Survey #276—Full Response from Ed
| Pronouns | He/him |
|---|---|
| What useful decluttering or organizing strategies or methods did you take away from the book? | “If the activity is something you truly dread, divide the activity into micro-moments.” “So often our clutter gets the best of us because we think of ‘straightening up’ as a separate, distinct, and dreaded activity that we put off as long as possible instead of one that is integrated into each moment of the day.” “Adults with ADD seem to both underdo it and overdo it, as paradoxical as this seems. Underdoing occurs when we don’t stick to a task we’ve set for ourselves because we’re drawn away by something more interesting. Overdoing can also cause significant problems, and is related to a well-known ADD tendency to ‘get stuck’ and resist moving on to the next task of the day.” “Another ADD-related pattern that may interfere with organizing is to complicate a task. For example, you might decide to install a time management program on your computer—a potentially very useful approach to making better use of your time. However, if you’re like many other adults with ADD, you might find that you’ve spent hours on your computer, customizing calendars, color-coding time blocks, and programming reminders—time that could have been better spent on another task. By making it overly complicated, you don’t get down to the actual organizing.” The section on “Ten Steps to ADD-friendly habit-building” seemed like very sound advice. |
| What parts or aspects of the book did you find difficult to grasp or challenging to apply to your home or situation? | Some of the anecdotes or case studies seemed VERY contrived, and some of the strategy suggestions felt pie-in-the-sky impossible to implement, or at least unlikely to be implemented by the average reader. For example, the section on Paradoxical Decision-making more or less implies that every important decision is going to be a simple binary choice, but that’s not real life works. So the advice to think of the worst choice you could make, then make the opposite choice has extremely limited value. Also, many of the anecdotes describe people having success with particular strategies suggested in the book, but the authors didn’t go on to talk about what to do when you try a strategy, then experience back-sliding or regression to old habits. |
| Please share your favorite quotations or key ideas and concepts from this book. | “Working with your mood often works better for adults with ADD than trying to schedule a task.” “Don’t try to adopt someone else’s organizing values. If being ‘tidy’ or ‘organized’ has negative connotations for you (tedious, boring, uptight, perfectionist), motivate yourself by organizing according to your own values.” |
| Kolberg and Nadeau base most of their “ADD-friendly organizing strategies” on the idea that people with ADHD can reframe their neurodivergent traits as strengths, working with their ADHD to take charge of life. | I like the general idea of paying attention to ways in which we’re neurodivergent, then looking for ways to turn those difference into sources of strength. But I’m not sure that if I were a person with ADHD, this book would help me get there. |
| Throughout the book, Kolberg and Nadeau suggest a three-pronged approach to applying their organizing strategies: You may do the work yourself; enlist the help of nonprofessionals, such as family and friends; and/or employ the services of professionals, such as professional organizers, ADHD coaches, and counselors. | All of the examples in the book of support from family and friends seem unrealistically optimistic. Also, I found the cutesy names for these enlisted helpers (Time Tutor, Tech Tamer, Clutter Companion, Paper Partner, Habit Helper, etc.) annoyingly alliterative and patronizingly precious. But seriously…the book leaned very heavily on the idea of enlisting a bunch of friends or family as helpers in one capacity or another, advice that many people would probably find hard to implement. The authors also seem to push very hard on the advice to hire professionals, which would make this book frustrating for anyone trying to organize on a tight budget. |
| Please rate this book on a scale of one to five stars. | 3 |
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