if you have ADHD and struggle with cleaning/keeping things clean, I’m going to offer some aggressively practical advice that may or may not work but has been so helpful for me to keep a base level of tidiness without losing a whole day to cleaning hyperfocus or ending up stressed to the point of crying about how much stuff I have to deal with.
(It’s best suited if you’re in your own apartment/house and have multiple rooms to manage.) But just start moving. Walk around your place. Put on some music or a YouTube video or whatever floats your boat in your headphones and go for a stroll. See some scissors on the coffee table? Snag em on your way by and drop them off where they go. A dish in your bedroom? Bring that bad boy to the sink as you round the corner. Going room by room or breaking tasks into smaller chunks honestly just stresses me out more lmao but wandering around aimlessly emptying trash bins and tossing socks into the hamper as I notice them?? Now I’m just playing one of those object spotter games babey. No pressure there. If I’m feeling extra ambitious I’ll carry a trash bag with me. Can’t get overwhelmed by a room if I leave it two seconds later. Something doesn’t have a place to go? Make one! Or leave it! Who cares!
A bonus tip is to go to Target or Goodwill or Homegoods or any place that has cheap bins/baskets (little ones that you’d keep pencils or rolls of tape or something in not large storage totes) and keep a few sets on hand. If you realize you’ve accumulated a comical number of sharpies you can go grab a little pencil tray for them and suddenly they have a place to go and now when you find a sharpie on the ground you can toss it in the sharpie bin. Doesn’t matter if the sharpie bin is still on the ground, I’m not going to slip and die in a marker-based Looney Tunes incident and I know if I need a sharpie I go to the spot on the floor next to my bookshelf.
And if you go for a walk and don’t pick up anything that’s also fine you at least moved around a bit. Familiarized yourself with the landscape.
It also tricks my brain into seeing “moving from one room to the other = picking up a few things to put away” which just generally helps keep piles from getting out of hand.
Once I’ve made a few laps things are generally tidy enough to do the same thing with vacuuming/wiping down surfaces/dusting etc.
(side note but if you’re in HS/otherwise living with your parents and being constantly squished under a hydraulic press of shame and pressure about your inability to keep your room clean without actually being given coping skills or help, I see you and I love you and I was you and having a messy living space is not actually a moral failing it’s just a thing that happens sometimes)














