HOW ADHD AFFECTS HOME ORGANIZING AND LEARN BASIC FUNCTIONS OF THE MIND: Understanding the Role of the 8 Key Executive Functions of the Mind by Lizardo Magda

Author:Lizardo, Magda [Lizardo, Magda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Task initiation is a muscle that you develop over time in each area of your life. It is harder when you have ADHD, but it is not impossible.

My third grade math students have grown up, and some of them even love math now. In most cases, it was not the math they disliked; it was learning how to augment their working memory and develop routines, systems, and strategies to make tasks that came easily for others achievable for them as well.

So let’s bring this back to organizing your home.

Here is why you need to be able to initiate tasks to get your home organized.

If this is your struggle, you may like my blog and podcast, but you still can’t start.

I know, frustrating!

My words make sense, but you aren’t making progress. WHY?!

In most cases, it is because you have too much information.

I hear all the time about how my podcasts and posts are changing people’s mindsets about getting organized. Maybe they have even had some successes, but with each new project, they really struggle to get started.

If this is you . . . you need information as you need it, not all at once.

Getting started on a project involves two things:

#1 Knowing how to do the project.

Listening to the Organize 365 podcast and reading this book are helping you learn how to organize your home. Since we are specifically talking about how to organize your home in this book, I am not going to expound on the how part of this executive function. Instead, let’s focus on #2.

#2 Sustaining attention in order to finish the task.

That’s not walking into the room to collect trash, finding a new magazine, sitting down, and reading the magazine.

You got started, you got in the room, and then you got distracted.

Work on making incremental progress versus trying to go for the dream organization look (which by the way, I haven’t been able to achieve yet, and I do this for a living).

Problem: You set unrealistic goals. “Okay, I want this to look like a Martha Stewart office. I have $25 and two hours.” Probably not going to happen, right?

Solution: Instead of saying, “How do I get this entire office done perfectly?” can you walk in and say, “What is one thing I can do in this room today to make this office more organized?”

It may be locating all the pens and pencils, testing to see if they work, and putting them all in one drawer.

Another task may be collecting all the loose papers and putting them in a box.

If you are working on your filing cabinet, a task would be to go through one file folder. Discard or shred what you no longer need and relabel the file.

Finding one task to start and complete will give you a feeling of success and motivate you to take the next step. You are building your task-initiation muscle.

Setting your ideal time to do organization-related tasks

Problem: Mornings are super hard. I don’t know very many people who’ve been diagnosed with ADHD and would consider themselves morning people.

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