25 ADHD Cleaning Tips To Motivate You and Make Cleaning Easier.

Most people do not consider cleaning to be an enjoyable task, but for those with ADHD it can seem like a dreaded task and an insurmountable chore. Where to get started and how to stay on task can make it feel impossible. I have created a list of cleaning tips to help you get past some of these barriers. I can attest that many of these ADHD cleaning tips are effective because they work for me, and I have ADHD.

For those with ADHD, cleaning struggles have nothing to do with laziness.

If you have ADHD, cleaning tips for neurotypical brains may not always work for you. Struggling with house cleaning has nothing at all to do with laziness. If anything, those with ADHD often have more energy than those without.

The struggle with cleaning has more to do with how our executive functioning is affected, and though it is different for each individual, many tend to struggle with similar issues. Staying on task, getting overwhelmed, losing interest, or not having the motivation to get started are some of the common ones.

These ADHD cleaning tips will work with your brain, not against it.

1. Reduce how much clutter you have in your home.

If I were to give you just one cleaning tip that would have the greatest impact on your ability to keep up at home with ADHD, it would be to reduce your home’s overall inventory. The more stuff you have, the harder it is to clean, organize and maintain everything you own. 

Those with ADHD tend to get overwhelmed with Visual clutter more quickly than those who don’t. For this reason, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference this one thing makes. Less stuff, means less work, less cleaning, less clutter, and less visual overwhelm. Take a critical eye to everything in your home and only keep it if you truly need and use it. Take time at least twice a year to declutter every room in your house.

2. Break cleaning tasks into small chunks to build momentum and avoid overwhelm. 

Another effective way to push past getting started is to build momentum. KC Davis, Author of How to Keep House While Drowning, suggests starting by using what she calls “the 5 things method.” only focusing on completing one small task at a time. She reminds herself that there are only 5 things that she needs to tackle, “trash, dishes, laundry, things that have a home and things that don’t have a home.”

Breaking down the tasks that need to get done makes the job seem less daunting. For example, just pick up all the trash in one room. Once that is done, just put all the dirty laundry into the hamper. Don’t do anything other than this one thing.  When you are completely done with removing laundry, you can move on to taking all the dishes to the kitchen.  Once these three things are done, what’s left to do should be much less intimating.  

Keep moving forward with one task at a time. By doing this, you will make progress without getting overwhelmed. You will also clearly be able to see your progress, which will motivate you to keep going.

3. Create a cleaning to-do list so that you can check off as you go to help you stay focused.

To-do lists are excellent cleaning and organizing hacks if you have ADHD. A list allows you to check each task off as you go, which gives your brain a little dopamine hit. Being able to cross items off my list as I make progress feels good and helps me clearly see my progress. For example, your cleaning list might look like this for a kitchen:

1. Pick up trash.
2. Pick up laundry.
3. Put dishes in sink.
4. Clear clutter from countertops and table.
5. Wash dishes, empty/fill dishwasher.
6. Wipe down/disinfect countertops and appliances.
7. Sweep Floor.
8. Mop floor.
9. Empty trash.
10. Do a happy dance in your clean kitchen.

4. Store things simply…an organizing tip that is also a cleaning tip.

You want to make every clean-up job as easy for yourself and your family as possible. That way it is more likely to get done. Store things right there where you use them and make everything easy to locate, easy to grab and easy to put away.  

Storing things so that they look beautiful is great, but not at the expense of your time and effort. In other words, if you have ADHD, efficiency comes before beauty. For example, storing all of your spices in matching containers may look lovely but that system requires a lot of work to maintain.  

I5. Place things in locations to make clean-up easy for yourself.

If you struggle with emptying the trash can, put the dumpster right outside your back door so that you can easily dump your kitchen trash into it. If laundry on the floor is an issue, place hampers in all those areas where laundry accumulates. 

If you struggle with keeping the kitchen swept, make the job easier by storing a broom and dustpan nearby. If you do crafts in the dining room, storing the supplies in the back bedroom will require too much effort at clean-up time. Instead, store everything in the dining room to make cleaning up quick and simple. 

See what else you can move around in your home to make cleaning and putting things away easier.

 6. Figure out your cleaning style and use it to your advantage. 

Are you an ‘all or nothing’ person or would you prefer to proceed bit by bit? If you are more likely to succeed if you dedicate an entire day to cleaning your home twice a month then do that. Is it easier to tackle one quick task a day? Figure out what works best for your style and your schedule and stick with that. It doesn’t matter how the work gets done, as long as it works for you.

7. Use a system to remind yourself to do household tasks.  

Put cleaning tasks on your calendar so that you remember to do them. This is especially helpful for tasks you don’t enjoy, or forget often. I use my Google calendar and have it linked to my email so that I also get an email reminder. Once you get something on the calendar, it is more likely to get done.  

You can also use a system like Alexa to remind you to do household jobs. For example “Alexa – Remind me to take out the trash every Wednesday at 7:00 pm.” 

8. Sticky notes placed in the right locations can also help you to remember to do cleaning tasks.  

This little cleaning tip seems too simple to be effective but it does work. We struggled with remembering to put the toilet lids down, (to prevent the dog from using the toilets as a water dish…yuck!) so I posted a sticky note on the underside of the lid. We finally stopped forgetting and the dog stopped drinking. Sticky notes are especially effective for establishing new habits. 

Here are a few examples: Keep your car clean by placing a sticky note on your dashboard as a reminder to take trash and other items with you as you get out of the car. Place one by the sink to remind family members to put dishes in the dishwasher instead of in the sink. Place one on the bathroom vanity to remind yourself to tidy up before you leave the room.

9. Name your cleaning or other household task days. 

Susan Pinsky, the author of Organizing Solutions For People With ADHD suggests naming your household chore days to stay on task; designate a laundry day, bill paying day, food prep day, bathroom cleaning day, etc. What this does, is create a routine, which makes getting things done on certain days, automatic for your brain.

This definitely works for me.  I have a laundry day (Sunday), mail and bill paying day, (Mon), trash day (Weds.), vacuuming day (Friday) etc.  This is affective because once you start associating your days with doing the same tasks again and again, you form a helpful routine that puts your brain on auto-pilot. 

10. If you see a quick job that needs to be done…do it now.  

If you see something that can be put away or cleaned up in less than two minutes, do it now. Since most people with ADHD are highly visual anyway…we have to see it to remember to do it…doing it now is an excellent method for getting things done.  

If you notice that the top shelf in the frig is getting pretty grody, give it a quick wipe down. In less than 60 seconds, you just wiped a chore off of your to-do list.

11. Push past the inability to get started.

Task initiation is one of several executive functions that can be affected if you have ADHD. That might mean that while doing interesting tasks are not a problem for you, you just can’t muster the energy to get started on things you don’t enjoy like maybe… cleaning the house. Knowing this, try to push past the urge to procrastinate.  Remind yourself that once you are up and moving, it will be easier to keep going. Get up and just do one thing.

12. Don’t be afraid to delegate cleaning tasks to other family members. 

Kids benefit from doing chores in many ways, so you can lighten your load guilt-free. It encourages self-sustainability and responsibility and also teaches them the value of teamwork. Families function best when everyone within the family unit contributes and does their part.

If you have ADHD, getting help from your partner and other family members is essential to keep things running smoothly. If you are struggling with getting help from other family members, look into Fairplay, a great book by Eve Rodsky.  

She also created the popular Fairplay Cards, this couple’s conversation deck will help you rebalance your to-do lists, and more evenly disperse household responsibilities. 

13. Laundry deserves mentioning. 

Keep up with the laundry by reducing your load. As I mentioned above, the more stuff you own, the harder it is to manage it all. The same rule applies to keeping up with the laundry. I have seen this many times with my clients who own a large quantity of clothing. 

Because they can afford to get behind on washing without running out of clothing, they inevitably do. Once they get behind, it’s hard to get caught up again. Owning less clothing requires us to keep up with washing it all. So it is impossible to get 12 loads behind. And keeping up is always easier than trying to catch up. 

14. Let go of thinking your house has to be perfectly clean. 

One of the most common ways that we get frustrated is by comparing ourselves to our friends or siblings who don’t have ADHD and who might have super clean homes. Let your home be imperfect and know that if you can keep things semi-clean and functional, you’re winning the game.

If you can let that be enough, you’ll feel much more at peace than if you set the bar really high and beat yourself up every time you fall short. Remind yourself that your home does not need to be spotless for your family to be healthy and happy.  

15. Hate looking at and washing that giant pile of dishes? 

This may sound like an extreme solution for the problem but it is effective. Reduce how many dishes you own down to just the bare necessities. If you do this you will never have a giant heaping pile of dishes to look at or wash because you will be forced to wash much more frequently lest you run out of dishes.

Having less dishes to wash all at one time will be less overwhelming, and will help you keep your countertops and kitchen cleaner longer. It will also make meal preparation easier.

16. Stop Sabotaging Yourself with blame.

Beating yourself up for not getting things cleaned to your expectations can result in immobilizing your efforts. This is another topic that KC Davis discusses In her book and is such an important subject. She states that “A clean house is not ‘good’ or ‘right,” it’s morally neutral—you’re not a bad person if your house is messy,”

It’s so important to remind yourself of this because you deserve not to feel like lesser of a person just because your house isn’t clean. Also, you can actually stop your progress in its tracks by sabotaging yourself with this kind of negative self talk.

17. Minimize your inventory of cleaning products. 

In the spirit of keeping things simple, use caution not to get carried away and purchase large quantities of cleaning products from bulk membership stores. Sure, that 6 pack of bathroom disinfectant seemed like a good deal, but now you have to find a place to store it all for 6 years because it will take you that long to use it up.

Doing too much stocking up of cleaning supplies can turn into clutter and clutter can result in not being able to find things.

18. Use a “RETURN” box to avoid getting distracted.

How often do you leave a room to put something away, get distracted and then forget to come back? When you are cleaning a room and find something that belongs in a different room, rather than running off and putting it away immediately just toss it into a box. When you’re done cleaning the room, then you can take everything in the box and return the items to the rooms they belong in.

This is a trick that I use for organizing projects but it also works well for cleaning. Having a “RETURN” box will prevent you from having to leave the room multiple times and risk never making it back.

19. Keep in mind that it’s easier to keep up than it is to catch up.

It’s better to deal with a small pile of dishes today rather than an enormous pile of dishes tomorrow. Avoiding getting yourself stuck in a situation where you’re way behind on things like the dishes or laundry or going through the mail. Once this happens it becomes an overwhelming, time consuming job to try and get caught up again. Plus it’s so not fun to deal with the anxiety that goes along with being so far behind.

It may seem tempting to put off a dreaded chore until tomorrow to do something more pleasant today, but in the long run you’ll be doing your future self a favor if you stay on top of it. I have clients who have told me that have learned that they have to force themselves to do the dishes each evening because if they don’t, by the next day, the job has grown so large that it’s just that much harder to motivate themselves to get the job done.

20. Do one thing a day.  

One trick that works well for me is focusing on getting one thing done a day.  You may not have the time or the motivation to spend several hours cleaning your house but it is a much less daunting task to decide that you’re going to do one thing a day to move you forward.

You might choose to clean your bathrooms and let that be enough for the day, or maybe it’s your kitchen floor that desperately needs mopping. By tackling at least one cleaning task a day, your house will always stay at least somewhat clean. Doing cleaning chores in this way is less overwhelming, and therefore more likely to get done.

21. Stay focused on your progress.

It is much more effective too focus on what you have accomplished rather than beat yourself up for what you still have left to do or have failed to get done. This will help you keep moving forward. Once you have made measurable progress, let that be what motivates you to keep going. Sometimes just seeing a clean room will help you keep the momentum going and start working on the next room.

22. Use a Buddy System.

One great way to get past the issue of task initiation is to find a friend to hold you accountable for getting your cleaning done. That person doesn’t have to be there with you to make this work. I actually do some of my weekly cleaning while talking on the phone to my best friend and she cleans her house at the same time!

This works really well for three reasons, first, it makes cleaning much more enjoyable since we chat as we work, secondly, we hold each other accountable to get the job done, and last, we have created a productive routine that takes place at the same time every week.

23. Find ways to make cleaning a more pleasant experience. 

Another way to get past task inertia is to see if you can make cleaning more interesting for yourself. The use of earbuds today makes it possible to listen to a podcast or to some music while you work. 

Or give yourself an incentive to get the job done by rewarding yourself with a well-deserved treat when you’ve finished. A cup of tea, a favorite TV show, or a nap (my favorite) are all good examples.

24. If you hate to vacuum, consider investing in a Roomba. 

Why not make cleaning a little easier for yourself and let Roomba do the vacuuming for you? Depending on what model you buy, it can do a surprisingly good job. I can say from experience that these things are game changers. I have one and LOVE it. While the Roomba vacuums, you can be getting something else done. I was skeptical until I witnessed it doing a good job in my clients homes. 

Be sure to invest in a good model like the Roomba i4 which has the technology to avoid issues. The one I have vacuums the entire upstairs of my home beautifully and returns to its base without getting stuck or running out of charge.  They can also be set on a start-up timer so that they get to work without you having to even think about it. By getting help with this weekly cleaning job, you’ll have more time to keep up with everything else.

25. If you are cleaning your whole house, try cleaning task by task, not room by room.

It takes less time to apply a task to your whole house than to clean one room at a time completely. For example, when you vacuum, vacuum the whole house.  When you mop, save it until last and do the whole house.

When I clean, I do it in this order: 1. Pick up any trash and/or clutter. 2. Clean all the bathrooms. 3. Clean the kitchen. 4. Dust the whole house. 5. Sweep and vacuum everywhere. 5. Mop all of the floors including the bathrooms. 6. Walk around the house and feel fabulous because the whole house is clean!  

Conclusion:

There are several different approaches to cleaning in this post because what works for one person with ADHD my not work for another. ADHD manifest itself differently for each individual. So if you try one of these tips and it doesn’t seem to work, don’t get frustrated with yourself. Instead, move on and try a different tip that may be a better fit for the way your brain works.

I have written another post where I get more granular with the step by steps of cleaning each room in your house. It’s got lots of general cleaning hacks to help you clean your whole house faster and better using only natural products, to read that post, click here.

Schedule a coaching call, virtual organizing session, or a home assessment with me, and get the support and encouragement you need to move forward.