The Structured space series #2 By Carmen Nave, PHD

My sister Carmen was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and came to me for collaboration and help.  Over the course of several months, we worked closely together to address the difficulties she was having in her home and work.  We came up with a lot of solutions that I wanted to share about design solutions, work patterns and setups.  First posted in 2020 (before a major website overhaul) these 5 posts form a series called “The Structured Space” and are written by Carmen because as she is the person WITH ADHD, as well as having a background in studying ADHD behaviours, she is better able to speak about both the process and the outcomes.  Her second post is below.

I expected a standing desk to be helpful for my back; what I didn’t expect was that it would be even more helpful for my ADHD!

In order to explain, let me talk for a moment about the ADHD mind, and how distractability and impulsivity both benefit and get in the way of my creative work.

People with ADHD often talk about how they have many thoughts at once. There is a neurological reason for this (one of my favourite sources for learning about ADHD are these talks by Dr. Richard Barkley), but basically it boils down to this: we don’t filter out our sidetracking thoughts as well as neurotypical people.
This can lead to fantastic creativity and outside the box thinking. As an academic, people liked the unusual connections I made between different topics.

It’s hard to keep track of these thoughts!
From Dirk’s Big Bunnies

But for me, the more intensely I am thinking about something, the more overall thoughts I have and the less ability I have to focus on a single train of thought. So, I pretty regularly go from having creative insights to pacing around the house giving imaginary speeches, having imaginary arguments, or accepting my imaginary Oscars.

The pacing is always part of it for me, as well. The creative energy builds up until I end up doing circuits around my main floor at top speed. Even if I stay on topic, I become too energetic to sit at my computer and write about it.

As readers of the Structured Space blog series know, I am involved in updating my office. The main functional change has been to replace my old sitting desk with a new standing one.

We chose this desk because I’ve been having back problems. My partner has used one for years at his work, and we’ve been on the look out for one that wouldn’t feel too utilitarian in our home. We finally found one and set it up in March.

I had been expecting to sort of hate it. Standing at my desk sounded tiring.

But instead I found that I loved it, not for my back, but for my ADHD.

Now when the creative energy builds up, I can start to pace but still write as I pass by my computer. And I can move more as I think, burning up some of that energy without pacing.

It’s now so easy to leave AND come back to my computer, that I can stop myself from going all the way to Oscar speeches. I can pause and think about the memes that might go with this post, but not lose myself in wondering about the historical significance of stick figures in the 21st century.

I’m really excited about the difference this makes, but truthfully, I still do a lot of writing on the couch or on the floor. My back problems have left me tired, and also, I’m not in the habit of using the desk.

And as weird as it sounds, I keep forgetting that the desk is useful when I USE it, not just because I know that it’s useful.

Obviously, the desk doesn’t actually solve everything. I don’t know whether it’s ADHD or just my personality, but I tend to be all-in like that when something that works, and then disappointed when everything is not actually solved.

One of the reasons I want to try to develop my space not just in terms of organization but in terms of design is to keep a larger picture in my head… the picture of how I use my space and what supports me and what holds me back. I want to tweek these things until I can create the most supportive space possible, and not get hung up on one individual element.

The Structured space series #1 By Carmen Nave, PHD

If you are diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one of the first pieces of advice you’re going to come across is to create a structured environment. But a lot of the practical how-tos on doing so are aimed at kids. There’s plenty of advice about setting up homework space, but much less about making the kitchen less overwhelming or how to create visual reminders without post-its.

My sister Carmen was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and came to me for collaboration and help.  Over the course of several months, we worked closely together to address the difficulties she was having in her home and work.  We came up with a lot of solutions that I wanted to share about design solutions, work patterns and setups.  First posted in 2020 (before a major website overhaul) these 5 posts form a series called “The Structured Space” and are written by Carmen because as she is the person WITH ADHD, as well as having a background in studying ADHD behaviours, she is better able to speak about both the process and the outcomes.  Her first post is below.

ADHD affects space in a few ways. People with ADHD tend to like visual reminders of what they’re working on as a memory aid. Combined with difficulty organizing and initiating uninteresting tasks, this tends to lead to some pretty messy spaces. And while messy is not inherently bad, it can pass a threshold where it goes from creative clutter to pure overwhelm.

What I’ve noticed is that while there are organizers who address ADHD, there isn’t much about design. And while organizing is an important piece of the puzzle, the solutions can tend towards the utilitarian or childish (colour coded boxes and post-its come up a lot).

This is not a post about how Lenore can solve all your ADHD problems with design. This is about me, Carmen, who has been recently diagnosed with ADHD trying to combine ADHD advice with design principles to see what happens.

I’m at the beginning of my journey. The official diagnosis is just a few weeks old, although the process has been going on for some time. I’m starting to rearrange my life around the idea of an external support structure that helps me stay on track with my goals (and my housework).

Not all of that requires changes to the house, of course. There’s stuff about setting up routines and schedules and alarms and things like that. But the space is definitely part of it… and since have a sister with an interior design business, it seems like an obvious thing to take advantage of.

I’m sharing this for a couple of reasons. For one, I think it goes to show that design isn’t just about fashion or style. It’s very much key to solving problems. That is a core mission statement of Lenore Brooks Design, and now I have the chance to show how that focus came into play in my own life.

The second, and maybe more important, reason is because I know that there are a lot of other adults out there like me, recently diagnosed and wondering how to climb this hill of “creating a structured environment” when that’s exactly the thing that’s been impossible all these years and why they finally sought help in the first place!

“The Structured Space” is a blog series about figuring out how to use interior design as a part of creating a supportive space that is also an adult space.

Ah well. One thing you learn when you have ADHD is to roll with the mistakes. So this week’s blog has before and during pictures, and perhaps next week we will have some afters to show.

It's not any mystery to me why decluttering seems to be on everyone's minds around this time of year.  Entering a new year tends to feel like a new beginning full of potential and promise.  Every year I think I'll do that tradition they do in Japan where they clean out their homes before the new year - get everything sorted and clean, a fresh start.  I have yet to manage it between the rush and sloth of the holidays, but I *think* about it at least.  I find I always reevaluate my home come new year, which can feel either too blank or too full after packing away the holiday trappings.

Regardless of what time of year it is - holidays over, or spring cleaning, or just whenever frustration boils over, downsizing or moving, whatever, whenever, decluttering can feel daunting and frustrating and I don't want to do this.  This post is an introduction to how I approach decluttering.  It is not an overnight fix, you probably can't get the results in a week, but I believe it is a sustainable approach that will help you with little as well as big wins along the way.  So lets dive right in.

In every life, some cruft will form. Unless you have perfected your routines for dealing with paper, old clothes, the stuff in the medicine cabinet and so on, and are militant about the daily upkeep, you’re probably going to need to comb through your stuff periodically and see what has outlived its function, or just its place in your life. This sort of decluttering makes for an excellent pair with seasonal cleaning.

If you need to get started on decluttering, but you aren’t ready (or in need of) one of those major programs that rearranges your whole life, this will also work for you as it breaks down into smaller more manageable pieces.  Let's start with the two most often overlooked things that stop you from successfully decluttering.

If you are a regular reader of my blog this first thing is not going to be a surprise - first you need to analyze what you are, in fact, dealing with.  Without understanding how things accumulate you can not stop them from re-accumulating, and you can't understand that without analyzing how you interact with your space.  Not how you *want* to, not necessarily how its even set up to be used, but how you REALLY use it.

In the YouTube video about decluttering my sister and I did with "How to ADHD" we talked about the different kinds of clutter and how most people lump two distinct categories into one. These are "Clutter in Stasis" and "Clutter in Motion".  Clutter in Motion are the things that accumulate as you use the space - the coffee mug you're drinking out of, the book or files your looking at, your phone charger etc.  Clutter in stasis are the things that have built up and are not being used.  Things that you don't need to access in that space, or that need to be "put away" or a home found for them.  This is where you are most likely to find the items that you could stand to declutter, or where you will discover that you need something to change for them to stop from re accumulating.   But if your efforts are focused on your clutter in motion, it will seem like nothing is being accomplished or working.

The second thing that is a real sticking point for most people, myself included, is the "Sunk Cost Fallacy".   It's that "but I spent a lot of money on it!  I can't just give it away or throw it out!"  The feeling that if you get rid of something expensive it becomes a waste, or you are out good money, or you spent so much on it you should/are obligated to keep it and enjoy it, dammit!  Everyone needs to find their own way of this not blocking their efforts.  These are mine: The money has already been wasted, so learn from this that whatever you're dealing with is not adding value to your life and you don't need to spend money on this or something like it in the future.  Find a donation option that makes you feel good - I give a lot to a local church group that deals directly with refugee families who have literally the clothes on their backs, paperwork, and nothing else,  and I have to tell you it's a LOT easier getting rid of good quality stuff when you know its going to be both used and genuinely appreciated.  I also sell things that don't make sense to donate and are worth a lot of money, like that exercise bike... that I used once... (in my defense the seat was hella uncomfortable!)

Now that I have waxed philosophical about the thinking things, let's move on to the actually doing things.  The following is an outline of my decluttering process that is delved into more deeply in my e-book.  There are a lot more in depth thinking things in the book, and a lot more about how to achieve them, but I believe blog posts should actually be helpful as well, so the physical process it is!

Schedule time when you will declutter, limiting your sessions to what you know you can do. The WORST part of decluttering is getting to that “it gets worse before it gets better” moment at the point where you are just physically and/or emotionally done for the day.  You can declutter in small increments if you want, from as little as 15 minutes if you schedule those increments regularly and stick to them.

Below I’ve revised my master checklist so that you can break down your decluttering into small, doable chunks: one counter, one drawer, one closet and so on, if that’s what will help you get it done.  You can use this list in a couple of ways. You can identify the areas that need the most decluttering and use the list in those areas. Or, you can go room by room and tackle every relevant area in that room before moving on.

Depending on how much you need to do and how stressful you find decluttering, it can be useful to start with the most problematic areas so that the worst is over fastest. But in the end, there’s no right or wrong way to approach it, there is only making progress or not making progress!

All decluttering programs basically boil down to sorting your things into a few basic categories.  My process involves creating a large pile of whatever needs to be decluttered (junk drawer, closet etc), and then sorting through it. This has the benefit of making the cluttered area immediately feel uncluttered, and also distinguishing what needs to be sorted into a clear “to do” pile that is hard to ignore. The categories are as follows:

• trash/recycle/compost:  do a quick pass and get rid of anything that is obviously garbage. (If you’re in Waterloo Region, check out my post on where to get rid of stuff that doesn’t necessarily belong on the curb.)
  
• In good repair and has a place to go:  put it away
• In good repair, you want to keep it, and no place to go:  put it aside
• In good repair, but you no longer need it or want it: donate it or sell it
• In bad repair, but you need it or something like it:  put it away, make a note to replace it when possible
• In bad repair, and you no longer want or need it:  trash or recycle
  
• Unsure if you still want or need it:  put it aside (use a basket or box to house all of this category, you'll come back to it

Papers are similar, but have a slightly different set of categories:

• Recycle or shred:  anything that has no action required and is not necessary to file should go here
• Take action:  create a zone where the action happens, and put actionable items (say unpaid bills) here
• File / store:  Things you need to keep for records should be filed. Things with sentimental value should be stored in a designated place (scrapbook, picture box, etc.)

The two categories that result in putting things aside need to be dealt with in a final pass, but how you deal with them is very dependent on your context. I’ve expanded on that below in the “What to do with the overflow” section.

For each focus area, you can either pull out everything in or on the area and follow the sorting process, or only pull out what doesn’t belong in that area for sorting.
Which you choose depends on how cluttered the area is and how deeply you want to purge. So, for example, you could pull everything off your bookshelves to sort if you wanted to reduce your books, or you could just pull out the random bits that had accumulated and sort those.

•    Pull out what has accumulated into a central pile, or remove to a working area.
•    Sort items and papers
•    Some things may return to counters and surfaces because you need them to hand. If they are getting messy or overwhelming, consider boxes or baskets to keep them contained.

•    If the area is too much to do in one go, break it up into hanging things, things on the floor, things on shelves
•    Take everything you are decluttering out of the closet into a working area and sort it.
•    Ideally, you should be able to access and see everything in your closet. If you have a very large wardrobe or a very small closet, you can reduce the stuff in your closets by removing off-season clothing and linens.
•    Storing things on shelves in boxes or baskets can contribute to an uncluttered look, but if you’re doing a deeper purging, go through and make sure that you don’t have anything in those boxes or baskets that needs to be discarded or donated!

•    These can be tackled anywhere from one shelf at a time to one unit at a time depending on how you’ve scheduled your cleaning.
•    Remove the items you are decluttering to a central work space, leaving the shelf as you would like it to look for a light declutter, or removing everything from the shelf for sorting if you are doing a deeper purge.
•    All items should fit comfortably on shelves. If you have overflow, assess what is on the shelves before buying more shelving. Purge books you never get around to reading, old text or reference books that you no longer need, and apply the general sorting method to non-book items.

So, what happens if you go through the decluttering process and you have a bunch of stuff that you want to keep and no where to put it?  This is a common struggle for adults with ADHD, and one I’ll be periodically returning to in more ADHD-specific ways in my guest post series "The Structured Space" which is still being worked on and will be posted in the future. The first post on that topic discusses evaluating your clutter to determine what activities and routines create it, and which spaces in your house are not functioning well.

But this is an issue that affects a very broad group of people for various reasons, and so lets cover some other starting points for “too much stuff” here.

A very common place to start is by looking for more storage – and that can totally be the right option sometimes. But it can also create a bit of a treadmill of accumulation and there is an eventual limit to how much one home can hold, so before you buy more storage solutions, there are a few things to consider.  One option is to make sure the things that are on your shelves or in your closets are actually things you want to keep. This is where we start to get into deeper purging, as well as taking a deeper look at why we’re hanging on to things.

For example, my sister's thoughts in the midst of purging the accumulations of her academic career.  She has generously shared her experience:  "As you can imagine, there are a lot of books. These were not in the way: they were all neatly shelved and rarely pulled out. But those shelves at this point in my life would be better used for the books that do go in and out of circulation, as well as my daughter’s toys and games, which do not all have a space.  I had kept these things for a long time, but I had a set point of when to let them go: when I got a new career. So here I am, and there they go."

But for things that don’t have such a clear break with our lives, deciding whether you should keep them can be difficult.  Some of the most famous decluttering programs are actually dealing with this deeper process of personal evaluation rather than the basic techniques involved in dealing with what is out of place. I call these programs “decluttering lifestyles.”

Decluttering lifestyle programs generally have a two pronged approach: first, reduce the things you have. Second, reduce your rate of accumulation.

Two particularly popular trends right now are the Kon Mari method and minimalism. Now, Kon Mari is a single method while minimalism is a broad term that a lot of people have adopted, so keep that in mind if you’re considering either.

Undertaking a decluttering lifestyle program is going to take longer than, say, spring cleaning. For people who are well established in their adulthood (and so have accumulated much more stuff!), expect a six month to year commitment when you are making your decluttering schedule.  

Minimalism

It’s a bit hard to typify minimalism, but if you are looking for a good guide, I would check out  Ronald Banks.   His YouTube channel has a lot of videos and focuses on helping people find their values and then have their environments and lives reflect those. 

Also a favorite is The Minimalist Mom, her how to get ready for a baby list to is some of the best advice out there for anyone! She has a down-to-earth and family-friendly approach to minimalism that doesn’t fetishize reducing your stuff for the sake of reduction.

Kon Mari

The Kon Mari method is often mistaken for a minimalist approach. But although Marie Kondo herself identifies as a minimalist, her method does not require minimalism.

In the design world, we would call it a “curated” approach, and of the curated approaches, I would call it “meticulously curated” – meaning that each item in the home is there because it has meaning and has been chosen on purpose for reasons that go beyond a momentary and passing impulse or need.

Her process is different than the one I have listed here because instead of breaking things down into places you want to declutter, you go through all of your belongings, and you do it by type (all your clothes from everywhere in the house; all your books). You keep things according to whether they “spark joy.”

The question of joy is one that is a sticking point for many people. I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about this, and I could easily double this post writing about emotions, mindfulness, and environment. But I will leave it at this: if you decide to use the method, don’t limit your understanding of “joy” as a simple substitute word for “happy.” It is a more complex feeling that is related to happiness, satisfaction, hope, contentment and maybe more. How it brings up those feelings can be quite different based on the context.

As for how Kon Mari works in people’s actual lives, there are a lot of people out there blogging and YouTubing about it. A fun place to start (if you don’t mind a little swearing) is the How To Get Your Sh*t Together series. If that’s not your cup of tea but you’d still like a starting point, Project Lifecoach has a (shorter) series documenting his process.

Whatever approach you take to decluttering, I think it’s important to avoid getting caught up in perfection.  For myself and my husband we found we needed many rounds of decluttering and it was about 5 years before we felt like we had "finished".  Spoiler alert, "finished" doesn't happen as life is not stagnant and your situation and values will change, as well as those of people around you.  Try to look at this as a process of letting new things in as well as out, instead of viewing it as failure to finish.

Always keep in mind that picture-perfect is exactly that: all professional and most amateur photographs of spaces are staged so they look good in a two-dimensional, motionless presentation.  My experience with these kinds of photo shoots is that there is a LOT of stuff piled up behind the camera.

Some kinds of clutter are the signs of a life well-lived. Coffee cups and out of place cushions can be part of a visit with friends. Other clutter can come from a beloved hobby or the last lingering moments of a holiday. Clutter only becomes a problem when it becomes discouraging or stressful. So, I wish you luck in clearing the cruft, but I also wish you joyful (temporary) clutter that reminds you of your happy moments.

Designing a room often starts with an inspiration image.  The design expands from there and many things are factored in.  Why, then, are there rooms that don't feel like they work?  Don't get used?  Or worse, feel like they're working against you?  Often our assumptions of what we need, our preconceived notions of what we "ought" to have, or the way we want our fantasy selves to live/work/play lead us in a direction that doesn't complement the way we actually live/work/play.  This disconnect can be avoided by following an often ignored crucial first step: Analysis.  Doesn't sound fun?  Well it can seem like it wouldn't be, but it can be an interesting dive into you, your family and your life.  You can work on it at the same time as your aesthetic choices, but I do highly recommend you stick to mood or pinterest boards and don't purchase anything until its finished.  

Designing rooms based on how you use them in reality seems like a very basic concept but often rooms end up being designed for their desired or named purpose instead.  For example: a dining room that is furnished with table and chairs but the family always eats in the eat-in kitchen. Depending on the family, it might make more sense as a music room, or home office.  While in the mind of the adults dinner parties and sit down dinners together at a carefully laid table with that beautiful table cloth that never gets used may be what they desire, in reality the chaotic casual meals within reach of the fridge is how the family actually lives.

So how exactly do you do this all important Analysis?  I've outlined it below in 3 steps.

2.  What do you currently do or have that you want to maintain? 

• Focus on the room itself. If you have something that you want to keep, but it doesn’t matter where in the house it goes, don’t list it here.

3.  What do you want to do that you can’t do, and what is in the way? 

• If the room is used for its purpose but always messy and uncomfortable, you may want to take some time to address the clutter before continuing. Before launching any redesign,  changing the purpose of the space or not,  you need to sort through the stuff to see what needs to stay and what needs to go either out of the house or into another room.  Otherwise you’re going to be designing for clutter not the purpose of the room. 

4.  What do you want to have that you don’t already have? 

• This is important even if you are not changing the purpose of the room.  Things like storage space for toys, bookshelves, a fireplace, a bar, or an adjacent bathroom.

5.  Who is using the room? 

• In particular, are the people using the rooms the intended ones? For example, do you have a living room that you want to be an adult space but its over run with kids toys? Is there a family room where the kids can’t do their homework because the TV is always on?

Once you’ve analyzed how you use your space, you’ll have a good sense of what needs to change and how hard those changes are going to be.

Similarly, if you want to create a space with a new purpose, or a dual purpose space, like a guest room / craft room, or a home office in a bedroom, set it up with what you have first, use the space for a few days, and then repeat your analysis to see what you need before investing in desks and storage solutions and so on.

Tip: If you are thinking of adding a larger piece of furniture to a room but are not sure if it will work, you can try using painter’s tape on the floor, or piling boxes to the size of the piece to get a sense of how room will feel with a new bed or desk or shelf or whatever item it is that you are considering.

Once you’ve worked with the new space arrangement for even a short time, you’ll know whether you want to move forward with your redesign yourself, or whether you want to consult a designer.

If your space needs renovation:

If you have identified issues that you think will require renovation, consulting a designer before your renovate is a good idea, even if you plan to do the actual renovations yourself. However, there are a few steps you should take before you call the designer!

First, if you can do even a little bit of rearranging for a trial run, you should do so. Second, you should also answer the project planning questions as well as you can before calling in the designer

This is a short version of the information I gather when preparing for working with new clients. You don’t have to have everything figured out, but answering these questions before starting will help the project go forward quicker and smoother. Don’t worry about the HOW yet, just worry about the WHAT.

This can snowball into other rooms. If your space has become a dumping ground, or you decide to move an activity to another location, you may find a similar issue in another room.
During you initial thinking and research stage, take a walk around and see if there are spaces or rooms that will work for the relocated items, activities, and people.

If you can’t think of where or how to relocate things, this is the kind of issue you can bring to a designer. The solution might be as simple as a furniture rearrangement to integrate the overflow activities and items to a new location, or you may need to rethink your plans.

Some designers, like myself, will offer a fixed rate for short consults. Even if you want to do it yourself, it is good to hire a designer for an hour or two so you can discuss your space analysis and the solutions you’ve identified.

This is especially important if you’re planning renovations. While furniture layouts are low-risk solutions that have few consequences if you get them wrong, renovations that miss the mark can be costly, time consuming, and miserable.

The great news is, if you’ve gone through the first three steps listed here, you’ll be able to make great use of a one or two hour consultation: you’ll know the WHAT and you can get the designer’s advice on the HOW.

Do a space analysis of your existing home if you are moving to a new one. This will help you figure out your must haves and want-to-haves, as well as keep you focused on how the living spaces you look at will support your life and the things you love to do.

If you’re ready for a designer’s input, or if you have questions, get in touch!

What a daunting challenge to create the perfect home office.  Does my office above look perfect?   It is for me, but it probably isn't for you.  That's the real issue with these types of planning posts - what works for one person is totally out of sync with another.  What if your office is in your car?  Or your dining room table?  What if you hate white, or need a whole room dedicated to your work?  Don't worry, I have you covered.