6 tips for cleaning with ADHD

 If you are anything like me, cleaning and organizing are very difficult areas in my life. I find that once laundry, dishes, or any other clutter build up in my house, I then get so overwhelmed I have no motivation to begin the daunting task of cleaning it all up. I find myself not knowing where to start. If I do find a starting point, I often get distracted by putting something away in another area and completely forget the area I was cleaning in the first place.

    I have made a list of tips and tricks I have found that really help me stay on track!

1. Make a list of the areas you are needing to tidy up. Then prioritize that list by level of importance. What needs to be taken care of the most.
2.  Pick one room to start with.
3. Once you start in that room, gather all the trash into a trash bag first before you do anything else.
4. After trash is picked up, it is easier to see what items are just simply out of place and need to find homes.
5. Number 4 is where it gets hard for me. To stay on task and not let myself wander into different rooms, I instead make piles of items that go in a specific room. For example, I put all the laundry items in one pile, all the dishes to go in the kitchen in another pile, things that need to go in the bathroom in another etc… You can even put these items in laundry baskets so when it is time to bring them to the correct area you can just grab that basket and go.
6. The last step is to then find homes for the items you have left that stay in that room. I usually will try to have a garbage bag on hand for items I no longer use to donate or get rid of.