Many disabled people have a desire to live as independently as possible. We want to maintain control over our spaces, our possessions, and how we live our daily lives. And not just control for control's sake. Independent living is not just about control. It is about maintaining a degree of autonomy and self-determination: two things that are often most at risk for being infringed upon because of our disabilities.

I vividly remember being six or seven years old, having just come home from one of my back surgeries, and all I could wait to do was tidy and organize my bedroom. Rearranging my toys, making room for the new stuffed animals I got as get-well presents, displaying my knick-knacks on my night-stand in just such a way that everything had its place. Sure, my back was sore, but that wasn't stopping me. I loved what I was doing.

And almost four decades later, not much has changed. I still love curating a space that serves my purpose and nurtures my soul—a space that works for ME and not me for it. My tiny childhood bedroom has evolved into dorm rooms, apartments, and now the house I live at with my husband and fur-son. The landscape has changed. But the intention has never changed.

Organized living has always been a high priority for me, and it has brought a lot of value and benefit to my life. As you can probably relate to, when you have a disability, the world exists with limitations (both physical and non-physical) that require effort to overcome. There are enough limitations outside of my door. Why would I want more?

I'll break up the rest of this post into two sub-sections: cleaning and organization. Before I get onto those topics, I want to clarify that I am hard-pressed to claim that there is any ONE way to do anything, and I get irritated by people who claim they have THE ONLY answer. Think of my tips as suggestions. Take or leave what works for you. We are all different. Don't try to be jamming a square peg into a round hole. Don't be afraid to get creative and write some of your own rules. It's your schedule, your space, and your life!

With that said, if you are someone who struggles with creating or maintaining a cleaning or organizing routine, you should take some time to think about your "current state." Some questions that can help you figure this out are:

• How are things now?

• What are you happy with?

• What are you not satisfied with?

• What are your desired outcomes (if, say, you could wave a magic wand)?

• And lastly, being brutally honest, what are you willing TO DO to reach your desired results?

Once you have done some thinking around those questions, hopefully, you have some answers that can provide some insight into your next steps.

CLEANING TIPS

As far as establishing cleaning routines, what has helped me is to time-study the natural flow of my day. Analyzing the structure of your day doesn't have to be anything overly complicated. Just take a mental note of when you prefer to do different tasks. For example, what time of day do you have the most interest or energy for cleaning? Also, what days of the week or more conducive to doing certain chores? For me, it's the mornings. That is when I have the most energy. And since trash day is Monday, I typically empty all our cans on Saturday or Sunday, for example.

If you have family members or housemates with whom you share house cleaning tasks, don't be shy about communicating your needs and preferences. We all want to be team players, but if unloading the dishwasher is harder for you than, say, dusting, see if you can do that instead. Likewise, if you hire help for house cleaning or have it as part of your caregiver's responsibilities, don't be afraid to structure their work schedule in a way that is the most efficient for you and your space.

One resource that some people swear by is something called the Fly-Lady system. http://www.flylady.net/ Yes, the website looks dated, and some of the "fly lady" terminologies seem corny, but people who have used her methods consistently say that they can have guests stop by their house unannounced and their homes will be welcome ready. Part of the Fly-Lady method involves "zoning" your spaces. So, for example, you have a living room zone, a kitchen zone, etc. She has also developed schedules and checklists for specific tasks within each zone. Of course, you need to modify her checklists and charts for your own particular space and ability, but I think her resources can provide some templates to get started. 

I've made an adaptive cleaning routine for our home, but I don't follow it consistently. Schedules are challenging for me at this season in my life. I maintain the kitchen, bathrooms, bed linens, and laundry. Which all goes to say, don't look at my baseboards or eat anything off the floor. But hey! We just got our robot vacuum set to a schedule, so at least the dog hair is getting under control. Alton is a hairy pup!!

One last thought about cleaning, think about if you like cleaning all at once or would you instead do less in shorter sprints, but more often. Again, we are all different. Some people would prefer to dedicate one weekend a month and do it all at once. But others would preferably take an hour or two each day, get done what they can, and then leave the rest for the next day. There is no right or wrong answer.

ORGANIZING TIPS

Now that I've addressed some cleaning strategies let's move on and talk about one of my life's passions: organized living. I want to start by sharing a TED talk of a woman who started on YouTube but has now landed herself a show on HGTV. https://youtu.be/YkGEeWt5H94  Her name is Cass, and she developed a system for people to figure out what kind of organization method fits them. Her approach is a little quirky, but I love most about her message: if you feel you can't get your shit together, it isn't YOU. It is just that you haven't found the right formula yet.

I think that with any problem or challenge, the first task is to recognize the real problem. If you can't identify the part(s) that are the actual sticking points, you might end up just spinning in circles, solving problems that either a) aren't the real problem or b) won't truly affect your desired outcome.

I, personally, love a SORT system. When I dabbled in setting up an organizing consultation business, I named it Simply Sort. And that is because I believe that any large or small organizing project can be broken up into actionable steps through sorting. Just like when we were kids, and the teacher had you "group like items together." It's the same concept. The bonus is that this method can help make organizing a big mess less intimidating and more fun. So, for example, you can have categories of donate or keep; kitchen or living room; drawer or cupboard; etc. You get the idea. Any large pile of stuff can always be broken down into smaller sections. Then once you have your smaller sections (or piles), it should *hopefully* be easier to go through in a less stressful process.

As for what to do with your stuff now that you have it sorted into piles, I am intentionally leaving that up to you. It's highly subjective, and I think presumptuous when someone tries to tell someone else what to do with their stuff. The one rule that I go by for my things (non-sentimental and non-seasonal) is the six-month rule: if I haven't used it in six months, it leaves my house. This is just a simple rule I have to keep the volume of my possessions manageable.

Two more ideas around organized living that I think might be helpful are 1) if you think about the process of organizing like a game of dominos and 2) everything should have a home. For the domino analogy, take this example. Say you need to clean out and re-organize your closet, but you can't because there are boxes in front of it. There are boxes in front of it because you don't have anywhere to put the boxes, and if it's clothes that are in the boxes, you can't hang the clothes because you don't have hangers, and you don't have hangers because you don't know what size will fit. And you don't know what size will fit because you can't find a ruler or a tape measure… and …. and … and….

This closet scenario is somewhat of an exaggerated example, but I think you get my point. When you are ready to face one of your "piles," reverse engineer all the factors or pieces in your mind first. What are all the challenges to get all that stuff where it needs to go? AND START FROM THERE.

My second idea around organizing is the following principle: every possession you own needs to have its own home. Even though, as I wrote above, that I do not ascribe to concrete rules around organizing, I will take some liberty to say that everything having its own home is kind of a non-negotiable. I am only more of a stickler on this one because it is so foundational to overall success at maintaining an organized space. Most simply: every possession needs a place where it will always live when it is "put away" and not being used. Period. (those assigned spaces can shift over time like if you rearrange a room or something, but the item having a designated home, remains constant).

Another reason this principle is so important is that the exercise of finding each of your belongings a home will quickly help you realize if you have enough space for everything. If you have more stuff than you have physical space for, you have to decide if you will purge, merge, or put the overflow items in longer-term storage. The more objective you can get with this process, the easier it will be.

Lastly, if you happen to live with an unorganized person, never fear. You can figure out ways to live amongst their messes while still maintaining order and control over your own stuff. When I moved in with Drew, he was chronically messy and very content in his disorganized bachelor pad. He paid a cleaning service to do the cleaning, so he didn't have to worry about that. But on the organized living front, we can tend to be opposites. I remember, during one of my first visits, I found batteries in the silverware drawer. As we have merged lives over the years, he has welcomed some of my system-making and organization, and I learned to pick my battles. He has areas in the house that he keeps as he likes them, and I'm okay with that mainly because I have spaces in the house that I get to keep as I like as well.

I hope these cleaning and organizing tips helped. I am confident that you will find the solutions that are best for you and your needs. I know it can seem overwhelming. But know that if you break the big challenges into small pieces and don't give up, you will be halfway there before you know it.