Organizing With ADHD: 5 Insights That Changed My Year

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In this episode of 'Organizing an ADHD Brain,' host Megs shares heartfelt gratitude with both new and long-time listeners and reflects on the impact her podcast has had on their organizing and decluttering journeys. Megs provides insights into the challenges of procrastination, even as a professional organizer, and emphasizes the importance of building a strong foundation. She introduces five useful ADHD-friendly tips to bring into 2025, aimed at simplifying home organization, improving personal life, and boosting business efficiency. The episode also touches on forming meaningful community connections and concludes with an invitation to join Megs' upcoming group membership launching on January 15th, for ongoing support and practical tools.

01:51 Five ADHD-Friendly Tips for 2025
03:26 Cherished Holiday Memories
06:22 Tip #5
12:33 Tip #4
14:46 Tip #3
19:20 Tip #2
23:01 Tip #1
25:26 Join the Collective

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Transcript

Megs: 0:42

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to another episode of organizing an ADHD brain. I'm your host Megs if you're new here, I'm so thrilled that you're here. For those of you that have been listening for this entire year. Thank you so darn much. I love hearing how the podcast has transformed, not only the way that you handle organizing and decluttering, but also how you speak to others and communicate to others about it as well with your kids, with your spouses, it has been incredible to listen to your journey. It is Christmas week Hanukkah week. We are there we've hit it. And most of us are probably drowning in things that we've waited until the last minute to do. I'd like to tell you as a professional organizer that I figured it out. And I didn't procrastinate anything and I didn't wait until the last minute. I even planned an entire group coaching program around handling the holidays. But guess what? It's about building a foundation. And I have a lot of foundation that I've built already, but there's still places that I still need to grow. There's a lot of things that I understand how to do. And what's really hilarious is that even when I know how to do something, It's hard to convince myself that that's the right step to take sometimes. For example, I talked a lot about shopping. And being really mindful of the things that I decided to purchase for my kids this year. Okay, but I didn't really talk about rhinestones and my issue with buying sparkly things so there is that. Regardless. It's going to be an amazing year. And I'm so thrilled to continue to be the host here and to continue to have some amazing conversations. I want to talk to you about five ADHD friendly tips that I'm bringing into 2025 with me, things that I heard and learned about in 2024 that have made my life easier. That have helped me understand my own ADHD brain. To not only make it easier to organize and declutter my home. But to also run my business. Be a better mother, be a better wife. And make decisions that serve me. Instead of trying to serve everyone else and trying to predict what other people need, because guess what? We don't know what other people need, unless we confirm with them and ask questions and understand. I'm so excited about 20, 25 and what it's going to bring for the show, because there's so much more I have to share with you. I probably have about 10 interviews that I haven't dropped yet. There will also be bonus content from those shows in the group membership. So definitely keep your eyes out for that. In the interest of time and us having barely any this week and next week and throughout the holidays, I want you to turn this on while you're wrapping presents or maybe you're in a car ride somewhere. Let's hang out together for a second. Let's just take it back. Let's talk about some things that if you didn't hear it in the podcast, this last year, You can absolutely take it forward with you into 2025 to hopefully help your life be easier with ADHD as well. Before I hit you up with them. Number five, I have to share. One of my favorite. Holiday traditions that I had with my big brother when I was a kid. There's four siblings in my family. My older sister is 14 years older than me. My older brother is 10 years older than me and my other older brother is six years older than me. So. By the time I was eight, it was just me and my older brother in the household. And we had moved into my grandfather's house. And one of my favorite things that we used to do on Christmas morning is he would wake me up. Really early. And I don't even know what time it was, but we would wake up and we would sneak downstairs. And what's hilarious is there is a Creek with every step that you make in this house. Our mom was deaf. And so it was unlikely that we would wake her up with the steps that we made. And my father was pretty much mostly deaf in one ear. So it was unlikely that we would wake him up as well, but it was still this anticipation that we would wake them up and they would know that we've gone through our stockings. Most of the time, we would only wake up my mom if we turned on a light. So we had to be so sneaky as to not have anything too bright. To make sure that our parents would stay asleep. But we would go downstairs and we would unpack our entire stocking to see what we got. And then we would strategically put everything back. And I remember that I, I thought I needed to remember how everything went, because I thought that. My parents would just know they would know that something was out of place and they would call us out on it now being an adult I'm like, why, why would they care? This is such a cute little tradition. That I had with my brother, but I don't know why I was so nervous about them finding us out. To this day. I actually don't know if they know that we did that. But that was such a fond memory that I had with my big brother. I share that with you because it got me thinking about opening presents Christmas morning, and then we would take those presents and. We would leave them in the living room for as long as we possibly could. Until our mom told us that we needed to bring it up to our room. To get absorbed into the clutter and craziness that was upstairs. I won't speak for my brother, but I will speak for me. I remember I would get one of those. White flimsy cardboard boxes for some sort of clothing item that I got. And I would put all of the little stocking stuffers in there. And that's where I would play with them. I would keep them in the living room because I just didn't want to bring them upstairs. To get absorbed into the room because once I brought them upstairs, I would try to keep them in that box again, but it just wasn't as magical anymore. Anyways, let's talk about five ADHD friendly tips. Coming in at number five. Is start. Small. And I know most of you hate this because I kind of hate it. I love to do big things. I love to dream big and my brain is perfect for over-complicating every single thing in my life. Because I'm thinking of every single little detail and all the things that could go wrong. And everything that could go right. I've thought about all the colors. I've thought about all the different ways that we could put things and this and that. I love to overcomplicate things. And we do that in our homes. When it comes to clutter. When we look at clutter, it is this one whole big thing that we have to do. And if we start doing this, then we have to do that. Right. Like if we're going to go through the paperwork, well, then we need to have a filing system that works. And in order to have a filing system that works, we need to go through our existing filing system to ensure that we have a system. But to go through the system, we need to go through all the paperwork that's in there already. And we need to make sure that we shred anything that, has certain financial information on it. But in order to do that, we need to find a place to go shred it, or we have to buy a shredder so on and so on and so forth. And so we create this trail in our mind of the things that we have to do and the things that we think we need to do in order to get started. Which prevents us from getting started. And so that's why I say this is so incredibly important. Sometimes when I feel paralyzed and I feel like there's a lot on my plate. I don't feel like I can take any steps. I feel like there's so many things that I have to do. That, how could I possibly start on just one? Except that while we think we're good multitaskers. We're not actually good multitaskers. Humans with ADHD and humans without ADHD. Should still only focus on one thing at a time. When we're doing something. And we're pretty used to trying to focus on so many things at once. I still to this day, think that I can watch TV while playing on my phone. It's impossible. What I will say is I can record podcast episodes while playing with silly putty. So you're listening to that happen right now. I repeat all the time. If everything is important, then nothing is important. So think about if all of the clutter in your home right now is important to take care of, to get rid of, to organize, to put away in a home. Then none of it is important. Which means that none of it is going to get done. To the same point. If you start in the kitchen. And end up in the living room and then in the laundry room and then in your bedroom and then in your kid's room. Doing one thing in each area. None of it will show up as something done. Because it's so minimal. That is still a foundation. And that's still something to be grateful for. It's still something to celebrate. But when we start to prioritize and I know we're not great with that either. That's okay. When we start to think about where, would it feels the best. To have a clear space first. And we allow ourselves to put blinders on and just focus on that. It is so incredibly helpful. And I'll use my membership as a great example of that. When I first started this podcast and I started my business, I was trying to do everything for everyone. I wanted to interview everyone. I wanted to work in everyone's home. I wanted to network with everyone but until I started to put boundaries on my life. Just like I put boundaries in my home on the things that I focus on. That is when I started to see some real results because I started to write down. The things that meant the most to me, the things that I wanted to focus on, the things that I wanted to spend more time. With. That this even comes down to all the things that I'm interested in. All of my hobbies, like I have a cricket, I love to paint. I love to do art projects with my kids. I love to sing. I love to garden. I love to be outside. I love to hike. I love to play with my dogs. I love cats. I love interior decoration. I love playing around in my closet. I love shopping and I love putting on my clothes, but I can't do all of that at once. And if all of that is important, then none of it is important. And that's what I love about our brains too, is that it's easy to focus on one thing. For a little bit, and then we get bored with it and then we can go to the next thing. But if we're trying to do so much all at once, There's too much going on in our lives. Anyways, still hanging out at number five. This is where you just do one thing. This is where you start to take action. And I know you're probably thinking, yeah, but what one thing do I do? It doesn't matter. You can do anything. If you're sitting on the couch, you don't know what to do. The first thing you could do is stand up. That's one thing. The next thing you could do is go pour yourself a glass of water. The next thing is drink that glass of water. The next thing you could do is make a list, dump everything that you want to do out on to a list of things to do. And then pick something off the list. It doesn't matter again, it does not matter. Just do one thing. And when you start to do one thing, it'll help propel you into doing the other things. Number four. Drink a glass of water. Before you drink your coffee. This is from my friend, Mary Beth, who has the podcast, the fierce framework. She's incredible. And one thing she shared when I interviewed her earlier this year. Is that she always drinks a glass of water before she has coffee in the morning. It's part of her routine it's a beautiful way to remember the different things that you want to do. Something that I do before I go to bed at night is I brush my teeth and brushing my teeth triggers me. To remember that while I'm brushing my teeth, I'm going to put away the things that I have on my countertop. Sometimes creating new habits can be very difficult for us. Which is okay.'cause that's normal. Even neuro-typical people have trouble forming habits. But when it comes to routines in setting up new ways of doing things. Give it a trigger. Before I go outside during the day, I'm going to put sunscreen on. I heard one on a podcast today. That was before I go on social media. I'm going to meditate for 10 minutes. Before I start my day, I'm going to journal for 10 minutes. Before I go to bed at night. I'm going to. Do shoulder exercises. That's one I'm doing right now. Figure out what is something that could trigger you into doing one thing? That could be very important to you. Hey quick pause. If you're loving this episode, or if this podcast has helped you in some way. I'd really appreciate. If you could take a moment to leave a review. The reviews help more amazing women like you or people like you find this podcast and feel supported on their ADHD, organizing and decluttering journey. It only takes a minute, but it means the world to me and bonus, it gives me a little dopamine boost. Every time I read one. So, if you haven't already just scroll down in your app, hit those stars. And share what you love about the show. Thanks so much for being here with me. You're the best. Number three. I do the best you can. Until, you know, better. And when you know, better. Do better. I relate this one, a lot to parenting with ADHD, for kids who are neurodivergent. I interviewed mindful as a mother. They're incredible. So go follow them on social media. They also have a podcast and I took their parenting course this year. And one thing that they said to me that. Resonated with me so much. I had this experience with Charlotte one morning where she was eating a. A bar for breakfast. It was a Z bar. If you're familiar with them. And I looked at her and I was like, why are you eating that for breakfast? We don't eat that for breakfast. And then she proceeded to have an entire meltdown. Which was a lot. But I talked to them about that experience and they said, well, you needed to have that experience in order to figure out what happened there. Why didn't you want. Charlotte to have a Z VAR for breakfast. Why was that a demand that you had what's important to you? And it was a way for me to ask some of these really important questions that I needed to ask myself to understand why I told her no. Which allowed me to then have a conversation with her about why I feel it's important that if she's going to have something like that for breakfast, I want it to be accompanied with a piece of fruit. Because something that I like to teach my kids is that what you put in your body is fuel for not only be your brain, but for your soul, for you to be able to do these things that you want in life. But anyways, the reason why I'm using this as an example is. I didn't know. Why I told her no. But as soon as I started talking about it and understood more of the reasoning, why. I did the things that I did. I was able to show up as a better mom. To communicate what I needed from my daughter so that she could understand. And know how to put the right things in her body. we're teaching them for the future so that they can make good decisions when they are eventually adults. I think it's fascinating because we're not raising kids. We're raising adults, we're raising these kids that are going to go off on their own one day. And I want them to know why I'm doing certain things. And honestly, I had no idea why I was doing certain things. I've also had so many people come to me this year. They know I have a podcast on ADHD and they say, Hey. I think my child has ADHD. And I feel like such a bad parent because I went so long without knowing. Look, my parents went their whole lives without knowing I had ADHD and I turned out fine. each person that told me that. I said, Hey, it's okay. You now know that your child is neurodivergent. This is an opportunity for you to learn and not to learn everything all at once, because gosh, there's a lot to learn, but to learn things in time that work for you. And what's interesting about this too, is that now you have to change what, you know. And just knowing that in your brain isn't enough it's the actions that you put behind it. So while this has a lot to do with me in parenting. This also has everything to do with organizing and decluttering. Keep doing it. And when you do it start to address, why did I do it that way? What worked, what did not work? And now knowing what I know, how can I approach this differently in the future?'cause some of it worked. Some of it didn't maybe none of it worked, but you're still building on a foundation that failure, or that mistake that you made is an opportunity for you to grow from. Because you're understanding. What's not going to work again in the future. You know what doesn't work. Emptying an entire closet for you to clean and organize for an entire day. And expect everyone to know exactly how it works. Once you've overcomplicated everything and changed everything about the function of it. That comes back to my number five tip, which is start small. Take baby steps. Number two, and this is one of my favorite ones. I interviewed Jenna free earlier this year and she's on social media. At. ADHD with Jenna free. She talks a lot about regulation and regulation in ADHD. Our brains tend to be faster than normal. And with our brains going that fast, we try to match the speed of our brains with our bodies. Which means that even for a simple task, like washing the dishes or getting your kids off to school. We are rushing. We're in a perpetual state of rushing. I've seen it with my family. I've also seen it in myself. And we've started to do some things in our household where my children will actually ask me, Hey mom, are we in a rush right now? I've given them permission to say that because. It allows me to check in with myself and say, oh, Are we. So the number two tip here is to allow yourself and give yourself permission to slow down. More importantly, remind yourself that you're not in a rush. To get where you're going. The example I always like to think of here is if you're diving down a road and someone speeds past you on the left-hand side, and then you end up at the same stoplight about a mile down the road. They were going so much faster than you. And yet here you are at the same transition point. When I tell you to remind yourself to slow down it's not necessarily about doing less. Because if you tell me that you should do less. I kind of want to punch you in the face because that's not the way that I operate. I like to do more. There's a lot that I want to do. There's a lot that I'm capable of doing, and you are not the boss of me. At the same point. When we're dysregulated and when we're constantly go, go, go, go, go. We're following breadcrumbs, we're following the next things that we need to do. We give ourselves no time to check in. With what we're doing. Why we're doing it. And why we're rushing. Doing it at the same time. Which means that sometimes we get stuck doing something. That we didn't even give ourselves a chance to ask. Oh, my gosh, is this something that I need to be doing right now? Or am I avoiding doing something else by doing this? It's such an incredible tool. It's pretty powerful to remind yourself to slow down. I'm telling you that from experience, because I have been doing that since the episode with Jenna. And it's incredible. Even during the holidays, do it now. There's wrapping gifts and I I sanded, stained and made these cute little mountains for my neighbors and friends. And those are things that I wanted to do. I genuinely wanted to do. And. As I was preparing them last night and doing things that I need to do for my business. I just reminded myself to slow down. I'm not in any rush. There's no rush to get these things done. None of my friends or family are on a deadline. I am. Okay. I'm safe. And I'll often repeat that to my kids too. You're safe. You're in a safe space right now. It's okay. That we're not rushing. It's okay. If we don't get this done right away. And it's okay that we write things down to remind ourselves if we're afraid that we might forget it. And number one. on my list. Is community. Is everything. I can't tell you how many things I've learned this year. From talking to people with ADHD. I can't tell you how much better I've felt. From being amongst other neurodivergent moms in a parenting course. From talking to other neurodivergent organizers. From talking to other people that don't know if they have ADHD, but they're just so incredibly curious because they felt like they haven't fit in their entire life. I finally, this year don't feel so alone.'cause I've talked to so many other people that are just like you and me figuring it out. And doing it with these incredible tools. That so many other professionals out there are providing, but even more importantly, Finding friends. That understand how your brain works. And gosh, is it so much more comfortable to hang out with them? It's not that I don't love my neuro-typical people don't get me wrong, it's just people who are neurodivergent get you in a completely different way. My bookkeeper is neurodivergent. My assistant is neurodivergent and they get me and it's fascinating. I interviewed Russ from the ADHD big brother earlier this year. And he invited me into his community to not only talk about organizing and host some decluttering sessions. But in that I've gotten to see how incredible it is to have a community for people with ADHD. Where people are sharing their wins, their successes, and people are pumping them up when they feel like they don't have wins. And they feel like they're not making any progress towards their goals. They're reminded that they absolutely are. So as we wrap up today, I want to leave you with this community. Is everything. It's the number one tool I turned to and I truly believe it's where we as women with ADHD thrive. Surrounding ourselves with people who get it, who understand our challenges and celebrate our wins. Can make all the difference in staying consistent, trying again, and continuing to grow. And that's exactly why I created my group membership. It's launching on January 15th and I'd love for you to join us inside. You'll find a supportive community. Practical tools and guidance to help you stay on track and feel less alone in your organizing journey. If that sounds like what you've been looking for. Head to mindful megs.com forward slash collective. To join the wait list. This is your chance to take that first step toward creating an organized life, surrounded by women who truly understand. There's power in doing this together. Thank you so much for tuning in this week, especially the week that all the holidays commence it's the grand finale. Of everything that we've been working up to this week. I really appreciate you tuning in, and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your holiday season. Next week. We're going to talk about how I honestly feel about new year's resolutions. See you soon.