My Secret to an Organised Neurodivergent Home

3 minute read

Ask most people what they need to get organised and they’ll say a better system, a label maker and/or a good declutter.

APDO member Emma Gray shares a different approach. Drawn from her experience of, 'living in a neuro-spicy household with a PDA-profile daughter, teenage anxieties, two horses, a dog and a solo parenting widowed life', Emma's discovered that the most important organising tool in her home has nothing to do with neat storage boxes. Emma tells us more.

I’m diagnosed ADHD with strong autistic traits and I’ve spent a lifetime trying to make traditional organising methods work for my brain. It took me a long time to work out that the lists, the colour-coded calendars, the routines built on logic rather than nervous system reality can work for a while (usually whilst I’m getting dopamine hits from creating something new!), then they spectacularly fall apart the moment life throws something unexpected at us.

Why traditional organising often fails Neurodivergent households

There are various reasons why standard advice doesn’t land the way it’s intended in our home and I suspect many families may recognise at least one of these.

Demand avoidance changes everything. My younger daughter has a PDA profile of autism. This means that even a gently-worded suggestion, such as “please can you tidy your room before dinner?”, can trigger a deep, neurological resistance that has nothing to do with stubbornness. So, instead, life in our home runs on autonomy and choice. I give a couple of acceptable (to me!) options, followed by space to decide. 

Clutter tolerance is personal. What may feel chaotic to one person can feel like a safe haven to another. My daughter’s bedroom looks busy, but everything has a special place. The day a cleaner reorganised it “properly”, my daughter became completely dysregulated. Meanwhile, I can’t think straight until surfaces are clear, illustrating the importance of learning to tell the difference between distressing clutter and someone’s nervous system safe space.

Getting started is the hardest part. For many of us with executive functioning differences, the problem isn’t always the task, it may be the getting started. Cleaning dirty dishes isn’t hard, but standing in front of an overflowing sink when your brain is already at capacity can feel impossible. Although traditional organising may involve making a list and systematically working through it, what might work better in my world is to forget the overwhelming list and just identify the one tiny next step.

The organising tool nobody talks about

The most important part of all of this - that I realised last year - is that I am the regulation hub of our household. Which means, when I’m dysregulated (overtired, overwhelmed, snappy and stretched – which is often!) the whole family feels it. Similarly, when I’m settled, I create an environment and energy from which everyone around me can co-regulate. So this is why the most important organising tool in our ND home is my own regulated nervous system!

The practical implications of this are real… decluttering and organising works best when the nervous system is resourced and calm.

What this looks like in practice

I call this my self-care toolkit - and it’s deeply personal for each of us because what regulates one nervous system won’t necessarily regulate another. But, for me it includes:

•  The morning dog walk to pause and think about the one priority of the day

•  Poo-picking in the horses’ field (honestly, it’s more meditative than it sounds!)

•  A hot bath at the end of the day

•  Sitting in a sunny spot in the garden with a cup of tea, just listening to the birds

•  Noise-cancelling headphones when the world gets too loud

•  An honest cuppa conversation with someone who truly gets it

•  Asking myself “have I got capacity for this?” before adding anything else to my plate

Practical organising systems are so crucial in the decluttering world. But in a neurodivergent household, they need to be built on a foundation of nervous system safety. The first step is to calm ourselves, the second step is to do the organising and decluttering. Plus, knowing how to incorporate small controllable anchors in everyday life can be useful too… acknowledging the simple pleasures of an empty dishwasher, a made bed and clear kitchen surfaces before the day begins… and incorporating them as daily routines. It’s not about perfection or having a minimalist world. Instead, it’s about doing just enough to create a sense of steadiness and order in an unpredictable world.

If you’re working with neurodivergent families, or you are living in one, I’d love to gently invite you to consider… before jumping into putting in place systems, labels and getting stuck into the big declutter… whose nervous system needs calming first?

If you would like to find a professional to come alongside you, do take a look at our member's directory here.