Easy ADHD Bedroom Cleaning Checklist
Discover life in a Minimalist Home where cleanliness and organization reign supreme with my easy ADHD cleaning checklist! Focusing on bedroom cleaning and home maintenance, I’ve created a sanctuary that helps manage our ADHD and keeps our home looking pristine. Want to achieve this harmonious life? Get your free checklist now!
Use The Easy ADHD Bedroom Cleaning Checklist!
If you’re like me, you have grand ideas when you’re driving, in the shower or doing anything but the thing you’re planning on doing. However, when the actual time to do the thing (like cleaning your living space) comes around, you can’t remember all the things you want to do.
Checklists are a great way to ensure you’re not forgetting any cleaning tasks because you can just follow the list during the cleaning process so all the important things are done.
I created this SUPER easy checklist because I’m a mom with ADHD, married to a guy with ADHD and with 2/3 kids with ADHD. I’m also a nurse and LOVE diving into the research around how to make life better with EASY systems and less stuff!
Get my free ADHD cleaning checklists here
Quick Tips for Us ADHDers
Using any or all of these easy tips will help you maximize your bedroom cleaning checklist strategy.
Cleaning Schedule or cleaning routine
Using a schedule is a great way to organize your daily, weekly and monthly tasks. You can create your own ADHD bedroom checklist cleaning schedule or use one like FlyLady or Clean Mama to work into your daily life.
These are super helpful, too, because you can just check off your complete tasks and as you work through them.
Gamify The Easy ADHD Bedroom Cleaning Checklist
Do you know what the ADHD brain likes? Keeping things fun, fresh and interesting!
We love the dopamine reward system, so why not use it to our advantage and make cleaning a game?
Here are some ideas:
Set a timer and see how many things you can do in 5 minutes. You can even try to beat your time in the future.
Habit stack
Making your daily bedroom cleaning easier can be as simple as combining tasks so your ADHD brain can remember them more easily. Even without your checklist, there’s less frustration with task-switching (because you develop a habit, and your brain gets used to that switch).
Here’s an example:
After you get out of bed, make it immediately; then you take your ADHD meds, and then you brush your teeth. Ahhh, a beautiful habit stack!
Break a Large Task into Smaller Tasks
Have you ever approached cleaning and felt utterly overwhelmed by the daunting job? It’s MUCH easier to break a big task down into smaller tasks.
Let’s say you want to clean your fridge. Nothing explains how to clean a bedroom like first chatting about the refrigerator, but hey, we have ADHD, right? Instead of getting stressed as you imagine taking alllll the stuff out, dealing with old food, cleaning things and more, just break that job on down.
Here are some ideas on how to break it down:
Clean one shelf per day. Take everything off the shelf, wipe what needs to be wiped, discard old food, and put things back neatly.
OR find and discard old food one day, the next day wipe the shelves, and the next day clean the drawers.
Use Reminder Systems
Those of us neurospicy people can sometimes be a bit forgetful due to time blindness and our short attention spans, so I think the best way to manage this is to use reminder systems.
I have a friend who uses Alexa to remind her of everything. I love that idea. I don’t use an Alexa, but I do have my own strategy.
I use my phone alarm (I just set it manually for reminders) and my Google calendar. Both of these work great for reminders.
Some people even use visual cues for certain things, like leaving their meds by the coffee machine. Just be wary that too many visual cues can cause clutter and distract us from what we’re trying to remember. Visual aids in a clean space are much more noticeable and helpful.
Weekly or Daily Tasks
Consider whether you’re a daily or weekly task person. Some people like to clean the entire house on the weekend, while others prefer to do just a bit each day.
If you’re a whole house on the weekend person, then use your adhd cleaning schedule as a speed cleaning checklist for keeping on top of your to-do list. If you’re a bit-each-day kinda person, then your adhd cleaning schedule will be so helpful to keep you on track.
If you prefer to break cleaning each room down to specific days. This might look like picking up the living room on Mondays, picking up the laundry room floor on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays, choosing another area of your home to tackle, etc.
Decide if you Prefer Short Bursts or Longer Sessions
This is similar to deciding if you’re a daily or weekly task person only you can use it to decide how you approach each decluttering session. Bit-by-bit throughout the day or week or all at once.
Cleaning the Bedroom ADHD checklist style
Now we get down to the nitty-gritty.
Declutter Before you Organize
“You can’t organize clutter” I don’t know who said it, but they were right. You simply CANNOT organize clutter. Take some time to review your things before you try to sort out where things will go.
I like to use bins labelled: recycling, garbage, donate/sell and “bring home” to help me sort as I work through my decluttering process.
Then, simply ask yourself if you’re using certain items, if you like them, and if you can live without them.
Check out How to Declutter A to Z!
Your Bed
My favourite piece of furniture in my house is my bed, but an unmade bed can quickly make your bedroom feel messy.
You don’t need to get fancy or have a tonne of pillows. Just pull the covers up and call it a day.
It’s always nice to do some laundry and put on new sheets at least weekly to keep things feeling fresh and hygienic.
The Bedroom Floor
Ideally, the only things on your floor are furniture legs. Basically, a cluttered floor can very easily make your bedroom feel and look messy.
This is a great time to declutter before you do anything else. Just walk in, look around and see what jumps out that you could declutter. After you do this, then go into a more thorough decluttering process like mentioned above.
Use a hamper for dirty laundry to avoid having a drop zone that builds up over time.
Casually mention to family members that they can pop their clothes in the hamper too!
Closets
The closet can be a cluttered place of lost shirts, too-tight skirts, and scarves you’ve never worn.
It can also be overwhelming and make getting dressed take way too dang long! That’s why the closet gets a special spot on the ADHD bedroom cleaning checklist!
Naturally, I’m going to suggest you start with decluttering because we all have some clothes we can get rid of.
Here are some ideas of what to declutter in the closet:
- Clothes that are too tight or too loose beyond a size or two (unless you’re actively working to change your size, why keep things that don’t fit cluttering up your closet?)
- Shoes that are too tight or uncomfortable (did you know our feet spread out, which means the size increases as we age or after pregnancy?)
- Clothes you don’t like (don’t judge yourself, get rid of ‘em!)
Organize your closet
You can decide how extreme you want to go on the organization, but some people can really let their ADHD colours fly when organizing.
Consider:
Using uniform hangers to keep everything hanging neatly and to maximize space
Use standard-sized and coloured bins to organize things like belts and scarves. Try to have a “job” for each bin and not mix and match or things can get lost in a pit of despair.
Sort your clothing by season or by colour or by style (do what works for you!)
Dressers
Some people don’t have closets; they have dressers, and some of us have both. I like to use the same strategy to declutter my dresser as I do my closet.
Then, you can tidy it up and consider folding your clothes neatly so things stay orderly.
Nightstands
You know I’m going to suggest decluttering the nightstand, so consider what you actually need to reach while in bed. So often, people keep random things that they don’t need at the bedside, and those things stay there forever if they’re not careful.
Tuck away the things you decided to keep neatly in drawers. If you don’t have a drawer, just sort the things organized on top.
