Decluttering Day an Essential Task for the Asperger/ADHD Writer

My cluttered stacking trays

A cluttered environment isn't essential to being a creative person--- in fact, excess clutter makes it take longer to get things done. In fact, the worst results of clutter can put writing to a halt--- perhaps a permanently-lost notebook of story notes will put a story forever on hold when the writer can't recreate it from memory. Or the lost-and-unpaid bill will result in the power or the internet access being shut off when it is needed.


For the person with Asperger Syndrome, or autism spectrum disorders, or ADHD, it is doubly hard. For people like us, we are coping with brains that work differently. And most books on how-to-organize are written for the neurotypical person, not for us.

For example, neurotypical people can store important papers in file cabinets with good results. For the Aspie or ADHD person, putting an important paper in a file cabinet feels like making it disappear forever. And so we accumulate paper stacks full of important papers and tell everyone not to touch them.

My paper stack, this morning

 A solution for the paper stack problem is to use stacking trays, as shown in the first photo. But over time the stacking trays can get all cluttered up with old projects and things that belong elsewhere. It's time to declutter.

Decluttering can be tough, though. There are several old/suspended/abandoned projects resting in my paper stack and stacking trays that will have to be rehomed into the Dreaded File Cabinet. To make room it's likely that some of the contents of the DFC will have to be discarded. And it's hard to let go of things--- papers that represent happier times of the past. Objects that were once of value may also have to get tossed during decluttering, and when you've suffered a reduction in income it's hard to let stuff like that go since if you want to replace it you won't be able to afford it.

Right now, I feel like my current clutter-level is holding me back from doing some of the writing-related things I want to do. I haven't written any poems in a while because the legal pad I write poetic first drafts on has disappeared in the clutter-piles. So today, I declutter. Maybe not a complete declutter leaving my writing area neat as a pin, but enough decluttering that I can hope to write with renewed enthusiasm and purpose tomorrow.

Recommended Book: Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD, 2nd Edition-Revised and Updated

How about you? Is your writing area cluttered right now? Do you feel the clutter is holding you back? What have you done to combat clutter, and did it help?

My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt