Decluttering Together: Building Better Communication in ADHD Families

In this episode of 'Organizing an ADHD Brain,' the host reflects on a recent 'Plan Your Year' event with friends.

The Fierce Framework < MY friend Marybeth
Boost Your Week with Ignited Decisions < MY friend Shauna

She shares insights about planning and the tendency to overcommit, a common challenge for people with ADHD. The host discusses the difficulties of decluttering and organizing the home, emphasizing the importance of communication with family members. She recounts a personal experience of putting away holiday decorations, revealing the miscommunications and learning outcomes with her husband. The episode highlights the need for regulating emotions, setting clear intentions, and maintaining open, curious conversations to align household efforts in decluttering and organizing. Finally, the host invites listeners to join her membership for more personalized guidance and tools.

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02:46 Decluttering and ADHD Challenges
05:40 Communication with Family
09:02 Christmas Decoration Stories
13:07 Effective Communication Strategies
18:04 Building a Strong Foundation in Communication
18:51 Reflecting on Household Responsibilities
22:29 The Importance of Emotional Regulation
23:26 Setting Intentions for Conversations
24:19 Engaging in Effective Communication
26:22 Involving Family in the Decluttering Process
32:09 Final Thoughts and Support Resources

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Transcript

Yeti Stereo Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: 0:42

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome to another week of organizing an ADHD brain. Do we ever stop organizing our ADHD brains? Or just continue to let them flow in the wind. As they prefer to be. Last week. I dropped that episode with Dana K white and it was incredible. Thank you so much for tuning in. The podcast is growing and I can't thank you enough for not only listening, but also sharing it with people who you feel could benefit from this as well? So many people have told me that people who don't have ADHD can also benefit from this podcast. So if you can share this with someone you feel could resonate with this message, that would be incredible. Thank you so much. There are lots of big changes happening in this household where we took all our Christmas decorations down were getting ready for 2025. And this past weekend. I attended a plan your year event. I've never done anything like this before, although I've planned ahead. And I've also not planned ahead. Truly candid. I've never done it in this capacity before it was put on by my friend, the fierce framework. She is another podcast host and she also happens to have autism and ADHD. Her podcast is awesome. Go check it out. I'll go ahead and drop the link in the show notes below. We were also joined by another friend of ours she has a podcast as well called ignited decisions. Also has some delicious ways to look at your life from a new perspective, understanding that you can get the shit done. Anyway, the plan, your year event was incredible. I have a lot that's planned for the year. And what was really interesting about it. Is, I was so excited to just get everything planned and ready to do, ready to go, ready to attack with my whole heart. And as we got down to the day to day planning activities, I started to realize that maybe I had added too much to my plate. Without actually realizing it. One thing I've noticed is I don't like it when someone else tells me that I'm doing too much. However true. It may be. And I might even know it, but I don't want you to tell me. Part of it is because I know that I could do it all. And I also know that I would burn out. I also know that I would probably, neglect myself in the process, likely not spend as much time with my family, so on and so on. So it was an incredible event and it was also just. Very insightful for myself to understand what I might be able to take on in the next year. This translates very well into what we think we can get done in decluttering our home in a year. We have an all or nothing mentality. We want to get it all done. We've got the greatest ideas. And then putting them into action and actually executing on them can be difficult. We want to get it all done at once. And if we stop. In the middle of the momentum. Sometimes we don't even go back to that project. Realistically, we all know that you can't declutter your home. In a day. Some of us might think that we can get it done in a week. If we take a week off from work and we work really hard at it every single day. But then we forget what our ADHD brains are like sometimes. And if we're taking a week off shouldn't we recharge just a little bit. We get that permission, right. And if it took this long to bring stuff into our home, How long is it going to take to get stuff out? As we attack this year, as we think about organizing our homes and letting go and decluttering and organizing our brains, finding a way to work with ourselves and not against ourselves. I have heard so often. That sometimes what gets in our way is not ourselves. But our families. And our spouse. Today in particular, I'm going to talk about our significant others. And now I think a lot of this can be applied to our children as well, or whomever else is living in your household because we've got so many multi-generational households out there. But I'm going to be talking in the case of our spouses. I also want to remind you that this week my membership opens and I'm so excited. I can't wait to meet you. I've got some delicious stuff prepared, including something special from this episode specifically. I also saw that someone recently was interested in the dopamine menu on my website, but couldn't find it. So for those of you that are new or haven't heard before. I have a free dopamine menu download, and it's just a menu that you can fill out. The first page is an introduction and how to fill out a dopamine menu and a link to an article on why this is super helpful for your ADHD brain. That dopamine menu, when you go to www dot mindful Meg dot com. That's my website and you'll reach the main page and on the main page. If you wait for just a second. There will be a pop-up that says get your free dopamine menu. And then you put in your information, it'll be sent straight to you. And if you don't like my emails just opt out. That's totally fine. I don't mind at all. If you're right for me, you're right for me. And if I'm not your person, I am not even remotely offended. That's totally okay. The dopamine menu is there to support you. Okay, so let's talk about. Our families. The biggest thing I want to talk about today is communication. And communicating effectively. What we want from our families and our significant others. As we make changes in our household, that we've dedicated ourselves to making so many of us have had on our resolutions for years. I want to be more organized. I want to have less, I want to be able to have people over without feeling shame. I want to be able to. Clean up in 15 minutes at night without feeling like I have hours of work to do. Some of the things that I've heard from clients and listeners and people who are trying to make bigger changes in their life. Are that when they finally start to throw things away, their spouse comes and take something out of the trash and says, I need this. This is something that we could use. Maybe your spouse has ADHD as well, or maybe they have a trauma response to getting rid of stuff. There's a lot that could go into it. Maybe it's that you spent a weekend organizing a closet, you emptied out the entire thing and put it back together with intricate systems. And now people aren't respecting what you did. They're putting things back in places that they don't go and they're putting things away or putting things on top of things that don't go anywhere. And now you feel like you failed. Some people have told me that. Others just aren't willing to make a change like you're ready, but the rest of your family just is not. There's so many reasons why this could be so like a fear of change. Fear of change is real. Whereas change is the only constant. We can rely on. And you either change with the world and the life around you or. You choose to try to stay the same, resisting the change all at once. The fear of change is real. We're so comfortable where we are. We're comfortable being full of clutter. It's not because we want it. It's not because we don't want to change. It's not because we don't want something different, but being different. Means that you have to put yourself intention. I've talked about this before, right? When you put yourself intention, your body is intention. There's tension in your life because you are changing. What is the norm for you and your family? And that can be scary. There's a lack of communication and the communication is what we're going to be talking about today. Oftentimes, we make these decisions about our lives and ourselves without telling anyone else what we're doing. There's nothing wrong with that. Research shows that people with ADHD have trouble communicating because of so many of our other symptoms impulsivity. Executive function. Not being able to break things down or we're getting so excited that we're interrupting a conversation because we feel like we need to say what we need to say now, otherwise we're going to forget it. We also speak in tangents. But there's a lot that impedes our ability to communicate. It does not mean that we can't communicate. It just means that it's important that we try to communicate in a way that's going to work for us and our families. So I want to tell you a little bit about Christmas decorating. Cause I talked a lot about this before the holidays, so. Before the holidays came. I got out all of my Christmas decorations and as I was putting them out, I was very purposeful to also evaluate if it was something I was going to use or not. And so the first day I put out some of the items I knew I wanted to put out. Once those were up and the decorations were finalized. I looked at the rest of my decorations and I picked a few more things to put out. I went through Christmas ornaments. I went through the decorations that I wasn't going to use, and I donated them. I got them in the donation box. I put them outside. And I brought them when I was ready to take my donations in. So I felt really, really prepared for everything that was out. And then I had this grand idea in my mind. About how we were going to put the Christmas decorations away. And we talked about it one morning. Me and my husband said like, Hey, it might be time to take the Christmas decorations down, but we didn't talk about a time. We didn't talk about a place. We didn't talk about a. You know, the, when or the how or what that was gonna look like. We just talked about it. And then I went off to yoga. And then when I got back from yoga, The Christmas tree was taken down. All the ornaments were put away. And we still had decorations up, but that felt incredible. My husband had even moved our couch back into the living room and got it set up the way that we had talked about. So all was good. We still have Christmas decorations up. Then the next week. As I was walking through the house, I started taking Christmas decorations down, but not all at once. I would do it here in increments, because most of the time. When I'm taking things down. I miss something. So I decided to do it over the course of a couple of days, but I didn't tell anyone. I just started doing it. And I started putting everything on the shelf in the hallway. And then one day. Everything was put away. I was like, oh, this is amazing. Thank you so much. And I thanked my husband for putting things away. And at the same time. I had had a plan. And now my plan was foiled because my plan was to put things back and maybe even get rid of half of more of our decorations. Based on what our plans might be for the next year. What if we don't want to have as much, what if we want to have less? And I had thought about maybe a couple of weeks earlier. Maybe even going down to one box of Christmas decoration. And those of you that have an entire basement full of Christmas decorations. That's okay. We're at different places in our life. And that is fine. Okay. This still applies to you. My girls were looking for something that we needed in the Christmas box the other day. And I walked downstairs And I saw the state of the Christmas boxes. No, no shame to my husband. This is not on him in any way. He put the stuff away and it was incredible. And I couldn't find the thing that I wanted for my girls. Okay, this is a tangent. This is ADHD. Okay. What I have to tell you. Okay. So we have, you know, those lights that you stick in the ground right in front of your house, and it makes like a cool, pretty Sparkly. Pattern on the front of your house. We never put ours out anymore, but we use it in the house and we stick it on a chair so that it shines on the wall. We turn off all the lights and we have a dance party and it's so fun. Oh, we had done it a couple times and then we put it away. But that is supposed to go in the Christmas light box. And it wasn't in the Christmas light box. So that annoyed me. And then I saw that things had not been put away. In a way that I would have done it. Okay. This is important. I'm not judging me or my husband. I'm making an observation. Okay. I'm at a judged initially. Totally fine. Then today I had a conversation with my husband. And we talked about. This situation. And some more. And I started by telling my husband my intention. I said, Hey. I want you to know that I appreciate you putting all the Christmas stuff away. And you didn't do anything wrong in what I'm about to say next. It already sounds like I'm about to say something wrong, right? Like I. I always feel like I want to know what people are saying before they say it because I want to correct my behavior before people say it. That's probably, that's my people pleaser nature and, So naturally conversations like this are going to be hard because I want to find a solution, but again, I just went in with the intention of, Hey, I'd love to find a way for us to communicate better. About putting things away and organizing in a way that works for both of us. Are you prepared to have this conversation with me right now? And he's like, yeah, sure. Right. No big deal. Easy. So I, I told him a little bit about the situation. I said, Hey, we got everything out. It was awesome. This is what I had done to let things go. And then we were putting things away and I had the intention of trying to downsize more, trying to figure out if we really needed these things. And really just understanding what we want from all of this stuff in the future. Does everything need this amount of detail? Nope. That was my idea. Right. And my ideas are worth talking about. So I asked him, when you put the stuff away, did you see if there were any labels on the boxes? And he's like, I just knew that they were Christmas boxes. And I knew that the stockings would go in with the ornaments because. Those were because I just remember that's how it was when we got them out this year. I said, okay. But did you look for labels that might have. You know, what is in each box and he's like, no, I didn't look for labels. I said, okay. I said, what about the Christmas light box? Do you know where that is? He's like, well, I'm not done taking Christmas lights down. So the Christmas lights are in a tote in the garage. I was like, cool. Do you know where the Christmas light box is? And he's like, no, I don't even know what it looks like. Like cool. So. We happened to be driving at this time. And our girls were needing our attention in the back. So not only am I trying to have this conversation and then remember it in a way that I could deliver it on a podcast to show you what happened and how it worked and blah, blah, blah. But I started getting agitated and I communicated that right away. And I was like, Hey, I'm getting frustrated with this with our situation right now. So let's pause for a second and we paused. And my husband told me that he thought I was getting mad at him. And I was like, oh no, that's so important that you said that because I'm not getting mad at you. I am getting agitated with getting interrupted. I don't like getting interrupted when I want to have. A conversation. I think it's important to be able to see it through and to not have our brains going in so many different directions. So 10 minutes later. I wasn't agitated anymore. And I asked, Hey, I don't feel agitated anymore, but are you okay if we were to continue this conversation? Right? Cause like this is a two-way street. It's not just about me, but I also have to respect. Where I'm at in my brain and what I can handle in certain situations. Cool. Awesome. So we continued the conversation and I asked him, you know, what could I have done differently to communicate what I wanted with all this stuff and how to put it away? He's like, well, I don't know, because we were having people over and it needed to be put away and I was like, yeah, that's a good call. Part of it is just finding the time to talk and. Get into a rhythm where we are having these conversations about what we want to do in our home. And we had done that, but not with a ton of intention.

Yeti Stereo Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera-1: 17:53

Quick interruption in the show. I want to take a quick moment to talk about something that means the world to me. Your reviews. Reviews or like fuel for this podcast, they help more amazing people like you discover it. And remind me why I'm sharing this journey here with you. I want to give a big shout out to simply Leanne for their thoughtful review. They wrote. Hearing someone say you can declutter be organized and have ADHD. Is so empowering love having others to do this journey with girl. Thank you so much. If you found value in this podcast. I'd be so grateful. If you take a moment to leave a quick review. Wherever you're listening or share this with someone you feel like the message could resonate with, who knows. You might even hear your words. And if future episode. Now let's get back to it.

Yeti Stereo Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: 18:46

So I feel like we're building on a pretty strong foundation where we don't get mad at each other when we're talking. So please know that if you get angry at your spouse, when you're having these conversations, that's okay. But part of this is just going in curious, I made the comment that I feel like. The organizing falls on me. Like decluttering our home and getting it to the point where it feels organized falls on me. And it's not because he makes me feel that way. It's just because of life and. I'm the woman, right? I'm the one who's managing our household. So I should be in charge of all of that. There's a lot of ingrained beliefs in there. So it didn't even cross my mind to truly ask him for more help. So we continued to talk and he said, I don't know that I would feel comfortable helping, because I don't want to do it in a way that doesn't make sense to you, or I don't want to mess up. And. That felt really real to me too. I've noticed that I love to be in control of situations. I said this earlier, right? I want to know what you expect from me before you say it out loud, because I don't want anyone to ever criticize me. That is a scary thing. I, and I would rather know what you want from me before. But that doesn't always happen. My husband has ADHD too and it's so important that we're recognizing that in each other, because it helps us show up for one another, a little bit better. Then I was reflecting on this time where we are all in the basement together a couple of weeks ago. And we have this little crawl space that's above the basement area. And he was helping me clean it all out. I was handing him things. The girls were down there playing. We were getting things done. And as we walked back upstairs, I just remember feeling so grateful that we had all worked together. I didn't feel like I was trying to complete a project. I was just moving through the motions of getting through a project. And I had my husband who was supporting me through that as well. So I did ask do you want to help me declutter and organize? And he goes, well, I mean, there's things that I'd rather be doing. Yeah. There's things I'd rather be doing too. But after I had reflected on that basement thing, he said, yeah. And it would get done in faster time if we did it together. And then if we're talking through things, So I don't have the issue where my husband will pull things out of the trash and. And prevent me from getting rid of something. And it's kind of funny that every once in a while, when I have trouble letting go of something, yes, I do coach people through letting go. And I can support you through the process. But when it comes to my own emotions, I still have to walk through. What I have let go of and ask some of these questions to myself. So that I can get past the emotional attachment to it. And my husband actually helps me through that. He is a phenomenal standup. Super handsome guy. So very, very grateful. This might not be the case for all of you. And so I wanted to share that with you because. While that conversation went incredibly well. And in the end, I realize that I like to control a lot of things. And when I let go of control over situations, not only does my life become a little bit easier because I asked for help and I get help. But then I can start to see things in new and different ways. I honestly have not taken enough time to truly communicate. The things that I want to happen in our home. What a learning experience. This has been for me. But while this has had such a positive outcome and an outcome that I didn't necessarily expect in us organizing together, I also realize. How uncomfortable it was, it felt so uncomfortable. And that's normal. As you're communicating, because communication is going to be essential to your success. As you're going through your house and especially if you have older kids and people who do whatever they want, wherever they want on whatever they want, it's so important that you tell people what your desires are. As you approach a conversation with your significant other, I want you to notice. And be aware of a couple of things. The first thing is your. Mental stability. Are you dysregulated? And ready to lash out or rationally. That's not the greatest time to have a conversation. Believe it or not. If you want production to happen from it. If you are frustrated, that is the time that you're going to step away. We can get dysregulated. And those are the times that we say things that we don't necessarily mean. And that's the time we step away. And we find a way to be quiet with ourselves. Maybe you take a bath, maybe you crawl into the corner of your closet and have a good cry. Whatever you need to do. Do that first. When you feel like you're emotionally ready to have a conversation, ask if your significant others is as well. So start with your emotional regulation. Okay. So you're both ready to have this conversation. Now you're going to set your intentions for the conversation. What is your intention for the end of this conversation? Hey, I want to talk to you about organizing today because. That's something I would like to change in our lives. We have a lot of stuff in our home. It feels overwhelming. It does feel like it's my responsibility. And I would love to talk to you more about what my goals look like and how you might be able to support me through that goal. If you're willing. Okay. So start with that intention. What does that intention look like? Write it down. Maybe you journal about it. That's okay. Save this episode. Maybe you send this episode to them. I be like, Hey, I want to have a conversation with you, but I'm going to send you this first because these are the steps I'm going to follow. Okay. Cool. All right. So now you are in a good mood. And you've set an intention. And now. You are going to start talking. But you were going to talk with also the intention. Of listening. Listening, but what if I have an idea and I have to say it right away, I get it. Totally get it because you will. You will have an idea and guess what? If you forget it. Cool. Because how many other ideas have you forgotten? Yeah. Are they the greatest ideas in the entire world? Absolutely. But will you have another one in five seconds also? Yes. Okay, it'll come back and if it doesn't. That's okay. You are still you and you're incredible. And you've got so many other incredible things to say, So you're going to start. By talking about your idea. Hey. I'm so excited about getting decluttered this year. What are your thoughts on this? Going curious, right? That is going to be the next step. Now you start asking questions and they're going to start asking questions too. That's the biggest thing. It's a back and forth. And if they say something that feels strange to you or you don't feel like, you know what they mean? Clarify. Like, I don't like that. You're decluttering. Okay. Tell me why you don't like the idea of decluttering. Would you like to be a part of this process? Maybe you could even ask in the beginning. What would you like your role to be in decluttering, letting go and getting our home a bit more organized. Would you like me to start to talk about where things go and where we might be able to find things. Are there any concerns you have about me letting go of things? Another part of this communication aspect is that we think we know the answer. To everyone's problems because this home is our home. We manage it. This is our small business. Right now we have an inventory of stuff that we have to manage. Along with the people in it. And we think that we know how it's going to work perfectly. Now we might be in charge. But that does not mean that we know how things are going to work. This incredible woman I talked to the other day in Texas was telling me about how, when she listened to my podcast on her daughter, cleaning her room. She said I had tried so many things and it would not stay clean. It wasn't until I asked her. What. What she wanted and what would work for her? That she truly started to make changes that would actually work for her. And I was so honored that worked in her space. I was working in the garage over the summer and my husband works for a brewery. So he has a bunch of like cool stuff that he can hand out on a regular basis, like stickers and coasters and. All kinds of stuff and I was organizing it in the garage. I was coming up with a system for him on how he could. Like do this when he was going to different events and different clients and things like that. And then. And then I asked him. I started asking him questions about like what he would need. And he told me how he runs his business and what he does. And I was like, oh my gosh, nothing I would have done would have been a solution for him. It wouldn't have made his life harder. He would have been able to find things easier, but it wouldn't have been in a system environment that would work for him. Whereas after I talked to him, We were able to set it up so much more effectively. It was really cool. So by asking questions, we get diverse perspectives and opinions on how things should be run or how things could be run in a different way. So even your kids might have ideas. It's okay to ask them. And guess what? When people feel like they're a part of the solution. Guess what they become a part of. The process. To get to that darn solution. And what a cool thing to be doing this as a family. It's pretty powerful. So some questions that you could ask here are. What frustrates you the most about this space? What's the one thing you'd like to see change in the next month. One thing, not 18 things you. How can I make this easier for you? Or maybe you ask them. Hey, is there any way that you might be able to make this easier for me? And for the spouse, that's pulling things out of the garbage that you finally made a decision to let go of. Hey. What's hard about letting this go. And how could I make that easier for you? You know, there's going to be a lot of things that we make the case for. I might need that in the future. But yeah, we might need a lot of things. There's a lot of things that we don't have that we might need in the future. That doesn't mean that we go out and shop for more. And it's okay that you let go of something that you do end up needing in the future, because guess what? You could go out and buy it again. The whole process of letting go is a lot more than just adding a little sprinkling on at the end of this episode, which I need to sum up my goodness. As women it's so easy. It's so easy to take control of the situation happening in our home. It's so easy to take on all the responsibility because we think we should. It is so easy to say, this is our job, and everyone else will just fall in line behind me because I have to do it. And no one else should have to do it there's so much power in inviting your family into the process, inviting your kids, inviting your spouse. And part of it is asking them the question, if you were trying to look for this, where would you go look for it first? sometimes we feel the need to communicate when we were in a dysregulated state. I'm just here to remind you. That is not going to be the time. That people want to listen to what you have to say. Being angry and yelling about what you want. Is not a good way to effectively communicate. It's not a good way. To collaborate with the people that you love. Things will work so much better when you take some time to truly communicate what you want and need. And then ask them what they want and need.'cause I bet. It's likely many of the same things. I also mentioned earlier that as I was having this conversation with my husband, I got agitated and it wasn't because of him. It was because of where we were. There were a lot of distractions. There were things happening. That I felt like I could not continue the conversation. Without something else in the conversation, maybe triggering me into getting more angry. I didn't want that, that wasn't part of the outcome I wanted. So I made a decision to stop the conversation. Luckily, my husband was okay with that, but also if I had come back to the conversation, said, Hey, do you want to still continue to talk? And he wasn't ready. Okay. So now we've got to find some space where we're both ready to have that conversation at the same time. Be okay with this not going well, because it's something that you're learning and growing toward. Changes in your household take time and patients and you might actually have to communicate this 5, 10, 15 times for people to finally understand and to listen to you. But keep doing it. It's a skill that you can build Start small, keep talking and just celebrate every little win. I invite you to have a conversation. With your family this week. What's one conversation you could have this week to make organizing a little easier in your household. Before we wrap up today, I want to remind you of a few ways to stay connected and get even more support. If today's episode hit home for you or you're ready to dive deeper. I'd love to help you through my upcoming membership, which opens this. Wednesday. You can join the waitlist@mindfulmegs.com forward slash collective. To be the first to grab a spot. I have founding member pricing available until January 31st. So like I said, that drops on the 15th. And one of the first downloads and supportive tools I have available to you as I've put together a way to plan out your conversation. Because yes, planning out our conversations can be very, very helpful Based on the podcast episode, I just delivered to you today. So that will be a downloadable in the membership. When you join. And while you're there, don't forget to download my free dopamine menu on the website. It's full of fun, quick ideas help you get a boost of motivation when you need it. And natural dopamine ideas instead of going for that quick scroll or getting locked into. Social media craziness for hours. If you need additional support navigating these challenges. I am an ADHD organizing coach. And I support you through making the smaller changes in your life to help you declutter. Let go get organized and feel so much better in this space. No matter where you are. I would love to have a conversation. There's more information about coaching on my website. There's also a link in the show notes below. If you just want to jump on a call with me and we can see if it's a good fit.