Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD

Susan C. Pinsky is a professional organizer. She runs her own company providing organizing services in the US state of Massachusetts and is a member of NAPO, the professional organizers' association in the US. She is the mother of a child with ADHD. She writes as an expert for ADDitude, the magazine that publishes on ADHD.

The first edition of the book came out in 2006 from Fair Winds Press; its title then used the phrase attention deficit disorder instead of ADHD. The second edition came in 2012, the third in 2023. The third edition has added assessments of digital organizing tools and newer research on the ADHD brain.

I could not find a verified Turkish edition; I write it under its English title.

A book resting on a single sentence

Pinsky's whole book is built on one principle: efficiency comes before beauty.

At first glance it looks ordinary. But most organizing books and magazines teach the opposite. Boxes that match each other, labeled jars, clothes folded and lined up by color, empty counters. An order that is pleasing to the eye.

Pinsky argues that this is a trap for someone with ADHD. A beautiful system is often a system that needs maintenance. Putting each item back takes several steps. And in ADHD the weakest link is exactly that moment of putting back.

For this reason the question the book asks is always the same: how do we do this task in fewer steps?

While reading I started asking this question of every corner of my own home. Most of the time the answer was embarrassingly simple.

The structure of the book

The book has two parts.

The first part is short and explains the method. The second part is given to application and divided by the rooms of the house and areas of life: kitchen, dining room, adult bedrooms, children's rooms, laundry, living room, playroom, bathroom, work area, calendar and to-dos, storage areas, moving.

There are color photographs in the book, sidebars and short accounts by adults with ADHD. It is easy to follow visually.

The third edition runs around two hundred and twenty pages.

The first principle: ruthless culling

This is the first and most debated step in Pinsky's system.

The idea is this: every item you own means a decision, a place and a maintenance task. The more items, the more decisions and the more putting back. For someone with ADHD every additional item raises the chance of the order collapsing.

So before starting to organize, you need to seriously reduce the stuff. Duplicates, unused things, things kept "because I might need it one day" go.

General organizing advice also recommends culling. What is different about Pinsky is that she asks for it at a much more radical level and ties her reason to the difficulty of maintenance in ADHD. Having little is not defended here as an aesthetic choice; it is defended as the way of making maintenance possible.

The second principle: reducing the number of steps

This is the most concrete and, I think, most valuable part of the book.

Looking at how many steps each task consists of and cutting the unnecessary ones. A few examples:

Lidless and open storage. To put something in a box with a lid, you have to open the lid, put the item in, close the lid. In a lidless basket one movement is enough. Hanging a garment on a hanger is easier than taking the hanger out of the closet and putting it back. An open shelf instead of a closed cupboard, a basket instead of a drawer.

Socks. One of Pinsky's often-cited suggestions is to use socks of the same type and color. That way, after the laundry there is no step of looking for a match.

Laundry. Instead of washing different kinds of clothes separately, washing them together as much as possible, reducing the number of clothes.

Storing where it is used. The item sits as near as possible to where it is used. This removes walking to get it and going to another room to put it back.

Reading the first three examples I laughed a little, because they are so plain. But for someone who knows that small tasks like matching socks turn into piles that sit on a chair for weeks, this plainness is a solution.

Paper

Paper has a separate place in Pinsky's system.

The essence of her suggestion is to accept that most of the paper that comes in is not worth keeping. A large recycling bin stands at the center of the system and most paper goes straight there. Only documents that are really needed are kept.

For the kitchen she has an interesting suggestion: separating the food area from the paper area, and setting up a separate "kitchen office" corner with clear boundaries for paperwork. That way the counter does not fill up with school forms, bills and food at the same time.

For the calendar too there is a single rule: one main calendar. Paper or digital, but one. Carrying information between several calendars is the easiest way to forget.

The book gives a separate chapter to time management, calendars and to-do lists. The logic here is the same as the logic with objects: reducing the number of places information sits. When an appointment is written separately on paper, on the phone and on a note on the fridge, the chance grows that one of the three will not be kept current. One place, one habit, fewer steps. This subject also comes up on the site in the article the single list rule.

On paper and official matters, the site also has the article paperwork and bureaucracy in ADHD.

A home with children, and moving

The part of the book given to family life is broad. Topics such as children's rooms, the playroom, laundry, meals and keeping up with the children's activities are spread over several chapters.

Here you feel that Pinsky is the mother of a child with ADHD. When she carries the book's basic principle into the child's room, the question that arises is simple: in how many steps can the child put an item back on their own? As the number of steps falls, maintaining order does not stay only on the parent's shoulders. This logic works whether or not the child has ADHD.

The moving chapter is one of the most practical places in the book. Moving is a period in which all the executive functions of someone with ADHD are tested at once. Pinsky suggests breaking the packing into small tasks spread over each day, getting rid of unnecessary things before the move, and labeling boxes clearly by the room they will go to. That way the decision of where the boxes will go in the new home does not have to be made on moving day either.

None of these suggestions counts as new. But being told together, this plainly, with the difficulty of maintenance in ADHD in mind, makes the book useful.

A one-week trial

For someone who wants to try the book's principles, my suggestion is to start with a single area.

Choose the place that scatters most every day. Maybe the front of the door, maybe the kitchen counter, maybe the chair in the bedroom. Then think about why the things that land there stay there. Often the answer is that their real place is too far away or needs too many steps.

Find a place for that item where it can be put back in one step. A lidless basket, a hook, a box. For a week, try only this.

If it works, move to the second area. If not, change the place. Pinsky's method is most convincing at this small scale.

Where it departs from general organizing advice

Aesthetics. General advice aims at a beautiful and harmonious order. Pinsky aims at an order that is good enough and easy to maintain.

Number of categories. General advice often suggests fine distinctions. Pinsky reduces the number of categories, because every category means a decision.

Closed storage. General advice likes closed cupboards to simplify the view. Pinsky recommends open, single-movement storage.

Measure of culling. General advice suggests a reasonable culling. Pinsky goes much further.

Compared with Kolberg and Nadeau's organizing book, another difference shows. That book urges the reader to find their own style and fit the system to the person. Pinsky is more prescriptive: there is a standard, and that standard is efficiency for everyone. For some readers this clarity is comforting, for others stifling.

Problem places

The criticized sides of the book are as marked as its principles.

A large home is assumed. It is enough to look at the chapter list: dining room, playroom, storage areas. The book is largely written for a spacious, multi-room family home with storage space. For someone living in a small apartment many suggestions cannot be applied directly. This is also the criticism most often voiced in reader reviews.

Excessive reduction does not suit everyone. Radically reducing belongings can in some cases turn into waste: throwing out and then buying again, renewing all the socks. For someone with limited means, keeping something is often a safeguard. The book hardly takes this economic side into account.

The risk of impulsiveness. A warning I want to add on my own account: in ADHD there are impulsive decisions too. In a rush of culling it is possible to throw out things you will regret later. Before throwing away documents you need to check what must be kept legally.

The emotional side is secondary. Attachment to things, the shame that comes with clutter, the anxiety behind hoarding. Because the book's focus is practical solutions, this side does not find much room. In cases where accumulating things has reached a serious level, an organizing book is not enough; professional support is needed.

Tone and assumptions. Some readers find the book's tone condescending and full of traditional assumptions about family roles.

No clinical depth. Pinsky is an organizer. She briefly explains why ADHD creates difficulty with maintenance, but this book is not a source for understanding ADHD. Even though research has been added to the third edition, this does not change.

For whom, at what stage

Those who have a lot of stuff, have the space and want clear rules. Especially families with children.

Those who tried general organizing books and said "my home never turns out like this." Pinsky shows the reason for this disappointment.

Those who want to see order as a systems question. It builds the habit of analyzing every task step by step.

Whom I would not recommend it to: someone living in a small home or a shared apartment, who would have to adapt most of the suggestions. Someone whose clutter is intertwined with intense anxiety or serious hoarding behavior. Someone who wants to understand ADHD.

How to read it

Read the first part from start to finish. It is short and the logic of the whole book is there.

Then go to the chapter on the area you struggle with most at home. The chapters are independent; there is no need to read in order.

Instead of applying the suggestions as they are, take the book's question: how do I do this task in fewer steps? This question lets you get something useful even out of the suggestions that do not fit your home.

On housework the site also has the article housework in ADHD.

If you are going to read it, prefer the third edition. The principles stay the same, but the chapters on digital tools and present-day life are more current.