ADHD Cleaning Planner

Tidying your living space with ADHD can be chaotic and overwhelming. Executive dysfunction, a hallmark symptom of ADHD, makes it difficult to plan, organize, and start tasks. Furthermore, when your brain is always going fifty different directions, it’s easy to get sidetracked. 

Luckily, we’ve put together an ADHD cleaning planner to at least take some of the mental load. We have three different versions so you can choose what works best for your brain. For all cleaning, it can help to listen to a podcast or audio book. 

Day-Of Panic Cleaning

It’s been a rough week (or two, or three…). The place is a mess, and you have people coming over in a few hours. To get it ready, here’s what you’ll do:

Laundry 

• If there’s time, put away your clean clothes. 
• Now that the bins are empty, put your dirty clothes (and rags, towels, etc) inside. 
• Throw them in the wash! 
• Tip: Set two timers for when it’s done. 

Dishes

• If you have a dishwasher, empty any clean dishes. 
• Collect dirty dishes from all rooms. 
• Load them up or set them soaking if you don’t have a dishwasher. 
• Set a timer for this as well. 

Entryway

• Now that the longer tasks are going, clean up the area that people enter from. Organize the shoes, or throw them in the nearest closet. 

Bathroom 

• Put away makeup, hair products, anything else that is not soap and toothpaste + toothbrushes. 
• Give the sink a quick wipe down (lysol wipes work well if there’s nothing else on hand). 
• Empty the garbage bin
• Straighten the shower curtain.
• Clean the toilet if needed. 

Counters

• Wipe down the counters BEFORE you sweep
• Dust if needed

Floors

• Sweep and vacuum.

Dishes 

• Come back to those dishes from earlier. If they were soaking, it’s time to clean! If they were in the dishwasher, empty them. 

Laundry

• Put away the now-clean laundry, or hide the bin for later. 

Weekly Cleaning

If you’re trying to keep the place a bit tidier, here’s a breakdown of chores for each day of the week. Typically, each day should also include gathering and cleaning the dishes, and a quick wipe down of the table/counters, if you have time and energy. 

Monday: Vacuum and sweep the floors. 

Tuesday: Tidy odds and ends (those objects that get left scattered about. Purses, socks, keys, products, etc.). 

Wednesday: Collect dirty laundry and dusting. 

Thursday: Clean the sink and shower in the bathroom. 

Friday: Clean the sink in the kitchen.

Saturday: Laundry day. 

Sunday: Break!

Category Cleaning

Some individuals find it more fun to clean by category. Here are a few to try:

• Clean by colour! Start with all red objects, then orange, etc. 
• Clean room to room. Start with the bedroom, then kitchen, and so on. 
• Make an alphabetical list of chores. 
• Anything else you can think of!

Remember that a constantly-clean home is often unrealistic, and not the norm. Don’t beat yourself up if some chores are pushed to the next day, or left a little longer than you’d like. Habits take time to build!

For more tips handling ADHD, book an appointment with our neuro-affirming counsellors here.