Many women with ADHD grumble that they can’t control the clutter in their homes. With so many things around, it is easy to become overwhelmed. Clutter can also cause stress & guilt. Though all these decluttering tips may not work for you, instituting one or two into your daily routine may assist you to begin controlling the clutter, rather than letting the clutter control you.
Make A Plan – When decluttering, you can get distracted as you weren’t sure on what you may need in the future and also goes where. If you take some time to plan out the space you are decluttering, you will have more of an idea what needs to go where. Decluttering necessarily means getting rid of things, it may mean simply moving it into a place where it is needed.
Set Up Time To Declutter – If you feel overwhelmed about decluttering an area in your home, set a timer for as long as you think you can do and then take a break. Don’t ever think that you have to declutter a room all at once, this can get very time consuming and stressful, so work at a pace you find the easiest & you are more likely to succeed.
Take One Area At A Time – The goal to decluttering is to take one area at a time. If you are going to try to declutter an entire room, then split up that room into manageable chunks, working from one far corner of the room to the door, then you won’t be going over the space that you have already done and you will feel a sense of accomplishment on seeing how far you have come.
Don’t Do It Alone – If you are decluttering an area that has things belonging to your husband/children, get them involved. It isn’t fair to make a decision about other people’s belongings without them being there with you. They can also see the process of decluttering, which is helpful if they helped to contribute to the clutter in the first place.
Making A Decision – Try not to procrastinate too long over a decision over whether to keep an item or not. You can get side tracked on decluttering because you start to look at every item, reminisce or read things, and this could take up a lot of time. As a women with ADHD, I do understand that is can be difficult to part with things, and I feel the same way about getting rid of sentimental items, so one way around this is to create a maybe pile. The way to use the maybe pile is to box up any items that you can’t decide whether to keep the item or not. Then seal it up and leave it in your garage for six months. Once the time is up if you haven’t missed or can’t remember what is in the box then get rid of it.
Make It Fun- Put on music when you are decluttering a room or when sorting through piles of paperwork or anything that makes it fun for you while you are working so it doesn’t have to feel like a chore.
Keep On Top Of Things – Try not to allow things to get cluttered again, now that you did the hard work, you want to stay on top of things and can be done by doing a 15 minute tidy up at the end of each day. Put things back where they belong, and try not to allow things to come into the house if it will clutter it up.