focus on building an organization system for that one room that you can use time and again.
No matter how organized you might make your house, you still find it a mess day after day.
Beat clutter by making an organizational system that you can use to quickly clean things up. Doing this one room at a time makes it manageable and helps you focus on the unique attributes of each room.
If you find yourself having trouble coming up with organizational ideas use these tips for organization in different rooms of the house.
Don’t Make Perfect Be Your Goal
You could wind up being the best team at organization and brag about a gold medal in FastBraiin organizational techniques, and yet still something ends up out of place.
Reaching perfect organization is not only unrealistic it’s just impossible, and it's not the recommendation we are trying to set as an example for our children. In this specific scenario, perfect is very much the enemy of good.
Also, many of us wear ourselves out not because we find organization hard but because we try to make perfect our goal, which we can never reach. This is equally true for your son or daughter thats trying to help along side of you and secretly trying to make you proud of their accomplishments.
To beat ADHD and home organization, you need to lower your standards some. We’re not saying to not have any standards.
We’re just saying you can’t strive for a perfectly clean and organized house al the time.
Living with a family with a husband and kids makes home organization complicated.
In fact, living with just one roommate makes organization difficult. Don’t add to the stress you already have by trying to make organization an impossible task.
Rather, focus on organization to the level that can be obtained and don’t stress when some things get out of place.
Assign Tasks
ADHD and home organization becomes overwhelming when one person tries to go it alone.
Moms with kids that have ADHD have enough to handle with trying to keep kids in line, cook, clean, and manage a household, especially if you other children in the house that have ADHD. Even if its just 1 child with ADHD, you still probably have their siblings and a spouse to worry about. You only have two hands and one brain, you can’t do everything on your own.
In order to get both ADHD and home organization in line, you need to enlist the help of your family.
Family chores provide a great way to both distribute responsibility for home organization and to help teach your children responsibility.
If your kids happen to have ADHD, too, don’t worry, you can find perfect chores for ADHD children as well.
Ultimately, there is no reason everyone cannot help out.
One way to divide up responsibilities would be to assign specific rooms for your kids and husband to take care of during the week. The rooms assigned might then rotate from week to week.
Alternatively, you might assign a different specific chore for each person for each day of the week. T
his way no one gets bored or worn out from doing the same thing all the time, and you don’t become overwhelmed by being the only one focused on managing home organization.
There are many reasons why kids should get involved in household chores.
Help both them and your own sanity; get your whole family involved in home organization.
Make Lists and Stick to Them
ADHD and home organization don’t stand a chance against a well-thought out and put together list.
Lists provide a great remedy against clutter and disorganization. Lists also help keep you from becoming overwhelmed by all the things you have to do.
We recommend using lists for the ADHD mom as they provide an anchor for you to focus on. Every home has its own myriad of distractions.
Without a list of what you have completed and need to get done, each time you get distracted and then return to a task might feel like starting over from scratch.
Each morning you should make a list of the things that you need to get done today.
Keep the list short. Again, you don’t need to do everything in a day. You can’t do everything in a day. Keep it short and simple and to the point and soon you will be crossing out lists left and right.
We would also recommend making multiple lists. You can have a list for everyday chores like making the bed and a list for weekly and monthly and even yearly chores. With multiple lists, you really can break out the important things to do today from what can be done next week.
If you find it difficult to know where to begin with lists, we would recommend checking out the list starters at the following links:
Managing Both ADHD and Home Organization Starts with Focus
Tackling both ADHD and home organization at the same time can be difficult. As a mom or parent with ADHD and kids, though, you oftentimes don’t have much choice.
Managing ADHD and home organization both come down to finding and improving your focus.
To get a better handle on your home organization, we recommend working on your overall focus. Try some ADHD focus strategies to improve focus in different areas of your life.
Improving focus takes just as much time as figuring out whole house management. Don’t worry about the time. Just the effort alone will be worth the investment.
With increased focus and using the other tips outlined here you will be a pro at home management in no time.
If you find yourself struggling with your kids or home management, though, know we have other resources to help you out. Check out our post on tips for moms with a child that that has ADHD as just one other place to get great resources. Soon you will have the tools you need to take care of almost anything.
