Either Super Organized And Tidy Or Messy.

Post Reply New Topic

I seem to lack consistency. Could this relate to autism?

I can be either super organized in certain circumstances, or I can be seen as messy and unorganized.

I seem to either beone or the other ad it is probably around 89% of the other!

I go in stages... I can have a month or two of being ultra tidy with everything perfectly labelled, and then I somehow let it slip and I spend years of being in a mess not even knowing how to get tidy? (How can I explain? It is not that I don't know how in theory... It is more that if I attempt to be tidy when I am ot ready to be (Which is most of the time) I will just sit there and do nothing as somehow the mind goes blank and nothing gets done? Also making decisions... A major factor when tidying things up... Yet when I have worked in places where they have order, and I learn that order I am known as being the tidiest person there with all spanners in place etc? Strange!)

Is what I am saying something that makes any sense?

What is common for me is to have a bedroom with everything in the draws in organized order but hardly anything in the draws, and everything else in a mess on the floor... Or I can be the opposite and just then pile everything in to keep the floor tidy and then I will later take everything out and have to start again and never do finish the tidying job because I never get to the point where I am satisfied that all in the drawers are where they are supposed to be. It can really set me back and annoy me when people borrow things and don't put them back or put them back in other places where I don't expect to look, and when I complain they think I should not complain... But I end up having to buy more things to replace them because I can't find them as they are not where I had put them... And others think I am mad for buying more and think I am being awkward for complaining... Yet how can I find them if they don't say where they put them? And they never remember where they put the things! I hate people borrowing without asking and it happens often.... Because I am seen as awkward,they tend to borrow without asking incase I make a fuss. I only make a fuss as they rarely put things back and I have to ask for them, or then they borrow ans put rhings back in other places so they hope I don't realize they have borrowed them...
The problem is that if I use something and forget and put it somewhere else (Or I have moved the thing it is in) so I can't find it, I blame others who don't know anything about it and when I realize I feel guilty about it!

But is all this normal? I mean... My mix of either being hyper tidy or I give up and end up in a mess for years?
Why am I not able to find a happy medium like other people do? I have tried. It does not work!


I am actually the same with other things. I was like this with schoolwork where I was either in "Control" and would get top (Or near the top) marks, or I would be a mess and either fail or scrape through. Both teachers and myself could not account for my inconsistencies. I never was able to be average as in consistent which is what confused those that taught me, as to them, even if all my exams were around 40% where 50% was a pass, they could work on that, but my exams would fluctuate between something like 12% and 98% and I could not tell you what I did different as I usually studied well enough.

But anyway... Could inconsistency be something to do with autism or something else?

I am like some sort of mad professor at times when I get so focussed on one thing and things around me get neglected... Such is life!

Sounds very familiar! I'm more messy than tidy and never seem to finish the tidying job. But I can be tidy once in a while. I also get the people borrowing things bit! Even when my stuff is a mess I know where things are.

This is a form of executive dysfunction common among autistics.
It seems like a combination of hyper-focus, perfectionism, and difficulty with multitasking all common autistic traits.

Autistics tend to like order and consistency and do hyperfocus. When you hypefocus on cleaning you have a need to do it exactly right because that is the way it is supposed to be.

Once you have gotten the cleaning right you hyperfocus on something else and forget about cleaning up.

Your mind going blank might be a sign of autistic shutdown. This happens like other shutdowns where when one gets overwhelmed ones brain takes an involuntary break. We have to multitask in life more than we realize. If you have poor multitasking skills you will get burnout quicker then the person more skilled. Adding to the overstimulation of your brain may be sensory sensitivities another common autistic trait.

I can relate. Things tend to get so super disorganised that there comes a time that everything must be super spick and span. Stays that way for a short while until the next tidy mood hits.

Thanks for the replies. They make perfect sense.

Uhmmm. What to do about it all. I have a plan to de-clutter as having less things but keeping the ones more special to me is a long term plan because I will then keep to the things I love and spend more time doing them with less clutter of other things around me. I have been wanting to do this for a long time. It makes perect sense.


I am one who finds it hard to let go BUT I can let go of things I don't use and no longer want.

Therefore, it is a good plan for me to just keep sorting out and declutter until I can have more room around me to keep everything else in order.

I'm disorganised but not due to hyperfocus. I think it's a combination of laziness and just having a disorganised mind. Mess doesn't bother me, if I see it I don't have the urge to tidy it away but sometimes my brain doesn't always register it. Like I can come in and put my bag down anywhere and then later when I need it I'm like "where's my bag?" then notice it's in the middle of the room or on the couch or something.
Even my DVD collections get disorganised without me knowing, even though I'm the only one who watches them. I put them neatly in a box and after a couple of weeks they're all jumbled up. Then I can't be bothered to rearrange them.

I'm like this.

I swing at either.

If I deem a space safe and secured, guaranteed it's only for myself it'll be super organized and tidy.


If the space isn't safe and secured, not a place to slow down nor a place ideally for focus without interruption, and is very much a shared space, it'll be super disorganized and messy.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I was 40 before I learned that people keep lists of their file folders. I really wish I'd been taught some basic organization skills. If I can see even a corner of an object in a mess, it is easier to find than if I put it away, because it may have been filed by material, function, colour, size, or something else.
I am also struggling to learn when to tidy up. As a boy, I had to quit work just when it was going well, because it was time for another class. One handy habit is that if I have spent ten minutes looking for something, I should just do general tidy-up until I find it.

Yes I do that. I think it's because if I do a thing, I try to do it really well, and if I don't know how I'm going to do it really well, I won't do it at all. Sometimes I know what to do and then I do a good job. Everything else gets left. So my tidiness is piecemeal.

Also if I don't use an item for some time, it tends to get lost in the clutter.

y'all took the words right outta my mouth.

I'm more messy than tidy.

i'm on the ragged edge of hoarder.

I can really relate to not knowing how I want things organized etc making me not do anything about the mess.
Paired with getting overwhelmed with the thought of digging into the massive mess I've created.
I can also relate to being borderline hoarder.
And when finally organizing/cleaning up, I do it really thoroughly, unless I lose interest/get overwhelmed before I'm done.

/Mats

i always can only keep up the neaticizing for the length of time to clean up one room, then invariably something in life distracts me big time and as soon as i can say BOO! the room i took 10 times as long as a normal person to clean looks even worse than before.

Ah, executive functioning disorder.

As others have hinted, sometimes it's easier to know where something is/might be within a messy heap than if it were nicely stored away somewhere. "Out of sight, out of mind," and I forget where I've stored something when everything has been tidied-up and put away in drawers and closets...

Sometimes, going through drawers and closets to find something in a tidy room is harder than having a general idea of where it is in a messy room. Putting stuff away seems so permanent, like burying it never to be seen again, until accidentally stumbled upon much, much later.