Keeping Clean

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I have difficulty keeping clean. Things like cleaning my room or Hygiene are work for me. I mean I can have a clean room and I can go out with clean clothing, a shower, brushing my teeth etc, but I find this requires great amounts of effort from me that other's don't seem to require to keep themselves clean.

This is my greatest problem right now. I nearly lost my job over it. I'm wondering what tips you guys might have to help me get on track.

I can relate

I know the things won't take too long to do, but somehow it seems nigh impossible to just go and do those things. I don't get it.

*looks around room*

I'm probably not the person to be giving advice on this.

I love to clean, but I'm not very hygienic, I don't smell, but I often forget to brush my teeth, and I hate washing my hands! I love showering, but hate shaving, but I do it anyway! I don''t want hairy legs or underarms! TBH I shower every other day, but I wear deorderant, and even then I sometimes forget to put it on!

My hygiene is pretty good but my apartment is a little on the messy side. I have a lot of cleaning to do tomorrow.

i suggest you look at this video in that matter...
my room also isn't clean or tidy by any stretch of imagination, nor are my clothes, usually, but i am hygenic.
i also think that my resistance to disease is becouse of that; allergies are known for years to be a result of over-hygene anyway ;P

I have good routines, but even so they still require a concious effort.

An example, hm... showering?

People think "showering" - that doesn't seem like a long or even particularly complicated task to them. Many of those actions required to shower don't need most of their mental capacity. They have them automatised to varying degrees.

I don't, because of my ASD. That's why "showering" to me is "going to my my drawers, opening my drawers, picking fresh clothes, closing the drawers, going into the bathroom, shutting the door, putting soap aside, putting towels aside, turning on hot water, waiting for the water to warm up, getting undressed, getting in the tub, showering (which requires a lot of small actions, but for the sake of sanity and privacy I'll stop here)..."

So many things to do, so many things to keep in mind. Autism can be quite annoying in that aspect, but oh well.

When I figured that might have to do with my autism and ADHD, it proved to be helpful to write tasks down.

I broke up tasks such as "showering" "getting up in the morning" into their individual parts. Then I followed that list, no deviations, to learn it by heart and hope to get it automatised. It saves time and energy and it helps knowing that tasks that appear to be lengthy and complicated realistically take up only a couple of minutes.

In the beginning this takes more effort until you get used to it though.

I sometimes forget to brush my teeth, but I wash my hands a lot and shower every day because I'm a bit of a germaphobe and I don't like smelling like BO.

I shower every day (except on Saturday), I make sure my clothes look clean and not wrinkles when I go to work and I keep my mess isolated to my room (simply by trying to avoid picking up/doing anything in the rest of the house/apartment). I find that I can stick with these fairly well - find something that works for you as well as gives a good first impression, is my suggestion.

Considering most cleaning is done for appearances anyway, there really isn't a thing wrong with 'sweeping the dirt under the rug'.