For those of you that follow me on Instagram, you may already know but one month ago I decided to dive headfirst into my mountain of clothes! The reason why I have waited a month to blog about it is because I wanted to test myself and see if I would actually stick with the method.
My mountain of clothes that took me 4 hours to sort through!
Guess what… I stuck with it! I continue to fold my clothes the Marie Kondo way!
The steps I followed:
- Dumped ALL of my clothes on my bed
- I picked up one article of clothing at a time and asked myself:
- Does this article of clothing bring me joy?
- How does it make me feel? e.g. I picked up a nice shirt but it did not bring me joy at all.Then i caught myself trying to rationalize with myself saying that it was actually a nice shirt and I should keep it because I would like to wear it… Try to catch yourself if you fall into this trap! There is a difference between the shirt “being nice” and something that you are actually going to pick up to wear!
- Does this article of clothing bring me joy?
- Once I decided how I felt about the article of clothing it went into one of the three piles:
- Donate
- Trash (these had holes and/or stains on them)
- Keep
- I decided that the articles of clothing that were going into the “keep” pile weren’t actually going to go into a pile at all. Rather than putting the article of clothing down, I decided I was going to fold it and put it into its designated drawer.
- Once the new-ness of the situation started to fade and the decisions I had to make were adding up, I started to get bored and overwhelmed. It is very important to have a plan for when you hit this mark; decide in advance what your motivation will be.
- I decided to put on “How I met your mother” in the background to keep me entertained while I powered through!
- I also reminded myself of what the end goal would be and pushed myself through the process.
- I told one of my friends what I was doing and sent her messages with my progress to keep myself motivated.
” Rather than putting the article of clothing down, I decided I was going to fold it and put it into its designated drawer. “
Side note: You also have the option of doing something like this… This is from one time when I moved!
This is very overwhelming but it worked because it was “in my face”. I started box by box and would gradually take items out of the box and sort the items in their designated piles!
Once the different piles would build up I would place the items in their new designated home!
For the record: my room was like this for weeks because I wouldn’t spend extended amounts of time working on it.
Depending on you and your situation, this may or may not work!
Motivation
We are BIG on motivation. We are driven by what we like and don’t like so why not set up your closet so that you like it?!
- When it looks organized and clean it will motivate us to keep it pretty and organized.
- When we open our drawers, we only see what brings us joy so we want to take the time to get dressed!
- The act of touching our clothes (to do the detailed folding) actually makes us appreciate them more.
- Most, if not all of us that have ADHD are very visual. With this in mind, it is important to us to be able to see our clothes. Because out of sight, out of mind! This is why I love this method of storing my clothes oh-so-very-much!!
The results
My brain actually feels less cluttered and I have less decisions to make! I don’t pass clothes that bring back bad memories. Yes, it’s weird but I had some clothes that I wore on an occasion that I affiliate with bad memories (nothing serious). They were nice and I liked how they looked on me so I kept them but I would never actually wear them because they took me back to the time when “the occasion” happened. So no, those articles of clothing did not bring me joy and I decided to sell them!
I sold some of my clothes and received money for things that were just taking up physical and mental space.
Want to dive in? Questions to ask yourself before you start:
Not all of us are believers in the method; this blog post titled “worst adhd organizing advice ever heard” by a fellow ADHD coach is warning against using this method. With this blog post in mind, it is important to figure out why you are going to take the time and effort to organize your clothes. Here are a few questions to get you thinking:
- What do I hope to gain out of going through this process?
- What drawers/baskets/boxes will I use to store my folded clothes?
- e.g. Which drawer will my shirts go in?
- Do I need a small box to store my underwear?
- e.g. Which drawer will my shirts go in?
- How much time do I have to spend on organizing my clothes?
- How long do I think I will spend on organizing my clothes?
Work with a coach
Would you love to do something like this but it never seems to work or it is very overwhelming? This may not be the plan for you! Schedule a 30 minute discovery session to work with me as your ADHD coach and come up with a plan that is specific to you!