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A cluttered, disorganized living environment is as common as it is unsettling for many people who have ADHD. Overwhelm often prevents them from even getting started on decluttering. For some people, the clutter reaches a level that compromises their ability to live safely in their homes. This is usually the result of hoarding disorder. Sometimes, it’s difficult to discern what constitutes clutter versus hoarding.

Michael Tompkins, Ph.D., will explain why the traits in ADHD contribute to excessive clutter and hoarding. He will also walk viewers through the process of managing these often-debilitating situations and employing strategies for success.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• About the ADHD traits and underlying causes that contribute to clutter and hoarding
• About signs of clutter and hoarding, and red flags for when clutter turns into hoarding
• How clutter is different from hoarding, and the characteristics that define each
• About practical strategies to help decrease clutter and disorganization
• How to deal with hoarding in your own living situation or with a loved one
• How cognitive behavior therapy for ADHD and hoarding can help people manage better

Have a question for our expert? There will be an opportunity to post questions for the presenter during the live webinar.

Meet the Expert Speaker

Michael A. Tompkins, Ph.D., ABPP, is a licensed psychologist and board certified in Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology. He is co-director of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and a faculty member of the Beck Institute for Cognitive and Behavior Therapy. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and chapters on cognitive-behavior therapy and related topics, as well as 16 books, including Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Cutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring (with Tamara L. Hartl) (New Harbinger, 2009) and Clinician’s Guide to Severe Hoarding: A Harm Reduction Approach (Springer, 2014). (#CommissionsEarned) The Mental Health Association of San Francisco awarded him the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the understanding of hoarding and cluttering. Dr. Tompkins has presented to national and international audiences on the topic hoarding, particularly managing hoarding behaviors through a harm reduction approach.

#CommissionsEarned As an Amazon Associate, ADDitude earns a commission from qualifying purchases made by ADDitude readers on the affiliate links we share. However, all products linked in the ADDitude Store have been independently selected by our editors and/or recommended by our readers. Prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Hoarding vs. ADHD Clutter: More Resources

• Download: Clean Up and Get Organized in One Weekend
• Get: Declutter Your Life (and Home! and Office!)
• Read: What Does Hoarding Disorder Look Like?
• Read: How to Motivate for Cleaning House When You Really Don’t Want To

Webinar Sponsor

The sponsor of this ADDitude webinar is….

“Sorry about the random piles of stuff” is something we’ve all probably said to someone entering our house. ADHD can make it feel impossible to keep a tidy house, and the usual tips and tricks don’t work for the seemingly never ending piles of things. Here at Inflow, we get it and we’re here to help. Developed by leading ADHD clinicians, Inflow is a self-help program that uses CBT principles to teach effective strategies that help you stay organized, take control of your ADHD, and actually get stuff done. Get your ADHD score today to kick off your Inflow journey.

ADDitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content.

Certificate of Attendance: For information on how to purchase the certificate of attendance option (cost $10), register for the webinar, then look for instructions in the email you’ll receive one hour after it ends. The certificate of attendance link will also be available here, on the webinar replay page, several hours after the live webinar. ADDitude does not offer CEU credits.

Closed captions available.

Here’s the only rule of thumb you need to tell if your closet is organized: If anyone walked into your closet and pulled out a complete outfit for you, would you hesitate to walk out the door in it? If you answered yes, it means you likely have pieces in your closet that you don’t want to wear, and thus should be gone.

An organized closet is one that is arranged for the phase of life you’re in, for the body you have, and for your roles and responsibilities. Bringing order to your closet is totally doable, but it’s not going to be done overnight, or even over a weekend.

[Read: What Will It Take for My Home to Stay Organized Forever?!]

When I first took to seriously organizing my closet, I realized I had to get rid of almost everything. My body had changed, and I only had three outfits that comfortably fit my body. But I didn’t get rid of everything in one go. I decluttered my closet 30% at a time over the course of a year. I replenished my closet with hand-me-downs and clothes from consignment shops. Eventually, I had a 15-outfit wardrobe.

As you consider which items to keep and toss, be careful not to over-declutter. Ask yourself: What kind of clothing do I need in this phase of my life? How many pieces of [insert clothing article here] do I need? How can I store them in a way that makes sense to me?

When you get your closet organized to your liking, you can then clean out your closet and maintain that organization three times a year.

How to Organize a Closet: Next Steps

• Free Download: Your Guide for Controlling Clutter
• Read: How Can I Break My Emotional Attachment to Unnecessary ‘Stuff?’
• Read: Don’t Organize It, Purge It — 10 Things to Throw Out Now

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

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Panic and frustration set in. Your inner critic starts up: Why can’t I be more organized? Why am I so forgetful? Why is this so hard? Why do I always do this?

This was me before I left my home to do practically anything. Keeping track of all the items I needed for various activities, no matter how many times I had done those activities, always felt overwhelming and stressful. For work, I need my ID card on a lanyard, my name badge, and an ethernet cable adapter. When I volunteer, I need to bring my name badge and a specific t-shirt that identifies me as a volunteer. For my personal training sessions, I need to pack an athletic top and shorts, my heart rate monitor, a water bottle, a sweatband, my gym membership card, and the right shoes. I struggled to remember these items in my rush out the door, and I couldn’t reliably keep them in one designated place.

Accepting that forgetfulness, disorganization, and time blindness are a part of my ADHD was a milestone toward self-forgiveness. But I knew that I had to find a way to limit the overwhelm and forgetfulness that plague “neurospicy” people like myself.

Go Bags for ADHD: The Ultimate Organizing Hack

While mulling it over, I noticed that my partner keeps her stationery in a zippered bag. Everything she needs related to stationery is in that single, portable bag – not scattered about in random spots. And there, in the simplest of organizing tools, was my solution.

[Get This Free Download: Clean Up and Get Organized in One Weekend]

Rather than waste time tracking down (often misplaced) individual items around my home for a particular activity (while racing against the clock), I created “go bags” for various activities. If I’m spending the day in the office, I toss my office go bag into my backpack and I don’t think twice about what’s in there, secure in knowing I won’t have to ask for anyone to badge me in. I also have go bags for my personal training sessions and for volunteering.

How to Create and Maintain Your Own Go Bags

I know this isn’t an earth-shaking organization tool, but I’m happy with my go bag strategy because it’s simple, effective, relatively low-maintenance, and endlessly adaptable. You don’t have to use a zippered bag – substitute a plastic container, a reusable shopping bag, a fanny pack, anything portable that can hold your items. Here are some sample go bags to get you started:

• Dog walking: Treats, waste bags, light-up collar (for night walks)
• Everyday health: Hand sanitizer, sunscreen, lip balm, ADHD medication, lotion
• Gym: ID card, clothes, water bottle, fitness monitors, sweat band or microfiber cloth
• International travel: Passport, travel adapter, credit card with no international fees
• Studying: Pens, highlighters, sticky notes, flash cards, energy bar (preferably one that doesn’t expire anytime soon!)
• Swimming: Swimsuit, towel, goggles, water bottle, sandals

I know what you’re thinking: How do I remember to bring my go bags? I’m not perfect, but I’ve found that setting an essential item, like my car keys, on top of the bag works well. After all, I can only go so far from home without my car keys.

[Read: The ADD Life Hacks That Work for ADDitude Readers]

What about maintaining go bags? Some go bags (like for the gym) require more maintenance than others. Make it a point to check your go bags once a week, once a month, and at any other frequency that works for you. You may find it helpful to make duplicate go bags, like a toiletry go bag, to keep in your car, office, bathroom, nightstand, and other areas. Go bags, especially duplicate go bags, may take more time to set up initially, but they’ll definitely save you time, energy, and frustration in the long run. Think of it as doing your future self multiple favors.

For those of us with ADHD, there’s no greater thrill than sharing the hack to end all hacks – the strategy that finally got us to do the thing. (Bonus points if the hack was right under our noses all along.) I find go bags necessary to alleviate the racing thoughts, confusion, and overwhelm that once was getting out the door to face everyday life.  

Go Bag for ADHD Organization: Next Steps

• Free Download: Organize Everything Today!
• Read: Everything in Its “Place”
• Q&A: “I Forget About My Things When I Put Them Away!”

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Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

It’s common to feel some level of guilt or anxiety at the thought of throwing things away, especially if you’ve had the experience of discarding items that you ended up needing. When this happens, it’s usually a case of too much decluttering and not enough organizing.

“Decluttering” and “organizing” are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. To declutter is to get rid of stuff. It’s fast, easy, and produces immediate results. Organizing is what comes after decluttering. It’s taking what’s left and making it work for the phase of life you are in right now. Organizing takes much longer to complete, and it requires regular maintenance.

[Get This Free Download: 22 Clutter-Busting Strategies]

Generally, decluttering works really well in our 20s and 30s. But it isn’t as useful in our 40s, 50s, and 60s, when we have things that we like and have used for a long time. We don’t have much need to declutter.

It seems that decluttering has been your default mode of achieving order in your home for a long time. You might be used to having success with decluttering, so you assume that you need to declutter every time you feel overwhelmed and need relief. But then you declutter things you actually need, and decluttering no longer brings you the same relief it used to. This is over-decluttering.

So instead of decluttering, try organizing. Organizing doesn’t mean putting everything in cute containers. It’s asking yourself: What do I need in this phase of my life? How many of those things do I need? Where would I store the things?

It sounds counterintuitive, but in the process of organizing, you might find that you need to buy more things, especially if you have transitioned into a different life phase and/or you’re living with other adults.

Decluttering and Organizing: Next Steps

• Free Download: Organize Your Home By Working With Your ADHD Brain
• Read: How Do I Get Rid of Stuff I Don’t Use But Worry I’ll Miss?
• Read: What Will It Take for My Home to Stay Organized Forever?!

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

In my time helping thousands of people get organized, I’ve come to learn that, just as we move through phases of life, we also move through phases of organization. What’s more, the ways in which we bring order to our homes must change with every new phase of life.

The Organizing Phases

• The mini apartment phase is from childhood to age 20. The only area you need to organize is your bedroom (i.e., your mini apartment).
• The accumulation phase spans from your 20s to about age 40. In this phase, you’ve finally moved out of your mini apartment into a larger space, and you’re building out your adult life. That entails buying lots of things. You might also accumulate degrees, spouses, and children in this phase.
• The survival phase is from age 40 to age 60. Life comes at you hard in this phase — you’re driving your kids everywhere, holding down a full-time job, caring for aging parents, and keeping your home together. You own everything you need for your home to function, but you continue to buy more things because a) you don’t realize you have the thing at home or b) it’s easier to buy a new thing than it is to go look for it.
• The downsizing and legacy phase from 60 and beyond is when you move out of your active income-earning and parenting years. This phase is all about decluttering. The question that should be top of mind: “What do I want to keep as I start to downsize the dwelling that I’m in?”

[Get This Free Download: How to Tidy Up Your Home Like a Pro]

These are the predictable phases of organizing through the life phases, but unexpected life phases — like the loss of a family member, a medical diagnosis, or a move — also add complexity to your life and to your organizing needs.

It’s clear that you’re in your downsizing phase. My suggestion is to focus on downsizing one of the four major areas of home organization — personal organization, storage areas, family and communal spaces, and paper organization — at a time. To keep moving forward and avoid feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself one question a day: “What do I want?” Do you still like that comforter on your bed, for example?

Organizing your home for your current phase of life will take time, possibly years, which is totally normal. Organizing is a process, so give yourself permission to take as much time as you need to make your new home comfortable.

How to Organize Your Home: Next Steps

• Free Download: 22 Clutter-Busting Strategies
• Read: The Professional Organizer’s Guide to Getting Rid of ADHD Clutter
• Read: 5 Steps Toward a Decluttered (and De-Stressed) Life

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Hosting out-of-town relatives, attending holiday parties, or baking cookies with friends may feel festive to some family members but may cause stress and overwhelm for those who struggle with patience and attention. Many parents feel guilty if they don’t keep holiday traditions alive.

There are ways to balance the desire for tradition with the reality of what your family will enjoy — not just survive. Here are some tips and simple swaps:

[Free Download: Holiday Survival Kit]

Include Children in New Holiday Traditions

Tweak old traditions or create new ones that your entire family can enjoy. Ask your child how they want to celebrate the holidays. What do they find hardest about your usual traditions? Think about how you can change a few details to make the holiday season a better fit for everyone.

For example, when reading a classic holiday story, ask your child if they’d like to retell (or act out) the story — as it went or as your child wishes it went. Or maybe they’d like to listen to an audiobook version or watch a movie of the story while sipping hot chocolate.

Say “No” to an Invitation

It’s easy to feel obligated to say “yes” to every party invitation. But an invitation is merely that: an invitation. You don’t have to say “yes” to all of them. Feel comfortable with the power of saying “no.” Also, it’s OK if the whole family doesn’t attend an event that will likely cause anxiety. For example, a big party might not be a good fit for children with ADHD or social anxiety. A smaller group setting may be less overwhelming and help children have a good time socializing.

Prepare and Manage Expectations Before an Event

Exchanging gifts may lead to frustration or worse for some kids with learning and thinking differences. Waiting their turn to open a gift can be challenging and tantrum-inducing for some children. For other children, opening a gift they weren’t expecting or didn’t want could lead to sensory overload and a meltdown. To avoid this reaction, discuss with your child what might happen at an event and how they can cope with it. Role play how to receive, open, and accept gifts and practice saying polite “thank-yous.” This prepares kids to navigate awkward moments — like opening a gift they don’t like.

[Free Download: Healthy Responses to Holiday Stress]

Remember, the holidays aren’t always full of cheer for kids with thinking and learning differences. Tweaking traditions with simple swaps and pre-planning will bring joy to the season’s festivities for the entire family.

Holiday Traditions: Next Steps

• Q: “Holiday Stress and Anxiety Affect My Kids. How Do We Strike a Healthy Balance?”
• Read: “My Christmas Meltdown: A Yearly Holiday Tradition” 
• Download: Managing Your Time During the Holidays
• Watch: “Holiday Blues: Protect Your Mental Health This Holiday Season”

Andrew Kahn, Psy.D., is associate director of behavior change and expertise at Understood.org.

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Sleep now. (Just kidding.) Congratulations on this new chapter!

I’m sure you have all the essentials set up in your child’s nursery, so I’ll take a quick moment to put on my parenting hat: Trust your gut. You and your husband are uniquely created to be the parents of your child for a reason. I know you want to do all the things and check all the boxes, but you won’t have all the answers. Still, you’ll learn that you know more than you think you do. Babies have been born for millennia, and your baby will be fine as long as it gets love — and you get sleep.

[Read: The Stress of New Motherhood with ADHD]

I’m not kidding about sleep. This is coming from the organizer part of me. If you have a child under the age of 5, do not worry about organizing. Your job is to try to get as much rest as you can. If you’re ever debating between picking up the family room or taking a nap, I am going to tell you to take a nap every single time. Your child is never going to remember what the home looked like at that age, and you and your spouse will be much happier if you go with the nap over cleaning the family room.

Organizing children under 5 is like shoveling snow in a snowstorm. At least every couple of months, for the next five years of your lives, your child is going to change — diaper sizes, clothing sizes, the foods they’re eating, you name it. The amount of change that is coming your way is constant, until it’s not.

Your job for the next five years is to keep shoveling the snow, even though it’s still snowing. And if you’re tired, take a nap. Whatever it is, it can wait.

New Parents’ Home Organizing Tips: Next Steps

• Read: Making Peace With Your Clutter
• Read: Perfect Is Pointless — 16 Organization Rules You Can Follow
• Read: “Housekeeping Is Not Motherhood.”

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Not everyone — not even the people in your home — will share your ideas about how much stuff to keep. And that’s okay. You don’t have to see eye to eye with your husband about how much stuff either of you like to have. There’s no right or wrong to it, as long as your home is habitable.

But you can try to agree on stuff-free zones in your home. Common spaces, for example, can be free of extra stuff. If your husband gets more stuff, it can go in storage or wherever his stuff currently lives, but it can’t go anywhere else. These are not hard and fast rules; the point is to come to an agreement that suits you both.

[Read: What Will It Take for My Home to Stay Organized Forever?! (Or At Least for a While Longer?)]

Keep in mind that even with stuff-free zones, your home might not be completely organized to your level of satisfaction. But trying to force your husband to do differently won’t work. It’s not your job to make sure that your husband is as organized as you are or that he meets your expectations. (In my home, I only organize myself unless others ask for my help.) It’s better to give yourself permission to move on and to focus your time and energy on organizing your own stuff.

Home Organizing Habits: Next Steps

• Read: How Can I Keep My Many, Many, Many Hobby Supplies Organized?
• Read: Saying Yes to Mess
• Read: Don’t Organize It, Purge It — 10 Things to Throw Out Now

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

“What an interesting gift.”

“Wow – what a surprise.”

We’ve all heard the polite-yet-unenthused reaction of someone receiving an unwanted gift. Adults with ADHD — whose hobbies and interests change often — can be particularly tricky to shop for. Our advice? Go with gifts that make time, relationships, emotions, and clutter easier to manage.

Here are the gifts — gadgets, books, products, and services — that ADDitude readers told us they appreciated most.

[Download: Your Free Guide for Controlling Clutter]

Simple Gifts for Adults with ADHD

“A timer that counts backward and shows the time disappearing is so simple but made my time management so much better.” — Jo, UK

“I mostly pay for convenience services myself, but some friends got me a deep clean and declutter service (without judgment) after seeing how much I was struggling with housekeeping. It was the best and most thoughtful gift ever.” — An ADDitude reader

“A few months ago, I received a robot vacuum cleaner that also mops. This has made a huge difference in my life because I no longer need to feel ashamed about not having time to clean the floor. The work is done for me! And because the robot needs a clear space to do the job, it has been easier to keep an orderly space.”

“A Tile fob allows me to track my keys from the companion app on my phone. Conversely, I can track my phone if I click the fob on my keys. It works really well and is like being given the gift of time. I swear I’ve saved an hour a day that would normally be spent looking for my phone or my keys. The only issue is when I lose both at the same time!” — Jessica, UK

[The 2023 ADDitude Gift Guide for Adults with ADHD] 

“I wrote the months and days on a whiteboard that was attached to my fridge. I could clearly see it not only in the kitchen but from the loungeroom as well. Noticing that something was written on there made me get up and look, and I was a lot better at keeping appointments when I had this. Apps rely on being set up and updated all the time; a whiteboard is far easier.” — Dianne, Australia

“Holding a worry stone in my hand helps me to calm down and stay grounded in the present moment.” — Amy, Michigan

“My father paid for my full assessment [for ADHD]. It wasn’t covered by insurance. Having the diagnosis made it easier to accept myself.” — An ADDitude reader

“I recently read How to Do It Now Because It’s Not Going Away by Leslie Josel. While it wasn’t written specifically with ADHD in mind, it has a boatload of useful tips and tricks. It’s an easy read because it gets straight to the point without any filler.” — Christian, New York

“I struggle massively with feeding myself and cleaning up afterward. My magic bullet blender has single portion cups that are easy to clean. Even if I’m not hungry, it’s easy to throw some stuff together and get calories and protein down. Meal prep and eating is still a big struggle for me, but it’s that much easier to get going in the mornings because of my blender.” — Aiden, California

“I got a block calendar because I love associating a tangible experience with something as abstract as time. It was a gift I bought for myself. It’s aesthetically pleasing and that is important to me. I put it by our coffee maker several years ago and have been current on which day it is 97.5% of the time since. I especially love getting to change the blocks for each month. It worked so well for me that I introduced it in my classroom. Students love taking turns changing the date. It has helped the whole class become more aware of calendar time. I’ve also noticed less complaining about including the date on their assignments since the calendar block has become part of our classroom culture.” — Gabrielle, Tennessee

“Alexa can create timers for me that are voice-activated, and then tell me what they were for when I forget why they are going off. I can ask her something and get the information I need without going down a rabbit hole. She isn’t always easy to understand, but at least if I ask who Judy Garland played against in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ I don’t then see an article about ‘where are they now’ and click on it!” — Tamara, Idaho

“I really like ADDitude magazine! It has relatively few ads, and the articles are mostly concise and current/relevant to what I want to address.” — Kristy, Tennessee

“Apollo Neuro is amazing. It helps with focus and calm in a stressful situation. It’s also great during social situations like parties or group situations.” — Robin, Virginia

“I continuously read A Course in Miracles. I have read it for more than 10 years. It is especially helpful in breaking the cognitive distortions I have from not being diagnosed until my late 40s.”

“I have this incredible weekly pill container. Each day has an individual removable case with its own unique color, and two compartments labeled with the day and night. They all fit side by side into a clear case. It makes taking daily medications so much easier.” — An ADDitude reader

“Melissa Orlov and Ari Tuckman’s books have been incredibly useful tools for looking into ADHD and relationships.” — Charmaine, Pennsylvania

“The biggest ‘gift’ that has made ADHD easier is having people who see me and my challenges and who provide judgment-free support.” — K, Arkansas

Holiday Shopping: Next Steps

• Download: The Eisenhower Matrix for ADHD Decision-Making
• Read: Holiday Stress Relief Begins Here
• Read: 12 Ways to Resist Impulse Buying: ADHD Shopping Secrets

#CommissionsEarned As an Amazon Associate, ADDitude earns a commission from qualifying purchases made by ADDitude readers on the affiliate links we share. However, all products linked in the ADDitude Store have been independently selected by our editors and/or recommended by our readers. Prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Episode Description

The holiday season is usually portrayed as a joyous time of year. But many experience the holidays differently.  The “holiday blues, can include heightened depression, anxiety, and other mental health symptoms.

In this informational webinar, John Whyte, M.D., will talk about the holiday blues, and what to do if you or someone you love struggles with them. Dr. Whyte will share information about what this condition is (and what it’s not), including its symptoms and triggers, who is at risk, treatment, prevention, tips for coping, and when to seek professional help.

In this WebMD webinar, you’ll learn about:

• What holiday blues are, how long symptoms can last, and whether they can lead to serious long-term mental health issues
• How many people are affected and who’s at risk for experiencing the holiday blues
• What factors can trigger the holiday blues
• How to know if you’re experiencing the holiday blues or something more serious like clinical anxiety or clinical depression
• When and how to get professional help
• Tips to avoid the holiday blues and protect your mental health this holiday season

Click here to view the full list of on-demand and upcoming WebMD webinars.

More on Holidays & Mental Health

• Download: Scripts to Use When Emotionally Dysregulated
• Resource Center: Mental Health Out Loud
• Read: “Holiday Stress and Anxiety Affect My Kids. How Can We Strike a Healthy Balance?”
• Read: Does Your ADHD Help or Hurt During the Holidays?

Meet the Expert Speaker

WebMD Chief Medical Officer John Whyte, M.D., M.P.H., has communicated with the public about health issues for nearly two decades. He leads efforts to develop and expand strategic partnerships that create meaningful change around important and timely public health issues. Prior to WebMD, he was Director of Professional Affairs and Stakeholder Engagement at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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She kept talking, and I kept pottering (or ‘puttering’ if you live in the U.S.) around. I apologized afterward, as I felt I’d been a bit rude. Thankfully, it didn’t bother her. But I realized I potter often, doing small jobs in a relaxed way. And it’s not just with her but during every kitchen-adjacent conversation with anyone, or when I’m on the phone, or when I’m hosting people…you get the idea. While it looks like I’ve tuned out the conversation, moving around and tidying up actually helps me be an active listener.

I love my kitchen. It’s a very active space that is permanently untidy in a homely, practical way. I find cooking and making cocktails a great creative outlet, especially when I’m entertaining. I’ve made my kitchen as ADHD-friendly as possible, keeping the stuff I use most visible and accessible while dancing about.

[Self-Test: Do I Have ADHD? Symptom Test for Adults]

British custom dictates that we offer (force feed) our guests a drink or cuppa tea when they arrive, generally making the kitchen our first port of call. When my girlfriend pops by, she’ll perch on a stool at the breakfast bar (a stool I instinctively dodge or walk into every time I pass it rather than tuck it away). I’ll make the drinks. She’ll talk. I’ll listen. Then, I’ll get an overwhelming urge to reorganize my cupboards.

I’m not uninterested in what she’s saying — that woman could give a blow-by-blow account of a puddle drying, and I would hang on her every word. It’s just that I suddenly notice all these little tasks, and it’s like an itch! I really can’t help myself — I simply must do them then and there.

So, now I find myself standing there, doing my best not to interrupt her and practice my active listening skills without accidentally stabbing myself in the hand with the paring knife I’m ‘discreetly’ polishing.

By the time she finishes telling me about her day, the area around me looks like an IKEA showroom, yet the rest of the kitchen is still scruffy!

[Free Download: How to Focus (When Your Brain Says ‘No’!)]

Then it’s my turn to talk, and all my activity ceases as she has such captivating listening eyes and a radiant smile.

Overall, I think my kitchen tidying is a good ADHD habit. For example, I’ll notice I’ve run out of clean cooking knives, wash the ones I’ve left beside some bowls, and then start cleaning the bowls. The next thing you know, I’ve washed all the pots and pans and blitzed the entire room in a whirlwind of disinfectant wipes, blissfully forgetful of the ice cream quietly melting in the next room, still bereft of the spoon I went to fetch in the first place. Then I’ll realize I’ve forgotten the spoon, go back into the kitchen, get distracted by a spot I missed cleaning as I open the cutlery drawer…and here we go again!

Is this an ADHD thing or something that everyone else does?

Active Listening: Next Steps

• Free Download: ADHD Healthy Habits Handbook
• Read: “Am I Talking Too Much?” How I’m Teaching My ADHD Brain to Listen
• Learn: Don’t Just Talk, Communicate

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I love scrapbooking, and I have all the scrapbooking stuff. My father-in-law loves fishing, and his collection of fishing rods covers the walls of his garage. Sure, it’s a lot of fishing rods, but it’s part of his hobby, and they’re all organized.

The way I see it, there are a few basic rules when pursuing hobbies and passion projects:

[Read: When Hobbies Turn Into Obsessions]

1. Limit yourself to a maximum of three hobbies or passion projects. Any more than that is too difficult to manage. If you’re like me and you’ve had eight passion projects in your lifetime, you need to start whittling those down to the ones you’re willing to invest your time and effort in.
2. If there is an organizer made for your hobby or passion project, buy it. These organizers are designed with the activity in mind, and they make storing its items much easier. If quilting is your hobby, buy a sewing accessories organizer with right-sized compartments for threads and spools, needles, and so on.
3. You’re allowed to buy and keep it all. Decluttering is never required when you see value in every single item related to your hobby. That said…
4. Keep all hobby and passion project supplies in one location. As long as your quilting stuff all fits wherever you put it — be it under the bed or in a spare bedroom — you’re allowed to keep it.

Hobby Supplies Organization: Next Steps

• Free Download: 10 Ways to Get Organized This Weekend
• Read: “Upcycling: My (Guilt-Free) ADHD Obsession”
• Read: How Do I Organize My Art Supplies and Craft Room?

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

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Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

It drove me bananas.

Why was it there? I knew it was thanks to my husband, but why was he doing this? It was different than the way he usually left his things. This was intentional, and that bugged me even more. I thought, “He’s standing there stacking this thing for the niftiness of it, probably admiring it for some physics or mathematical property and walking away without a care for how the house looks.”

Grrrr.

I unstacked the bottles and put them back in their little nook.

The next day, the stack returned.

This seesaw continued — him stacking, me unstacking.

I should mention that my husband and I both have ADHD. He’s brilliant, unruffled, and messy. I’m creative, a worrier, and organized. We make a great team.

[Read: “The 3 Vital Keys to Our Happy ADHD Marriage”]

But the combination sometimes presents its challenges, as with the enigma of the tower of bottles in the kitchen. What’s more, even after our diagnoses (mine came well after his), I still spent so many years in the dark about ADHD and how we each manage it. That all started to change for me when I decided to become an ADHD coach.

An Annoying Habit? Or Creative Problem-Solving at Work?

In the midst of our stacking and unstacking, I happened to be in coaching training and learning about “externalizing” as a strategy for managing ADHD issues with memory and forgetfulness. Externalizing has many forms — paper and digital planners, buzzers, alarms, vibrating watches, timers, visual cueing — you name it, it’s out there.

I marveled at these tools and admired those with ADHD who sought out these strategies, experimented with them, and incorporated them into their lives.

So there I was, admiring folks who used cues, while at the same time, over in my kitchen, getting peeved about The Stack, and unstacking it.

[Read: “My Keys Were in the Fridge!” ADHD Stories of Wildly Misplaced Items]

Until one day it hit me.

Wait a second. Is this—? Could it be—?

I went downstairs when I heard my husband making dinner.

“Honey,” I asked with curiosity for once, “why do you stack those pill bottles? I never really asked you.” He shrugged with a simple matter-of-factness.

“It’s a way to remember to take my pills. I’d been forgetting. If they are stacked, it tells me I haven’t taken them yet.”

I closed my eyes. It was stunning to see how easy it was for me to assume and not delve further. Truthfully, it never occurred to me there might be anything else to understand about my husband’s bottle stacking. Yet there I was, blind to something so remarkable.

Talk about humbling. Talk about how celebratory I suddenly felt, too, about living with ADHD.

ADHD Brains Are Solution-Oriented

There’s a creative current that runs through our ADHD self-management systems that we sometimes don’t see or acknowledge in ourselves. We come to the table with self-knowledge already in place, knowing through trial and error what has worked and what hasn’t, that we don’t often give ourselves credit for.

In the kitchen that day, when my husband revealed his own self-care solution, I was so proud of him. And I realized there is much yet for me to learn — about him, myself, and others with ADHD.

I’m so ready.

So if you see a tower of stacked vitamin and prescription bottles in the middle of my kitchen counter right now, please know that it is not due to madness or some passive aggressive stunt. It’s due to brilliant self-awareness.

Creative Problem-Solving and ADHD: Next Steps

• Free Download: Get Control of Your Life and Schedule
• Read: Quirky Productivity Hacks for Easily Bored Brains
• Read: “How Can I Remember to Take the ADHD Medication That Helps Me Remember Things?”

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

You’re not alone in feeling like your home is in a perpetual state of disorganization, despite your best efforts to keep life decluttered, organized, and productive. My company, Organize 365®, surveyed about 5,000 Americans on this topic in 2021; we found that 84% of people are trying to find more efficient ways to keep their homes organized.¹

When we set out to do a big home cleanup, most of us make the mistake of organizing the first thing we see — a big problem when there is so much to organize in so little time. We set out to empty out the garage, but then we notice that our closets need attention, too. And why don’t we sort through that massive stack of decades-old papers while we’re at it? Like mice running through a rigged maze, we chase the feeling of being done, but we can never reach it.

If you truly want to get and stay organized and clutter-free so you can reclaim your time, the solution is to organize according to four major areas of your home and life. In each area, you’ll ask yourself if you need to declutter and/or add items, based on where you are in your life. Then you’ll need to set up and maintain organizing systems for those items.

1. Personal Organization

Personal space organization covers everything that you individually “own,” from your wardrobe in your personal closet to your designated section in a shared bathroom to your handbag/backpack. It can take up to six months to completely declutter, build up, and organize all personal spaces.

[Get This Free Download: How to Tidy Up Your Home Like a Pro]

After organization comes maintenance. You can clean out your purse and backpack every week, and clean out your closet and other personal areas every three months.

2. Storage Spaces

From your garage and shed to your basement and attic, these are areas where you store “all of the things.” In my experience, most people keep an unfortunate mixture of “stuff” in their storage areas — broken stuff that they’re hoping to fix, stuff they can’t part with and are hoping someone in the family will want in the future, and empty boxes. If this is you, focus on purging your storage areas of these unnecessary items.

After that, turn your storage areas into your personal in-home stores. That is, put up some shelves so that all of your items in storage can be easily displayed (in bins). Before you buy anything, save yourself the possibility of buying an item you already have and creating clutter by first checking if the desired item isn’t already on your store shelf.

Pro tip: If you celebrate holidays in December and keep decorations in storage, that month (and November) are the best times to organize your storage, as a good portion of your storage store will be on display, so you’ll have space to move things around in your store. Plan to maintain your storage areas annually.

[Read: “How Can I Purge the Mountains of Childhood Memorabilia from My Home?”]

3. Paper Management

We think we’re a paperless society, but we’re far from it. There are four categories of paper that are likely in your home: medical papers; financial papers; paper related to your house; and paper related to your family. Most people keep all of these papers stored in stacks in a closet, a spare room, on the kitchen counter, and/or in filing cabinets.

Paper management is often the most daunting of home organization tasks. (That’s why we even host paper organizing retreats where we all haul our papers and organize as a community!) But once organized, paper-management systems only require monthly maintenance.

Pick a category of paper, and sort through each piece, deciding which papers to keep or toss. Then, move all saved papers for that category into a binder. Get rid of any filing cabinets. Repeat the process for all other paper categories.

Note that this system is for record/archive papers. For “active” papers (anything from bills, invitations, forms you need to fill out, to-do lists), I recommend my Sunday Basket®, a place where you’ll hold important papers and address them on a weekly basis.

4. Family and Communal Spaces

The kitchen, the living room, the dining room, and shared bathrooms fall under this area, and require weekly upkeep — far more than the other areas of home organization, especially if you have children. While you can declutter and reorganize these spaces to be more manageable, these spaces simply don’t stay organized for too long.

When you’ve set out to do a big home cleanup, leave family and communal spaces last. It’s a far better use of your time to take care of personal organization, storage spaces, and paper management first. With those areas squared away, you only have to worry about upkeep once a year (and once every couple of months for personal organization), giving you time to focus on keeping family and communal spaces organized.

Now, here is the secret to staying organized for a lifetime: You must completely reorganize these four areas of home organization every 20 years. Why? Because the organization you need in one phase of life is not the organization that you will need in a later phase, when you will likely face different expectations and obligations. Different life stages, in the end, require different approaches.

Home Organization: Next Steps

• Free Download: 22 Clutter-Busting Strategies for Adults with ADHD
• Read: Don’t Organize It, Purge It — 10 Things to Throw Out Now
• Read: How to Motivate for Cleaning House When You Really Don’t Want To

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Sources

¹ Woodruff, Lisa K, The State of Home Organization in 21st Century America, Organize 365®, 2021 from https://organize365.com/research