Lisa Woodruff, a professional organizer and productivity coach, explains how ADHD affects home organization in her new book. She breaks down six executive functions—flexible thinking, working memory, task initiation, planning, and organization—that make it hard for people with ADHD to start and maintain order. The book offers practical strategies to work with your brain instead of against it.
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As I get ready to tell you about this latest book that I've written called How ADHD Affects Home Organization, I struggle with the fact that I have become an expert both in home organization and in the ADHD mind. I know how the physical body works at a level that is an expert level, which sometimes is hard for me to understand. But after talking to enough doctors and experts who will tell me that I'm at that level, I do agree with them now. I predict in the next 5 to 10 years they are going to say the gold standard is being able to focus, but the way the ADHD mind thinks, because I've studied it so much, is so necessary for our evolution as we move out of even this information age. into the next stage. Let me read you the back cover of the book, How ADHD Affects Home Organization. Do you walk in a room to organize it and find yourself paralyzed and overwhelmed? Do you find yourself spending money on organize— organizing solutions that don't work? Do you feel like you put effort in but never make any progress? Or maybe you know exactly what to do, and yet for some reason you just can't get started. Organizing isn't easy, and having ADHD doesn't make it any easier, but it doesn't have to be impossible. If you have ADHD and you've been struggling with organization, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It just means that it's time to try working with your brain instead of against it. That means understanding how your brain works, recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, and finding the strategies that work for you. In my latest book, I explore the executive functions of the mind that directly affect your ability to organize your home: flexible thinking, working memory, self-monitoring, task initiation, planning, and organization. Along the way, I provide tips and strategies for overcoming obstacles, tools you can use to get the organized house you've been dreaming of. As a professional organizer, productivity coach, and former teacher, I know the organization is more than just 15-minute daily tasks or cute ways to use fun containers. I have successfully parented, taught, and professionally organized people who struggle with ADHD, and I've been able to help hundreds of women in Cincinnati, Ohio, and thousands of you on the podcast and around the world get your homes organized and keep them this way. And that is my goal with this book, is that people would find it and feel empowered about how to get organized. I think there's— if you think there's a stigma on women getting their home organized, the stigma on women with ADHD getting their home organized is 10 times. It's, it's so much bigger. I am so excited about this book. I remember when the podcast series came out last spring Podcast number 94 to 99, where I started to talk about this whole idea of how the executive functions of the mind work and how they impact organization. The amount of emails I got from ladies saying, you were able to explain my brain to me in ways no one has ever been able to explain my brain to me before. Or I got an email that said, you understand how I think, like you're like inside of my mind, like you've helped me understand me better as to know I, I can explain myself to other people. And here's the thing, nobody— not me, nobody— has all 8 of these executive functions functioning at 100%. Nobody does. So we can all benefit from this book because everyone's going to learn, oh, that's my weakest executive function, and here's how I can make it better.
