I can't adult like a proper adult!

[SleepingStandingUp]

Even I'm fed up of my useless now.

Three kids I in school, I don't work and my house and life is still chaos.

My house looks like a disaster zone (essentially clean but never tidy for long), never seem to get anything done between picking up youngest two at lunchtime and eldest at end of day. Meant to be doing Uni whilst youngest are at nursery.

Get home and it's a rush twice a week to get out to activity.

Forever losing my phone, my bank card, their reading books, their letters (even tho I implemented a plan for the latter two and in theory they all have ho.es.

Little being in nursery is actually harder as it's more of a rush to get everyone ready, do all the homeworks, reading books etc.

DH by 6, does bedtimes, helps tidy, does dinner two nights I'm out with eldest, and split over weekends.

But I'm still always behind on sorting everything.

I feel like I'm lacking some vital talent at adulting!! I'm not even young so it's not even age.

How do I get less useless and scatty?

It shouldn’t be this hard. Make lists. Builds habits and do it slowly. Don’t go for broke one day. Slow and consistent is best.

I can spend hours writing lists, then I forget to action them or lose them. I've tried building habits like the school book bags etc, but it still goes wonky every now and again, or like putting on a wash every afternoon and then or to dry but then we'll get in late or something else will happen and suddenly its the weekend and we're trying to get thru all the washing or it's Thursday and there's no school jumpers left

I’m the same, if not worse, and I don’t even have children. Feel your pain. You are not alone.

Somebody will be along soon to suggest you have ADHD. Maybe we do, I don’t know.

Try the routinely app. I have just downloaded it and quite like it. Trick I find is to keep the routine to the minimum necessary.

*Routinery

Wouldn't worry. Neither can most people on this forum.

Reminders from apps are great, but someone will be sqwarking as it goes off, and I ll hit reminder an then again and then it's time for something else and it all just gets muddled up.

I dint know if it's a motivation issue. If I come home to do Uni work I find I'm just hot by lethargy and distraction. Then I study from 9 pm onwards too and then I'm really tired but then I go to bed and can't sleep and then I do and I need to pee or some 3 yo needs me and then I can't get up early in the morning and so it continues

And food. I'm always running out of food. Peie eat it. I mean to online shop it. I do and can't find my card or I don't cos I get distracted and then I have to rush to local shops.

ADHD?

Perhaps look at the entirety of what you do and are responsible for (young children, university work, housework) before you are too hard on yourself. Compare to your partner with job then no overlap and a clearly defined subset of child/house activities after 6pm. Which do you think is easier?

You sound like my husband and he has ADHD

Tbf he'd agree it's me 😂

Having said that tho, if I go away with volunteering for a weekend, I always come home to a tidy house. If he's away all weekend, I make him but takeout in the way back and tell him it's a mess cos I didn't have chance.

I have considered ADHD and I meet some of the criteria but even if it is, there's nothing I can do around that to fix it so it doesn't matter, I just need to do better

Tbf there is something you can do about it if it's ADHD - there's medication. And if it's ADHD, you probably can't just "do better" like a neurotypical person could. How to Keep House While Drowing by KC Davis is a great book, particularly if you are neurodivergent.

Make things as easy as possible for yourself. If you can afford to just buy a jumper per day and only wash at the weekends. Unless I desperately need something washing I ONLY do a wash on Wednesdays and Sundays - I do 3 or 4 loads each of those days. I couldn't get on with doing one a day.

Do you have a dishwasher? Tumble dryer?

Tbh though you sound overwhelmed and like you're trying to do a hell of a lot. I think DH needs to do more here than "help tidy". Can he be in charge of doing an online grocery shop on his lunch break if you're finding it tricky to manage one? Could he batch cook one day at the weekend so you've an easy tea that can just be heated up a couple of nights in the week? Could he get up 15 minutes earlier and empty the dishwasher/fold a load out the dryer etc daily before he leaves for work?

Also, you mention letters - are these letters from school? As soon as it arrives home, snap a photo on your phone, add it to a photo album shared with your DH, recycle letter.

In my case it’s adhd. And the problems are compounded by having a dc with asd and adhd, and all the extras that come with that.

Have a listen to the ASlobComesClean podcast - her approach to housework fits my brain in a way that other systems don’t. I listen to her podcasts (she has books as well but try the podcast first) when I’m doing housework and it’s a Pavlovian response to her voice now to get up and sort the kitchen!

ADHD is frustrating because you can know what to do, want to do it and still not be able to get started and it looks completely different in girls and women so even getting diagnosed can be a lottery. Hormones affect it. Lack of structure being at home is hard on us.

I have hacks for nearly every aspect of my waking life.

I’m not going to do the whole armchair diagnosis but I’m neurodivergent and find adulting extremely hard.
I can get by and I do like my house to be tidied but if I didn’t have my mum or DH then I’d be so useless as I’d never remember to do anything! I do all the admin but unless it’s written down I’ll forget to do it, I never remember appointments, my time keeping skills are rubbish, I’m very chaotic and I’m either go go go or a couch potato!

I wouldn't worry too much about it personally. As long as the house is reasonable and everyone is fed and looked after, it's OK.

With 3 little kids it's hard to sort everything (whether they're on school or not)...you're always thinking about what needs to be done for them.

To be fair op if the youngest 2 are only in school mornings then it's not as if you have all day every day to yourself - barely 2 hours by the time you go out and get back.
.there must be some things you can put in place to make things slightly easier.

E.g. you say you online shop but can't find your card-save it in your laptop/phone so then it's there ready for the next time.

If you set phone notifications make sure you set them for a time you're less likely to snooze them - so if you need to get pe kit/money for non uniform day ready for school tomorrow don't set the reminder for 5pm when you're rushing around getting ready to make tea, set it for 9pm when kids are in bed.

Would it be easier to meal plan and basically do exactly the same meal every week day -so Monday always pasta bake, Tues always fish, weds always soup etc. That way you can just do the same online shop on repeat Might get a bit boring but its a lot easier and you can still mix it up and have different things on the weekends.

Yeah ok I was going to suggest this! Because I do and this was always me. Never got the adulting memo that everyone else got!

With me I have to do one thing at a time.

I set myself ONE goal, and keep it going until it becomes such a normal part of my day that I don't think about it anymore, before moving on to another one.

So think of ONE thing you can do, OP.

Don't try to do everything.

How about the lists? - you say you've tried to organise yourself using lists, but you forget to look at them.

So why not make it your ONE goal to have a to do list, and to actually look at it?

Pin it up on your kitchen door, at eye level, where you will practically walk into it every day. Use coloured pens. Make it visible and obvious.

So you have a list, which you see, every day. That's all you do at first. A simple to do list with no more than 6-7 things on it each day (and these shouldn't be ambitious things - just what you normally do - we're not changing too much at once! The goal is simply having the list to start with).

See if you can do that first of all for a good month or two, then you can think about adding extra things to it, putting something new on the to do list, etc.

Main tip: Just don't try to change too much all at once, you'll only set yourself up to fail.

Absolutely no advice, but I could have written your post. I lose things, no matter how important. It's like a fog descends on my brain when it's time to do housework. I don't know, it's all so hard.

I’ve not read the full thread, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating what’s already been said, but have you looked at TOMM , The organised mum method.

I identify with this so strongly! Do look in to diagnosis as meds help.
Others have made good suggestions but what has somewhat helped me is:
-Be very specific with tasks. Not going to 'tidy the kitchen' but 'wipe the sides and organise the spice jars'. Anything else is a bonus
-Keep only ONE notebook with me all the time, for everything.
-Put stuff on calendar or sign things straight away! Take a pen with you to school, and sign letters there and there.