Clutter
Return to Saying Yes to Mess

Saying Yes to Mess

Most adults with ADHD don't realize how effective their dis-organization strategies really are.

4 Comments: Saying Yes to Mess

  1. This is so much what I needed today!
    @ravitej – I rthibk I’ll spned the rest of the afternoon squaring up piles!
    Miss caraway: you beat me with your array of things to do. I sometimes look at the pictures of the spaces of ( successful artists, who have the maney) and most of them have what my BO friends would call “trash” — stuff they’ve collected – surrounding them ( maybe on shelves) as they work.

    I still suspect i may have gotten a bit out of control, but resisting that externally applied shame over our innate processing quirks is good for the spirit.

    And we need to reminded of the good spirit we bring to our friends and family!

  2. So funny, say yes to the mess followed by several recommended titles might or might not offer ways to overcome it. There are too many interesting distractions to get let alone stay organized but it’s also too short to spend hours every week madly searching for things. Wanting to appear like I have my sh$& together along having monthly dinner parties helps get the house cleaned. Maintenance Mondays, which were supposed to be weekly but aren’t ( self forgiveness here) are for sorting and donating. Now my serial maker self has labeled bins that hold everything I find to do with one thing. Knitting,soapmaking, dyeing, cheese making, stained glass, steampunky stuff, shoe making, hat making, pottery tools …well there are about 40 of them now. My easily bored, hyper focused auto didactic life is slowly getting more organized.

  3. Being a long time designer who has struggled with ADD and messy, nice to have such wonderful relief with this article. Toward the end of the article it spoke of shuffling into a pile. And that brought back something I discovered when in military Psyops doing propaganda. Being military our offices were occasionally inspected. And a military office full of creatives was always messy. We would be on the verge of such an inspection and I would go around all the offices and put square corners on EVERYTHING. Every single thing would be “squared up” to everything else. On a quick glance it looked incredibly organized. It worked so well. Looks good was a reply we heard often. And I apply that strategy to everything. When art directing a shoot will go through and do square corners. Works every time.

Leave a Reply