Tl;Dr:

• Get an electronics organizer bin. Raise up your bed and put it under your bed
• Clean with someone else (they don’t have to be cleaning your mess)
• Have someone else tell you what to do
• Take your meds if you have any

More details:

It’s hard to offer specific advice without seeing what we’re working with, but you could get something like this to store lots of little components. You can also buy little lifts for the feet of your bed which will allow you to fit lots of stuff under your bed (at the cost of a much taller bed). My roommates in college loved those things.

As for actually doing the cleaning, body doubling works really well for me. My wife and I will do our separate cleaning chores, but the fact that she’s also cleaning keeps me focused on my task. I don’t want to be caught in a pig pen while she’s made her area pristine. If you don’t live with someone, you could do a video or voice call with a friend. My wife’s therapist has offered to supervise (via video call) her while she does chores too. Having someone to hold me accountable really works well.

Having another person who doesn’t live with you come over to your place and give you directions or suggestions can also be helpful. I have a really hard time making decisions about where and how I should store some of my things. My brother occasionally comes over, accesses what needs to go where, and tells me what he thinks I should do. I follow his suggestion as if it were an order. Sometimes we switch: I’ll go over to his place and boss him around. This works for me because the wall preventing me from cleaning is decision fatigue from trying to find the perfect solution to an organizational problem. Not being able to identify where to start or what to do next also can stop me from organizing. Blindly following someone else’s decision, even if it’s not perfect, seriously helps. When I offer suggestions to my brother, it’s relatively easy for me to do. After all, it’s not my stuff. I’ve got no skin in the game.

Of course, someone has to be willing to help you clean like this. Don’t force them into it. Make sure they know what they’re getting into.

Finally: meds. If you have them, use them. I’ve found that my meds will keep me doing what I was doing before I took them. Don’t wait for your meds to kick in and then start cleaning. Take your meds, start cleaning something that’s easy and mindless (for me that’s doing the dishes), and by the time your meds are in your system, you’ll be more motivated to tackle something bigger.

Everyone is different. Some of this advice might help. Some might be worse than useless. But my therapist always says, “If what you’re doing isn’t working, try something different. Just ‘trying harder’ to do the same thing over and over doesn’t work with an ADHD brain.”

Sorry for the wall of text. Good luck!

I went from living in true squalor to having a mostly clean apartment, with a couple corners of mess. It took a year or two for the habits to stick and I still slip up when life gets hard, but I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made.

The answer for me was to get lots of bins/boxes, and tall bookshelves I could keep them on. I have several bookshelves, about half filled with books and half storage. I think I have ~20 different bins, stashed in cabinets under counters, in closets, on bookshelves, and several baskets for tables/counter tops.

It does take some looping around, it is a long process when you first start. But each time you cycle through you’ll be a little bit closer to your goal, so it takes a mindset of “it doesnt need to be perfect or finished today, just better.” I underestimated the number of bins/baskets I would need at first, and actually I still need more lol.

Give yourself some grace and understanding, if it’s a priority to you, you can do it! A mindset that helped me shift out of “ugh this is so boring and time consuming, why am I doing this” was to consider it self-care. Having an organized and clean home really helps my mental health. I didnt realize the extent of the low-key shame I felt every time I came home and saw so much clutter/mess. Instead, I see my carpets and mostly clear tables/counters and feel proud of myself, even when it isnt perfect.

Btw, I’ve tried techniques like segregating rooms into quarters and sorting a quarter at a time but I find myself adding things to different quarters and just looping that task over and over. Or I’ll stop when I loose motivation and end up shuffling stuff around as I’m looking for things I need again. It’s pretty Sisyphean

I’ve done pretty well with not buying new things recently but that’s just stopped the “hoard” from growing really.

Quick disclaimer, I don’t have a tidy house at all, and I get lots of help to keep it livable.

With that said, one thing that helped me be better is to just embrace the randomness and half finished tasks.

When moving from the living room to the kitchen I look around for stuff that belongs in the kitchen and take what I can carry. Once in the kitchen I just set it down and do what I meant to do in the kitchen (if I remember what it was!).

During idle times in the kitchen (waiting for the microwave, water to boil, stuff to cook) I start putting away the stuff that is there already. I can stop whenever I’m done with the main task, but at least some progress is made.

When going back to the living room I take stuff from the kitchen that belongs there if I can carry it.

Just a few examples, I know it doesn’t work with every household task, I use podcasts and my husband for the tasks that don’t fit into this.