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Why People With ADHD Are Messy

Or, why people with ADD ignore messes and organize by pile.

If you have ADHD, or you know someone with ADHD, you may have noticed that people with ADD have a tendency to be messy. On the same hand, many people with ADHD cannot deal with other people’s messes and are obsessively clean about certain things.

I, for one, have an office that others would consider messy. My kitchen counters on the other hand are typically very clean. The key in both cases is the main working area is clean, the “messes” are around the edge, where the ADHD mind will ignore them as background clutter, even as it finds distractions in other areas.

ADHD Workspace

As someone with ADHD, I can’t have things in my main working area. Not only are they a distraction, they are constantly in the way in a way that frequently requires my attention leading to additional distraction.

If I’m going to get any writing done, my hand (or arm) can’t hit anything while I type. If I’m going to get any cooking done, my counters can’t have “other stuff” on them.

adhd organization desktop — Sure, it looks messy, but you see the area from notebook, to keyboard, to mouse is all free and clear of any clutter

ADHD Organization – The Sides

But, you see that area under the monitors?

Those are what I call the sides.

The sides are near the main workspace but not in it. As someone with ADHD, when I sit down, my attention is drawn to that clutter just outside of my main workspace. I use that to my advantage. That pile to the left is mail, notes, and other things that I still need to deal with.

While I will completely ignore that clutter once I start typing, since it is outside my focus zone, I do see it several times a day when I sit back down. In addition, if that pile starts to get too big, it will encroach on my main working space. That means I will eventually deal with what is there, either to reduce the pile size back out of my main workspace, or just out of annoyance.

The Need Pile

More difficult to see is that the clutter is also items that I need, and need quickly while working.

organized ADHD clutter — It looks messy, but I need some of that stuff.

As an adult with ADD, I can’t take the chance of having to go find something while I’m in the middle of work.

That multicolored bag has my colored pens in it. If I need to brainstorm, or journal something, I will want those pens. If I have to stop and go find those pens, or retrieve them from another area too far away to reach while still sitting, chances are I will get distracted and lose my focus. So, I keep them right there, even though it is clutter.

ADHD Organization Drawers

The ADHD organization solution that would really help is a desk with drawers, but that isn’t what I bought 15 years ago, and the list of other things that I want to spend my money on is very long. I could get some IKEA drawers for a small price, but they won’t fit under the short desk that I have.

Don’t worry. I love IKEA. I will find a solution sooner or later 🙂

NORDLI 6-drawer dresser, white, 47 1/4x21 1/4 " — Ooooh. This would make a great printer stand / organizational unit for my office….

People with ADHD don’t like being disorganized, and dream of the next device, furniture, planner, or organizer that will fix all of their ADHD problems. For this reason, people with ADD love IKEA.

ADHD Workspace – The Piles

Surrounding my desk are the piles.

The pile is a very important part of ADHD organization.

Piles created by the person with ADD do not register in their brain as clutter. Rather they are pseudo-organized stacks that blend as effortlessly into the background as if they were camouflaged by Rangers in the field.

That's not a mess, that's my ADHD pile — Pile? What pile? – *The ADD Mind*

That pile on top of my computer needs to be scanned. You can see my printer/scanner combo behind it, so of course it goes there. — The ADHD mind is precise in its own way. (I don’t know why I need to know that 250mg is 3 fl. oz like it says on that sticky note. Probably for one of my cancer meds, not an ADD med, but until I remember, I can’t throw away that note. Ironically, I haven’t noticed it in months until it showed up in this photograph.)

The stuff underneath the to-scan pile, is an old iPad and my daughter’s old laptop. Both of which I’ve been meaning to repurpose as treadmill screens for exercise routines like from Peleton or iFit training. Although those don’t technically belong up there, I don’t want to put them on the floor where they might accidentally get stepped on.– It’s only been six or seven weeks. I’ll get to it… eventually.

Below is the kind of pile that drives other non-ADD people (my wife) crazy, but that blends into the background noise of the ADHD adult that created them.

To the untrained, non-ADHD mind, this is a big mess. To my ADHD brain, this is actually five distinct piles. The main Disney World book pile is, obviously, Disney World books for planning our DisneyWorld vacation. There are a couple of cookbooks under there. — I recently got a new air fryer.

The pile directly to its left is actually my tax records pile (it’s 2021 tax season as I write this). That bigger book is there because it messes up the pile of smaller format books.

The pile behind the tax records pile is items that I need to sort. I actually need to throw most of that away. Most of it is for electronics we no longer own, or items that don’t work, but I feel like there is a use for them… or maybe I just don’t like throwing away electronics.

Behind that is my messenger bag, which is both the pile my messenger bag is stored in, and a pile of stuff that is inside the messenger bag as well.

Finally, behind that is my printer paper, on top of a dictionary. This isn’t where the dictionary goes, but out of sight…. actually, the dictoionary is bothering me now, because it goes in the bookcase, and…

Must resist urge to stop writing this article and go put away the dictionary…. because if I do… I’ll never come back to this article and will have wasted the effort I already put in… (the sunken cost fallacy looms large in the ADHD world.)

The ADHD Mind Eliminates Clutter As a Distraction

The irony is that the ADHD mind actually is less distracted by such clutter than others. Our hyper-focus (for lack of a better term) edits out possible distractions that it already knows are unimportant. This is in contrast to any novel elements in the environment that command an outsized amount of attention from the ADHD mind.

How To Use ADHD Clutter Piles To Your Advantage

There are many ways to use ADHD to your advantage once you understand and accept your ADD mind. Clutter piles are one area that can be leveraged as an ADHD advantage.

The key is to find a place that the piles do not bother your spouse. Then, let the piles flow.

The Right Number of Piles for ADHD Organization

Organized clutter piles only become a deficit when used improperly, usually by having too few piles. If you have a pile that contains both important paperwork that needs action, blended with a pile of important paperwork that just needs filed, you will correctly avoid throwing those items away.

That’s good.

But, you will likely not act on the papers that require action because your mind will consider the file according to its lowest priority in your mind, that is, “too be filed,” in this case.

If you had two separate piles, the needs action pile would draw your attention and occasionally, your focus and action, resulting in more things getting done appropriately. (The to be filed pile will languish until it is so big it causes an extra distraction.)

The Right Place for Piles for ADHD Organization

The other important thing to get right is where to put your ADHD piles.

A pile of papers than needs scanned should go near the scanner if possible. Thus, when the pile draws your attention, its corresponding action is close by.

A pile of papers to be scanned sitting in the kitchen requires you to disengage from whatever task you are in the kitchen for, to instead go scan some paper. This will likely be a distraction from what you need to be doing at the moment (cooking dinner).

In a larger house, it may be necessary to have piles whose sole function is to be moved to a different location.

Remember that to be scanned pile? Chances are some of that is mail — mail that you open in the kitchen after you come in through the garage. You know it needs scanned, but you have other mail… and maybe groceries… and maybe you’re thirsty and the water is right there…

Whatever the reason, chances are you will just put that to-be-scanned document into a pile there in the kitchen.

But, what if you put that mail into a specific pile which is nothing more than a pile to be moved to your office? Then, eventually, you will notice, and move that pile to the scanning pile, where you will end up scanning the documents you need to archive.

Avoid Mixed Piles

The worst piles for ADHD are mixed piles. Your mind will not process properly that there are things in there that need your focus. Instead, your mind will rank that pile by the lowest item in there.

The pile to be avoided at all costs is a general pile. General piles will be ignored as unnecessary clutter until you do some sort of whole room or area cleanup. Important things will fall through the cracks.

Specific, single-use piles, can have great benefit for ADHD distraction. Consider using bins, or drawers to contain such piles, but be sure they also follow the rules: single use, or single priority.

Otherwise, you’ll end up with just another junk drawer.

ADD Planner 2X

Written by ADDer 7 Comments

For many people with ADD / ADHD a planner, organizer, calendar, or day timer is the first recommendation they receive. Ironically, it is probably also one of the things they have already tried a million times before.

You see, people with ADD are not dumb. Far from it. Most ADDers are actually quite intelligent, and even more are very self-aware. It doesn’t take long after you notice that you are different from everyone else before you start trying to figure out how you are different, and eventually why you are different.

For students to professionals with ADD one of the first things they’ll notice is that they are disorganized. ADHD can be manifested in many different ways, but one of the most common traits is a lack of organization, whether it is losing important papers, or just your car keys, or whether its forgetting important meetings, or forgetting to eat lunch. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with the notion that if you could just get organized and keep track of all those important things better, that might change how things go down for you.

The irony is that for most ADD / ADHD adults, just remembering to actually pull out the planner and look at it is half the challenge. That is if you’ve already mastered the part about actually remembering to do the mundane easily forgotten task of writing down those important things in your planner in the first place.

Twice the Planners or Planner 2X

The frustration of having, starting, and using so many calendars or planners only to fall into the same old pattern of forgetting not just the meeting, but also to write the meeting down in the planner in the first place is one that drives some ADD / ADHD people to periodically throw their hand up in the air and just give up on the whole planner thing. Interestingly, the answer might be to take the opposite course.

Of course, everyone is different, but for ADD businesspeople who spend a majority of their workday at a desk, the solution to the organization dilemma may lie in a simple ADD trick for organization.

The first part is the same one that every ADD coach, every ADD book, and every ADD group suggests: Get a good planner that you like and is small enough that you will actually carry it around with you.

The second part is where the magic happens.

ADHD Calendar

Get a big monthly calendar to put on top of your desk. This is your 2X calendar.

The desk blotter style works great if you can handle it covering that much of your desk, but if not, a smaller calendar works just as well. The key is that it must sit on your desk in the main work area, whether that is under / in front of your keyboard, or under your mouse, or where you fill in forms. Something like this work just fine.

Do not use a calendar on the wall, a calendar across the room, or put a calendar on a table or section of desk that you don’t always use every day. This is supposed to be in your face on your main workspace.

The best calendars are plain without any pictures to take up extra room. You want a calendar that is as big as you can stand having on your desk all day every day. For me, I threw away my mouse pad and use my 2X calendar for my mouse.

The point is that you now have a paper calendar that is virtually begging to be written on, front and center on your primary work area. This will distract you.

That is right, the calendar will distract you. You have just turned your ADD traits into a strength to help you.

Using Your ADD Calendar

Imagine, you are talking on the phone. It is a long boring conversation. You look down at your blank calendar. You might as well write something on it. How about the Tuesday Morning staff meeting. It doesn’t really need to be written down since you have it every week (and are late to 1/3 of the time anyway because your forget what day of the week it is), but you will write it down because you have been distracted by the calendar.

Later, you might get distracted by the fact that you don’t have any blue on the calendar and you’ll write something else down.

When your boss calls in the middle of a detailed project and tells you about the client meeting on the 13th, you would normally go back to your task after hanging up the phone because you were in the middle of something and didn’t want to lose your thoughts by finding your new day timer (is it still in your bag that your brought from home?).

Of course, by the time you get to a stopping place, you have forgotten to write it down, and your organizer sits unused in the bottom of your drawer. But, with your 2X calendar sitting right there on top of your desk, you can just grab your pen and scribble something down really fast without having to find and pull out your planner while you are still on the phone. Then, when you finish what you were doing your wandering eyes will scan across the date, see what you scribbled and that is when you will grab your little Filofax calendar that you bought especially to get more organized and jot it down.

The 2X calendar won’t help you remember to check your little Franklin Covey planner each morning, but since it is sitting on top of your desk, IT might be what reminds you of all those important little events instead. And, if in doing so, it gets you used to checking and adding things to your real day planner more often, then so much the better.

ADHD ADD Planner Take 2

Written by ADDer 4 Comments

It’s not uncommon for everyone, whether they have ADHD or not to start the new year with a resolution to be more organized. At the heart of that endeavor is often a new planner or organizer. For people with ADD, ADHD planners have a special meaning often characterized by a love / hate relationship.

By mid-year, it has probably become very clear whether or not the planner you have is the right planner for ADD-ADHD symptoms of yours. If not, this time of year is like New Years all over again for buying organizers, planners, and calendars.

Mid-Year Planners, Calendars, and Organizers

Calendar and planner makers can’t live by selling their organizers just once a year. So, they use a variety of strategies to boost sales. There are 18-month planners that run from July to December of the following year. That’s July 2020 to December 2021 this year.

Then there are Academic planners, back to school planners, teacher’s planners and all other types of calendars and organizers filling the shelves at your local Target, Office Depot, Staples, Wal-mart, or other favorite store.

I print out blank month-view Google Calendar pages to fill in as a writing calendar.

So, if your planner can’t handle your ADD-ADHD needs, head out and take another look at planners now. Keep in mind what ways your current planner has not worked out for you.

Do you need more room for notes? Do you need longer days? Do you need a Daily ADD Planner instead of a Weekly ADD planner? Do you need better visibility for weekend days instead of them being tucked away in a corner?

Or, stop trying to make something not made specifically for those with ADHD and ADD and keep your eyes peeled to ADDessories for our upcoming customized ADD Planners and ADHD Organizers which should be ready soon!

Using 15 Minutes Better

Written by ADDer Leave a Comment

You would think that someone with ADD would love working in 15 minute increments. After all, even an adult with ADHD can handle focusing on a task for just 15 minutes, right?

Wasting 15 Minutes at a Time

For people with ADD, however, deliberately getting started on a task during a small amount of usable time is trickier than it sounds. The hardest part is knowing that it is so easy to just do a few things, anythings, during that 15 minutes because you aren’t really procrastinating or wasting much time. After all, 15 minutes isn’t that much time. As someone with ADD, the possibilities are endless.

You could make that phone call you have been putting off all morning.

Or, you could play a quick game of Candy Crush Soda and make that call after lunch. After all (here comes the ADD brain), what if that call accidentally goes long? What if he asks you to call back in 20 minutes when you’ll be busy doing something else. What if you get distracted (Hey, it happens, right?)?

Plus, there is the rest of your to-do list, which, let’s face it, is starting to look a little bit messy. Maybe now is a good time to rewrite the list.

You get the point. With ADD, it’s very likely we’ll just fitter away the time. We won’t even feel bad about it. I mean, it’s not like you can really do much anyway. You have a meeting in just 7 minutes now.

Pre-Planning the 15 Minute Gap

Recently, I’ve discovered a way to combine my ADD and procrastination habits to my benefit for just this sort of scenario.

Let’s say it is 9:30 am, and I have a meeting at 11:00. There is plenty of time to do some work, and I’m ready. But, there is this phone call that I have to make, but I’m not looking forward to. Instead, my mind is thinking of all the many other things I could, should, would be doing. I’ve learned long ago that fighting against the ADD brain is a fool’s errand. It’s much better to observe, recognize, and plan around your strengths.

In this case, I commit to myself that I will make the call later.

Of course, this is also a fool’s mission. Making a call “later” is a recipe for making the call never.

Instead, I commit to making the call during the next 15 minute gap.

In this way, I both procrastinate, which makes my brain happy. (It doesn’t consider this procrastination. This is doing what I want to do, which I should be able to do, right?) But, I also create an actual place to do the task.

Now, all I have to do is recognize that there is such a gap. This is the tricky part, because my ADHD brain racing ahead during the day will frequently not consciously notice that I’m sitting in a 15 minute gap. Instead, it will recognize the completion of a task, get happy, look for what’s next, and maybe play a little Paper.io.

So, I also have to anticipate the gaps. By pre-thinking about when those might occur — right before that meeting, right before lunch, right after I publish this blog post — I have a better chance of recognizing when those gaps come.

Using 15 Minutes for People with ADD

How to get more productivity with ADD while using 15 minute gaps.

Identify tasks that will fit in 15 minute (or smaller) gaps.
Commit to doing those tasks during the gaps.
Prioritize if there are multiple tasks. Otherwise, you’ll waste time deciding which ones to do.
Mentally go over your upcoming day and identify where small time gaps may occur in your plan.
DO THE TASK in the gap. Don’t lie to yourself. There is nothing worse than lying to yourself. If you committed, do it. It’s only one task.
If you have more time in the gap, use it for yourself. You’ve moved forward. There’s no reason to try and waste your willpower. Instead…
Identify the next potential gap and the task you will do during it.
Profit