Executive Dysfunction and Mental Health

Fun fact...

Executive functioning (which impacts a person's ability to clean, organize, find things, keep up with life's responsibilities) gets infinitely worse when a person's mental health is at risk. 

If you're struggling with executive functioning AND mental health...

Focus first on improving your mental health (there are many ways to do this, but therapy is a hugely effective method for most). Once improved, even slightly, you will notice that you have pockets of time when your executive functioning is also improved.

When this happens, don't just catch up on the things you fell behind on. STRATEGIZE ways to manage your executive dysfunction in general. Because you will have good mental health days and bad ones. And those strategies can keep your head above water on the bad ones.

To put this into concrete terms... over the past 6 months I have slowly organized the house to where, 3 kiddos or not, it's reasonably organized. 

I did this by taking advantage of my good days, and strategizing like crazy to find long-term solutions for the disorganization.

Example, the dining room table was impossible to use most days. There were 5 or so types of things on it at any given time. I worked through each type to find homes for the items that can be easily accessed when needed, and also easily put back when they are no longer being used.

To be clear, it's still not perfect. But, hey... 90% better is clearly better than 0%   

And just think about what 90% better might look like throughout your whole living space. Because that's pretty much the case over here.