My ADHD Brain: 3 Systems for Finding Stuff

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share a couple of systems that I use to find things in my house!  This is part of a series on my ADHD brain and all of the systems I use to compensate for a lack of internal structure and organization.  

In almost every household, there is one "finder."  Something is lost?  Call in the Finder.  From my extremely informal polling, I've found that the Finder tends to be the woman of the house, but that is not true in mine!  My husband is definitely the Finder. He is frequently tasked with finding shoes, tennis racquets, mobile devices, stuff in the fridge and in one embarrassing incident, the keys that I was searching high and low for -- sneakily located in my right hand.  

When I started staying at home with the kids over a decade ago, I found myself calling him multiple times a day to ask where things were.  I quickly found that to be an unsustainable situation -- after all he was busy at work and I was the stay at home parent.  Surely I could manage to remember where things were in my own domain!

Okay -- but the problem is that my ADHD brain is not hospitable to information such as this.  Apparently this information is stored in the same place as say, the landmarks at intersections or the names of people I've only met once which I can NEVER bring to mind, but some people have access to instantly.  

Rather than beating myself up over my natural deficit in this area, I came up with three tools to assist me: an inventory spreadsheet, a where the hell is note, and a one thing, one place system.  Let's go through them.

Inventory spreadsheet

We have a lot of stuff in storage bins and in drawers, cabinets, and containers throughout our house.  This whole situation has gotten a bit better after I partially magically tidied our house Mari Kondo style, but we still have a ridiculous amount of stuff.  I decided that what I needed was a searchable database of the stuff in our house.  Believe me, I can go a little nuts on creating complicated technical solutions to problems, but my database skills are beginner level at best, so instead, I created a Google Sheets spreadsheet.  I decided that anything that was out in the open or in frequent use didn't need to be inventoried.  So that included tools hanging in plain view in the garage and most of the drawers in my kitchen that I access all the time.  I'm forgetful, but there are SOME things I can remember without help!

I wanted this to be easily searchable, so I opted for one big sheet with column designations.  The first column was floor of the house (basement, ground, upstairs, attic, or garage).  The second was room (kitchen, master bedroom, etc.). The third column was sublocation.  For example, in the master bedroom my sub-locations include bedside table, vanity bottom basket, vanity top basket, medicine cabinet, etc.  For the storage room of the basement, the sub-location listed the name of the bin which was labeled in masking tape on the visible side.  So here are some examples: Archived Paperwork, Camping, Kitchen 1-4, Halloween.  Then I listed each object in each sub-location in the Items column separated by commas.  People I've shared this with think it's pure bonkers.  It might be, but I figure, if something is worth keeping -- then it's worth taking the second of time to write it down so I can find it later.  I spent a couple of weeks during my kids' naps inventorying all of the stuff in my house (and of course, got rid of a ton of stuff in the process).  So now, when I'm trying to find something, the first thing I do is consult my inventory spreadsheet.  For example, what if I'm trying to find a fondue pot.  I go to Find and Replace, type in fondue and determine that it is in the basement, storage area in the bin labeled Kitchen 3.  There is a little maintenance that needs to happen when I move things or add them to bins, but it's easy with a portable device like an iPad.  

Where the hell is? Note

My inventory spreadsheet is for storage areas -- not for areas that I use frequently.   But sometimes I will have some strange thing that i don't use that frequently, but shouldn't go in a storage bin.  For example, my mom goes on vacation for 2 weeks and leaves her car in front of my house.  I put the keys to her car in my odds and ends drawer in my kitchen.  For MY ADHD brain, 2 weeks is a long time.  I MAY remember where I put it or it could take me 15 minutes to find it.  Or, worse case scenario, I may have to call in the Finder.  In these cases, where I immediately have this sinking feeling "I'm never going to remember where I put this!", I made a note in Evernote called "Where the hell is?" Some of the things I have in this note are the keys to my basement fridge, socks for the local trampoline park for which I don't want to keep shelling out $3 a piece for since I can't find them right away, greeting cards that I've bought far in advance, etc.

One thing, one place

The last tool/policy that I use is the one thing, one place system.  This is the sort of thing that it's taken me 40 years of living to figure out.  I used to think -- I'm forgetful, right?  I'll buy a bunch of the same thing and then I will always have one.  Here's an example -- sunglasses.  I'm not an expensive sunglasses purchaser.  $12 sunglasses at RiteAid are fine with me -- although, not surprisingly, I do have a bunch of very fastidious sunglass requirements that have very little to do with price.  Anyway -- I used to think having 6 pairs would mean that I would always be able to find a pair.  This makes intuitive sense, right?  Wrong.  What actually happens is that because I have so many a) I don't have a permanent place for them so they are scattered through my house and b) I'm careless with them since I have so many.  So I lose ALL of them and end up with none.  My new policy is that I have one pair -- they live in my purse in exactly the same spot.  I always know where they are and if I do lose them (I'm not an entirely changed person, after all) I can buy I new pair to replace them.  But you know what?  I don't lose them anymore.  I take care of them and put them back in their place knowing I only have one pair.  It doesn't make  any sense and yet, this is how my brain works. The same goes for water bottles for the kids, headphones, cords for devices, and fleece jackets.    

So those are my 3 tools that I use to find things in my house: a house storage inventory spreadsheet, a where the hell is? note and a one thing, one place policy.  I'd love to know what you think!  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching.