Episode 367 – Are labels like ADHD, Autism and OCD helpful when decluttering?

Ingrid: ADHD, autism OCD and anxiety are increasingly mentioned in conversations about decluttering and organizing. And these diagnoses are often referred to as labels for many. A diagnosis, can provide clarity and relief, helping explain why certain tasks feel especially challenging. Yet sometimes labels can also feel limiting or overwhelming, causing people to doubt their ability to change.

In this episode, we explore the complex roles of labels in decluttering when they empower and when they might hold us back. We share practical insights to help you understand how to work with your unique brain and habits and get the job done.

Ingrid: Lesley, not an easy podcast topic we have chosen to talk about today.

Lesley: I think it's a really important one as well. And you know, before we even get started recording, what we want to say is everybody's different. Everybody will have their own ideas about terminology, about what a diagnosis, where people is on their journey, whether even the term label is demeaning in some way. the reality is that people talk about labels all the time, and for some people that's a positive thing. So we want to get that straight out there.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: we'd rather talk about things like diagnoses, but labels is a thing that's bonded around, and so we're just trying to get it out there and discuss our experience, our lived experience of. within our families, within our friends, within our membership, within our clients, and how that has affected them. And that's really the only thing that we can do. We can only talk about our own experiences

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: everybody has got their own. labels tricky one, Ingrid, when we put it down there, Ingrid's like, oh, I just thought we would talk about labels on

Ingrid: Yeah, I thought, Ooh, we're, I know. I thought we were going to do a live podcast about kind of what labels to choose on your containers, on your shelves, and whether you not have labels in your house or not, and maybe that's help. Full. There's already me thinking about, I don't have labels on my, on my shelves, in my laundry cupboard.

Unless he's like, no, no, no. You've completely misunderstood. Ingrid what we're going to talk about today. And I went, wow. We had a completely, like we were on different parts here, Lesley, different parts. We were.

Lesley: I know whether we get to the end of this podcast is, is you know, we don't know. 'cause Ingrid, let me just tell you today. Is grumpy, possibly the most grumpy that she has ever been in the history of recording podcasts, because we're recording this a little, a few weeks early 'cause of holidays and things like that. And it's like 35 degrees or something like that in London. She's in a small room, she's got no heater, she can't have a fan on the window's broken, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's just moaned from nine o'clock this morning. We're now at two o'clock. And I'm like, are you still going to carry on moaning all day long?

And she said that she absolutely is. So

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: a little bit tense. Adding this podcast into the mix probably wasn't a good idea. But anyway, am I right Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yes you are. I am grumpy and it doesn't happen very often. I stay grumpy for so long, but it's all valid, my grumpiness. But as you know, when I'm recording podcasts or speaking to our members and our members, whatever, I always try to, sound cheerful while I think I'm actually, there's, there's sweat coming from places I didn't know it was possible.

Lesley: Exactly. Well, I've got my own little label for you, but I won't say what that is today. Don't think that would enhance things. Anyway, back to the matter in hand. So labels, so really as I say, what we want to talk about is diagnoses and whether a diagnosis can be helpful and, and a label in inverted commas is something that people talk about.

Certainly quite negatively in some instances. Oh, you know, everybody, there's a label for everything. We hear all this stuff banded around in the news as the, as the conversation about neurodiversity is becoming more and more part of our lives now, it's a good thing, in my opinion, any conversation, as long as it's not like a really negative one. Is opening up debate and is raising awareness, and that's what this is all about.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: the fact that the conversations about ADHD, about autism, about anxiety, about mental health, all of the things about physical health, all of the above. We all know what they are. All lots and lots of different things. It allowing people to go, oh, actually I think that might be me.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: explore different options other than feeling ashamed, embarrassed, alone. And so whilst the term labels might be considered to be derogatory. we think that a diagnosis of something or awareness of it or thinking that you might have something or, you know, being at the early stages of thinking that you might have something like that, that's different about your brain, or your body in fact is really, really helpful.

Don't we, Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yeah. And I think it's interesting because, we recent, recently, I think we were chatting, I was chatting to one of the members. She said, well, she was writing down, one of her kids recently was diagnosed. And now she's like, wow. Suddenly thinks about me or falling into place, and I hadn't really recognized that before.

So I think it's, it's really, really changing compared to what it was 5, 10, 15 years ago even. You know, it's, it's, I think if people are more open, they're more, maybe also not as afraid to look at themselves and go, huh. Right. That explains a lot instead of. Oh, well I was just, you know, always like that or I didn't know, or I just, I've changed over the years or all those things.

It's more discussed now, which is I think, really nice.

Lesley: Exactly, and I think that for me, there's a couple of things that I really want to sort of get out there in the beginning, really, which is. There are lots of people who are using these terms flippantly. So

Ingrid: Mm.

Lesley: I'm a bit of a hoarder. I'm a bit OCD, you know, ADHD is coming into the mix. anxiety is a different one really, but there's a lot of things where it's used very flippantly and

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: not helpful to the people who are really struggling to

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: come to terms with that part of their life.

And so. You

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: we, we sort of almost flinch a little bit because we've worked for so many years with people who are living with these kind of neurodiverse conditions and all of those kind of things. It's really hard for us to hear people throwing terms like OCD around, for example, because if you've ever worked with somebody with OCD and it comes in lots of different guises, that's the thing.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: the person who's tidying up their shelves a little bit obsessively. This is a debilitating condition which stops you from living life in the way that you want it to. And so for those terms to be thrown around is really hard for people. Same with, you know, I'm a bit of a hoarder. You know, the debilitating condition, which is hoarding disorder or even hoarding behaviors. Again, it's stopping people from living their life that they want to live and for people to

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: kind of belittle that term and just use it as a throwaway comment is really hard to hear from us. 'cause we've

Ingrid: Y.

Lesley: it at the, you know, we haven't experienced it ourselves, but we've certainly seen it secondhand from our clients, haven't we?

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about that. What's your experience with, so, you know, both of us have been in the business for 15 years and clearly as, as. Time unfolds and awareness builds on things, particularly

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: ADHD. Let's use that as an example. were working with, we have been working with people with ADHD that entire time that

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: whatsoever about that, but the way that we deal with that and the conversations that we have in our day-to-day life is very different.

So tell me, would you ever have a conversation then or now? You know, bearing in mind, of course the ADHD, diagnose, adult ADHD diagnosis is only like 12 years old. Something like

Ingrid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lesley: recognized as a, it wasn't recognized as a condition until about 12 years ago. Is that a conversation that you would ever have with your clients?

Ingrid?

Ingrid: oh, that is actually quite a tricky question, Lesley, because I've been, I, I, if I think back. At the beginning of my career, I think it was just nuts. I was just, I, I, maybe I was naive, Lesley, if I look back now, I was like, oh, I just want to help people, you know, declutter house and just help them, you know, find things easier and make, put everything in a place for everything.

Everything is place. And in the beginning, back in 20 10, 20 11, 15 years ago. I it did not, you know, it did not occur to me. Of course, you know, of course if you see when a mental illness it's, or a, or neurodiverse brain, it's much more difficult when you see somebody who's, for example, in a wheelchair, you can kind of go, oh, okay, I'm going to need to help them with lifting and carrying and, and it, it's, you can, 'cause you can see it.

Somebody who's neuro averse, she can't see it. So in the beginning I was like, just like, is bubbly happy? I'm still well hopeful. Well, not today, I'm not bubbly and happy, but normally I'm, yeah, I'm bubbly, happy to come in. But now I have learned so much over the years as well, and I started to see throughout our time and of course our conversations and the guests that we have interviewed and all the learning we've done ourselves.

I now go, ah, okay. In, in my brain, it all starts to fall more into place. I've always looked at the client and go, okay, what makes, what works for you? Not what works for me? What works for you? I. But I understand that I think far more better now than when I did at the start of my career. It, it's, it's a lifelong learning process and that's why I feel as a professional organizer, I'm never done learning.

And, and that's why it's so interesting and so fascinating what we do and yeah, I think I'm, I'm a, I'm a different person than I was, but hopefully, because, you know, I'm, I'm 15 years older as well.

Lesley: Yeah. And you know, I think you hit the nail on the head there really. It really Ingrid, which is, and I'm exactly the same as you. You know, my journey has been the same as yours. And so whilst retrospectively I look back and think absolutely that person, and you know, I look back at my clients of whom I still work with today, and though they've certainly got ADHD diagnosed or not, they've got the.

The, the signs of that, you know, that you can

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: visible there. We're not doctors, but we can sort of see common traits of people with ADHD, for example. But I think we've always, as a professional organizer, it's always about trying to be person centered. And so trying to

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: something that works for an individual and one person with ADHD is not the same as the next person with ADHD.

They have very, very different ways of looking at things and ways of managing their home. So.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: even within something, and we're focusing a little bit more on ADHD, but the same for autism or OCD or any of the things that we're talking about.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: can't have one a one size fits all for that.

There's not, oh, this is a strategy that works for somebody with ADHD. You still have to look at the person and try and work out collaboratively, and that's what

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: what's going to work for them. There are certainly some common commonalities, the things that are going to work, signs that we see with people, particularly with ADHD, that are going to work a little bit better. But I think for me, the difference in that 15 years, and I think a lot of this is probably. A little bit more knowledge, a little bit more confidence, a little bit more experience. Well, a lot more experience. And the fact that ADHD, adult ADHD, for example, is now a recognized condition,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: me at times to have the conversation with people. And so. Only in certain instances, if I've known a client for a long time and the signs of that, and I see them visibly struggling and I can see traits that might lead them down that path of ADHD, I might ask the question as to whether or not they've ever sought a diagnosis.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: that's the kind of difference, but I think. You know, the interesting thing is for us, as we've learned, you know, we've, we've gone through quite a journey ourselves, haven't we, Ingrid? 'cause

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: to one in homes with people. Then we've had to find a way. you know, our journey really, I mean a lot of, a lot of people know this. We work one-to-one in people's homes, a long, long time.

We still do in some instances, but not as much as we used to. we had to find a way to try and train other new professional organizers how to. Do the same thing that we did with their clients, which potentially would be different to our clients. Then we went into the online world and had to then pivot again and to try and think about how we take something that is on a one-to-one basis and to deliver that information verbally or online, and so audibly via video, things like that. So all of those things collectively have allowed us to, to think about all the different options and everything that we do, whether it's one-to-one, Ingrid, or whether it's in our membership, for

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: or here in the podcast or wherever that might be. We go into a lot of detail, but what we never really do is we never dictate that this is the way you should do it.

We have ideas of things that might work, but what we like to do is we like to lay out the options in front of somebody for you to then reflect on what's going to work for you. And I

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: that's the most important thing when it comes to neurodiversity.

Ingrid: Yeah, I think it's really important that, you, as a, 'cause I think some professional organizers go into this, industry because they're like, but I love, you know, color coordinating and I love putting my books in rainbow order, and I love having everything folded and neat. And I think for me it's, it's all about what structures.

We'll work for the client, we'll work for our members. We give in our membership so many different options and go, okay, if you are, you know, try this, have a go with that. And I think that's really, really important. So yeah, I think it's really, all about making a home work for you.

Lesley: Absolutely. And so just jumping back to the kind of labels type thing,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: we started out this podcast.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: The good thing about a label or a diagnosis, whatever you want to call it, is that it brings relief, it

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: and importantly, I think it can bring connection as well, because you can find like-minded people.

You know, I talked a lot before about the fact that you feel shame, you feel embarrassed, you feel alone. And

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: you need your people, don't you? Ingrid? To be

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: you know, just that kind of validation, that connection with other people that feel the same way as you feel, or similar things or have struggled in the same way, is very freeing and very empowering, isn't it?

Ingrid: Yeah. And I think that's definitely, and I think that's one of the things I love the most about the community that we have on, in our Facebook group with our podcast listeners, within our membership. It's that people go. Oh wow. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. But we know that clutter reaches far and wide, and just having that group of people that understands how it feels like and with all the different kinds of levels within that, I think is really, really important.

Lesley: And I think, I think as well that. I talk, you know, I've done a couple of podcasts, haven't I, with Luke, which, you know, we've do, you know, just. So that everybody knows, we've got lots of podcasts available for you about different type of neurodivergent, neurodiversity. So please do seek them out. We'll definitely pop them in the show notes. But of course, for me, the two that really kind of, you know. Came home to me were the two podcasts that I did with my son, Luke. And so he, got diagnosed with ADHD and I, I never remember how old he was. I think like 23, 24, something like that. He's

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: 30. And so he has been living with, ADHD and trying to work through that over the past few years.

And I've obviously been part of his diagnosis. 'cause that's the kind of the way that it works. You need a kind of adult who knew them as a child to, to go through that process. So I understand it on a personal level as well. And through what he struggles with and his childhood and things like that. But he's very, you know, kind of, you have to find a way through and you can't use this as an excuse. You have to go, okay, this is my brain. I can't just throw it out there and go, oh, I can't do that. I can't organize my house. It. You're going to have to find a way to make your home work for you. And that's the thing. You know, the one thing, particularly with ADHD is if your home is in order and you have your place, you have your processes in place, and you have a calmer environment around you, then it's much, much easier. And there's no doubt there, there's, there's nothing that's ever going to, take away that, that's a fact, isn't it, Ingrid?

And

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: you can't use.

Ingrid: Okay.

Lesley: this is an excuse. You

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: a way through it. Yeah.

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. I think just like, people who say, you know, I've, I don't have time. You can't use, I don't have time as an excuse. We all need to find a way. You know, we all have pools in our time. We all have busy lives. So if we want to change something in, in our own homes, we have to work on it and, and put the structures in place.

So what, Lesley, let's go for a break and then after break, give some practical strategies on. What you can do, regardless of the the label that you might've put on yourself or feel like you are

Hi everyone. Welcome back. After your break, we are talking about the labels, that, we might put on ourselves or other people put on us and how we can deal with it when we decluttering in organizing and what we can do practically within our decluttering to, To, to work for us because we all have to, we all, we all want the le less clutter in our house, right?

So what can we do, Lesley, to help ourselves?

Lesley: Well, I think it all starts with having less. I think, you know, and that's important for, for anybody, regardless of how your brain works. Having less is going to be easier. I. Period. Right? Just

Ingrid: yeah.

Lesley: be easier. So having

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: really important. You know, having to try and, you know, struggle with a brain that doesn't want to play ball with the things that you want it to do, and to try and have to manage two or three times the amount of stuff that you actually need in your house is not going to

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: So it all starts with simplicity. It all starts with having less. And now Ingrid, I'm going to, I'm going to pass it over to you 'cause I know what you wanted to talk about in this podcast was actual So here's

Ingrid: Yes.

Lesley: moment, but you can't have half an hour. Okay.

Ingrid: well, definitely I think what can be really helpful again. Neurodivergent or not is having containers and have those containers labeled. Disclaimer here, if you have a lots of clutter, now, don't see, use this to go out shopping and buy lots and lots of containers and buy lots and lots of labels, right?

You need to declutter first. Determine the location of your items. Use temporary storage if need be. Even use a temporary label. It can be just a sticky white label or just even a, a post-it note as long as they're super sticky and don't fall off everything. But when you're then ready, you can go, okay, now I'm ready to put some items.

In containers that I have measured, I have, I know what I want, and there's so, because there's so many different containers out there, you can go into a whole spin trying to decide on the best container, and then you can go. Right now, I'm ready to put some labels on. Of course, there are tons of fantastic label makers that you can, buy.

You can just buy white stickers, I mean. You can go, you can go all out, especially the new label makers. You can put little emojis on there. I mean, I have an old fashioned one with just one, font and one, you know, but you can go all out and, and put it all in your little, you know, little computer. You just, it's, it's amazing.

So you can go all out with the labels or if you're like, well, I'm just not ready to. Buy some containers yet you can also start with just labeling some of the shells because the labels are super easy to put on and take off. So it doesn't mean that once you decide, 'cause sometimes people can want to do it perfectly, right?

They're like, I can't put labels on until I know what the last minutia, where everything it, it's okay. You can take a label off. And put the label back on again and make another one if it works better for you, right? So don't get hung up on that perfectionism. Just create a little label and go, right, this is where my large bath towels go, and this is the bedding for my son's room, and this is the bedding for the master bedroom.

Or here's where the winter shoes live, when it's summer, or this is where the spices go in the kitchen. Or, oh, this is a place for. The, the, the brass. And this is a place for the knickers. And here's where my sports socks go, and this is where my swimwear goes because labels can really help you, and not only you, but also other people, right?

So if you, ask for example, your children to help with putting away, their laundry when it's folded or when it's kind of comes out of the dryer, having a little label on a shelf can really help them to put it away. So it, it can be helpful for not only you, but also for others. So I'm a big fan of labels.

I do them a lot for clients. I actually don't have a lot of labels in my own house, but that's maybe because I have a little bit less stuff. I know where everything is. I regularly go through it and, and, and thin it out a bit again, so I remember where things are. But I can definitely see, especially with people who have more cluttered houses and are trying to kind of have less over time remembering then, oh, this was the lever arch file where the, the paperwork for school goes.

And this is the lever arch file for the, or the hanging file for the paperwork of the dog. A label can help, really help a visible label.

Lesley: I think you know what? In terms of other strategies, I think I'm really going to direct people to the people who know, and so do listening to Sarah Vick's podcast. The Ian Anderson Gray podcast that we did was fantastic. The podcast with Luke, the podcast with Hester and Kelly was fantastic. Lesley Joselle, we've got so much good information out there and a lot of those contain practical strategies and practical things that you can do that are going to help.

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: In, in terms of a, a broader kind of thing that's important for you to do. It's, it's really about Where you struggle and recording that information. I think it's about self-awareness and it's about reflection as to where your barriers are. Where are you falling short of where you think that you need to be? What is it about your home, your stuff, your life, your kids, you know, what is it that's causing you con, constant consternation. Kind of a bit of a tongue twister. You know, record those things and those are the things that we need to strategize over to try and fix and change. And so

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: you know, don't just do the same thing over and go, oh, that was difficult.

That was difficult. Or don't just put the same thing in the same place and not be able to find it for 30 times over. If those things are a constant battle, then we will be able to find a strategy that's going to help us to fix that. So I think it all starts with self-awareness.

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: is also really important

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: and know that your brain is working in a different way and we can't all do the same things in the same way.

So what's very straightforward to Ingrid and I in terms of thinking about the, the logic of where things go, making sure things are accessible, making sure things are visible, makes complete sense to us. If you've got a different kind of brain, you might be feel completely lost. And so you need to recognize that you know, some people with things like ADHD, you know, need, you know, we talked about containers and labels, that might not be enough.

You might need open, open shelving. You know, you might need that visible reminder all the time. So it's really about analyzing what you think is going wrong and is causing this constant battle.

Ingrid: Yeah, I think so. Absolutely Lesley. And I think what you said about having less overall is so important. I think really we don't realize how much stuff we have until you really start to. Look at it because we do become clutter blind. We do, you know, if we're overwhelmed with, with life and everything and whether we have are, you know, have anxiety or OCD or, or ADHD or autism, all this clutter is so hard and having less really, I think is the key.

And I think that. That message. Hopefully, please, listeners, I hope that comes through. Even if you don't have any of these things, having less will help you so much.

Lesley: Absolutely. I think that in a nutshell, really to have a diagnosis in our experience is, is helpful. You know,

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: or to be on that path towards it, even to be researching that, to be researching some of the things. 'cause it's very hard, particularly in the UK at the moment. This is not an easy thing to get a diagnosis of, any kind of neurodiversity at the moment.

It's tricky. It's like year. If you

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: we're relying on the NHS, it can be years before you're going to get there. So we have to start strategizing ourselves really without that external input, which is a shame, but that's where we are. And so we need to kind of work towards that. So I think it can be super, super helpful.

It's not good if other people put labels on you that you don't want, but if it's, if this is something that. That is about you, then it can be super helpful. But it doesn't need to define you. It doesn't need to define the success of your decluttering journey. know, we've never had anybody who has not made positive steps forwards, whether that's somebody with hoarding disorder, whether that's somebody with, OCD in particular is very, very difficult, particularly if it's a kind of contamination, OCDA kind of cleaning OCD, that kind of, that part of OCD. It can still be done. It might take longer, it might be harder, it might be more troublesome, but we can still make those positive

Ingrid: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: There's a lot of terms banded around. Sometimes we say things that don't land well with people, but I think it's important to recognize that the conversation is out there and it's happening and people are understanding more and more. So that's what, that's why we wanted to discuss this podcast 'cause it is something that comes into our world quite often. So we

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: spoken about today has been helpful.

Ingrid: Yeah, absolutely. Listeners, we hope that it's giving you a little bit of insight and we also hope that maybe you can have a little think about this podcast and go, okay, so what is the one thing that I can do, one small doable action that I can do? To help me with the situation I'm currently in with the neurodiversity that I'm currently, trying to get my head around what is the one small thing that I can do.

So we hope we've given you some tips and, definitely check out those other podcasts that we've mentioned. We'll put them in the show notes for sure, but you can find them all on Declutter Hub, dot com, on the podcast as well. So hope that's helpful. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and we hope to see you next week.