Hey everyone, I'm an almost twenty year old college student who's been battling ADHD Inattentive Type since third grade. I lost things CONSTANTLY as a kid, and now that I'm older, I've learned that the only way to combat my ridiculous inborn messiness is to be obsessively organized. Here are a few of the things I do to keep my stuff out of the hands of the sock gremlins:

1) Everything has a home-- My dorm room's small size actually makes it easier for me to be organized, since I only have so much space to work with. Textbooks, pleasure-reading books, and DVDs go on the big shelf in my desk hutch, while my first aid kit, medications, and anything else health related go on the smallest shelf. My "kitchen" is basically two shelves and a countertop, so things are stacked on top of each other, with food on the right and dishes and utensils on the left. Everything goes in the same place every time, no matter what. If I find myself running out of room, then I know it's time to throw stuff out or send stuff home.

2) If to have habits is human, to have a routine is divine-- I have routines for everything. When I get up in the morning, I go through the same steps in the same order, putting things away the minute I'm done with them. When I go to the library to study, I have a routine. When I get back to my room for the night, I have a routine. Doing the same thing at the same time every day can help a lot to keep not only space organized, but time as well. If you know exactly what you're going to do at any point in time, you spend less time forgetting stuff, and more time getting stuff done.

3) If all else fails, keep a list-- I have a daily checklist that I go through every morning, just in case I've forgotten something. As soon as I get school assignments, they go into one of my six (yes, you read correctly, I said SIX) color coded Google calendars, with reminder emails to ensure that even if I forget, it'll still get done. I have a list of materials I pack each morning for class. Lists are amazing things, things that people without ADHD often take for granted. Having a physical reminder of things that need to be done, gotten, cleaned, fixed, thrown out, or even simply appreciated can be a G-dsend to us with faulty mental hard drives.

These are some of the things I do to keep from forgetting or losing stuff, but remember that what may work for me may not work for everyone else. However, you're perfectly welcome to test out my habits, and if it works for you, great! If not, don't be discouraged, just keep trying. And remember that it's perfectly okay to be OCD, if it means that the sock gremlins are kept at bay ; ).

Hope this helps!

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