This week on The Distractables podcast, Marie and I talk with ADHD Coach Ryan Mayer and discuss managing a household, chores and all, when you have ADHD. Ryan is always great to hang out with and has lots of advice from his experience of coaching people with ADHD!

Check it out here:

• The Distractables — Managing a Household with ADHD with special guest Ryan Mayer

Paid subscribers of Extra Focus get early access to new episodes of The Distractables via the Unfocused podcast feed at extrafocus.com/podcast.

Here are a couple ADHD strategies you might find helpful for managing some of those pesky household chores:

Strategy: Make Chores Novel

Mundane chores can be kryptonite to the ADHD brain. They certainly are to mine.

There’s no interest to be found in a boring, repetitive task like folding your laundry or vacuuming the stairs. But you can spice things up by creating novelty:

• Folding clothes in rainbow order (ROYGBIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)

• Putting away the dishes in largest-to-smallest order

• Vacuuming every odd stair step first, then every even one

Now, you might roll your eyes at these suggestions—I get it, they may seem sort of silly or even childish.

But seriously, these simple changes in your approach can help you transform a boring chore from drudgery to something fun and engaging. (Well, more fun and engaging at least.)

Strategy: Use Audio as a Distraction (and a Reward)

Find an album, podcast, or audiobook that you really want to listen to, perhaps something related to your latest hobby or obsession. Then restrict yourself so you can only listen to it while doing a specific chore or activity.

This restriction does double duty for you:

1. It helps motivate you to start an activity with an immediately interesting reward.

2. It gives your brain that highly sought-after extra stimulation. Now you have something interesting to focus on while completing a mundane task.

Personally, I always wear headphones when doing chores.

Even though it takes only a minute or two to take out the trash, I’ll pull out the headphones and listen to a bit of a podcast.

Why? I know if I don’t do this, eventually the mundanity of that chore will feel overwhelming. I’ll end the task thinking “That was not fun” rather than being distracted by some interesting podcast I’m listening to.

Once it becomes difficult to start doing a chore, you may just avoid it forever.

Tackle boring chores with the immediate reward and distraction of listening to something interesting.

Stay curious,
Jesse J. Anderson

P.S. Super excited for this upcoming ADHD-focused conference just announced by Chris Guillebeau…

NeuroDiversion 2025

ND25 is an in-person celebration of neurodiversity, designed to be ADHD-friendly from start to finish.

While there are plenty of conferences that are more academic focused for coaches, educators, practitioners, etc—there has been a missing space for an event like this that is both in-person and focused on the rest of all of the amazing people with ADHD.

There’s nothing quite like hanging out with a bunch of fellow ADHDers. I’m super excited for this event—March can’t get here soon enough!

Make sure to join the waitlist so you can find out when more information is available for getting tickets and more!