If your home feels chaotic no matter how hard you try and every routine you set up falls apart within days, you’re not alone, I’ve certainly been there. With ADHD we’re often running on good intentions and when it all falls apart it can feel like we’ve failed. Whether it’s the challenge of supporting a child with ADHD or managing your own, the overwhelm can feel high.
When you’re juggling executive function challenges (yours or your child’s), the typical organisation and “perfect parenting” advice simply doesn’t work.
The good news? You don’t need Pinterest worthy perfection. You just need ADHD-friendly systems that work with your brain, not against it.
In this blog, I’m sharing five simple, practical ADHD home strategies that make daily life easier and you can start them today. These changes reduce overwhelm, support executive function and help you create a calmer, more predictable home, without needing more willpower or motivation. Because we all know with ADHD willpower and motivation are not the problem.
1. Reduce Visual Clutter
Visual clutter adds to the mental load. Every item your eyes land on uses a tiny bit of brain space and for ADHD brains already overwhelmed with sensory and cognitive input, this can be exhausting.
This isn’t advice to just tidy it away, sometimes that “clutter” is actually our visual cues (see the next tip). What we can do, it find categories in the clutter and contain it. If you’re kitchen counter is cluttered with post and children’s artwork for example, a box for post and a box for artwork is what you need - no lids, clear labels so it’s just as easy to put it down but this way it’s contained rather than clutter. This keeps visual noise down while still keeping what you need visible enough to remember.
This one can apply all across your house, find the places that get cluttered and put in place a system that works with your “normal way of working”. Start small, tackle on area at a time, the kitchen counter, your bedside table - every small start will make a big difference.
2. Use Visual Cues Instead of Verbal Reminders
ADHD brains don’t respond well to repeated verbal instructions which put pressure on limited working memory but visual cues are incredibly effective for both children and adults.
Visual cues take the pressure off you and support your child’s independence. They make expectations clear without constant nagging, which means less emotional friction at home.
Examples:
- Hooks by the door with a name label so coats actually get hung up
- The morning routine printed and stuck to the wall
- A laundry basket where clothes naturally land
- Labels on shelves, baskets or drawers
Visual cues don’t only work as reminders for the things we need to do, they can also be useful for encouraging children (and adults) to engage in activities. If we know movement is good for our child when they get home from school but they don’t like being told to move, we simply leave the equipment that encourages movement in sight and easy to use. Perhaps we want to engage in a hobby like playing a musical instrument or crafting, don’t tuck your kits neatly away - have it on display reminding you and making it easy to start.
3. Create Easy Put Away Spaces
Traditional organising expects you to fight your natural habits. ADHD-friendly organising does the opposite: it designs around them.
Easy Put Away Spaces are simple containers, baskets, trays or open areas where items can be put away quickly without thought. They reduce friction, which is the main reason ADHD systems fail.
If it takes more than one or two steps to tidy something, it won’t happen consistently. Easy Put Away Spaces make tidying almost automatic.
Examples:
- A basket for TV remotes
- A tray for unopened post or school letters
- Open-top toy bins instead of fiddly stacked boxes
- A basket for chargers and headphones
- A shelf for water bottles rather than a hidden cupboard
And, crucially, don’t forget to label - just to make sure you don’t forget what the basket is for!
When things have an obvious home that’s simple to access, your home naturally resets itself more easily.
4. Keep Routines Simple
If a routine requires 10 steps, it won’t survive a tired day, a busy week or an overwhelmed moment and ADHD parenting has a lot of those. We should build our lives for our worst days, not our best - that way we’ll have fewer occasions when it all falls apart (note I don’t say it never fall apart, we all have those moments and being honest it important).
Simplicity builds consistency and consistency reduces chaos.
Small routines are more sustainable because they reduce press on executive function.
The goal is not perfection, it’s repeatable habits that make life feel easier.
5. Stop Forcing Systems That Don’t Fit
If a system needs motivation or willpower to maintain, it will eventually fail and that’s not a reflection of you. It’s a reflection of a system that wasn’t designed for an ADHD brain or more importantly, it wasn’t designed for you.
ADHD-friendly systems remove friction, remove steps and work with how you naturally behave.
Examples:
- Laundry baskets with no lid (lids create friction)
- Snack baskets children can see and reach
- A deliberate drop zone in the place clutter always gathers
- Storage that is visible, not hidden
Your home becomes calmer the moment you stop fighting how your brain works and start building systems that support it.
Start with One Small Change
Please don’t try to do all five at once.
Choose one area of home life that feels the most frustrating today and begin there. This blog is designed to give you quick wins, so you can choose where to start, not to cause overwhelm in itself.
Even one tiny improvement can make your whole day run more smoothly.
Want Personalised Help Creating an ADHD-Friendly Home?
If you want tailored, practical solutions for your biggest ADHD home challenges I can help you. Choose from a Power Hour that gives you one hour of focused, expert support, if you want a personalised list of actions specific to your family and home choose the ADHD Home Strategy Assessment or go all out and I can visit your home to set up the new systems for you.
Together we’ll identify the sticking points and create systems that fit your real life.