May 16, 2025 • 31 mins
You may feel the weight of having too much “stuff” -- even if it's hidden away in a drawer or in your closet. Or you may forget it until the next time you see it. Our brains are funny like that!
In this episode, Renee explains how and why the mental load of clutter is amplified with ADHD—and why it can feel like it's taking up space in your mind even when it’s out of sight -- and how other times we may simply forget!
— Why ADHD brains struggle with both object permanence and mental closure.
— How “out of sight, out of mind” can work at times you don't need it and backfire when even unseen clutter drains your energy.
— How to shift from struggling to finding strategies.
— ADHD-friendly tips to lighten the emotional load without needing to tackle everything at once.
Whether your clutter lives in a closet, attic, garage—or just your head—this episode is your permission to take small steps, have more compassion, and clear the weight you can’t see but definitely feel.
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🌼 Share this podcast with a friend!
👍 Contact Renee if you want to Conquer Clutter with her next month!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
SA
(00:29):
hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast and I'm excited to
be here. I am super excited to be here.
If you're watching on YouTube, you may be able to tell that
I'm in a different room than where I recorded before.
And that is for a lot of reasons, but
(00:50):
this is where I teach yoga. And I just started thinking maybe
it'd be easier to record everything in the same place.
And you know, when you have that big idea that's going to solve
a little problem, but it creates a thousand other problems.
That's what that was. So I had it all set up this
morning and was going to test it out and
(01:14):
make an episode. And because this room doesn't have carpet
and just has a lot of shelves and things, it was super echoey.
So I had to
sound absorb it. They say it's not soundproofing when I
looked into it, but I had to do things to make that sound get
absorbed. And right now it just looks like a bunch of blankets
(01:35):
are everywhere and curtains. It's not a long term solution, but
it's working today, so I can podcast or record for you.
So I wanted to kind of branch off from what I
talked about yesterday about
starting and just getting a little bit done.
(01:55):
It's better to get something done than none.
And it's even okay if it's not complete.
I mean, of course it feels really good to have things be complete,
but we don't always have chunks of time in our lives to get
rid of things or to reorganise or clean up.
We don't always have to get rid of things, but it seems like
we do. At least it seems like that to me.
(02:17):
It seems like I'm having to manage because if you think
about it, when you go to the store and you
buy something, unless your house, apartment, or wherever you
live has an infinite amount of space when you bring
things in. When I'm bringing in bags of things from whatever
store that's not food, eventually my house will
(02:42):
max out. I either have to get rid of some
things or move things around so things fit or things get
tighter because. But at some point you just can't
keep bringing things in without getting rid of things and things.
Items that we have wear out and we might need to declutter
or we might just not fit into certain clothes anymore
(03:04):
or not like them anymore. I tend to hang onto things for a
long time, but I also declutter. I have that
love hate relationship with getting rid of Stuff, it feels
so good to do it. But there are other things that are really
hard to get rid of. And there are clothing items I've had
for
(03:26):
at least 15 years that, that I don't wear.
Why do I still have them? I could tell stories, but.
But I'll spare you that. But yeah, there's an emotional attachment.
And even though I have that desire to hold on
to something that I don't need, haven't used in 10
(03:47):
years, years, 15 years,
I still won't get rid of it. So you think that would solve
the problem? Like I would decide in my mind?
Well, I've made that choice, so I'm going to be happy
that I still have it. And some of those things, I feel like that
I have a dress, a blue dress. It's an.
Is. What's his name? Isaac Mizrahi. I think it is.
I'm getting it wrong. Do you know when your brain just doesn't
(04:09):
work, you can usually remember something, but you can't right
now? Yeah, I think it is Isaac. Ms. Rahi, the designer
and I, he used to have clothes at Target and they were
really nice clothes. And this is a dress that I kept.
My daughter even had a black taffeta dress that she
wore to her eighth grade graduation.
Fabulous dress. But I'm not getting rid of that one
(04:31):
and I'm okay with it hanging in my closet.
I like seeing it, I like touching it, and that doesn't wear
me down. But there's a paradox with ADHD and clutter
for a lot of women, maybe for other people too.
But I'm just going and dress the women because sometimes we feel
a responsibility or a weight for, for how our
(04:52):
home's organised, how. How things are taken care of.
And the paradox is that two things happen with
our brains. So let's say your closet's getting overflowed
with whatever, and you put some things in there,
some blankets, some sheets, whatever, and, and when you see
(05:13):
it, when you go into that closet, you think, I need to spend
some time going through the sheets, seeing if I still need them
or organising them better so I can actually find sheets when
I need them. The ones that are the queen size or the
twin size that come up with a system.
And I have done that. I've come up with that system.
But there are times when a system doesn't function in the
(05:33):
way it first was intended. And maybe it did really
well for a long time, but at some point it's not working
any well, any well anymore very well.
And that could Be that you have more people in
your home now and you have more sheets.
And so maybe that closet isn't the best place.
Or maybe you have to take something else out of it to make room
(05:53):
for those sheets, Whatever that is. That initial system may not
end up being the best. When my daughter moved out of this house,
I thought, oh, my goodness, that's a whole closet.
That's going to be empty. That's a whole closet.
Like, what am I going to do with that closet?
And I decided to put the linens there, which was great in
a lot of ways because there, there were shelves that I could
(06:14):
just put the linens on. The problem was that didn't help for
the bed. I was gonna say beds downstairs.
There's only my bed downstairs. But it didn't help for the bedding
downstairs. It didn't work to have everything up there because
every time I wanted to change the sheets, I had to go all the
way through the house, up the stairs, into that room.
Da, da, da, da. It wasn't always convenient.
(06:36):
Or if my grandchildren spend the night, I had their little sleeping
bags there. I have
a bear one, a little doggy one, and a unicorn.
Facebook Marketplace is wonderful that way.
But anyway, so, yeah, yeah, so it wasn't helpful
to have those upstairs if they weren't sleeping downstairs.
(06:56):
If they weren't sleeping upstairs, you want to have some functionality.
And so then I had to think, okay, then what would the system
be? Okay, I'll keep some sheets upstairs, I'll keep some bedding
downstairs. And revamped that. Since then, I'm constantly seeing
the flaws in the system and figuring out a new
system, just like I am with recording this podcast right here.
(07:18):
And if you want to see, I can turn this.
You can see a blanket hanging here. It's over here.
Oh, there's another blanket. Yeah, there's a lot going on, but
trying to make the screen where it doesn't show up
the whole time. But anyway, so, yeah, so part of the
problem is if we have that on our to do.
(07:39):
If that's on our. I need to take care of that.
I need to. I need to get the Christmas decorations all the way
put away. I put them in the closet, but I haven't put them away.
And do they even fit in there anymore?
Do I need to do it a different way? Did I throw stuff in there?
You have that need to do something. But
your brain might and probably does have an out
(08:01):
of sight, out of mind effect. You shut that
closet door, you get on your way and you don't
do it. You don't take care of it. You don't even think to do
it until the next time you open that closet.
I was explaining to a friend this morning who loves to do
yard work and tree work and bushes and garden and everything.
(08:24):
I like that too. But I never do it because
I don't like it more than the other things I want to do.
I think it's fun to do, but to me it's just like it takes
up so much time and I don't want to spend my time doing that.
So we have a very big front yard, a very big front
yard, but it doesn't have grass. It's more woodsy.
(08:45):
We live in a woodsy, foresty area. And the front
yard has kind of weedy grass. And that's okay because there's
big trees and it's green and there's some bushes.
And I'm more of a survival of the fittest gardener.
If you can survive in my yard, you get to stay.
The problem is plants keep growing or weeds
(09:07):
come up, and so that would need to be managed.
And in our case with these giant trees, the
limbs fall constantly. They fall constantly.
I didn't know this. In California, that doesn't happen unless
there's a storm. But in Florida with these trees, they fall all
the time. All the time. Sometimes big, sometimes small.
Sometimes we're glad we were not there at the time.
(09:28):
And so we have limps in our yard and the
previous owner would. And a lot of people here, do they
take them and make a pile and burn it.
Make a burn pile. Well, we haven't done that because we
have a neighbour who's allergic to smoke and that neighbour moved
in just before we did. So I don't think the other neighbours
were being inconsiderate, but we found that out.
(09:50):
So we're helping that neighbour by not burning.
And honestly, I feel safer that way, not making a
big bonfire. So the neighbour handles that problem by
paying somebody to gather up the wood, cut it into pieces that
can be taken out to the road. And to me that's tedious.
That's just like, I'm not going to do all that.
I could take them out to the road if they were whole, but I'm
(10:13):
not going to cut them up and I don't have the money to pay somebody.
So that leaves me with thinking, I should do this.
And every time I drive by our front yard, which is almost
once a day, I see it and I think, you really
need to wake up a little early. Because it's starting to get
hot. I can't do it when it's this hot.
You need to wake up a little early and just go out there and
(10:33):
do it first thing. Like it's a workout.
It is a workout and it's fun. I like doing it and I
even bought really nice gloves to wear and everything.
But I never remember to do it. I never remember unless I'm outside.
What is a tip for helping with that?
I'm sure you could think of it is writing a note.
Problem is I never take a notepad in the car
(10:56):
with a pen because that's when I think of it.
So I just strategizing right now on the fly, I'm
saying, yeah, add some paper and a pen to your car,
to your bag that you take each day and write that
down. And then maybe add it onto my list of things or
my plans of things to do into my daily schedule until those
(11:18):
taken care of. So if you're forgetting to do something, and
maybe it's a thousand things, but if you're forgetting about
something that you can't see, it's called object permanence,
which to me sounds more like the object is permanently in there
and you don't see it. Object permanence, to me, like, if
I were to define it, I would. It doesn't make sense because
(11:41):
I would think, like it's permanently in my mind and it is in
a different way. But the real definition is object permanence
is. Well, maybe it is. Maybe we just
have an object permanence issue. Yeah, you get to think
through this with me. I think it does mean you can have.
Okay, I'm looking it up. We're learning together.
(12:05):
Object permanence, definition, psychology, let's learn
together.
Oh, so yeah, I have this problem too.
Okay, so object permanence issues. So this is where
the paradox is. So the issue with object permanence, when
you are out of sight, out of mind, means that you
(12:27):
struggle with object permanence. You don't remember it when it's
not in sight. So if you can't see it, you can't
hear it, it's hidden, you might forget it.
If you have adhd, this is super, super common
to think I need to do this or start to
(12:48):
do something and forget because you're no longer in that space
in that room. Another example is
starting a load of laundry and forgetting to go back
in and change it and put it into the dryer.
Or
starting to make popcorn and forgetting that you.
(13:10):
I use the air popper. And forgetting that you started to
make popcorn and you go in the other room and it's still going,
you know, long after it's all popped.
Today I was leaving the gym after I taught
my fourth class. I taught four classes today.
Two were subbed and. And two are my new classes.
But anyway, I'm walking out of the gym and I
(13:33):
just kind of not yelled, but just exclaimed, oh,
no. I laughed so hard. Because I've been drinking
these sodas. They're. I mean, you can't see it because it's in
a cup right now, but with ice. I love ice.
But I've been drinking these sodas that are sweetened with sevia
or stevia. I call it zevia, but it's probably zevia, but
(13:54):
it's sweetened with stevia. And I like them a lot, but
I like them cold because I like ice.
And if I put a room temperature one in a cup of ice,
it kind of waters down the soda and doesn't give you
as much ice. So I had some in the pantry.
I didn't have any more in the fridge.
And I just thought, just put two of them in the freezer and
(14:15):
in about five minutes, come in or take one out, pour it
into your ice, and then when you've already drink, drinkin' drinkin'
drunk that one, then you could pour the other one
in. And I have some background with this,
some experience with freezing sodas.
I think initially when I did it, this is high school, I did
(14:35):
it because I thought frozen soda would taste good.
But then if it's in a can, how do you.
How do you get it out, you know, or slushy soda.
I don't know what I was thinking, but I was staying with my grandparents.
I bought a. A pack of soda, probably a six pack
or 12 pack or something, and put it in their freezer.
And it was that big, really wide, long
(14:57):
freezer. What do they call it? Like a.
It's more like a. It has a big lid instead of a
storage freezer or something. I can't remember what it's called,
but it's the kind that's not upright.
The opposite of upright has the lid.
I put them in there, forgot about them.
And I didn't know that the can would expand.
And when I went back to open the freezer, each can had
(15:21):
exploded in the freezer in all directions.
So there was frozen soda just shot in all directions.
And my grandparents said, oh, Renee.
And so I learned from that. I know that's a possibility.
So now my idea is to put them in the
freezer and not let that happen. Just keep them in there for
a little bit of time. And I've had a few times that I
(15:43):
slipped up and forgotten, but thankfully it just kind
of expanded a little bit and it. And it didn't explode.
Except for about a month ago, I did have to explode in there.
So I was mindful of that today. But I didn't write myself
a note. I totally forgot until I was leaving the gym
about two and a half hours later, and I thought, oh, no, came
(16:03):
home. Thankfully they didn't explode.
But I've learned that if you open them up after they're frozen,
they will shoot out, even if, you know, it kind of just lets
the. That's. It expands or something.
So I just put them in my gym bag to let them
thaw out. I don't know why I put them in there.
I just. I was afraid if I put them on the counter, somebody might
open them and. And then they'd have some kind of incident.
(16:28):
I'll probably forget that they're in my gym bag till tomorrow
and then they'll be room temperature again.
But, yeah, out of sight, out of mind.
So that is an object permanence issue.
And there is a
psychiatrist, a child psychologist, actually, Jean.
(16:48):
Jean Piaget. I wonder if he's French.
And.
And this psychologist discovered object permanence is something
that a baby learns in the baby's brain development
at some point that is learned.
(17:09):
That's so wonderful for that baby. That's so wonderful for that
baby. And you might have some object permanence to some degree,
but if you suffer from forgetting, the second you leave a
situation,
your brain developed differently or it might be changing as
you get older, as you hit perimenopause or menopause
(17:33):
or beyond, to infinity and beyond. So, okay, so
that. So that's the one thing with ADHD and clutter.
You might let it grow and not manage it or
reorganise it and feel very dysfunctional.
When you go into that situation again and someone says, oh,
(17:56):
where's that paper? Blah, blah, blah, blah, and you think, I
never, you know, and you realise you didn't.
You let the paperwork grow and each time you saw it, you thought,
I should handle this, but you didn't.
And then you have to look through a million pieces of paper and
you still don't find it. Or maybe you do, and as you're doing
it, you're thinking, I need to take some time to shred papers
(18:16):
or go through these papers. And then you don't.
So that out of sight, out of mind can lead to
frustration and
just not functioning as well in your day and having
things go as smoothly. However, there's a different kind
of object permanence issue. That is, even though
(18:40):
something is out of sight and out of mind, it is
weighing heavy on your mind. Does that ever happen?
So there may be some areas that you don't forget that that
paperwork is overflowing. You never forget.
But it's weighing heavy on your mind.
And that might have a purpose because you do
(19:04):
need to deal with it to some degree.
You know, your life will go a little better if you're able to
deal with it. But you can also carry a mental load
for clutter that doesn't even matter as far as functioning.
So you might have a closet that's just way too stuffed, or
your drawers are pretty stuffed, but you can still find
(19:24):
what you're looking for. So functioning wise, it doesn't matter.
But like, as far as. Can you find that
bra or pair of socks? Yeah, it might take a little more
effort, might take a little more time, but you can still find
it in the drawer. But if you have some things that
weigh heavy on your mind that, that you're not even using.
(19:47):
Do you have anything like that? Maybe you don't.
I suffer from this big time where I have boxes
of things that I brought in this last move almost three years
ago. Boxes of things that I brought from the
move 11 years before that and a year
and a half before that that I know I still haven't
(20:10):
dealt with. Kind of crazy, huh? Do you have
anything like that that you haven't dealt with in that closet,
in that box. And so instead of being able to deal
with it before the next time you move, or even looking in
it and see if there's anything that still exists that you need,
you just keep it there. Keep it there in the
(20:30):
attic. And maybe that's great. Maybe for some people, like, it's
in the attic. I have a friend that and she said, she
says she also has adhd. She's not diagnosed, but I for sure
believe her. And in her mind, she doesn't care
how much stuff she has. If she has a container
for it, if she has a big box for it and a label,
(20:54):
she doesn't care. Or even, you know, not a label.
Yeah, that. That would help my mind a little bit.
But for me, I just don't like carrying the extra.
I feel the extra. It's still heavy on my mind that
I have that extra. And I don't need it yet.
I might need two things in there
(21:17):
and we don't want to leave that for whoever's left after
we die. So that's lurking on my brain.
Not to make it weigh on your brain, but you have something that's
kind of this paradox that you might not remember to take
care of it and yet you feel the weight of it.
(21:37):
You feel the weight of it and you just feel like
it's not resolved. Like you always have this to
do list in your brain. I've got so much to do.
The closet's a mess, the bedroom's a mess and yet
there's other rooms. I go in and I think, oh, I haven't been
up here because we have a few extra bedrooms here because some
kids moved out. And I'll go in there and think,
(22:01):
oh, it's been two months since my brother in law and sister
in law left and haven't even taken the sheets off because it
doesn't really matter and I don't care and I'm never up there.
But other things do weigh on my mind.
Your mind? It might. So, yeah. So ADHD affects
your ability to initiate a task, to organise what
(22:24):
you're going to do in your day to get those things done.
It also affects your emotional regulation.
You might have emotional dysregulation.
You might feel a sense of guilt or just
overwhelm. It might not even be guilty like, oh, I feel so
guilty because, you know, maybe you don't.
Maybe it's not a guilt, but maybe it's just an overwhelm of
(22:47):
eventually I need to deal with that.
And that's why it could be helpful just to throw the whole box
away. I think about that almost every day.
So what I want to do because I do best with my ADHD
when I'm working on something with somebody else, whether it's
in the same house, in the same room, co working through the computer,
(23:08):
or just knowing that we're all in this together.
So what I want to do for June, if you're in in on
it, if not, that's okay, I'll keep doing it.
But I want June to be a conquer the clutter month.
And even if you're travelling part of the time, that's okay,
but as you're packing, maybe put some stuff in a donation pile
(23:31):
or as you're unpacking. I never even wore this.
Will I wear it again? Or I don't like the suitcase anyway,
the wheel's broken. Deal with the clutter even.
It's Just if it's just a little bit, even if it's just
some is better than none, some is still good.
Doing part of that is really good. One of my favourite
(23:54):
ways of handling clutter is. Was. I don't know.
I don't know if it was a challenge or what.
I saw it on Facebook years ago, and you know how
just things just pop up. And every day for a month,
the challenge was, day one, get rid of one thing, Day
two, get rid of two things, then three, then four, then five.
(24:17):
So it's not like on the fifth day, you're getting rid of one
more. Every day, you're increasing how many things you get
rid of. And if you go over that number, that's fine because
that would happen some days. There were days that I just walk
in the kitchen, open a few cupboards and think.
Think of three things in here that you don't need anymore.
And I'd throw them into a bag or a box to get rid
(24:37):
of, to take to the thrift store. And you could even throw stuff
away if you wanted. But some days I'd start
in a drawer in the bathroom and I. It might be.
My goal was six of them, and I'd actually get rid of
10. But each time I took a picture of it, they took
a picture because that's what people on Facebook were doing.
And I don't think I ever found that group again that was
(25:00):
doing it. But I saw it a few times enough that I
thought, I want to do that. So I actually, back when I
used to post on Facebook pretty regularly, I don't really anymore
that I would take a picture of that one
thing and put a one by it and maybe scribble a
little one. That was my little artsiness back then.
(25:20):
And post a picture of it. Got rid of one thing today, two things,
three. And I'd have my picture. And I'd have my picture.
And the funny thing is, you know how Facebook shows you your
memories, your memory photos? Every once in a while, one of those
will come up with, like, 23 things. And I think, is there something
in there I wish I hadn't got rid of?
And yet I'm grateful I did. I'm grateful I did.
But that's one approach. If you want to do it that way, we could
(25:42):
do it that way, or we could take one area.
And I want you to choose how you do it.
I want you to choose how you do it. Where you can set
your goal of. It's just the kitchen.
It's just my closet. It's just the garage, whatever that is.
Set your goal. You can tell me about it, you can
(26:03):
email me, or you can write to me on Instagram.
But really, if you write to me on Instagram, I'll probably say,
here's my email. Email me. Because it's easier to email for me
anyway. Because you can write more. It's easier.
And, you know, use your computer or whatever, but.
But yeah, you can choose if you want to tackle an area, if
you want to do one thing a day and increase it to
30 things by the last day. Are there 38 days in June?
(26:26):
I think there are. So I invite you to do that
with me. If you want to do it, please go to my website,
renee-allen.com and you can write to me
through the contact or about. I can't remember what tab it is.
My website's still not finished, but I think that part's working.
If not, just write to me at. Let me think@reneespiringwomenadhd.com
(26:51):
there's no width. I was trying not to make it too long,
but. Reneeinspiringwomenadhd.com and just say, hey,
I want to be a part of this and. And we'll be in touch.
So I would love to do that. If you just going
back to this,
if, if you struggle between those two
(27:15):
areas of not remembering to do something and.
And yet it still drains your energy.
It's still pulling on you in some way.
There are different things that you can do.
One is just fight the pull. So what if you're feeling
weighed down? Just talk to yourself about it.
You can always pray about it, too. You can do breathing
(27:39):
techniques and stuff. But just talking, having a conversation
with yourself, like, it's okay that it's there right now.
I don't need to deal with it. Maybe next month I will.
You know, if you really want to push it out to the next month,
realistically think about when could I do this?
That is probably the next time I could deal with this.
So between now and then, I'm just going to give myself a break.
(28:00):
Give yourself a break, just like you would a friend.
If a friend came to you and said, I feel so horrible every day,
and you'd say, oh, I don't want you to feel that way.
What can I do? And you'd think of something, hopefully to maybe
help take some of that weight off or can I help you?
Or something. You can also ask for help or get
help or just ask a friend to
(28:24):
come over while you do it and talk to you or talk to someone
on the phone or, you know, whatever it is that can help
you do that, or even schedule your time.
If you think about it, when you schedule a trip, you have to
move other things out of the way or make other arrangements for
what's going on in your mind, in your life.
And so if you do that with whatever it is that
(28:45):
you want to get done, schedule that time, put it on the
calendar as if you're going out of town, and just don't
make anything else the priority. Only that one thing, but I
think that's going to be it for now.
Yeah, having support with friends. And that's
what I'm hoping to do. If we're in touch in June, you can
(29:08):
even come to my Facebook group. I have one inspiring woman with
adhd. I think that's what it's called.
But I really want to come up with a different Facebook group
because that one is more. Well, it's really not doing anything.
It's not doing anything unless I'm doing a challenge or something
like the Focus Challenge. So that's a place where we can be in
touch. And I haven't done that in a while, but I want to have
(29:30):
another Facebook group that's more.
Has. Has a. Has a specific purpose, if that makes sense.
But, yeah, you can find me there, too, if you're.
If you're. If you're just thinking, how on earth can I find her?
That's all. So, anyway, I think that's it for today,
but I will be back again. And sorry for
(29:51):
my last one being so short, but you know what?
I think I'm going to add a few short ones every once in a while
because I think that might do a little better on Facebook.
What is it called? YouTube. My brain's almost done here.
But, yeah, I might have some shorter ones in between the long
ones, just to have little tidbits to be
(30:11):
able to watch or listen to, but I really do enjoy the longer
format. I enjoy it as a listener and as a
speaker. Podcast is. Thank you so much.
I will be back again. Bye.
(30:33):
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
Without
a
time for a
(30:59):
rewind I've run out of time to see
melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me
(31:23):
Sam.
SA
(00:29):
hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast and I'm excited to
be here. I am super excited to be here.
If you're watching on YouTube, you may be able to tell that
I'm in a different room than where I recorded before.
And that is for a lot of reasons, but
(00:50):
this is where I teach yoga. And I just started thinking maybe
it'd be easier to record everything in the same place.
And you know, when you have that big idea that's going to solve
a little problem, but it creates a thousand other problems.
That's what that was. So I had it all set up this
morning and was going to test it out and
(01:14):
make an episode. And because this room doesn't have carpet
and just has a lot of shelves and things, it was super echoey.
So I had to
sound absorb it. They say it's not soundproofing when I
looked into it, but I had to do things to make that sound get
absorbed. And right now it just looks like a bunch of blankets
(01:35):
are everywhere and curtains. It's not a long term solution, but
it's working today, so I can podcast or record for you.
So I wanted to kind of branch off from what I
talked about yesterday about
starting and just getting a little bit done.
(01:55):
It's better to get something done than none.
And it's even okay if it's not complete.
I mean, of course it feels really good to have things be complete,
but we don't always have chunks of time in our lives to get
rid of things or to reorganise or clean up.
We don't always have to get rid of things, but it seems like
we do. At least it seems like that to me.
(02:17):
It seems like I'm having to manage because if you think
about it, when you go to the store and you
buy something, unless your house, apartment, or wherever you
live has an infinite amount of space when you bring
things in. When I'm bringing in bags of things from whatever
store that's not food, eventually my house will
(02:42):
max out. I either have to get rid of some
things or move things around so things fit or things get
tighter because. But at some point you just can't
keep bringing things in without getting rid of things and things.
Items that we have wear out and we might need to declutter
or we might just not fit into certain clothes anymore
(03:04):
or not like them anymore. I tend to hang onto things for a
long time, but I also declutter. I have that
love hate relationship with getting rid of Stuff, it feels
so good to do it. But there are other things that are really
hard to get rid of. And there are clothing items I've had
for
(03:26):
at least 15 years that, that I don't wear.
Why do I still have them? I could tell stories, but.
But I'll spare you that. But yeah, there's an emotional attachment.
And even though I have that desire to hold on
to something that I don't need, haven't used in 10
(03:47):
years, years, 15 years,
I still won't get rid of it. So you think that would solve
the problem? Like I would decide in my mind?
Well, I've made that choice, so I'm going to be happy
that I still have it. And some of those things, I feel like that
I have a dress, a blue dress. It's an.
Is. What's his name? Isaac Mizrahi. I think it is.
I'm getting it wrong. Do you know when your brain just doesn't
(04:09):
work, you can usually remember something, but you can't right
now? Yeah, I think it is Isaac. Ms. Rahi, the designer
and I, he used to have clothes at Target and they were
really nice clothes. And this is a dress that I kept.
My daughter even had a black taffeta dress that she
wore to her eighth grade graduation.
Fabulous dress. But I'm not getting rid of that one
(04:31):
and I'm okay with it hanging in my closet.
I like seeing it, I like touching it, and that doesn't wear
me down. But there's a paradox with ADHD and clutter
for a lot of women, maybe for other people too.
But I'm just going and dress the women because sometimes we feel
a responsibility or a weight for, for how our
(04:52):
home's organised, how. How things are taken care of.
And the paradox is that two things happen with
our brains. So let's say your closet's getting overflowed
with whatever, and you put some things in there,
some blankets, some sheets, whatever, and, and when you see
(05:13):
it, when you go into that closet, you think, I need to spend
some time going through the sheets, seeing if I still need them
or organising them better so I can actually find sheets when
I need them. The ones that are the queen size or the
twin size that come up with a system.
And I have done that. I've come up with that system.
But there are times when a system doesn't function in the
(05:33):
way it first was intended. And maybe it did really
well for a long time, but at some point it's not working
any well, any well anymore very well.
And that could Be that you have more people in
your home now and you have more sheets.
And so maybe that closet isn't the best place.
Or maybe you have to take something else out of it to make room
(05:53):
for those sheets, Whatever that is. That initial system may not
end up being the best. When my daughter moved out of this house,
I thought, oh, my goodness, that's a whole closet.
That's going to be empty. That's a whole closet.
Like, what am I going to do with that closet?
And I decided to put the linens there, which was great in
a lot of ways because there, there were shelves that I could
(06:14):
just put the linens on. The problem was that didn't help for
the bed. I was gonna say beds downstairs.
There's only my bed downstairs. But it didn't help for the bedding
downstairs. It didn't work to have everything up there because
every time I wanted to change the sheets, I had to go all the
way through the house, up the stairs, into that room.
Da, da, da, da. It wasn't always convenient.
(06:36):
Or if my grandchildren spend the night, I had their little sleeping
bags there. I have
a bear one, a little doggy one, and a unicorn.
Facebook Marketplace is wonderful that way.
But anyway, so, yeah, yeah, so it wasn't helpful
to have those upstairs if they weren't sleeping downstairs.
(06:56):
If they weren't sleeping upstairs, you want to have some functionality.
And so then I had to think, okay, then what would the system
be? Okay, I'll keep some sheets upstairs, I'll keep some bedding
downstairs. And revamped that. Since then, I'm constantly seeing
the flaws in the system and figuring out a new
system, just like I am with recording this podcast right here.
(07:18):
And if you want to see, I can turn this.
You can see a blanket hanging here. It's over here.
Oh, there's another blanket. Yeah, there's a lot going on, but
trying to make the screen where it doesn't show up
the whole time. But anyway, so, yeah, so part of the
problem is if we have that on our to do.
(07:39):
If that's on our. I need to take care of that.
I need to. I need to get the Christmas decorations all the way
put away. I put them in the closet, but I haven't put them away.
And do they even fit in there anymore?
Do I need to do it a different way? Did I throw stuff in there?
You have that need to do something. But
your brain might and probably does have an out
(08:01):
of sight, out of mind effect. You shut that
closet door, you get on your way and you don't
do it. You don't take care of it. You don't even think to do
it until the next time you open that closet.
I was explaining to a friend this morning who loves to do
yard work and tree work and bushes and garden and everything.
(08:24):
I like that too. But I never do it because
I don't like it more than the other things I want to do.
I think it's fun to do, but to me it's just like it takes
up so much time and I don't want to spend my time doing that.
So we have a very big front yard, a very big front
yard, but it doesn't have grass. It's more woodsy.
(08:45):
We live in a woodsy, foresty area. And the front
yard has kind of weedy grass. And that's okay because there's
big trees and it's green and there's some bushes.
And I'm more of a survival of the fittest gardener.
If you can survive in my yard, you get to stay.
The problem is plants keep growing or weeds
(09:07):
come up, and so that would need to be managed.
And in our case with these giant trees, the
limbs fall constantly. They fall constantly.
I didn't know this. In California, that doesn't happen unless
there's a storm. But in Florida with these trees, they fall all
the time. All the time. Sometimes big, sometimes small.
Sometimes we're glad we were not there at the time.
(09:28):
And so we have limps in our yard and the
previous owner would. And a lot of people here, do they
take them and make a pile and burn it.
Make a burn pile. Well, we haven't done that because we
have a neighbour who's allergic to smoke and that neighbour moved
in just before we did. So I don't think the other neighbours
were being inconsiderate, but we found that out.
(09:50):
So we're helping that neighbour by not burning.
And honestly, I feel safer that way, not making a
big bonfire. So the neighbour handles that problem by
paying somebody to gather up the wood, cut it into pieces that
can be taken out to the road. And to me that's tedious.
That's just like, I'm not going to do all that.
I could take them out to the road if they were whole, but I'm
(10:13):
not going to cut them up and I don't have the money to pay somebody.
So that leaves me with thinking, I should do this.
And every time I drive by our front yard, which is almost
once a day, I see it and I think, you really
need to wake up a little early. Because it's starting to get
hot. I can't do it when it's this hot.
You need to wake up a little early and just go out there and
(10:33):
do it first thing. Like it's a workout.
It is a workout and it's fun. I like doing it and I
even bought really nice gloves to wear and everything.
But I never remember to do it. I never remember unless I'm outside.
What is a tip for helping with that?
I'm sure you could think of it is writing a note.
Problem is I never take a notepad in the car
(10:56):
with a pen because that's when I think of it.
So I just strategizing right now on the fly, I'm
saying, yeah, add some paper and a pen to your car,
to your bag that you take each day and write that
down. And then maybe add it onto my list of things or
my plans of things to do into my daily schedule until those
(11:18):
taken care of. So if you're forgetting to do something, and
maybe it's a thousand things, but if you're forgetting about
something that you can't see, it's called object permanence,
which to me sounds more like the object is permanently in there
and you don't see it. Object permanence, to me, like, if
I were to define it, I would. It doesn't make sense because
(11:41):
I would think, like it's permanently in my mind and it is in
a different way. But the real definition is object permanence
is. Well, maybe it is. Maybe we just
have an object permanence issue. Yeah, you get to think
through this with me. I think it does mean you can have.
Okay, I'm looking it up. We're learning together.
(12:05):
Object permanence, definition, psychology, let's learn
together.
Oh, so yeah, I have this problem too.
Okay, so object permanence issues. So this is where
the paradox is. So the issue with object permanence, when
you are out of sight, out of mind, means that you
(12:27):
struggle with object permanence. You don't remember it when it's
not in sight. So if you can't see it, you can't
hear it, it's hidden, you might forget it.
If you have adhd, this is super, super common
to think I need to do this or start to
(12:48):
do something and forget because you're no longer in that space
in that room. Another example is
starting a load of laundry and forgetting to go back
in and change it and put it into the dryer.
Or
starting to make popcorn and forgetting that you.
(13:10):
I use the air popper. And forgetting that you started to
make popcorn and you go in the other room and it's still going,
you know, long after it's all popped.
Today I was leaving the gym after I taught
my fourth class. I taught four classes today.
Two were subbed and. And two are my new classes.
But anyway, I'm walking out of the gym and I
(13:33):
just kind of not yelled, but just exclaimed, oh,
no. I laughed so hard. Because I've been drinking
these sodas. They're. I mean, you can't see it because it's in
a cup right now, but with ice. I love ice.
But I've been drinking these sodas that are sweetened with sevia
or stevia. I call it zevia, but it's probably zevia, but
(13:54):
it's sweetened with stevia. And I like them a lot, but
I like them cold because I like ice.
And if I put a room temperature one in a cup of ice,
it kind of waters down the soda and doesn't give you
as much ice. So I had some in the pantry.
I didn't have any more in the fridge.
And I just thought, just put two of them in the freezer and
(14:15):
in about five minutes, come in or take one out, pour it
into your ice, and then when you've already drink, drinkin' drinkin'
drunk that one, then you could pour the other one
in. And I have some background with this,
some experience with freezing sodas.
I think initially when I did it, this is high school, I did
(14:35):
it because I thought frozen soda would taste good.
But then if it's in a can, how do you.
How do you get it out, you know, or slushy soda.
I don't know what I was thinking, but I was staying with my grandparents.
I bought a. A pack of soda, probably a six pack
or 12 pack or something, and put it in their freezer.
And it was that big, really wide, long
(14:57):
freezer. What do they call it? Like a.
It's more like a. It has a big lid instead of a
storage freezer or something. I can't remember what it's called,
but it's the kind that's not upright.
The opposite of upright has the lid.
I put them in there, forgot about them.
And I didn't know that the can would expand.
And when I went back to open the freezer, each can had
(15:21):
exploded in the freezer in all directions.
So there was frozen soda just shot in all directions.
And my grandparents said, oh, Renee.
And so I learned from that. I know that's a possibility.
So now my idea is to put them in the
freezer and not let that happen. Just keep them in there for
a little bit of time. And I've had a few times that I
(15:43):
slipped up and forgotten, but thankfully it just kind
of expanded a little bit and it. And it didn't explode.
Except for about a month ago, I did have to explode in there.
So I was mindful of that today. But I didn't write myself
a note. I totally forgot until I was leaving the gym
about two and a half hours later, and I thought, oh, no, came
(16:03):
home. Thankfully they didn't explode.
But I've learned that if you open them up after they're frozen,
they will shoot out, even if, you know, it kind of just lets
the. That's. It expands or something.
So I just put them in my gym bag to let them
thaw out. I don't know why I put them in there.
I just. I was afraid if I put them on the counter, somebody might
open them and. And then they'd have some kind of incident.
(16:28):
I'll probably forget that they're in my gym bag till tomorrow
and then they'll be room temperature again.
But, yeah, out of sight, out of mind.
So that is an object permanence issue.
And there is a
psychiatrist, a child psychologist, actually, Jean.
(16:48):
Jean Piaget. I wonder if he's French.
And.
And this psychologist discovered object permanence is something
that a baby learns in the baby's brain development
at some point that is learned.
(17:09):
That's so wonderful for that baby. That's so wonderful for that
baby. And you might have some object permanence to some degree,
but if you suffer from forgetting, the second you leave a
situation,
your brain developed differently or it might be changing as
you get older, as you hit perimenopause or menopause
(17:33):
or beyond, to infinity and beyond. So, okay, so
that. So that's the one thing with ADHD and clutter.
You might let it grow and not manage it or
reorganise it and feel very dysfunctional.
When you go into that situation again and someone says, oh,
(17:56):
where's that paper? Blah, blah, blah, blah, and you think, I
never, you know, and you realise you didn't.
You let the paperwork grow and each time you saw it, you thought,
I should handle this, but you didn't.
And then you have to look through a million pieces of paper and
you still don't find it. Or maybe you do, and as you're doing
it, you're thinking, I need to take some time to shred papers
(18:16):
or go through these papers. And then you don't.
So that out of sight, out of mind can lead to
frustration and
just not functioning as well in your day and having
things go as smoothly. However, there's a different kind
of object permanence issue. That is, even though
(18:40):
something is out of sight and out of mind, it is
weighing heavy on your mind. Does that ever happen?
So there may be some areas that you don't forget that that
paperwork is overflowing. You never forget.
But it's weighing heavy on your mind.
And that might have a purpose because you do
(19:04):
need to deal with it to some degree.
You know, your life will go a little better if you're able to
deal with it. But you can also carry a mental load
for clutter that doesn't even matter as far as functioning.
So you might have a closet that's just way too stuffed, or
your drawers are pretty stuffed, but you can still find
(19:24):
what you're looking for. So functioning wise, it doesn't matter.
But like, as far as. Can you find that
bra or pair of socks? Yeah, it might take a little more
effort, might take a little more time, but you can still find
it in the drawer. But if you have some things that
weigh heavy on your mind that, that you're not even using.
(19:47):
Do you have anything like that? Maybe you don't.
I suffer from this big time where I have boxes
of things that I brought in this last move almost three years
ago. Boxes of things that I brought from the
move 11 years before that and a year
and a half before that that I know I still haven't
(20:10):
dealt with. Kind of crazy, huh? Do you have
anything like that that you haven't dealt with in that closet,
in that box. And so instead of being able to deal
with it before the next time you move, or even looking in
it and see if there's anything that still exists that you need,
you just keep it there. Keep it there in the
(20:30):
attic. And maybe that's great. Maybe for some people, like, it's
in the attic. I have a friend that and she said, she
says she also has adhd. She's not diagnosed, but I for sure
believe her. And in her mind, she doesn't care
how much stuff she has. If she has a container
for it, if she has a big box for it and a label,
(20:54):
she doesn't care. Or even, you know, not a label.
Yeah, that. That would help my mind a little bit.
But for me, I just don't like carrying the extra.
I feel the extra. It's still heavy on my mind that
I have that extra. And I don't need it yet.
I might need two things in there
(21:17):
and we don't want to leave that for whoever's left after
we die. So that's lurking on my brain.
Not to make it weigh on your brain, but you have something that's
kind of this paradox that you might not remember to take
care of it and yet you feel the weight of it.
(21:37):
You feel the weight of it and you just feel like
it's not resolved. Like you always have this to
do list in your brain. I've got so much to do.
The closet's a mess, the bedroom's a mess and yet
there's other rooms. I go in and I think, oh, I haven't been
up here because we have a few extra bedrooms here because some
kids moved out. And I'll go in there and think,
(22:01):
oh, it's been two months since my brother in law and sister
in law left and haven't even taken the sheets off because it
doesn't really matter and I don't care and I'm never up there.
But other things do weigh on my mind.
Your mind? It might. So, yeah. So ADHD affects
your ability to initiate a task, to organise what
(22:24):
you're going to do in your day to get those things done.
It also affects your emotional regulation.
You might have emotional dysregulation.
You might feel a sense of guilt or just
overwhelm. It might not even be guilty like, oh, I feel so
guilty because, you know, maybe you don't.
Maybe it's not a guilt, but maybe it's just an overwhelm of
(22:47):
eventually I need to deal with that.
And that's why it could be helpful just to throw the whole box
away. I think about that almost every day.
So what I want to do because I do best with my ADHD
when I'm working on something with somebody else, whether it's
in the same house, in the same room, co working through the computer,
(23:08):
or just knowing that we're all in this together.
So what I want to do for June, if you're in in on
it, if not, that's okay, I'll keep doing it.
But I want June to be a conquer the clutter month.
And even if you're travelling part of the time, that's okay,
but as you're packing, maybe put some stuff in a donation pile
(23:31):
or as you're unpacking. I never even wore this.
Will I wear it again? Or I don't like the suitcase anyway,
the wheel's broken. Deal with the clutter even.
It's Just if it's just a little bit, even if it's just
some is better than none, some is still good.
Doing part of that is really good. One of my favourite
(23:54):
ways of handling clutter is. Was. I don't know.
I don't know if it was a challenge or what.
I saw it on Facebook years ago, and you know how
just things just pop up. And every day for a month,
the challenge was, day one, get rid of one thing, Day
two, get rid of two things, then three, then four, then five.
(24:17):
So it's not like on the fifth day, you're getting rid of one
more. Every day, you're increasing how many things you get
rid of. And if you go over that number, that's fine because
that would happen some days. There were days that I just walk
in the kitchen, open a few cupboards and think.
Think of three things in here that you don't need anymore.
And I'd throw them into a bag or a box to get rid
(24:37):
of, to take to the thrift store. And you could even throw stuff
away if you wanted. But some days I'd start
in a drawer in the bathroom and I. It might be.
My goal was six of them, and I'd actually get rid of
10. But each time I took a picture of it, they took
a picture because that's what people on Facebook were doing.
And I don't think I ever found that group again that was
(25:00):
doing it. But I saw it a few times enough that I
thought, I want to do that. So I actually, back when I
used to post on Facebook pretty regularly, I don't really anymore
that I would take a picture of that one
thing and put a one by it and maybe scribble a
little one. That was my little artsiness back then.
(25:20):
And post a picture of it. Got rid of one thing today, two things,
three. And I'd have my picture. And I'd have my picture.
And the funny thing is, you know how Facebook shows you your
memories, your memory photos? Every once in a while, one of those
will come up with, like, 23 things. And I think, is there something
in there I wish I hadn't got rid of?
And yet I'm grateful I did. I'm grateful I did.
But that's one approach. If you want to do it that way, we could
(25:42):
do it that way, or we could take one area.
And I want you to choose how you do it.
I want you to choose how you do it. Where you can set
your goal of. It's just the kitchen.
It's just my closet. It's just the garage, whatever that is.
Set your goal. You can tell me about it, you can
(26:03):
email me, or you can write to me on Instagram.
But really, if you write to me on Instagram, I'll probably say,
here's my email. Email me. Because it's easier to email for me
anyway. Because you can write more. It's easier.
And, you know, use your computer or whatever, but.
But yeah, you can choose if you want to tackle an area, if
you want to do one thing a day and increase it to
30 things by the last day. Are there 38 days in June?
(26:26):
I think there are. So I invite you to do that
with me. If you want to do it, please go to my website,
renee-allen.com and you can write to me
through the contact or about. I can't remember what tab it is.
My website's still not finished, but I think that part's working.
If not, just write to me at. Let me think@reneespiringwomenadhd.com
(26:51):
there's no width. I was trying not to make it too long,
but. Reneeinspiringwomenadhd.com and just say, hey,
I want to be a part of this and. And we'll be in touch.
So I would love to do that. If you just going
back to this,
if, if you struggle between those two
(27:15):
areas of not remembering to do something and.
And yet it still drains your energy.
It's still pulling on you in some way.
There are different things that you can do.
One is just fight the pull. So what if you're feeling
weighed down? Just talk to yourself about it.
You can always pray about it, too. You can do breathing
(27:39):
techniques and stuff. But just talking, having a conversation
with yourself, like, it's okay that it's there right now.
I don't need to deal with it. Maybe next month I will.
You know, if you really want to push it out to the next month,
realistically think about when could I do this?
That is probably the next time I could deal with this.
So between now and then, I'm just going to give myself a break.
(28:00):
Give yourself a break, just like you would a friend.
If a friend came to you and said, I feel so horrible every day,
and you'd say, oh, I don't want you to feel that way.
What can I do? And you'd think of something, hopefully to maybe
help take some of that weight off or can I help you?
Or something. You can also ask for help or get
help or just ask a friend to
(28:24):
come over while you do it and talk to you or talk to someone
on the phone or, you know, whatever it is that can help
you do that, or even schedule your time.
If you think about it, when you schedule a trip, you have to
move other things out of the way or make other arrangements for
what's going on in your mind, in your life.
And so if you do that with whatever it is that
(28:45):
you want to get done, schedule that time, put it on the
calendar as if you're going out of town, and just don't
make anything else the priority. Only that one thing, but I
think that's going to be it for now.
Yeah, having support with friends. And that's
what I'm hoping to do. If we're in touch in June, you can
(29:08):
even come to my Facebook group. I have one inspiring woman with
adhd. I think that's what it's called.
But I really want to come up with a different Facebook group
because that one is more. Well, it's really not doing anything.
It's not doing anything unless I'm doing a challenge or something
like the Focus Challenge. So that's a place where we can be in
touch. And I haven't done that in a while, but I want to have
(29:30):
another Facebook group that's more.
Has. Has a. Has a specific purpose, if that makes sense.
But, yeah, you can find me there, too, if you're.
If you're. If you're just thinking, how on earth can I find her?
That's all. So, anyway, I think that's it for today,
but I will be back again. And sorry for
(29:51):
my last one being so short, but you know what?
I think I'm going to add a few short ones every once in a while
because I think that might do a little better on Facebook.
What is it called? YouTube. My brain's almost done here.
But, yeah, I might have some shorter ones in between the long
ones, just to have little tidbits to be
(30:11):
able to watch or listen to, but I really do enjoy the longer
format. I enjoy it as a listener and as a
speaker. Podcast is. Thank you so much.
I will be back again. Bye.
(30:33):
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
Without
a
time for a
(30:59):
rewind I've run out of time to see
melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me
(31:23):
Sam.
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