ADHD and Decluttering: Why it's so hard

If you feel like decluttering comes naturally to everyone but you, you’re certainly not alone.  Those of us with ADHD often struggle with decluttering, and when you take a closer look it makes complete sense!  While you may have been made to feel like it’s your fault for "not trying hard enough", I know that is far from the truth.  Actually, I bet you care a lot.

You want to do it, you care about doing it, and you may actually sit down and try.  But somehow you end up with a bigger mess than before you started! Understanding why the challenge shows up for us helps to break down shame.  Once we can release at least some of that pesky guilt and shame, we can start taking steps forward.  So, let’s dive into why decluttering is so damn hard when you have ADHD.

All About Executive Dysfunction

Executive dysfunction is truly at the core of ADHD.  In order to understand executive dysfunction, we have to know what executive functioning is.  There isn’t one standardized definition of what the executive functions are, or what executive functioning is as a whole.  I’ll give you the breakdown well know ADHD researcher Dr. Thomas Brown goes by. 

1. Activation: organizing, prioritizing, and activating to work

2. Focus: focusing, sustaining, and shifting attention

3. Effort: regulating alertness, sustaining effort, and processing speed

4. Emotion: managing frustration and modulating emotion

5. Memory: utilizing working memory and recall

6. Action: monitoring and self-regulating actions

Often, ADHDers are putting in extra effort to overcome their challenges in these areas.  It’s important to remember that effort isn’t always proportional to results.  What may be an automatic no-brainer for someone without ADHD can be a high-effort, intensely planned task for an ADHDer.

Connecting Back to Decluttering

Now that we understand executive functions, let's explore the specific ways executive dysfunction shows up for ADHDers when we try to tackle decluttering.

Planning

• Not making time to sit down and do the decluttering

• Relying on spontaneity or waiting until you "feel like it"

• Feeling like you never have the time to fit it in

• Misestimating how much time you'll need

• Not having a solid calendar system and/or documenting it somewhere you never check

Prioritizing

• Feeling paralyzed when it comes to picking where to get started

• Overwhelmed from feeling like everything needs to be tackled at the same time

• Getting stuck on the small things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things

Task Initiation

• Being able to actually get yourself to sit down and do the decluttering!

• Difficulty transitioning between tasks (like from one pile to another)

Self Control

• Getting lost in hyperfocus combined with time blindness can mean decluttering all day until you realize you haven't eaten, had anything to drink or used the washroom for hours

• Difficulty sustaining focus, scrolling on your phone while sitting in a half sorted pile of clutter

• Becoming distracted by a cool item you found

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Emotional Regulation

• Having a stronger emotional attachment to items and feeling sentimental about almost everything

• Anthropomorphising (giving items human characteristics) makes things harder to part with when it literally feels like a friend

• Getting exhausted by the intense emotional rollercoaster you're on

Working Memory

• Forgetting if you've already made a decision about a specific item or what the piles you've created mean

• Fear that if you get rid of an item you'll be getting rid of the memory attached to it

• Completely forgetting about stuff that needs to be decluttered because it's been hidden (out of sight, out of mind!)

You are not your Struggles

This is a gentle reminder that you are not your struggles or your clutter. Having a messy space is not a reflection of who you are or your character. Just because you have a harder time letting go of objects doesn't make you a "bad person". Women especially have undergone a lifetime of conditioning to believe our worth is tied to how neat our home is kept which is just nonsense!

Help is Available

I offer 1:1 services to help you quiet the overwhelm and finally cure your clutter curse.  Together, we’ll develop an action plan with personalized strategies that let you feel in control of your ADHD, and ultimately your clutter.  I’m ready to meet you right where you’re at entirely judgement free. If you’d like to learn more, let’s connect for a free discovery call (or send me an email).  I look forward to hearing from you! 

Book your free discovery call!