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3 Easy Steps for ADHD Organization | ADHD Skills Part 3
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3 Easy Steps for ADHD Organization | ADHD Skills Part 3

Learning ADHD Skills: Organization

In this video, Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist, discusses the importance of organization for individuals with ADHD and provides three steps to help keep up with your stuff.

The Three Steps to Keep Up With Your Stuff

  • Place, retrieve, and return
  • Make a designated place for everything
  • Retrieve items from their designated place when needed
  • Return items to their designated place immediately after use
  • Organize your space intentionally
  • Decide where things should go based on frequency of use and convenience
  • Eliminate clutter and distractions by sorting and filing frequently used items and discarding unused items
  • Break it up into chunks
  • Work on organizing your living space in one-hour increments
  • Set a time limit for each task
  • Take before-and-after pictures as motivation

Why Organization is Important for Individuals with ADHD

  • Executive functions such as organization are often impaired in individuals with ADHD
  • Disorganization can cause frustration, wasted time looking for things, and frustration for those around you
  • Individuals with ADHD tend to keep things within reach due to organizational problems but need to assign places for everything

How Attention Problems Affect Organization

  • Too many things in an individual's field of vision become distractions that the brain eliminates
  • Cluttered spaces make it difficult to find specific items even if they are in plain sight
  • Sorting through interesting items during the organizing process can lead to getting sidetracked and leaving tasks unfinished

Overall, organization is crucial for individuals with ADHD. By following these three steps and being intentional about organizing your space, you can eliminate clutter and distractions while making it easier to find what you need.

The Importance of Retrieval and Return

In this section, the speaker emphasizes the importance of retrieval and return in keeping up with one's belongings.

Basic Steps for Keeping Up with Your Stuff

  • The three basic steps for keeping up with your stuff are place, retrieve, and return.
  • These steps can make a huge difference in reducing stress and frustration and freeing up time.
  • If you struggle to keep track of things like your wallet, keys, or phone, it may be helpful to get into the habit of seeing everything as needing to be retrieved and returned.
Playlists: ADHD Success Strategies: Mastering Executive Function Skills
Video description

Disorganization causes a lot of frustration and wasted time looking for things. And it can frustrate the people around you. Here are 3 steps to keep up with your stuff - Place, Retrieve and Return. See my ADHD Skills playlist for more: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLazcP3-djRZ0DuaTbD3hoJa4tT63_KkuQ The starting point for organization is making a place for everything. Even small things have a designated place. This can be a drawer for your pens, a container for your mail and a hook for your keys. When you have organizational problems, the tendency is to want to keep things within reach. So you may have a lot of clutter lying about, but you feel you need it to look like that so you can keep up with things. Well when you are assigning your places, you do want to have the things you use most often in the most convenient place or within easy view. But the placement of things needs to be a little more intentional. Once you decide where things should go, you have to commit to putting them back in their place right after you use them. So when you need something, you go retrieve it from it’s place, then you immediately return it when you’re done. Want to know more about mental health and self-improvement? On this channel I discuss topics such as bipolar disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorder (ADHD), relationships and personal development/self-improvement. I upload weekly. If you don’t want to miss a video, click here to subscribe. https://goo.gl/DFfT33 Disclaimer: All of the information on this channel is for educational purposes and not intended to be specific/personal medical advice from me to you. Watching the videos or getting answers to comments/question, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you have your own doctor, perhaps these videos can help prepare you for your discussion with your doctor.