Belonging to a handful of ADHD centered groups on Facebook, I have seen no shortage of advice on how to get around the difficulty with finding motivation, procrastinating, impulsiveness, and a host of other symptoms we have to deal with. Adults and children, alike, are being diagnosed with ADHD every day, and those of us who have been around the block, have had time to research our conditions, and have figured out some ‘life hacks’ for the ADHD brain are oftentimes eager to share their tips and tricks of maintaining a household, a job, and relationships with friends and family.

But to be quite honest, not all of this advice is good. Yes, it may work, but if you’re trying to convince your brain to do any of the aforementioned things, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Today I want to discuss one of the pieces of advice I received recently and why I believe it’s actually terrible.

One thing I have noticed that a lot of us with ADHD struggle with is keeping those darned dishes clean. Looking at a sink full of dirty dishes can be quite daunting, especially when you say to yourself, “I just did this yesterday.” And if there are only a few dishes in the sink, our inability to prioritize may let us know that we could just as easily wait until tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes and– Oops! It’s overwhelming again. That’s okay. We have other plates and cups, right? We’ll just use those. And the cycle continues.

One piece of advice I often see given is “just eat off of paper plates.” This is okay advice… for the mother of a newborn, who is still figuring out how to clean between nursing and changing a baby, but not so great for the daily life of someone who just can’t bring themselves to wash the dishes. This is for several reasons.

The Environment:

In the end, having to wash dishes is going to be better than eating off paper plates for the rest of your life. Can you imagine how many paper plates you would go through in a month? In a week? Paper plates have their place, but it should not be a permanent place for the rest of your life.

You Have To Wash Dishes Anyway:

Okay so now you are using paper plates and maybe even paper cups, paper bowls, plastic utensils… Are you going to be cooking using paper pots and pans, too? No? Then you will still have dishes to wash. Theoretically, they do make one-time use cookware for parties and things, but that brings me to…

Expense:

It can get really costly to continue to have to rebuy one time use plates and utensils– and cookware, since we went there. ADHD tax (the idea that it costs money to have ADHD because of all the things we lose and/or brake that have to be replaced) is already expensive enough. Let’s not add to it by expanding our list of things we need to buy on a regular basis.

And finally…

Escapism:

Using one-time use plates et al. teaches us that we can escape doing the dishes. What we should be trying to teach ourselves is how to get around our shortcomings to get the dishes done anyway. If you practice escaping from tasks, in the future, you will find that you are more likely to try and avoid more tasks in the future. You aren’t teaching yourself anything useful. You certainly aren’t teaching yourself to be consistent about washing dishes.

What should you do instead?

Whatever you do needs to be something that is going to make it difficult to get out of washing your dishes, a complete 180 from the advice originally given. This will force you to wash dishes more often, which will in turn make you more consistent about washing them. In my experience, the best way to go about doing this is simply to own fewer dishes. Having only enough table settings per person for one or two days and enough cookware to fill only the working burners on your stove. It is possible that you may need more than that for company or parties, so you can keep extra, but store them somewhere else. Don’t use them for everyday. So you will have to wash your dishes at a minimum every other day. A lot of people only keep one set of table settings per person, but I like to have an extra one because I don’t like to run the dishwasher every single day, and besides, there are reasonable excuses as to why you might not be able to wash the dishes on a certain day, and then having a second set of dishes would come in handy.

Of course, this is my own opinion and if eating off of paper plates works for you, then I’m not one to judge. But if you want a way that is better for the environment, less expensive, and actually requires you to wash the dishes more often, I suggest you at least give this a try. Put your extra dishes in a box in the garage for a week or two. If at the end of that period of time, you feel like you need those dishes back, then fine. ADHD struggles have no clearly defined solutions that work for everyone. But, if at the end of those couple weeks, you find that you can actually see the bottom of your sink because dishes are getting done every day, then I hope that you will continue to use this trick to help keep your kitchen clean.

Of course, this is my own opinion and if eating off of paper plates works for you, then I’m not one to judge. But if you want a way that is better for the environment, less expensive, and actually requires you to wash the dishes more often, I suggest you at least give this a try. Put your extra dishes in a box in the garage for a week or two. If at the end of that period, you feel like you need those dishes back, then fine. ADHD struggles have no clearly defined solutions that work for everyone. But, if at the end of those couple weeks, you find that you can actually see the bottom of your sink because dishes are getting done every day, then I hope that you will continue to use this trick to help keep your kitchen clean.