Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 254: Friction: The Secret to ADHD-Friendly Home Habits

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254: Friction: The Secret to ADHD-Friendly Home Habits · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

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  If you have been listening all this week, starting at episode 250,
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  you know we have been building a runway to have just a more successful year
• 0:09
  for our ADHD brains to be able to tackle our homes.
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  And in 250, just as a recap, we paused to think about our five W's.
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  In 251, we just had some fun dreaming.
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  In 252, we created our intentionally flexible plans.
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  In 253, we talked about how to get ourselves to take some action.
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  And today, we're going to talk
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  about adding or removing friction from the things we want to get done.
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  Or things we'd like to stop doing. You remove friction when you want to get
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  it done and you add friction if you'd like to stop.
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  If you have missed any of those and you want to hear what all that was about, just go back to 250.
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  All this week has been this runway into the New Year week.
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  So I hope that you can listen to those and then come back and join me on how
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  we're sort of wrapping up this week right after this.
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  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius.
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  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole
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  life believing that it's stupid.
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  Well, fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned
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  monkeys. It's time to jump in the water.
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  And learn how to swim with the current of your life. I'm Joy,
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  a professional organizer, mom of four, and fellow Fishbrain.
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  If you're looking for a place to get understanding, encouragement,
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  and ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks,
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  then I'm glad you're here.
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  Let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our homes unique.
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  Together, we could have a joy-loving home.
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  I don't know if you've ever dabbled in the science behind just our brain's sort
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  of stubborn ability to resist things that have any amount of friction when we
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  are looking to follow through with intentions. It's pretty wild.
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  But let me give you like a concrete example in the home world.
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  So the house that I currently have lived in for the last decade was at the time
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  that we purchased it, just a spec home that had been sitting empty for a year when we bought it.
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  And we got it because we were moving our kids over the summer and starting in
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  a completely new state. And we wanted things to be ready.
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  We didn't want to wait for, you know, we didn't want to wait to build a house.
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  We wanted them to get settled right away.
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  So I didn't get to be any part of designing how I wanted it to work or function
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  or even look for that matter. It's a beautiful home. Don't get me wrong.
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  Very blessed that we were able to find it for sure. This was a very different
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  time in the housing market.
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  But if I had gotten to control the way the mudroom was organized,
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  there are things I would have changed.
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  So for instance, whoever designed it just has a big open space,
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  and they slapped up three what I would call lockers, and there's a closet at
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  the end of the space, and then you step right into the kitchen from there. Great.
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  Looks fantastic. Nevermind that I had four kids in three lockers,
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  so I knew I was going to have to do something to adjust it.
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  But the part that drove me the most crazy is it had across the bottom,
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  these closed doors where it would be logical that you would put shoes.
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  And I knew right away, there is no way kids rushing out to the bus or rushing
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  home to drop their stuff and grab a quick snack before rushing off to practices,
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  was going to stop, bend down,
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  open two little doors, put their shoes in, close two little doors,
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  and do that on repeat in their existence. They just, they weren't.
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  I mean, my kids were plenty old enough to be capable of doing that.
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  It's just the amount of times all they cared about was dropping everything and
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  hitting the restroom and grabbing food because they knew they had to change and be back of the car.
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  And sometimes this turnaround time was, you know, less than 10 minutes to do all of those things.
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  And so it's just not realistic to have put that friction of little doors to
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  open where the shoes should go.
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  It is a step that we're just not going to take.
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  Aesthetically, they could sell the house, looks beautiful.
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  Aesthetics are not everything and they're certainly not everything in a room
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  that should be a workhorse room.
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  So the other irritation I had was that there was no flat surface and nowhere
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  to add a flat surface in that space because the lockers went right up to the
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  edge of the door where you walk through to the kitchen.
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  So everything that we would drop like keys and a purse and mail and everything
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  always came all the way into the kitchen and it was either laid on the counter
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  right next to that doorway or made it to the island, which was two more steps in.
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  So things immediately from the minute we moved in before I could start changing
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  habits would drop onto that island.
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  If I could reverse time and have been part of that, I would have added.
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  I would have literally taken away one whole locker and in its place,
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  I would have added a thin dresser of
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  sorts that I could have put several hooks
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  above and I would have had a tray where we could have laid the keys or the wallet
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  and the purse and the mail and I would have arranged that and that top drawer
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  would have had plugs galore where we could have plugged in all of the devices
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  that became a huge part of our life as we lived there.
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  What did I do to sort of modify as best I could?
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  Well, I did add extra hooks to two of the lockers so that each locker was shared by two kids.
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  That solved my four-kid problem. And then, because my father-in-law is pretty
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  handy, I had him drill those little holes for,
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  you know the adjustable bookshelf things I could
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  have done that if I thought about it I just was doing eight million other
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  things and he happened to be visiting so I was like could you do this for me
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  and then he cut a board to size so that I could just use those little shelf
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  pegs and set that on there so that I had a place to put a tray because I really
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  wanted the keys and the purses purse,
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  and the wallet and all of the things to stop at that mudroom. I did make that change.
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  I contemplated having him take the doors off of the little bottom area.
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  And if it had been flush all the way to the floor, I probably would have because
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  my goal would be that they would just kick their shoes off as they got to that open space.
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  But it was weird because there was a lip and there were no dividers inside of there.
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  It was just like one big open space. So I knew the shoes were going to shift
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  anyway. So I just didn't fight that fight. I used it for storage and the shoes
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  just are on the floor in there.
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  That could bug some people. I'm like, it's the mudroom. Where else are you going
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  to put shoes? Like, it's okay that they're on the floor. I don't know.
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  I don't know. It's the solution I used and we've used it for a decade.
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  You just kick your shoes off in the space and you slide them back on when you're in a way at the door.
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  Sometimes I think we've overthought what a workhorse of a room is supposed to
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  look like. But anyway, I'm digressing and the story is going far too long.
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  But the point was to be made is that there was friction in the wrong places
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  and there was no ease of friction in places where I needed things to,
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  I needed it to be easier to set keys down in that room than to take the extra
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  three steps in and lay them down at a different place.
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  It still doesn't work for mail. I could come up with another solution for that.
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  I'm blessed in the fact that I happen to be married to a monkey brain.
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  So the mail gets brought in sometimes by me and I set it down because I'm a fish brain.
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  But he welts in and immediately addresses it, throws all the junk mail away right away.
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  And anything that's actually important to him, he carries straight to his home office.
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  So it does not stay on the island past the minute he, like literally the minute
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  he walks through the door, I get a hug and that's the second thing he does.
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  The joys of being married to a monkey brain. Anyway, the point here I'm saying
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  is that we need to be thinking about things like this in our home.
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  Instead of trying to change who we are, We just need to add or subtract the
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  friction in our life that is keeping us from doing the things that we want to do.
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  And it can be as simple as removing those doors if we wanted to kick the shoes somewhere.
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  So I want us to think about, I'm going to give a few more examples of things.
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  I want you to literally critically analyze your house on, is there something
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  that I could do differently that is going to make this easier without reinventing the wheel?
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  So let's say, for instance, I'm married to a fellow fishbrain.
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  And we both keep dropping things on the island. And that's the piece that drives
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  me crazy because then the island's never clean.
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  And so therefore the kitchen never seems clean. And it just never seems like
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  anything's ever happening.
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  Could you get yourself a low tray with short sides and you just pile all the things on that tray?
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  It becomes the landing spot that is corralled. so that if you wanted to move
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  it off of the island and sit down in front of the TV with it and go through
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  it and wipe off the counter right after dinner,
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  you could easily clear the counter with one step versus 20.
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  And if you are ignoring sitting down with it and actually going through it,
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  the short sides will eventually get to where it's starting to slide off onto
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  the counter or onto the floor and it forces you to remember to address it.
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  Whereas otherwise it just becomes this clutter blind spot until it becomes annoying.
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  That's the actual friction part of it is you want it to become annoying enough
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  that you eventually address it.
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  So I could have said, put a lovely basket with a lid so nobody sees your messy
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  mail sitting on the counter.
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  How often do you have anybody in there that you care about anyway?
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  But if you did that, it would be an out of sight, out of mind.
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  It could pile on for weeks and weeks and weeks if you were actually opening
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  the lid and dropping it on.
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  More likely you would start dropping it beside because opening the lid is annoying
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  or you would be dropping it on top of it because opening the lid is annoying.
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  See where I'm getting here? Where do you need to make the friction less and
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  where do you need to make the friction more so that you will adjust to it?
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  Another big change for me personally is, I've spoken about this before,
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  I have an obscenely large master closet. I know that does not sound like a problem. It's not.
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  Really, other than it just frustrates me that it's ridiculous wasted space,
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  but it happens to be over top of a three-car garage.
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  It has slanted ceilings, so all of it is not super useful, but I did spend time
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  in 2020 after a vacation got canceled,
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  and I had money that had been allocated for that, and I actually customized
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  the closet and organized it like I was my own organizing client because I usually
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  never take the time for myself.
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  Two things I did. I am the worst about just dropping my clothes on the floor
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  that are not dirty enough for the hamper, but are not clean enough to be put away.
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  And I would always have clothes piled right in front of like my stretch of closet space.
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  And in the process of creating this customized closet for myself,
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  I added a little bank of drawers in it and I purposely made it to the bottom drawer inside.
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  Always be empty because now I just kick it open with my toe and drop those things
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  that I used to drop on the floor and shut it.
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  It's one step, not quite as easy as dropping them on the floor,
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  but the dropping on the floor was actually annoying me.
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  And because it's not a very big drawer at all, because it's not very big,
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  it forces me to go, okay, there's no more room to shove anything in here.
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  Like, let's move it out of the hamper and cycle it back through again.
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  Or let's see if I really only wore that for 15 minutes and I just didn't feel
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  like hanging it back up because I changed my mind about something and let's get it hung back up.
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  Whatever the case may be, it gives me a parameter.
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  But that actually wasn't my biggest win because sometimes that drawer is one extra step.
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  Although I still like the idea and if you possibly can clear out an empty drawer
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  for yourself to become that function, highly recommend.
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  But what changed is we were downsizing my in-laws And they had this,
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  what do you call it? Like coat tree?
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  Do you call it a coat tree? A coat rack?
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  There's like poles with the hooks. I think coat rack, coat tree that used to
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  be like the great, great grandparents.
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  I don't know. It's special. It's cool.
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  I wasn't really going to use it in my foyer. I don't know. There wasn't,
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  it didn't really fit there, but I didn't want to like give up on it.
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  I didn't want to just store it, but I wanted us to take it because it seemed special.
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  And I'm very big on like, if you've been given something that you actually want
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  to be special, figure out how to use it.
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  So I was like, hey, what if I set this in my closet right next to my bank of clothing?
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  And again, my closet's big, so I have a space to set it. and it becomes the
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  hooks that I put things on when I would think about just dropping them to the floor.
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  That has been huge and I know everybody doesn't necessarily have space for a
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  coat tree inside their closet mind you but is there a little stretch of wall
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  you know like when you reach into your closet and there's that weird space that's
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  the same wall as the bedroom could you attach a few hooks there.
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  You can even try with those like five pound command hook type things and just
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  see if it makes a difference for a while and then drill in and actually add them.
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  Hooks are magical for ADHD brains versus hangers.
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  If you had a coat closet that had a bar and hangers and you nobody's ever hanging
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  their coats up, take the whole rack,
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  you know, the bar out, everything and just line it with hooks,
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  people will reach in and hang their coat on a hook.
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  It's unbelievable how much of a difference that is for our brains.
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  It's the one step versus pulling a hanger off, putting a coat on it,
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  hanging it back up. That's three steps. One step, three step.
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  Create the friction or ease the friction. You get my point.
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  I'm trying to think if there was one other example. I have all of these little
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  notes on my, that I jot down and I always think through and then I hesitate
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  to read them when I'm actually podcasting. I just start talking.
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  Anyway, you get the point. But if you are...
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  Following me along in this, and if you're like, oh, I just found this podcast
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  here, but now I'm five days behind, you're not.
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  Just, you can listen to each one. I don't think any of them are more than 20
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  minutes, actually less than.
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  And you could just walk yourself through each step and be done today.
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  So, but the goal today is to literally sort of notice your hotspots.
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  Is there a way you can add some friction to them so that you're not creating those?
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  Or if you're saying, oh, I don't think it's friction I need to quit doing this.
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  I think it's, I think I need to figure out how to ease the friction so that
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  I'm actually following through. So evaluate spaces.
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  I just had one more thought. I did this also during the pandemic.
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  I had everybody at home all the time eating three meals all the time.
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  And so the kitchen was constantly in use with six of us.
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  And I was like, I'm going to go insane if every time I walk past this kitchen,
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  there's just dishes piled everywhere.
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  We're all old enough and responsible enough to be responsible for our space.
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  But I knew I wasn't always going to be babysitting everybody every second to
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  remind them that we were changing habits.
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  And so I grabbed a bright colored piece of paper and I put no dishes here and
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  I dropped it in the sink because it's just enough that it stopped them in their tracks.
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  It was like, oh, oh, I should put that in the dishwasher.
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  Is a bright orange sign in the sink annoying?
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  Yeah, but that's the point of it. Like I needed to stop our brains from autopilot
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  and make us think, oh wait, I don't want to just set it in there.
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  Dishwasher's ready to be set in. Now, took the work for me to make sure the
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  dishwasher ran every night and it was emptied every morning so the dishwasher
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  would be clear so that there would,
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  It really changed our habits during that stretch of time that was just a wild stretch of time.
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  Have we kept it up? No, me either. And maybe I need to grab my piece of paper back out.
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  It would have defeated the purpose if I made it all fancy and laminated or out
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  of plastic because then it's very easy to get that wet.
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  Like it needed to be a piece of paper so that it would have to be destroyed if somebody messed up.
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  So just think about it's not complex, but you're just absolutely.
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  Figuring out a way to put breaks on yourself when you need to stop two seconds
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  and think about how you want to do or what you want to be doing.
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  And maybe I could have put a piece of paper on the floor in my closet that said,
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  don't drop clothes here.
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  Like just something to make your brain screech to a halt and go,
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  oh, oh, yeah, it's one extra step for me to hang it on this hook. Let's do that.
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  So anyway, you get the point. I will stop there.
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  What I would like to share is if you have been enjoying this series and you
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  like the idea of doing a little, you know, going a little further with it,
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  in my free group all next week, I am going to run it as if it's my membership.
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  So for free all next week, I'm going to be showing up and we are going to be
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  tackling together. So you will have a bit of a challenge. You will have some accountability.
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  I'm going to do some Zoom calls where you can be working in a body doubling
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  fashion in which we're going to do what I'm going to call, quote.
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  Getting our tools ready.
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  And getting our tools ready is like what a handyman does or mechanic does.
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  Imagine those spaces in which they always have these very clean,
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  organized tools so that when they get to any job site,
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  they are ready to immediately work on the actual job or work on the actual car.
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  Can you imagine the difficulty they would have if the friction was constantly,
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  oh, I forgot this tool. Oh, I don't have it. Oh, it's back in the truck.
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  And this back and forth and back and forth and back and forth would be incredibly
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  unproductive and annoying.
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  And you probably would never hire that handyman or mechanic again.
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  So we have tools of the home and we are going to work to get those.
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  Tools and those spaces in order first, so that when we want to jump into our
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  other projects for the year,
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  that we know exactly where to go and where the things are and what we have at
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  our disposal to utilize to make all of our jobs easier.
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  So I think it's just going to be a fun little, you'll get to know me a little
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  bit better, you'll get to see how the membership works, all for free if you
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  want to jump in there with me next week for Get Your Tools Ready Week.
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  If you're curious about this and you want to be part of it, you just type into
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  your browser bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
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  It will come to me Monday morning. I will look to see anybody who's asked to
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  get in, and I will drop everybody into it, and we will start at 10 a.m. Monday morning.
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  So if that is something that sounds fun to you, I would love to have you join me in that adventure.
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  So just one week, give it a go, and see what you think.
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  And until next time, and I hope you'll find me there.
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  And actually, let me actually say this. I would love it if you also follow the podcast.
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  If you've enjoyed this week and you would love for others to hear about it,
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  I would love if you would take the time to give me a review.
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  Those would be amazing gifts to me.
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  And I hope you'll continue to listen even if you don't want to try out the challenge
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  in the free group because I'll still be here sharing podcasts every week about
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  ways to think about our homes that are maybe not the traditional organizing
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  way to do things. All right.
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  Until next time, continue to choose joy.