When is the Right Time to Declutter When You Have ADHD? Spoiler: Anytime

Many of my clients have asked me "When is the right time to declutter?" Honestly, anytime, every day, and whenever you remember to do it.

The problem:

So many of us, myself included, feel like we need to take off a weekend, a week, or a few days without the family, and then we can finally get things under control. Anyone else spend an entire day emptying out a closet, put it back perfectly, only for it to be a disaster a few days later? I’m raising my hand. 🙋‍♀️

People with ADHD tend to have an all-or-nothing mentality much of the time. We want to declutter this area with all the mail, but in order for that to happen, we need a filing system that works. So we need to buy new filing drawers, but to get a new system, we need to reorganize our office. Then, we want to paint the walls first, and we don’t have time to go to the store right now, so we put it off. And the mail sits there.

On top of that, boundaries can be a struggle, as we have so many priorities we are juggling during the day. We are time-blind, so it’s easy to say yes to one more thing because it’s only one more thing. The next thing we know, we have 15 different events to attend on a weekend and not enough time to actually breathe.

Then we power through that weekend because next weekend will be different. And then our schedule is three steps ahead of us while we’re playing catch-up, and we tell ourselves that once things settle down, we’ll figure out what we can really handle. And then, things never slow down.

What’s funny is that it’s not as if we don’t want to help others, go to events, sign our kids up for every activity, and more. We genuinely want to do all of these things. And because we are time-blind, we feel like we can actually do all of this, manage our schedules, and take care of ourselves. Hilariously, then we blame ourselves when we burn out and fall short of getting everything done.

Instead of looking for ways to do less and slow down, we look for the perfect app, schedule, planner, etc., to be able to manage more. It’s never about how to do less; it’s always about how to manage more with ease and less stress.

While I do believe decluttering and organizing can happen in 15 minutes a day (yes, really!), I also recommend decluttering your schedule to make more room for the priorities that you actually want to achieve in life.

Action item:

In this week’s podcast episode, I recommend writing down all the things floating around in your brain. The todos, the wants, the needs, the plans. Carry around a notebook with you for a week and really start to look at what you have floating around in your head and what is expected of you.

Just like we need to make room for us to live in our homes, we also need to declutter our schedules to make our homes a priority.

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Ready to create space in your schedule and in your home? Book a call to work virtually with me here.

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About The Author:

Megs from the Organizing an ADHD Brain podcast brings a refreshing and relatable approach to organizing, specifically tailored for those with ADHD. She combines practical tips with empathy, helping listeners understand how to create systems that work for their unique brains while minimizing overwhelm and maximizing productivity.