Help with Chaos/ Disorganisation

Adults with ADHD are often surrounded by a lot of chaos and disorder. Dealing with time and planning actions become a real challenge. Disorder in the immediate environment (such as in the home) is also typical. Last but not least, there is often real mental chaos.

Typical scenarios are as follows:

• Problems timing or planning tasks
• Tasks are only completed at the last minute
• Appointments or calls are forgotten
• Objects are misplaced
• Difficulties reserving time for children, spouses, partners or creative things – Problems in relationships

Read here how you can provide more structure in your everyday life

Always make a "To-Do List" for tasks that need to be completed so you can keep track of things and be able to think more clearly about what you can do and how long it will take. Set a start and end point (time) for each task on your list. Do not forget to allow enough time for breaks between tasks.

The important thing is: Keep trying. A to-do list does not always work right away, but the more you try, the sooner your list becomes routine and provides genuine relief.

Extra tip: Unpleasant tasks should always be inserted at a fixed point in your daily and weekly structure.

Schedule regular meetings with friends. How about reserving a specific day of the week for friends or family? Try getting together for football training or just to cook together. That way, you can be sure that you do not forget the appointment.

Endurance sports are often ideal for clearing one's head or arranging thoughts with relatively little effort: Just 30 minutes of jogging can be enough! It is therefore best to regularly include endurance sports in your weekly schedule. Twice or three times a week is recommended.

Tip: In bad weather, either choose the right running clothes or go on the treadmill at the gym!

Calming down, sorting thoughts, breathing deeply - relaxing techniques can also help to control the chaos in your head. So-called mindfulness meditation in particular, which originate from Buddhism, seems to be helpful in ADHD. Autogenic training, however, often does not bring the same desired success. But even here, the following is true: Try out which techniques suit you best.

In order to get a better grip on the chaos in your own home, the following simple tricks have proven useful for tidying up:

• Start at a set time and take a certain amount of time to clean up (such as Saturday after breakfast for 30 minutes)
• Pick up each item only once – so you can tidy up, do not move things around
• Do not be distracted while cleaning up
• Always place the items in your household in specific places
• Tackle one task at a time
• With larger projects (such as cleaning out, renovations), ask others for help