When I meet up with my coaching clients one of the perennial hot topics is ADHD clutter and getting rid of it. That is why I think it is important to look at the reasons behind clutter. What causes a woman with ADHD to collect so much stuff and then struggle to get rid of it? What impact does all that stuff have on our lives and our well-being? have shown that clutter creates stress and overwhelm because at women with ADHD have no idea what to do with it. Understanding the reas02ons below to identify the effects it has on our lives.
Impact Your Emotions – Clutter takes a toll on our emotions. When clutter starts taking over, we feel overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed.
Anxiety, stress, and depression- Clutter can increase a woman with ADHD stress and anxiety levels, and even lead to depression, making it feel like we’re living in chaos, so it’s hard to fully relax.
Feelings of Guilt and Shamed – When your home is a disorganized, cluttered mess, we feel guilty and ashamed. We don’t want people to come over. Especially as moms, we think we’re supposed to have a meticulous house and when we don’t, we feel like failures.
Can’t Focus… How can we decide? When a woman gets overwhelmed by clutter, we can’t focus. When you can’t focus, how can you decide. Being overwhelmed can often lead to decision paralysis. We can’t do anything.
Cycle of Procrastination- When our environment is cluttered, it’s difficult to focus on the task at hand, so we procrastinate. The disorganization makes us feel overwhelmed, so we put tasks off. However, we end up in a cycle of procrastination and clutter. We procrastinate because we’re overwhelmed but then more clutter piles up because we haven’t dealt with it, and then we procrastinate more.
Productivity- I am pretty sure that you saw this one coming. I’m sure you saw this one coming. If we can’t focus, how can we accomplish what we need to do? Clutter is horribly distracting. We might fiddle with things under the guise of decluttering, but it ends up being time wasted on unimportant tasks (more procrastination).
Purchases without thought- This goes along with wasting time on unimportant tasks. We feel overwhelmed so we buy a bunch more “stuff” to get the clutter under control. However, if we go into such purchases without thought — without a plan — we’re just wasting more time and money.
In conclusion, as a woman with ADHD we might face unique challenges in maintaining a clean environment, however we are not powerless. We can take control of our clutter; you can create strategies that work specifically for you and perhaps a little professional help. So, even if clutter feels like your arch-nemesis now, in the next few of my blog posts you will have the strategies and to have the resilience to turn the tables.