De-cluttering and organization tips?

[Anonymous]

I am looking for tips on getting rid of clutter and organizing the space.

I tried flylady and felt lost since we have three small children that make messes so fast that 15 minutes barely scratches the surface. It might work if I could get ahead of all the stuff and figure out how to organize things. I don’t know how… I know that sounds like a bad excuse but I would like to figure it out.

I have been looking online, but all the just organizing websites seem to skip from get the clutter out to buy these special containers, and then you are organized. But I want to find something that doesn’t overwhelm me so I can keep up with it.

My husband used to tease that I was a hoarder (he has since admitted that this isn’t the case) I get rid of stuff, I just can’t figure out how to make sense of the remaining stuff.

Thanks

Kat

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[Anonymous]

Hi Kat!

I found that if I jst concentrate on one small area at a time, then I don’t get overwhelmed or distracted.

For example, one day I sorted my closet . It took 12 hours but it is done to perfection!

If the job is bigger, say ‘cleaning the kitchen’…then I don’t know where to start! And what does that mean?

Washing the outsides of cupboards? Defrosting the fridge? Cleaning the oven?

Or just vacuuming the floor and doing the dishes?

If it is a small specific thing, then it is less confusing. I try to do smallers tasks more often.

Also..back when I was growing up (groan) there were four of us ADHD kids. Our playing was confined to the outdoors, basement or our rooms. The entire house was NOT for playing.

Maybe designate smaller areas for play..and less places to get messy in the first place?

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[Anonymous]

The boys can have Legos out in their rooms and other toys out in their play area. My craft room and the office are the biggest problems.

We have a bunch of stuff in the office that can not be thrown away but don’t have a way to organize all of it. (we are in real estate so we have to save our files for so many years according to the law)

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[Ivriniel]

Have you tried Reading Organizing Solutions for People with Attention Deficit Disorder by Susan C. Pinksy?

The author is a professional organizer whose daughter also has ADHD. She talks a lot about how organizational solutions for other people don’t necessarily work for people with ADHD, and makes alternate suggestions.

Her method is less about making things pretty than about making them functional.

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[Anonymous]

i know where you are coming from, although i tend to hoard as well. i get so overwhelmed byt the mess in this place that i can’t figure out where to start…and then i get distracted and don’t do anything.

i have found that one thing helps a lot. focus (ha ha) on one really small spot and keep telling yourself that ‘it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done’ that seems to help me. helped me with writing in school too. sometimes, it doesn’t even get completly done, but then i tell myself, “it doesn’t have to be perfect. i can finish it another day.”

i am making slow but steady progress. or at least i think i am. for ME i am. lol!

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[joanjan63]

Glad to know that I’m not the only one

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[Anonymous]

I use boxes. Fill a box, then put stuff away where it SHOULD go and throw out the rest. Do one box a day or two. Eventually it will get accomplished. I hope this helps.

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[Anonymous]

Organize,HA!

I have things put away in boxes,bags,drawers,glove box in the car,cute little tins…

Trying to clean out even one drawer overwhelms me,I read every little piece of paper.

Then I have to think about what to do with it? OMG!

I’ll get the book Organizing Solutions.

Where ARE my keys???

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[Anonymous]

Thanks Celeste for saying you read every paper! A few sweet friends have helped me over the years and they would get so annoyed that I HAD to read every paper! My memories are triggered by the objects, without them I can’t seem to remember them. Is that just me or ADD? Makes throwing stuff away harder but I do it unless it is really sentimental. I find it very difficult to remember my childhood so some objects are precious to me. I think I will be buying that book too. What is the name of the Totally ADD book on organizing? I saw it on PBS.

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[Anonymous]

Like a lot of ADD people my housekeeping and organizational skills are… slightly below average. I grew up in a messy house headed by an overworked, underpaid single mom who is probably undiagnosed ADD herself. We were never allowed to have friends over and our home life was chaotic. I don’t want my child to grow up like that! Plus my husband grew up in a much neater house than I did and my sloppiness kind of freaked him out at first. So I’ve been trying really hard to overcome 30+ years of bad habits. I’ll never be Martha Stewart but no social worker would label my house unsafe or unsanitary. Here’s what’s works for me:

I’m a big fan of those plastic chests of drawers! Our 2-year-old son’s toys were overwhelming the tiny living room in our tiny house, taxing what little organizational ability I have. We tried a toy box and laundry baskets but they quickly overflowed and we were tripping over the mess again. So I bought 2 of those 3-drawer plastic chests, you can get them at Target or Walmart for $15-20. My husband was skeptical but it works! I can’t say the drawers are organized. Mr Potato Head’s various parts are mixed in with Legos, dinosaur figures, board books and little cars and trains. But the toys are up off the floor and easily accessible when he wants to play.

For bigger toys, like the giant stuffed Winnie the Pooh and the horse-head-on-a-stick, we use a big round plastic tub. It cost about $7 at a discount store. Works great for big and irregularly-shaped toys.

For the bathroom I use 2 tiny 4-drawer plastic chests (like I said I’m a fan) stacked together on the vanity counter to store my makeup and hair elastics. This system takes advantage of vertical space that would otherwise go unused, and I can store 8x as much stuff in the same little area.

Our very small laundry room is also where we keep our trash barrel, laundry hamper and the cat’s dishes and litter box. We put a big plastic boot tray on top of the dryer and put Zorro’s food and water dishes up there. The tray keeps spilled food and water from falling on the floor, and he doesn’t have to eat too close to where he… you know. Speaking of the litter box it has a step that’s supposed to remove excess litter from the cat’s paws so he doesn’t track it all over the house. We also put a hanging pantry shelf on the laundry room door to create extra storage space.

We mostly use the back door instead of the front door, and we usually kick our shoes off when we come inside. For a while we constantly had a pile of shoes on the kitchen floor and we got sick of tripping over them! So I bought a 15-pair shoe organizer for about $30 at Target. Now we can put our shoes away when we come home instead of leaving them on the floor. I know it sounds weird to store shoes in the kitchen but it works.

A previous tenant put a couple of nails in the side of a kitchen cabinet. Perfect for hanging keys and sunglasses! There’s also a hook inside the under-the-sink cabinet where we hang our dustpan and brush.

For quick-and-easy cleaning I swear by a few products: A stick vacuum that works on floors and carpet, a Bissell steam mop (so I don’t have to deal with buckets and dirty mop water), Lysol or Clorox disinfecting wipes and Magic Erasers. These products make tedious cleaning projects a lot quicker, so I don’t get frustrated and give up halfway through.

Sorry this is so long. Hope it helps!

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[Anonymous]

if you don’t live alone make it a family thing. you can bond over decluttering.

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[Anonymous]

I wish it could be a family thing! My children are more of the young overly helpful kind. My almost 5 1/2 year old tries very hard to be a big help and usually succeeds pretty well. His younger brothers are less helpful (I am currently just thankful that the youngest has stopped emptying the trashcan onto the floor for fun) We are working on them though.

We have a plastic milk crate for shoes by the front door. Flat surfaces are the big problem.

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[Philabuster]

For pocket clutter, a plastic bin (with a lid) next to the door has been a big help for me. I can accumulate only as much crap as it will hold and still shut the lid. Any more than that and it needs to go somewhere else.

For papers, the absolute coolest thing I ever bought was a high capacity paper shredder.

File the needed paperwork and shred the outdated info. The shredder gets rid of the paper mess in a hurry, but once it goes in there, it’s gone. I get the strangest high feeling when I shred a bunch of paper and clean up my desk.

One time, I spent HOURS watching Youtube videos of industrial shredders in action.

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[Anonymous]

+1 for the plastic drawer carts! They are terribly ugly, but they do work.

I’ll have to try the bin at the door for my pocket clutter. Honestly I never even use these laser pointers..

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[Anonymous]

Wow! I feel so much better just to know I’m among others who have some of the problems I have and can understand.

When I was younger, like teens and twenties, I could keep up with it all because there was so much less stuff and I had a lot more energy or stamina.. However, even back then I was accused of tossing it all in a box and hiding the box in a back bedroom. It was always so hard to decide where each individual item should go.

Over the years I could manage fairly well with a partner to help keep me focused and to share the chores but still had a hell of a time deciding what to throw out other than what I call “certifiable trash” and it would sometimes result in arguments. I would pray for vacations from work alone so that I could really get into it and not have to stop to fix a meal, etc. But often my plans would be disrupted by something like a broken air conditioner or whatever.

Now I’m caring for my 88-year-old mother who has alzheimer’s. Mother’s house used to be very clean and nearly perfectly organized although she was cleaning compulsively, changing sheets almost daily because she had forgotten she had just done it yesterday, organizing a drawer she just organized last week, and shredding almost everything in sight including the paperwork I had left with her I needed to settle my dad’s estate including lots of photos. I had gone back to Louisiana to close my business, sell my house and move back to California.

So now we have mother’s stuff, my dad’s stuff and my stuff in one fourth the space. I did throw away a whole lot of stuff in Louisiana so that I could use 4 U-Hauls instead of 5 or 6 to get here and it was really easy to give away most of Dad’s furniture, but sorting through the paperwork is sheer hell. I’m still boxing it and throwing it in the garage to avoid sorting it and then madly dig through all the boxes at tax time.

Mother also had a real estate business which she gave away and thankfully all that paperwork went to the new owner, but we have plenty of file cabinets and desks. She doesn’t clean anything anymore without prompting from me but it has to be simple things. I can give her a sponge and cleanser and she’ll scrub the sink until the finish is gone but she can’t find the trashcan.

Now I have osteo-arthritis, degenerative disk disease and I tore a couple of disks. I can’t stand longer than a few minutes without pain although the torn disks seem to have healed so that it’s not excruciating pain anymore. In the 7 years now that I’ve cared for Mama I’ve also developed high blood pressure and find it difficult to walk without becoming out of breath. Mother is great physically just can’t remember anything. This morning she got out the house at 7:30 AM and walked five blocks down a busy street in her pajamas and stocking feet before the police and I caught up to her. She doesn’t remember it at all.

We’ve had to hire help to do any lifting and to try to work with me to clear out more stuff. We keep a dog for one fellow and he helps by carrying out our trash, changing smoke alarm batteries and light bulbs that require climbing, trimming rose bushes with Mama or walking with her and will prompt me if he doesn’t see enough trash leaving the house regularly. A second fellow just started sorting with me and it looks promising. At least he isn’t put off by the enormity of the problem and I’m guessing it’s because he also has ADD so is sympathetic yet driven to make a dent in it all.

Don’t have much in the way of solutions yet, but to try to cut down on the paper, when tempted to save something written, I put it in an email and mail it to my gmail and file it.

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[Author]

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