Keep Clutter Away For Good!

Last week I told you about an ADD-friendly method for getting rid of clutter. It involves 3 steps:

1. Sorting your stuff.
2. Creating systems that will work for you.
3. Planning the follow through.

Today I'd like to focus on the third step, which is about maintenance. This is the step that proves to be the most troublesome for many people. After all, what good is busting your butt to get rid of your clutter if it's just going to come back in a few weeks?

There really is a better way. Adults with ADD have to learn to approach the clutter problem differently. Although it would be great to develop a habit of putting things away as soon as you're done with them, it just isn't practical for many ADDers. We need to allow for clutter buildup, and also allow for clutter cleanup.

The problem is not that clothes, papers, and other objects build up throughout the day, or even the week. This is pretty normal for ADDers. The problem is when the clutter builds up indefinitely.

You may think the only way to manage your clutter is to never let it accumulate in the first place. But forcing yourself into a habit that doesn’t suit you won’t work, and won’t stick. What's more practical is to allow yourself some freedom to let things go a little, and then schedule a regular time to get your space back in order. That might mean a quick cleanup session each day, each week, or each month.

Not only does this system take the pressure off, but it ensures that your space will never get so cluttered that you'll have to spend weeks or months to get it back in order. Having a maintenance plan is like having an insurance policy that protects all that hard work you did de-cluttering and organizing in the first place.

So as you start your Spring Cleaning and organizing this season, don't skip the third step in the de-cluttering process: plan your maintenance!

Your comments are welcome. Happy Spring!

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Comments

[Denise Schultz]

I set a timer and do 10 minutes per room. If it is too wretched, I only try for 5 minutes per room. That usually cracks the tension I feel, and another day I can do 10 minutes per room. This allows me to use my ADD style and clean up at the same time. This works for me when I do it ;-)

[Linda Groetzinger]

Having never quite figured out whether I have ADD, (no formal diagnosis, and since it wasn't a category when I was young, no "diagnosis in childhood" to refer to) - I do fit most of the descriptions I've read.

My "system" that was created because of my ADD, and suffers then, from the ADD, is that I clean up a small area in which to work, undistracted - by moving whatever I am not doing at that moment, to a given table.

Again and again and again.

The other time that things go to that table, or such a table in another spot in the house, is when I am "in the middle of something," (that is of course taking me more time than anyone around would have predicted, even me) - and it is "time to do something else" before I've finished. Like make dinner, or eat dinner, etc. -- So the space I've been using is needed for some other activity - and the half-finished project gets dumped on top of the latest prior half-finished project.

Setting aside a time slot on a regular basis to do ANYTHING is just not congruent with my way of doing things. I can barely keep doing the "basics" like brushing my teeth twice a day.

Lucky for me, I raised only one child, and had a husband to help us with all the tasks needed.

And lucky for me, there ARE times when everything is in balance -- esp: sleep, exercise, interpersonal lack-of-stress, job-related lack-of-stress, good weather, cars in good order, etc -- and things go along o.k.

Except that I almost never do get back down through the piles. I just have to make sure that "truly urgent items" have a separate "box". This last does work.

For many things like dirty clothes, half-worn clothes, shoes I'm not wearing tomorrow, and even dirty dishes, your system does work: about once a week, I do "clean up" one or several spots. (Fortunately for me, the garbage starts to smell in time to remind me to take the non-smelly trash out, too!)

Much of this is told with tongue in cheek. But you know it is real, too.

As of this weekend, I have allocated 4 hours tomorrow to find the receipts I KNOW I saved for income tax deductibility - somewhere in one of these piles (or maybe 2 or 3 of them). A deadline has its lights shining in my eyes, and so if I look DOWN at the tables, instead of into the light, I can do the task better.

Linda

[Kali]

Why not allow yourself to just live with the clutter? As crazy as it sounds, the clutter does not bother me and I manage to work alongside it. I think its such a waste of precious time spending hours and hours a month trying to unclutter your clutter