A few things ive been doing recently that help manage my adhd
Not sure if this will help anyone but i've made a list of things ive been working really hard to do to help manage my adhd and general inability to be a functional adult:
Make reminder posters! Get on canva and create personalized posters to put around your room/house to help remind you to do daily things like take your meds, feed pets, take out trash, etc.
Keep a junk notebook! Anything you think of that cant do immediately write it down. If its important it'll help you remember it, if not it saves you from getting distracted or making impulsive decisions. (This is especially helpful if you tend to get distracted when studying!)
CLEAN AS YOU GO! Whether its taking a cup out of your room every time you leave or washing each dish immediately after use. If you can develop this habit it keeps your space so much cleaner!
Have two laundry bins: one for worn but not dirty things and one for dirty things. It limits what ends up on your floor!
Make use of bins. I have several around my apartment that I use for things that dont have a home. Once those bins are full, I go through them and discard or find a permanent home for them.
Don't study/work at home. Even if it means buying a $5 coffee just so you can sit in a spot and effectively work, its much better than getting so behind on tasks you get overwhelmed.
It takes some work to develop habits and im far from perfect with all of these, but if I can do these things even 3 days a week it makes a huge difference!
I made a New Year’s resolution that I would tackle one big home organizational project each month. The kind of tasks where the mess gets worse before it gets better. Closets, clutter catch-alls, the spots that actually get worse during regular cleaning as stuff gets put out of sight and out of mind.
Happy to report that I’ve actually stuck with it. I’ve organized closets. I’ve cleaned out the basement. I’ve sorted and shredded years worth of paperwork. I’ve organized childhood memorabilia.
In the process, I’ve given away lots of stuff. Between a local non-profit, and now the local buy nothing group, I’ve given away so much that my 3yo has started checking in to make sure I’m not going to give away her favorite items.
The house is less cluttered than it has been in years and it feels really good. Making it a single task each month made it feel manageable, and having the deadline has helped get me into gear. I’ve definitely procrastinated a project to the last weekend of the month, but it’s getting done and that’s what counts.
Full offense but why is home organisation on Pinterest filled with pictures of a ton of neatly organised products. Who the hell buys 4 bottles of the same face cleanser, and stocks an entire drawer with 17 different types of colour coded bags of tea, and buys 10 bottles of detergent? Do people want to have their houses look like a store? Is it hoarder moms who are trying to make it look pretty? 😭😭😭
Although I thought that I had been tidying, in fact I had merely been wasting my time shoving stuff out of sight, concealing the things I didn’t need under a lid. Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved. But sooner or later, all the storage units are full, the room once again overflows with things, and some new and “easy” storage method becomes necessary, creating a negative spiral. This is why tidying must start with discarding. We need to exercise self-control and resist storing our belongings until we have finished identifying what we really want and need to keep.
My superpower is building this kind of stuff. I'm the designated 'putting stuff together' person in my family. The last thing I built was a crib for my niece and this was much easier. Here's the finished product.
This is what I have been keeping my records in and it's not very sturdy.
Here they are in their new home 😊
If anyone is curious, the long black boxes hold paper rolls that would play songs in player pianos. You can find them at antique stores and I have ones of songs from some of my favorite silent movies of the 1920s.