I am going to share a very good idea with you, to help you keep track of library books and library DVDs. Get a medium-sized basket and keep it in a central location such as the living room of your house. Inform every family member to keep all library materials in that particular basket, and not to put anything except library materials in it. This will help your family to avoid library fines and the stress of having to hunt for missing items, since it will be easy to keep track of when materials are due back to the library. Before the next trip there you can check the library basket and pull out all of the materials that need to be returned. Ta-Da! No more late notices and overdue fines. Now I should tell you that although I still think that it’s an excellent idea, this has NEVER worked for my family. They drag library books into every room of the house as well as every vehicle and backpack they can find. You’d think they like having library fines or something. Beckie has had a weekly paper route for years, but has yet to realize a profit because every cent she makes has to go toward library fines. That job is the only thing keeping her out of debt at the library. This morning, I got a notice that a DVD I had checked out was overdue – by a couple of weeks! That fine adds up fast, and I was appalled because I had checked with Scott the day it was due back and he thought he had returned it. I even had him double check for it to make sure, and he didn’t find it which made it seem likely he actually had returned it. After I got the notice, I asked Beckie if she had seen the DVD, and she remembered seeing it “under a pile of stuff upstairs”. Now, I never took it upstairs, and we watched it downstairs. So how did it end up in another part of the house? No one knows. No one remembers taking it up there, or seeing someone else take it up there. Yet fortunately someone remembered seeing it or it would still be missing. So go ahead and try the library basket idea. I hope it works for you. Just remember that it’s like all the planners you buy – they only work if you actually use them.

About a week ago, I heard Scott give an excited “whoop” as he yelled out to me “I found it!” Since Scott frequently loses and re-finds things, I had to go see which item had been “found”. This time it was the book I had given him for his birthday last December, “ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life” by Judith Kolberg & Kathleen Nadeau. I actually met Kathleen Nadeau at the CHADD conference last fall, and had her autograph the book. I asked her to write something like “Scott, this will only work if you USE the ideas”, but instead she wrote “All the best” which was probably nicer. Personally, I love organization and office supplies that help keep things neat and tidy. But it’s been well established over our 24 years together that my ways of organizing do not work for Scott. I was hoping that strategies that work for others with ADD might give him some ideas that would actually work well for him, because I have no new ideas at this point. Unfortunately, the book remains unopened and in pristine (unread) condition. As I write this, the book has already been buried a couple inches deep under one of the piles of paper on the desk. Maybe it will eventually end up on the shelf next to another book that Scott lost and found and lost and found over the years. It’s title is “Driven to Distraction” by Edward M. Hallowell. I just checked and it is still on the shelf, so it’s possible that those two books can hang out together when “ADD-Friendly Ways” resurfaces and Scott has another “Eureka! I found it!” moment.

My AD/HD family members like to spread out their belongings, and don’t really seem to notice the stacks of clutter until my twitching is impossible to ignore. I realize that organizing and noticing details doesn’t come naturally to them, so to simplify the tasks I sat down and wrote step by step directions for each room in the house. I listed what supplies are needed, where to find the supplies, what tasks should be done daily, which ones only need done weekly, and some jobs that could be done just as needed. I stood in each room, reading and revising the lists, until I was convinced that if each of the items on the list were completed the room would look reasonably clean. I slipped each list into a plastic sleeve, so the items could be marked off with a dry erase marker when completed. I put each sleeve on a ring, so it could be hung on a designated hook and easily located and replaced once a room was cleaned.
I still think it’s a good idea, and it should have worked. Should have. It wasn’t long before the excuses starting coming in – no dry erase marker could be found, the written list had gone missing and no one remembered moving it or seeing it, or my least favorite “The room looked pretty good already.” Just yesterday, I asked my son Josh to please clean the kitchen since he had been assigned that room for the week. He started the dishwasher, then informed me he had to leave for work. Before I could say anything, he pointed out “But at least the sink is empty.” A glance revealed dirty dishes in both sides of the sink, although there were fewer than before he started. I pointed out that the sink was not in fact empty, but Josh just cheerfully replied that at least it looked better than it had. Somehow my AD/HD ones equate “starting the dishwasher” with “I cleaned the kitchen now” even if the sink, counters, and floor are filthy. In their minds, the kitchen is clean and they are happy with it.
Reminders to use the list loop us back to the previously listed excuses. It puzzles me that they seem to like it when things are clean and they can find what they need when they need it, but they won’t put forth the effort to maintain it even when I finally manage to get things truly clean.

Someone wrote to me recently, asking how to help adults who have never developed good organizational skills. Lack of organization skills impacts every area of life, and can leave highly intelligent people at a disadvantage when they can’t get their hands on what they need when they need it. Being brilliant won’t matter much if appointments are missed or deadlines aren’t met. An average person who is organized has an advantage over an average person who is disorganized. Life is complex and there is a plethora of information to keep track of, so as much as we may inwardly rebel against the constructs of organization, we must acknowledge the necessity for it. Here are some tips that my husband uses to help his naturally disorganized brain to keep track of important things. He makes as many daily tasks as possible a habit, done at the same time and the same way so he doesn’t have to think about them and remember what to do next. It’s just automatic. He leaves his keys on top of things he needs to take with him later, even if that means leaving his keys in odd places like the refrigerator, because that way he knows he won’t leave without the item he needs. He uses reminder alarms on his computer, thus freeing himself up from having to memorize dates and times and eliminating the problem inherent in writing notes on napkins and scraps of paper which inadvertently get thrown out by some organized person who thinks it’s trash. He keeps a notepad and pencil handy when he has to sit still at church or some other meeting, because wouldn’t you know that’s when his brain tends to think of things and he can write them down before the ideas are lost. He has used audio recording devices, which I highly recommend for use in the car. That’s much safer than trying to write things down while driving or at a traffic light. The problem we had with that was that the device got lost before a habit of keeping it in a designated spot was established. Despite that, it’s still a good strategy. Just start out with an inexpensive model first!