Living with executive dysfunction - how to tidy up!

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Ive always had this problem as well. I get very easily distracted and disorganized. Eventhough I do not work I am homeschooling my 6 year old and my 3 year old Autie has school and various therapies and swim lessons durring the week....I keep very busy. My older kids help out now and then but I have lots of piles of papers, toys all over the floors and BOY do my floors need to be cleaned. I manage to cook, do dishes, laundry and scoop the kitty boxes every day....that is usually as far as I get besides picking up things off the floor.
I would really love to have a clean house like my Mom always had but Im just at a loss of how she managed that.

I've been wondering whether or not my real problem with the mess is actually the executive dysfunction... it just seems to me that being a perfectionist, I can't stand the fact that no matter how well I've cleaned it's always going to get messy again. hence I perceive cleaning as something pointless in the long run and can't be arsed to do it.

If you can get it clean once, then maybe you can hire a cleaning service... That is not an option for some people, but I have heard it can be a godsend.

i have taken routine of one day at week when i clean my room

I love giving stuff away, or throwing stuff away that I don't need. I hate the idea of stuff just sitting around being wasted. If I can't use something reasonably valuable, I freecycle it. I'd rather someone else have it that can and will use it. That's what things are for... to be used, to serve their purpose. And I hate clutter. I need some blank empty spaces in my home because I get too easily overstimulated from a lot of visual clutter.

Executive planning is one of those things that effects a lot of people with ASD ADHD and TBI ( Traumatic Brain injury )

No doubt it effects a lot of other areas of your life too, not just the housework.

I have a few questions for you

1. What have you tried before ?
2. Is your husband interested in getting the problem sorted also ?
3. Are you financially stable and have you ever considered getting a housekeeper ?
4. Have you had any involvement from an Occupational Therapist that specialises in adults ? ( they work with Exectivie planning as do Speech Therapists - I'm a SLT although I work mostly with children now, I have done some work with adults with TBI around this area.)
5. How is it effecting your mental state ?

Quentin Crisp used to advise that the dust doesn't get any thicker after the first millimetre or so.


Hmmm.....when I'm after something that's really firing my passion, I think I can often do all those things in my stride. And if it's somebody else's plan, it makes little sense to me as a rule.

There's a term for that: perfectionist procrastinator. I have the same problem -- I think that something has to be done perfectly and I can't do it perfectly right now, so I keep putting it off. And it never gets done. I have to fight against this constantly in every aspect of my life.

This is exactly what FlyLady addresses on her website. She also makes the point that your house didn't get dirty in one day and it's not going to get clean in one day -- it takes time. She tells you exactly where to start and what to do.

http://flylady.net/

I initially read part of this title as "erectile dysfunction."

There are professionals out there who devote themselves to helping people de-clutter and clean.

Yeah, we can't afford them, either.

But what I CAN afford is to receive cleaning/sorting help as a gift, instead of more stuff. That is the sort of thing I ask family members to give me for my birthday or Christmas: a promise to help me sort and clean, to at least spend one day with me getting us on track. It doesn't solve the problem, but it does help.

And, oh, you HAVE to allow them to throw a few things out or give them away. The more recycling options you have, I have found, the easier that is: at least you can convince yourself the stuff isn't "going to waste." That is the thing I have the hardest time with, letting a piece of leather end up in landfill just because the shoes are worn out and cannot be worn. If I know it will be used in some way, I feel better. But, geez, that need adds to the work, doesn't it?

Ah Feather...another couple just like us... except reversed.

My mother managed to drum a lot into me...housekeeping was an ongoing function.. it never finished... you just keep picking at it until you find a level of neatness to suit.
But after several years with my partner, I've partly surrendered
A major problem when I tidy up is working out where to put her stuff... particularly if it's lived in more than one spot since we moved in.
Her clothes have to be folded just so... the dishes must be stacked thus.... and I get yelled at more for doing something incorrectly than for not doing it at all.
How can someone be so picky when their idea of a filing system is to put all papers in an amorphous pile punctuated with irregularly shaped objects?

The last phone bill?.... dig through there until you find a tennis ball.... it'll be somewhere near that.

We'll never develop the discipline to keep the place tidy without more room to hide things...lol

living in a dorm room has shown me just how messy I am, having all of the mess that is usuaaly spread across a whole house placed in one room makes it pretty overwhelming at times. Generally, I just wait until I get so sick of it that I decide to pick it all up and this does happen occasionally. I've found however that having a large number of trashcans available in my room help significantly with the build up of junk, I still look around me and see sever wrappers and such that need to be thrown away but it's not too terrible. I used that chore buster site I just wish it allowed for non monetary rewards because I can't really pay myself money... I plan to replace it with junk food or something. I think it will help break the overwhelming task of cleaning a dirty room into several easy tasks that done within a day or so of eachother will result in a much cleaner room and hopefully a less depressed me when I return to it after classes or work.

As a hoarder with mixed success at weeding out/cleaning, I can tell you this:
I have been to the other side.
I have taken the plunge and thrown away things of dubious value that I had previously added to the hoard.
And I can tell you this:
I cannot remember today even ONE single item that I successfully threw away.
Which means I did the right thing.
You might try this: throw away HALF of everything you hoarded. The crappy half. Pick up items one at a time and if the emotional tug is fairly weak, throw it out. If the tug is strong, it's OK to keep it.

i definately horde. i've always kept random junk that i find... peices of wire or broken earrings, even rocks.. and i keep stuff, like.. any sort of mesh from the kitchen (like what oranges or garlic come in), or my sister's used hair nets from when she worked in a deli, or old food containers, or little scraps of cloth, or broken electronics or toys, or the old hoses from my mom's oxygen machine.... or.. anything! (actually, earlier today, my dad delivered to me a hoop earring that had been run over that he found in the parking lot at walmart and thought i might want )

some of it has some sort of sintimental value... but most of it i keep saying i might use for something artsy some day.... but i never do.

a couple sintimental items are:
an old broken peice of potery that i found while digging in the dirt on the playground back in i think the 3rd grade. it was very swirly and pretty and had a hole in it... and i became very attached to it.
a wad of hair i pulled out of a brush belonging to a really good friend of mine that i've only seen irl twice. (but she doesn't know i kept it.. )
and one of my dad's old shirts, that ended up all torn up... i'm really attached to it... i like the material, and it was comforting to me during the time when my dad wasn't around. of course, now my dad's back, and i've been able to make clothes out of it for my stuffed animals.. but i'm still very attached to the material. i've kept every scrap of it, no matter how small. even if a few strands frayed off of it, i'd keep them.

First you have to recognise that you have two issues, one is that you have more than you need and things are in the wrong place.
Secondly you are not keeping on top of the day to day cleaning and sorting that goes along with having a house.

So first you have to start with cleaning out all the things that you do not need and putting things in the right place.

Start in one room .. pick the worst one - sounds like the spare room from your original post. Have some large boxes, and label them KEEP, THROW AWAY, and CHARITY. Set aside enough time to complete the job, it might be a whole day?

Start to sort into the boxes.. be ruthless.
Look at each item and decide if you really need it. If you do need it put it in the keep boxes.
How do you decide if you need something .. Have you used it recently? Does it have a strong emotional attachment ? ( if it's clothing - does it fit ? and have you worn it in the last year ? ) If the answer is no, either throw it away or give it to a charity for use by someone that can make use of it.
If it's just rubbish that you are not going to use and no one else will either .. put it in the throw away boxes. ( make sure as a part of the day you have allowed enough time to take stuff to the dump if need be or have the trash collected ( not sure how you do it where you are )
If you think it might be useful for someone else ( not a specific person .. but a general anyone, decide on a local charity you will give things to) put it in the charity boxes.

Complete one room at a time.. DO NOT START ON ANOTHER ROOM UNTIL ONE IS COMPLETE. When the room is sorted out, clean it. Shut the door

Decide which room you will work on next and do the same with that one etc..

Have a list of which rooms you are going to work on and check them off as you go.

Make sure that all the trash makes it out the door.. those boxes of stuff that are leaving MUST LEAVE THE HOUSE THE SAME DAY.

With your books perhaps pick through and think - which ones will I read again and refer to , look at each book. If you are unlikely to read it again or refer to it give it away to a charity or sell to a second hand book store, for someone else to enjoy. Again sort into boxes.

Once the house is sorted ( enlist some help from friends/family if you need to, why not ? )

Once that is done .. then you need to think about how you will keep it clean and how you are going to divide up the household chores. Make lists.. put them on the wall .. stick to it.

Also check on storage, does everything actually have a place to go ? If things do not have a home .. then consider investing in some storage boxes or units to keep things tidy.

If you can afford it, have a housekeeper come in once a week to do the chores that you find it hard to get to. Even a couple of hours a week can go a long way to helping keep a house clean and tidy.

I have a problem with executive dysfunction. So does Adverb, but he feels bad about it, and that's the only reason I feel bad about mine. If he didn't care, I wouldn't care.


I wish I didn't have to care.