Hi there! I don't have adhd myself, but all three of my roommates do. It makes it almost impossible for them to notice when chores need done, or to even motivate to do chores when reminded (whether by me or the chore apps we've tried). I don't want to resent my friends but I'm getting close, since I'm the only person in the house who does household chores. Do you have any tips on how I can help them, and how they can help themselves?
Ok so I’ve been chewing on this response for a while. Because there’s no one technique or life hack that can solve this situation easily – BUT i do believe you and your roommates have the power to solve it, with understanding and a helluva lot of communication. First Im going to explain how the adhd brain can react to chores, them I’m going to share how you can outwit the adhd brain through the power of friendship (e.g., communication, teamwork, and the benefit of the doubt).
So, for a lot of people with executive dysfunction problems, chores are THE WORST.
1. Some of them happen regularly, and others are intermittent. Since it’s already hard for us to notice the existence of time, this fact hits us coming and going.
2. Some of them are suuuuuuuuuuuuper boring, which is absolute agony and makes 10 minutes feel like 2 hours of torture.
3. Some require multiple steps, so we cant figure out how to get started, so we get overwhelmed and freak out.
4. Starting a new thing – overcoming the inertia of I’m Already Doing Something Else – is really hard.
5. If there is any kind of obstacle to getting started on the chore, our motivation to do the thing can fizzle out.
6. Many of us associate chores with punishment / bad feelings, because we grew up in households that didn’t acknowledge our difficulties, or blamed us, or guilt tripped us, or used chores as a punishment.
But!!! All is not lost!! This is where the power of Friendship comes in, because it sounds like there are at least 4 people in your house, which means there’s 4 people to help each other outsmart their brains and get stuff done.
The first thing to do is sit down with your roommates and have an honest conversation about the chores. This is NOT a, “Chris you didnt do the dishes the last 3 weeks” conversation! The theme of this conversation is: “The chores gotta get done. Let’s brainstorm together how to get that done.”
Here are some things that you all, as a group, gotta figure out together:
1. What are the communal chores that need doing, and how regularly do they need to get done?
-Write this all down! Right there at the table! ADHD brains can sometimes need things pinned down in letters on a page before we can grok them. And some things that seem Really Big out loud can turn out to look a lot less intimidating on paper.
-Sometimes people have different expectations for what a specific chore requires. My spouse balked at vacuuming for a long time before I realized that for him, vacuuming meant moving all the furniture to get every single speck of carpet in the house. Me saying “God no please just vacuum the carpet you can easily reach” solved that issue.
2. What chores do people hate? Why?
- The “Why?” is important. If someone hates doing dishes because it makes their hands wet and they have to touch Gross Things, that doesn’t mean they never have to do dishes – it means they should try wearing rubber dish gloves to see if that helps.
3. What chores do people not mind doing?
-My spouse haaaates folding laundry, and I dont mind it, so voila, that is now my task.
4. What sorts of things stand in the way of getting chores done?
- I wanted to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, but the clean dishes were still in there, and my brain was so set on dirties -> dishwasher I couldn’t brain how to switch over to putting the clean stuff away first. (Solution: “Dishes” might be broken up into more discrete tasks)
-I was supposed to sweep but there were Things on the floor (Solution: “It’s ok to sweep around things on the floor.”)
-I know I’m supposed to take the trash out every Sunday but I didn’t realize it was Sunday until Monday started (Solution: “Take the trash out on Monday and let it sit there till the following Sunday” OR “Put the trash bags right in front of the door so you cant miss them when you leave the house”)
- The pile of dishes was so big i got overwhelmed and left the room (Solution: “You don’t have to do ALL the dishes, just a sinkful” OR “Step 1 of doing dishes is restacking them more neatly on the counter”)
5. What are some workarounds we can figure out around the above obstacles to help each other get everything done?
- In my house, we don’t have a dishwasher. I will wake up in the morning and start a load in the sink, and wash enough dishes to fill the dish rack. When my spouse wakes up an hour later, he puts the clean dishes away. Over the course of a day, by tagging in and out, we get all the dishes done (mostly).
-We talk ALL THE TIME about what we need to get done and what is stopping us, and how we can help each other overcome the mental obstacle.
Example: “I know i need to do some dishes but the size of the stack is killing me.” “Would it help if I washed the two big saucepans so that the stack is smaller?” “OH GOD YES.”
-We ask each other for help when we need it! “Hey I can do all the laundry if you could just carry the basket downstairs for me.”
I know you are getting irritated by the current chore situation. You also dont want to “nag” people or be, like, some sort of parental figure dispensing chore assignments to your grumbling roommates. And you don’t want to be left doing all the chores all the time, slowly seething.
None of that needs to happen.
Talk with your roomates. Have an honest conversation focused on problem solving. No blame. No pointing fingers. Y'all are the Avengers, or the Justice League, or your Found-Family-Trope Of Choice. The only rules are:
3. Communicate some more. Ongoing communication. Regular check-ins. Task-swapping. Teamwork.
4. Give each other the benefit of the doubt. No one is skipping chores to be mean, or to punish anyone else. If something gets missed, talk and brainstorm and help each other.
You’re a really great friend, to reach out for help about this! You can do it!
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