5 Lies About Keeping A Clean/Decluttered House (As Someone With ADHD)

Hello brains. I'm camping. Why am I camping? I've been wanting to get out of the studio and my producer had an idea to make this episode more visually interesting and I immediately agreed to it without entirely thinking it through. So, we'll see how it goes. ADHD brains like novelty and are impulsive. So, my house is weirdly clean right now. I say weirdly because I kind of feel like I've stepped into this alternate timeline in which my brain chaos does not immediately spill out into my environment and then turn into permanent fixtures I then have to navigate around leading to the inevitable entropy of every space I inhabit. Why? Because in this timeline, Cass from Clutterbug came down and reorganized like two floors of my house. If you haven't seen that episode, you can check it out here. But basically, in 3 days, my house went from this to this. I went from tripping over piles of clutter to like I could open a monastery daycare in there. But the wildest part of the transformation wasn't even the physical space. It was my mindset. Because of this experience and what Cass taught me, the way in which I think about housekeeping has completely changed for the better. So, I wanted to before I forget, share five of the lies I believed about keeping my house clean as someone with ADHD and the truth in case it's helpful for my future self, my daughter, as well as for you in case you find it helpful. And I'm going to do it in a way that means I get to eat s'mores.

Lie number one, it's possible to keep my house clean. I used to think I could keep my house clean if I had the time or energy or motivation to do it. So, when I had the time or energy or motivation, I tried. And I'm an ADHD expert, so I had tricks for making it ADHD friendly. Body double. Have a friend come hang out with you while you clean so that you have this gentle form of accountability to help you stay on track. Multitask. If cleaning is boring, listen to music or an audiobook so that your brain is distracted enough that it doesn't go off looking for something more interesting to do. Ride the wave. Clean when you feel like cleaning because we can get a lot more done when we feel like doing it. ADHD focus. I just realized I don't know how to build a tent. Hang on. Got it. But no matter how clean I was able to get it, it never lasted very long. My space inevitably and often immediately descended right back into chaos. It felt a bit like a Sisophian effort pushing a boulder up a hill. What I understand now is that it was actually more like a bowl of marbles. When you collect stuff, it's like collecting shiny marbles. Only so many can fit in the bowl. When I tried to tidy my place, it was like putting marbles into a bowl that was already full, stacking them on top of the pile so they kept rolling back down. This is why my place kept descending back into chaos and why it felt like my efforts were feudal. They were. What I learned from working with professional organizers is that it's not my fault I couldn't keep my house clean. Marie Condo I had too much stuff. So, for me, and I suspect a lot of people with ADHD, it's not possible to keep our house clean without letting go of a lot of stuff.

stuff. Line number two, decluttering is slow painful. I used to think that decluttering was inherently slow and hard and painful, probably because every time I ever tried to do it, it was. I would inevitably get stuck on whether or not I might need this hard-boiled egg slicer someday. Or I would come across my Apple Pencil that I'd forgotten about and be really excited to use it and want to play with it immediately. Or I would come across some photos and sit and reminisce, which is fine if you are decluttering one bag. Less so if you're trying to declutter a whole house, unless you have a lot of time on your hands or not that much stuff you need to get rid of, which was not the case for me as a new mom. I needed to let go of like half the stuff in my house. And because I had a professional organizer coming to help me do it, I had to do that in one day, which is how I learned that decluttering can actually happen really quickly. With one person helping me make decisions and two other helpers to run things to the appropriate piles, decluttering went real fast. All I had to do was decide whether to keep trash or donate a thing, and then I could move on to the next decision while the helpers ran things to the appropriate piles. When I got stuck, having someone there to help me decide made it way easier. So did gamification, like setting a timer, game show style. You have 20 seconds to dig through this bag and rescue anything you would like to keep. Once I had already pushed something aside looking for the stuff worth keeping, it became way easier to let it go cuz my brain had already subconsciously decided it wasn't worth keeping. It was still painful at times, but what helped with that was getting stuff out of my space and donated right away so that it could immediately go to somebody who would be able to appreciate it and not have it live untouched in their closet. What helped for the extra painful things though, like my box of half-nitted projects, — boxes, — boxes of half-nitted projects, and along with them my hopes and dreams of finishing them someday. It helped to donate to a specific place where I knew that they would be appreciated, like a memory care facility where my projects would be completed by people who had the time and energy to actually complete them. Decluttering absolutely can be hard and slow and painful, but it doesn't have to be. Ooh, chumps. snack free. I really like Chomps. They're also sponsoring this video. Um, which is fantastic because we're losing daylight really quickly and I need to eat something. So, Chomps is kind of the perfect snack for that. It's 10 g of protein, zero grams of sugar, really high quality source of protein. It's grass-fed and grass-finished, which not all grass-fed meat is. I used to work in a steakhouse. Chomps is the perfect onthe-go snack. It goes with you wherever you are, whether that's on set or actually camping. Smoky barbecue seasoned beef stick. I have not tried this one. I'm very excited to try it. Oh my god, so good. I have a new favorite, man. These are so good. I love the original beef stick, but okay, this is really good. For somebody like me who has a hard time feeding themselves, Chomps has been a godsend. If you would like to try Chomps, I encourage you to try the variety pack, see which kind you like uh best. it. For me, it was the original beef stick and now it has been replaced by the smoky barbecue season beef stick. You can go to chmps. com/adh15 and use my code ADHD15 to get 15% off. Touch-ups.

Line number three, I should put things where it makes sense to put them. One of the biggest mistakes ADHDers make is to put things where it makes sense for us at the time. We put things where it's convenient, where we will see it later, or where we will definitely remember putting it. I am also guilty of this slight flaw in the plan. What's convenient for us might be on top of the dryer. We probably won't see it later amidst all the other things that we put out so that we could see it. And we're not going to remember where we put the thing later. We're not going to remember in 5 seconds. As soon as we walk through a doorway, poof, gone. Working memory challenges. My solution used to be put things at the point of performance. If you use scissors in the kitchen, scissors should go in the kitchen. This is also slightly flawed if there are multiple places you might use a thing or if where you use a thing and someone else in your house uses a thing might be two floors away. In having my home professionally organized, I learned a better strategy. If you want to be able to find your stuff later or have somebody else for you, don't put your stuff where it makes sense to put it. look for it. You can do this by creating zones in your space like an art corner, by creating stations like a coffee station, by having open shelving, clear containers, labeling bins. There are lots of ways to do this. That way, when your brain or your partner's brain is freaking out about where someone moved the coffee that they left out where they could see it, you can say things like, "Did you try the coffee station in the bin labeled coffee? " And they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense. " If you have ADHD or you live with someone with ADHD, don't put things where it makes sense to put them. Put things where it makes sense to look for them. Yeah, I need to tune that.

Line number four. This is a coat rack. Obviously, this is not a coat rack. This is a what do you call it? A spear for roasting marshmallows. It's fancier than a stick. Anyway, this is not a coat rack. But this Kai, can you put a picture of my coat covered coat rack right here? This is not a coat rack. Let me explain. I used to throw my coats wherever it was convenient. On the couch, on a railing, on my bedroom floor. But then when I went to go get my coat to get out the door the next day, I would have to hunt down that jacket or, if I'm honest, leave without one. I was cold a lot. Why didn't I just hang up my coat in the coat cabinet? Too many steps. Step one, open cabinet. Step two, grab a hanger. Step three, put coat on hanger. Step four, put hanger on rod. Step five, this is why my cabinet doors are often open. I don't make it to step five. The solution, coat rack, one step. Hang jacket on hook. Except, this professional organizer explained to me as she stared in mild horror at my solution. This is no longer one step. In fact, the way I was piling things on it, it was no longer a coat rack. It was a doom pile in tree form. tree. A better solution? Hooks. Hooks on the wall, hooks in the coat cabinet, hooks that can only hold one jacket per hook, so that you don't have to dig through a doom pile to find the one you're looking for. And voila, one step. Like actually though, now you know this is not a coat rack. It's a doom tree and I should not own one.

Lie number five. It isn't possible for me to keep my house clean. Wait, wasn't lie number one that it is possible for you to keep your house clean? Yes. Yes, it was. Some days I was optimistic and believed I could keep my house clean if only I had the time. Other days, I accepted the fact that I just can't. Clearly, I can't because I've been trying to and failing to my entire life. I'm messy Jesse. The chaos in my brain has always spilled out into my environment faster than I can put it back. Radical acceptance is good, but it's a starting point, not an ending point. I can't keep my house clean because I don't have the time slashen energy executive function to do it means that what it takes to keep my house clean needs to be as easy, quick, and executive function friendly as possible. For me, that means not having more stuff in my home than I can manage. It means organizational systems that make it easy for me to put things away so that even on days where I'm physically or mentally exhausted, I still can. It means developing the muscle memory of putting things where they're supposed to be so that it becomes automatic. It means doing a 15-minute declutter every night for when I inevitably still leave stuff on surfaces. And it means asking for help because the biggest lie we all believe is that we should be able to do it ourselves. Thank you to our brain advocates and all

our Patreon brains for supporting the work that we do on this channel. Because of you, we can do cool and fun and entertaining educational content like this. And thank you to the Arona family for letting us shoot on your beautiful property. I really appreciate it. Camping could not have happened without you. And thank you again to Chomps for sponsoring part of this video. Let me know what lies you've believed about keeping your house clean and what you learned in the comments below. Like, subscribe, click all the things, and I will see you next video. Bye, brains.