My teenage daughter's room is a mess. What teenager's room isn't? Every drawer is open, piles of clothes decorate the floor, the desk is invisible beneath pens, books, projects, there are stacks of books, art supplies, shoes and shoes and shoes, makeup, hair clips, towels and blankets, cables and chargers, handbags. There isn't a clear path between door and bed. The colors and textures create an abstract composition that boggles the mind which realizes it is comprised of real stuff. Even the cats are leery of wandering in, though they manage and are able to find a few square inches on the chair (there is a chair?) to curl up for several hours.
On top of this, maybe causing this, definitely exacerbated by this, my daughter has ADD (inattentive type- no hyperactivity). And the idea of cleaning it is Just. Too. Much. Completely overwhelming. As overwhelming as the open-ended essay prompts that cause panic. There is simply no way to think about beginning a project so vast, so undefined. What do you mean clean up? What does that mean? Does it mean organize? Does it mean laundry? Does it mean figure out my life from beginning to end? It is all Just. Too Much! It would take days if I could even begin, and I just can't begin!
This was our situation throughout high school, a barely managed odyssey from crisis to success to crisis. We didn't know at the time that she had ADD, only figured that out halfway through senior year when the lightbulbs went off like fireworks illuminating the scary and confusing dark. So much was explained, though nothing was solved. That is the problem with ADD and ADHD; knowing is awesome and such a relief, but the world still needs to be tackled; homework still needs to be turned in, rooms still need to be cleaned. And most information on ADD stresses how important it is to have an environment which doesn't distract.
While I have my issues, tendency toward procrastination being one, figuring out how to begin a project isn't one of them. With regard to the room cleaning task, I could figure out a million ways to break up the task into manageable portions. For instance, clean up via categories: pick up all the shoes, then pick up all the shirts, then electronics, then books, etc. That way you get a gradual thinning of the mess and your brain doesn't have to work too hard at deciding what to put away next. Is it a shoe? Yes or no. Is it a book? Yes or no. No hard decisions. Other than which category to do first. Or, what is a category? Trickier than you might think.
Another possible methodology is to pick up by color; everything brown first, then everything blue, red, etc. Or pick up by priority; relevant to school work first, laundry second, things that need to move so a vacuum can enter third. But this is a method that requires far too much thinking when the mind is freaking out. These methods were not going to work for us.
For some reason, one of the items on my daughter's floor happened to be jump rope. A basic fitness jump rope (do not ask why it was in her bedroom, I can't imagine) about 8 or 9 feet long. Which, if you do your math, put handle to handle makes about a 3 foot diameter circle. Or shape, I should say.
It was not as metaphor that we used the jump rope in the early days, but as a literal guideline to cleaning up. Lay down the jump rope handle to handle in a circular shape and put away what lies within it. Repeat. Anywhere in the room you choose, circle to circle. The jump rope creates a space small enough to easily empty (success! completion!) and the fact that the circle contents change prevents boredom from setting in.
To this day, years later, my daughter will prefer to clean this way, not using an actual jump rope but the idea of one, focusing on one small space at a time to clean, happily revealing lovely clean spaces as she goes. It is her way of breaking up the task into manageable portions. Does that task ever get finished? Who knows, but progress is made, and progress is where it's at!
I find I use the Jump Rope Theory as I call it for regular house cleaning and organization too. I try not to let all my surfaces get covered, but there are a few tables where mail and magazines pile and if I limit myself to a small area of square footage I can handle it. Draw a line around it, clean within that line, be happy!
The Jump Rope Theory also works well as a metaphor for dealing with situational complexities. Life is messy. Messier than a teenager's bedroom. Too messy at times to deal with it all. Just. Too. Much.
So? Draw a line around it. Accept that the whole is too much, the problems too vast, too complex, too wide ranging, too confusing, too frightening. But accept too that a small portion can be dealt with. A bit at a time. Pluck out one small issue, not even necessarily what you suspect is the top priority issue, just something, and deal with that. Then toss the jump rope around another issue. The more small issues you deal with, not only will you be eating away at the complexities of your challenges, but by having fewer things contributing to the "mess" you will be giving some necessary breathing room around the larger or more important issues, revealing them for what they are, how they can be eventually tackled too. Progress. Progress yields room to breathe, room to breath yields perspective.
