How to Tame Paper Work Clutter for People with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)

The majority of people with Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD, know all about cluttered paperwork. They have lived with it and battled with it all their lives. As children they were always in trouble for having schoolwork, toys, dirty clothes, and other projects scattered in heaps around their rooms. At work, their desks are often heaped with miscellaneous documents, unwashed coffee cups, unsorted mail, and bills.

There is much advice, online and in books, about ADD and getting organized. But even the most carefully proscribed methods run into the following problem: The person with ADD is unlikely to sustain any detailed or complex new system over time. ADD people are great at marshaling full-speed-ahead creativity and skill to establish and even design superb systems of sorting and organization-- but only as a one-time project. Out come the color-coded folders, markers and stickers. But sadly, the color matching systems often soon become a jumble. Sustaining organized systems, in fact, runs entirely counter to the way ADD people think and function.

Here is a bit of simple personally tested advice that will help deal with paperwork clutter if you have ADD:

First: Do not to try to massively change your life. If you have ADD, the tendency to be chronically disorganized is a neurological trait. Do not to attempt a revolution in your thinking or your habits. Instead, accept yourself as-is and work with the way you already think and operate, making small changes that you actually can sustain.

Now the simple but very useful tip:

To keep from losing important mail and papers, get a big box and mark it in huge bold letters with the word IMPORTANT and the current year in especially noticeable printing-- on all sides of the box. Find a visible and accessible spot where your box in your home or office where it will reside for the rest of the year. Do not move it from that spot. You then will have only one new task-- to deposit all important mail and paperwork that comes into your hands into the box. Why?

Each day of the year, many people with ADD go to their mail box [I'm talking about snail mail, not email here] and then upon entering their house or office, drop the mail wherever is most convenient at the moment: the kitchen table, the counter, the living room couch, their already cluttered desk, etc. That mail gets shuffled under other items, or buried under heaps of books or coats or other paperwork. Then when it comes to bill paying, finding an important document, or the dreaded tax-time, important papers could be anywhere! They are often strewn or piled throughout every room and a panicky hunt is required to retrieve them.

It is true that naturally organized people immediately put paperwork into specific files. For the person with ADD, however, promising oneself to maintain an extensive filing system is setting oneself up for failure. After a panicky search and the big cleanup, one might believe that one will forever put every paper in its rightful place, but, in reality, that system will likely break down in a matter of days.

This box system is admittedly imperfect, but is a huge step-up from the random scattering of paperwork.

Again, when bills, forms, mail or records of any kind come one's way, they are put into the box. No matter that the items in the box are in a heap. At least they are in one place and can be retrieved. You may need to dig for something important, but you will know that it is safe as it is definitely in the box. Expect that you will-- probably at tax time-- sort these items out in one fell swoop. To do this, clear a big space and expect to spend a few hours sorting and classifying your paper work and bills. Use rubber bands and file folders as needed. When tax-doing is over, put all now bundled and grouped papers back in the box and close it up. Mark the year, even more vividly, all over the outside. Then get yourself a new empty box and start the new year.

I guarantee that this system is easy to use and maintain. By putting all paperwork in one place, it will help to create a neater, less cluttered desk, office, and house. And it will also relieve the tremendous anxiety so common to ADD people about losing important papers.