How do you do a clean?

I continue to be angry that this is an actual thing. All that visualizing seems like a ridiculous amount of work. They taught my class mnemonic devices in sixth grade, and that's one thing that I use, but only in special circumstances when I have to remember and then I use like four different methods to make sure that it's a thing.

 

I'm a teacher, and a lot of my ongoing training is learning to work with kids who have various levels of brain weird, and dealing with my own issues of brain weird. One thing I have found is that whatever the brain weird is tends to make what other people just do naturally or automatically (usually pick up early on in their lives or education with very little direct instruction) nearly impossible. One of the things is reading; I went to a workshop that was basically designed to help teenagers and adults with learning disabilities read more fluently, and a lot of it was breaking down what many readers just do automatically into several distinct, repeated steps to help ingrain the basic habits of reading.

Anyway, with the tasks/cleaning/asssignment thing, I found that working with my kids, breaking tasks down into small components, building a very specific routine, and frequent check ins to be helpful. I have one student that has a series of phone alarms to go off every week and every day; on Sundays he has a "set up planner" alarm followed in ten minutes by a "did you set up your planner alarm." He has three different "homework" alarms that go off in the afternoon; a weekly "planner check with Miss ----" alarm.
We also break down his assignments into smaller parts - like one vocabulary assignment might actually be three or four mini assignments. Since I'll be working with him for four years, the idea is that I'm gradually going to be less and less hands on with his scheduling and planner upkeep as it becomes more and more automatic for him, but he had to be actually taught how to create reminders/how to break assignments into chunks/how to do stuff that adults think he ought to do automatically before he can actually do them.

It also helps this particular kid that I give him Kitkats when he's followed through on parts or all of his planner/scheduling/homework regime, so I think rewarding yourself for a job well done is important.


On the "gunked up food" or "grimy bathroom" thing not triggering the "this is dirty and a problem" response, I have this issue with my husband (we're fairly certain he also has ADHD.) He doesn't always see a thing is dirty when I think a thing is a problem. So when it comes to his chores or his turn to do chores, I made up a broken down list of every thing to clean that he checks off as he goes.
This is part of the "Clean the Bathroom" Task List

C. Clean the toilet.
Have Clorox Wipes. Have toilet bowl cleaner and brush. Have gel pod. Have trashcan for wipes.
1. Move the wipes and nail polish basket off the toilet tank and to the counter.
2. Lift the lid and seat. Put the toilet cleaner around the rim of the seat. Close the lid and the seat.
3. Wipe the top of the toilet and tank with a clorox wipe. Wipe the flushing handle.
4. Get a new wipe. Wipe the based of the toilet and the bowl clean.
5. Get a new wipe. Wipe the lid, top and bottom. Wipe area between seat and tank.
6. Get a new wipe. Wipe the seat, top and bottom, and rim under the seat.
7. Get toilet brush. Open lid, respray cleaner. Scrub up and down and around twice. If there are stains, repeat.
8. Flush once to rinse bowl. Flush again to rinse brush.
9. Get gel pod. Stick and squeeze to side of toilet bowl AFTER WATER STOPS RUNNING.
10. Put away toilet brush, cleaner, and gel pod. Make sure all wipes went into trashcan. Put wipes and nail polish basket back on top of toilet tank.

This results in a SEVERAL PAGE laminated task list for cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen, and we went through a few many iterations of "You didn't clean the shower" "Honey I skipped this part because the shower's not dirty" "Yes it is the shower is dirty" "Showers aren't dirty, they are full of soap and water" and "Dear, please clean the shower like the checklist says because soap scum and grime and hair count as dirt" and "but - " and "please please follow all the steps so I know it is clean" "this is boring though" "i know" and so on

It definitely isn't a perfect system, but it helps him to have the steps to get it to "actually clean" and it helps me because I didn't pull my hair out and end up taking over all the housework forever. It also helps when I'm having depression or mood issues that I can take on just a few parts of the list. Is it my week to clean the bathroom. I can't do that. I can't even clean the whole toilet. But I CAN clean the tank. And later I can clean the bowl. And then I can clean the bottom.

 

@witchknights, I tried your suggestion yesterday (or started on it, rather). I forgot how nice it was to have a clean bed--used to be that half the bed was just covered in shit like books and clothes. I think I'm definitely gonna keep going down your list. :D

Also, my mom said she'll be emailing me the cleaning task list she used to send me when I lived alone, since it was really helpful for me and I figured it might help some of you too. So...that'll be here soon.

 

I thought I'd add some of my own advice, which hopefully has new stuff. (I'm possibly ADHD? haven't been diagnosed yet and autism kind of complicates it, but I fit the profile)

Music is a big help. Electroswing, dubstep, energetic pop and rap and stuff, soundtracks (god I love soundtracks), musicals, things like that are really helpful if I want to do anything. If your family doesn't like it, then headphones are a lifesaver.

Even just the act of breaking things down into smaller steps can be helpful. You may not follow them precisely, but it takes the task from an insurmountable brick wall of nope and anxiety to something you can at least imagine getting done.

I assume you're an excellent procrastinator. See if you can procrastinate productively, e.g.: "Oh god a paper? How do you do that? What's a paper? How do you type? How have I been able to ever do this... Oh look, laundry! Well, I mean, I just have to do that before starting the paper." This seems to work as long as your brain thinks you're putting something else off instead of doing a productive thing and the task you're procrastinating with is less important/big/complex than the thing you're procrastinating. Doesn't get you further on the main project, but at least you end up rushing it at the last minute in a clean environment.

In general, have a list of small things that need to be done regularly (really, have a physical or electronic list somewhere on you at all times) and when you start spinning your wheels on something, see if anything from the list looks doable. Useful for keeping your place clean once it's mostly there, but it does depend on you remembering the list's there, so do what you can to make checking it a routine (routines are great. make routines for everything).

This isn't specifically cleaning, but just in general having a notepad with you where you write down anything you want to remember (I actually have a list of little reminder words that I made as I was reading through the thread because otherwise I would have completely forgotten what things I wanted to talk about by now). Also alarms. For anything like classes and appointments, I have an alarm when I need to leave, at least 10 minutes before I need to leave, and at least 5 minutes before the second one to warn me that the other ones are coming.

Time intervals do nothing for me. I just spend the whole time aware that I'm gonna have to switch between tasks soon so I can't focus. Space sections are much better (so things like: one desk, one basket of laundry, two shelves, one counter, one cabinet, two pages, one room floor, etc.). Reward yourself for finishing these.

If you have a friend with similar problems, it might work to initially clean each other's rooms instead of cleaning your own, because you see so much detail in your own things that it's overwhelming, but other people's things are easier to sort.

I agree that things like Unfuck Your Habitat, while they do actually have some good advice, are annoying as hell. They remind me way too much of the weird "my house is cleaner than yours and my casserole is better, so I am morally superior and now I get to passive aggressively mock you to maintain my own self-worth" attitude that surrounded me growing up in Mormon culture. Plus they have weird things that they insist about. Who makes their bed every day? Ok, to be fair, I have known some people who do this, but why!? That means you can't even get in it until night again for fear of messing it up. And it will be messed up in less than 24 hours. You spend spoons for nothing. Making it before going on a trip though makes sense to me.

On the topic of the initial Big Clean, I recently spent a day cleaning my cousin's very messy (but relatively small) bachelor pad and this is how it went (like I said, I don't like to do things in time chunks, just go go go until the whole section is done, listening to music the whole time):

Spoiler: long list

Move everything on and around bed away, this is the Sorting Area. Gather all clothes that are not currently in a drawer or closet. Sort into outerwear and for further sorting. Put outerwear in closet. Sort remaining clothes into clean and dirty. Put all dirty clothes in laundry basket to be washed. Sort clean clothes into bottoms, tops, and other (e.g. socks) and put these in the right drawers folded however you want. Gather all shoes and put them either at front door or in closet. Take all mail and documents and put them on a table. take all technology and gadgets and put them next to the computer or plugged in to their respective chargers. Keep making piles of other categories of things to be sorted (e.g. makeup, art projects, etc.). Gather all dishes and food and put in kitchen. Clean things in sink. Clean things right next to sink. Clean area below things right next to sink. Clean sink. repeat until you have all dishes stacked to one side of the sink with a clean surface under them. Put all food away that isn't being thrown away. Clean counter. Clean stove. Put all dishes away. Clean sink again. Find all books not currently being read. Put them in the shelves. The floor should be clear by now, if not, put anything left in a miscellaneous sorting pile. Sweep/mop floor. Vacuum carpet. Take a damp cloth and go over bottom corners of entire room and follow with a dry cloth (you'll have to clean these a couple times). Do the same with any open shelves and tables. Go pile by pile and sort them into further sorting and trash, then sort the further sorting and put it where you want it to go, repeat until done with piles. Take anything you picked out as being important to remember (bills, homework, paperwork, etc.) and spread it out on the table. Clean any areas of the room not covered yet (things like wiping down window sills, cleaning electronics). Go around organizing things so they look pretty and neat (the fun part). take the trash bags you've filled out to the garbage can. Yay, you're done! Watch a movie. Take a 100 year nap.

This "try to remember" thing still sounds like dark magic to me, because I'll do exactly what Seebs is describing and will still forget things I need to do hours, minutes, or even seconds later. I've forgotten my laundry even existed in the communal washers for a day at a time, I forget appointments I have set up with people unless I have an alarm, and I'll do things like forget I'm holding a book until I drop it when I reach for something else, and I'll decide to turn on music, then see a cool gif and forget I was going to until an hour later when I wonder why there isn't any music playing. Having things out where I can see them is the best because if they're stored away, it's complete luck whether I'll remember about them in time.

 

ADHD here, my solution is "don't give a fuck." If I need to clean a dish to eat, I will. If I need to put clothes in the washer because I only have one pair of pants without food spilled on it, I will. If something smells, I get rid of it when it starts smelling. That's it. When somebody comes into my (single person) dorm, I tell them beforehand that it's a no judgement zone. So far it has worked, and if somebody starts giving me shit about not being able to see the floor I'll just kick them out. If I don't care about clutter and filth, so what? That's just how I am and I'm not going to waste time and energy cleaning when there are other things I actually want to or have to do.

 

It's definitely a "do what's important for you" thing, which can include doing things that are important for people you honestly care about. If it doesn't bother you and doesn't bother anyone you care about, who gives. There's enough shit in the world that you actually care about, I'm sure :D

 

There are still so many things to reply to and I don't think I can, so here's a general thank you again to everyone who is doing the advice thing!

WOW I ACTUALLY REALLY NEEDED TO READ THIS, THANK YOU. I recently got (kind of?) diagnosed with autism and that explained my entire fucking life, so uh yeah. I was always getting yelled at as a kid for being messy and not having my school books tidy and for having messy handwriting and for not being able to cut out worksheets neatly and always forgetting my school diary and homework and assignments etc. etc. But it is indeed possible I also have ADHD so wow thanks brain. But yeah, I remember even as a kid, knowing that I really needed to do something and being physically unable to get myself up to do it without spending ages essentially repeating to myself, "Get up get up get up get up." So uh yeah, I did kinda grow up feeling like a horrible lazy slob of a human being who was clearly a bad person for not being able to do the things everyone else could so easily do!

But um anyway yes, what you wrote is very true and very true! I've gotten better at getting my shit together lately, but it's still tough, but I can do it!

 

My awesome mom was kind enough to type up the basic instructions she'd give me. Long list ahoy!

Spoiler: thanks mom!!

First, figure it’s going to take a while to really clean a room that’s in bad shape. Give yourself time. A reasonable time would be about a week. If the room is really a disaster, give yourself two weeks. Pick a day to start and a day when you expect to be done…that will give you something to shoot for!
What you’ll need:

• Some place where you can put things temporarily as you’re cleaning (hallway, closet, shelf, etc.)
• Large plastic bags (i.e. garbage bags)
• A sharpie, or some other kind of marker for marking the bags (NOTE FROM ACEY: I've been known to use different colors of duct tape and just color-code the bags instead of writing on them--whatever works for you!)
• A laundry hamper, or a plastic bag marked “laundry”
• Surface-cleaning product (i.e. some kind of spray cleaner)
• Paper towels

To start:
Mark off a section of the room approximately 6’ X 6’ (if you don’t have a measuring tape, no worries. You can lie down and use your own height as an approximate measure). I find it easiest to start in a corner. You don’t have to be terribly sophisticated about marking this…just plowing a line in the debris on the floor will work just fine!
This is the ONLY area with which you’ll be concerned for right now. One of the secrets to cleaning is not to get overwhelmed.
Pick things up:
Start with the floor. One by one, pick everything up off the floor and do the following:

• If it’s trash, put it in a plastic bag marked “trash.”
• If it’s recyclable, put it in a plastic bag marked “recyclable.”
• If it’s clothing or some other kind of cloth (such as a towel), put it in the laundry hamper (or in the plastic bag marked “laundry”)
• If it’s a dish, glass, cup, or something else like that, take it into the kitchen and put it in the sink.
• If it’s something you don’t want anymore, but is otherwise in good shape, put it in a bag marked “donate.”
• If it’s anything else, put it in the place you’ve set aside for keeping things temporarily.

Once the floor in your marked-off area is completely clear, start with other surfaces within that area (desktops, window ledges, shelves, etc.). Work methodically and do the same thing…putting each thing you find in one of the above categories.
Clean:
When that small area is completely clear of stuff, get out the spray cleaner and paper towels and clean the surfaces you can see (desktops, window ledges, shelves, etc.)
Deal with the “stuff”:
Once you’ve done all the picking up and cleaning, you need to take care of the “stuff” you’ve accumulated.

• Take the trash bags out to the trash can.
• Take the recyclables to the recycle bin.
• Put the laundry in the washer (when it’s done, you can fold it neatly and put it in the place where you’re keeping things temporarily)
• Stage the bags of things you want to donate where you can easily find them to take them to Goodwill, Salvation Army, or your favorite thrift store.
• Wash the dishes and put them away.

Take a break:
Once you’ve completely finished a section, take a break. A good, long break…at least an hour, if not
overnight. You’ve taken on a major task, and you need to reward yourself for progress by taking some
time away from it. But don’t take too long. You should be able to complete two sections a day, if you
don’t have school or work to take you away from your task. Definitely DO NOT take more than a day
between sections.
Start on a new section:
After your break, mark off a new section of room. Follow the same instructions.
Special areas:
The bed:

• You should do the bed last, after you’ve done the rest of the room.
• Pull everything out from under the bed. If you need to, use a broom or rake to get everything
• out.
• Once you’ve pulled everything out from under the bed, follow the same procedure as you
• followed for cleaning the other sections:
• o If it’s trash, put it in a plastic bag marked “trash.”
• o If it’s recyclable, put it in a plastic bag marked “recyclable.”
• o If it’s clothing or some other kind of cloth (such as a towel), put it in the laundry hamper
• (or in the plastic bag marked “laundry”)
• o If it’s a dish, glass, cup, or something else like that, take it into the kitchen and put it in
• the sink.
• o If it’s something you don’t want anymore, but is otherwise in good shape, put it in a bag
• marked “donate.”
• o If it’s anything else, put it in the place you’ve set aside for keeping things temporarily.

Closet:
Treat the closet as its own section. Start with the floor, and follow all the steps above.
Dresser:
When you get to the dresser, take EVERYTHING out of the drawers. Be brutal, and decide what you
absolutely need to keep and what you can donate or trash.
Once all the above has been done, put stuff away:
This is another place where you may need to be brutal. Once you’ve finished cleaning, you need to put
things away, and this is where you need to decide if you really need all the stuff you’ve set aside. Here’s
what you need to consider:

• You need to be able to close all your drawers without straining.
• Anything in your closet needs to fit neatly on hangers or on a shelf.
• Anything on your desk needs to either fit neatly in a drawer or in some place where it won’t get in your way when you’re working.
• If it doesn’t have a place (i.e., if it doesn’t fit neatly on a shelf or in a drawer) it doesn’t belong. If you don’t have room to neatly stow all your stuff, you have too much stuff. Take another pass through your room and decide what you need to get rid of.

Hope that helps a bit!

 

My problem is that I make my bed and pick up trash and then I'm exhausted and frustrated and it still looks like nothings been done.

 

but at first it does look like nothing's been done. But you did - you made your bed and picked up trash. it's a self-defeating device bad brains have, and it fucks you up every time.
When i was dealing with the worst of three combined generations of hoarding i made progress pathetically slow; just to be clear, after two years i am finally done with the laundry backlog, and i've yet to convince my mom she will not use those torn up jeans for anything and that i can indeed throw them out.

that's why even if i don't make my bed all pretty every day i did put it as the first thing to do in my program, because when things got too frustrating, i at least had a place to plop face-down and scream into a pillow for five minutes straight, and that was more than i had before, so: progress. but it's hard to learn that progress can come in small chunks too, instead of only in big sweeping changes.

 

You have inadvertently helped me power through basic cleaning tasks.

You posted a tale about changing the battery in your garage smoke alarm (IIRC). In relating the story you interjected something along the lines of, "Yay. I did a thing."

I now reward myself for completing even a brief task by saying, "Yay. I did a thing."

I think the reason it works is that the Yay gives value to tasks that I might otherwise be tempted to devalue the doing of, while deflating big-seeming tasks to also being "a thing" so they seem less daunting.

a tiny mushroom: I don't know if this would help you as well, but it can be used on even the briefest burst of activity. One can have a "Yay. I did a thing," or some equivalent for making a bed or carrying out some dishes or throwing clothes in the hamper. You don't have to clean the whole room to get one. It's a thing. You did it. Yay.

 

Likewise. :)

It's the sort of thing that reminds me not to get too isolated.

 

All good stuff.

I also discovered leveraging my brainweird. (Thank you. I now have something to call it. :) ) I sometimes get stuck aspie-wise on doing puzzles all day. Interestingly, I am so very, very, very old that I now have hot flashes. They make whatever I'm doing unpleasant for the duration. Was pleasant 30 seconds ago. Now unpleasant and will be for the next 4-5 minutes. So I get up and do something I don't want to do, like taking out the trash or removing snow from the car, because now why not. It can't make me any more miserable. As soon as I realize it's over I'm happily back to the puzzles.

 

I'm making progress on my own room, and I discovered that I can fit a pretty large percentage of my clothing (and I have a lot of clothing) into a big suitcase if I fold it right. The rest of it, save for pajamas and underwear (which will go in a bin), can be hung up in the closet.

The suitcase thing is obviously not an ideal storage solution, but hey, I'll take it. :P