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✨🧠🧹🗄️ Cleaning And Organizing An ADHD Logjam

🤖 AI Summary

🧠 Disorders Collide

  • 🧩 ADHD often couples with mild hoarding disorder, creating a logjam where the inability to organize meets the inability to discard.
  • 🧬 Genetic components and personal tragedies often fuel the hoarding side, manifesting as an override where the possibility of an item’s future use outweighs the desire for space.

🕶️ Organizational Blindness

  • 📦 ADHD brains attempt to organize but succumb to blindness, shoving precious family photos into boxes with junk mail and old bills.
  • 📨 Paperwork is the heaviest and most pervasive problem; vital deeds often hide amongst decades of useless pamphlets and envelopes.
  • 🙈 Do not attempt to sort later or store items to go through eventually - it will never happen; discard immediately or it stays forever.

🔍 Common ADHD Artifacts

  • 🐚 Memory markers appear in every household: jars of sand, seashells, or marbles representing past events rather than designated collections.
  • 📓 Dozens of journals with only 3-5 pages written exist because the purchase provided a dopamine hit of new beginnings, but the habit never stuck.
  • 🖊️ Hundreds of dried-up ink pens and loose change scatter across multiple rooms, eventually migrating to basement boxes.

🏚️ Basement & Storage Tactics

  • ⚠️ Cardboard boxes are mold magnets in basements; always use plastic tubs with lids to prevent black mold and mildew.
  • 📏 Grid off large spaces into specific studios (e.g., craft zone, video zone) to assign rigid purposes, preventing the area from becoming a catch-all dump.
  • 🗑️ Be ruthless with old electronics and printers; if they are replaced, they are trash - no one reverts to an obsolete inkjet.

🚮 Disposal Ethics

  • 👚 Throw mildewed or old clothes directly into the dumpster; donating damaged goods only burdens charity shops with disposal costs.
  • 🎁 Keep boxes for expensive appliances for one month max; after that, the box is garbage.
  • 🖼️ Display collections (shoes, movies) proudly; if they are sealed in a box, you are hoarding, not collecting.

🤔 Evaluation

🧠 This video provides a pragmatic, field-tested perspective that aligns strongly with clinical observations of ADHD and hoarding comorbidities.

  • 🔗 ADHD & Hoarding Link: The host’s anecdotal observation that ADHD and hoarding often co-occur is supported by research indicating up to 20% of people with ADHD exhibit hoarding symptoms. 📈 The mechanism described - executive dysfunction leading to clutter blindness - is a well-documented phenomenon. 😵‍💫
  • ⚖️ Donation Ethics: The advice to trash rather than donate low-quality items contrasts with the common wish-cycling mentality. ♻️ Industry data confirms that charity shops send billions of pounds of clothing to landfills annually; 🌍 the host’s ruthless approach is arguably more ethical and environmentally neutral than burdening non-profits. 🙏
  • 👁️ Organizational Blindness: While not a formal medical diagnosis, this describes inattention and defects in working memory. 🧠 The video’s strategy to touch it once (discard immediately rather than sort later) directly addresses these deficits, a standard strategy in ADHD coaching. 🎯
  • 🦠 Mold & Materials: The warning against cardboard in basements is scientifically accurate; 🔬 cellulose (paper/cardboard) is a primary food source for mold when relative humidity rises.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

🧠 Q: Why do I buy journals but never write in them?

📓 A: You are likely chasing the dopamine hit of a fresh start. The act of buying the journal feels like solving your organizational problems, providing immediate satisfaction. Actually writing requires sustained executive function, which offers less immediate chemical reward, leading to abandonment after a few pages.

🗑️ Q: Is it bad to throw away old clothes instead of donating?

👕 A: No, it is often better. Charity shops are overwhelmed with low-quality, stained, or mildewed textiles that they must pay to dispose of. If your items are not in pristine, sellable condition, trashing them yourself saves the charity time and money.

📦 Q: How should I store items in a basement to prevent damage?

🛡️ A: Never use cardboard boxes, which absorb moisture and feed mold. Use plastic bins with tight-fitting lids. Ensure bins are raised off the concrete floor if possible, as moisture migrates through porous cement.

⏳ Q: Why can’t I just organize my clutter later?

🚫 A: Later is a deception your brain uses to avoid decision fatigue. If you have ADHD, later usually means never. The item will sit in a doom box until it is ruined or forced out. The only effective strategy is to make a final decision - keep, trash, or display - the moment you touch the object.

📚 Book Recommendations

↔️ Similar

🆚 Contrasting

  • The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Focuses on emotional joy and thanking items, which conflicts with the video’s ruthless, speed-oriented disposal method.
  • Goodbye, Things – Advocates for extreme minimalism, a stark contrast to the video’s acceptance of managed chaos and keeping collections if displayed.

🎨 Creatively Related

  • Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things – Explores the deep psychological attachment to objects, providing context for why the logjam happens.
  • The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning – Encourages decluttering to save loved ones from the burden, mirroring the host’s point about respecting the space and people around you.

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