281: Stop Forcing the Scorpion: Solving the Real Problem in Your Home

I want us to lean into one of the real strengths of our fish brains, or ADHD brains, or however you think of your wonderfully out-of-the-box way of thinking.

Why I Started Breaking Organizing Rules

Don’t dampen your creativity when it comes to finding solutions for your home.

When we try really hard to copy the folks who seem super organized, the ones who seem to have the secret key to a house that looks like theirs, we miss what will actually work for ours. So let’s dig into that.

If you’ve been around the podcast for a while, you might remember that every 10th episode used to be a “Break This Organizing Rule” episode. (If you’re newer here, go back and listen to episodes 10, 20, 30 and so on. I’m pretty sure it ran through at least 100, and honestly, I don’t remember when I stopped.)

I loved that series because one of the things that frustrated me most when I first became an organizer was watching very type A, monkey-brain organizers hand out rules that worked beautifully for other type A, monkey-brain people. Then those same rules got applied to us fish brains, and they just don’t work the same way.

I saw it with my clients over and over. They’d try these rigid organizing rules and couldn’t make them fit their real lives. Or they could get a space looking like the picture they’d seen on Instagram, but they couldn’t keep it up. Then they felt like they’d failed.

I didn’t want that cycle of frustration and failure to keep going for us. That’s a big part of why I started the podcast in the first place, and why I started asking you to break rules right away.

Which brings me to today’s point: sometimes, when we walk into a space with a set plan and total confidence that we know exactly what it needs, that’s exactly when we mess it up.

Let me explain where this came from.

The Puzzle That Got Me Thinking

My mom, my sister and I have a group text where we share our New York Times puzzles every day: Wordle, Connections and Strands. It’s become a sweet little daily check-in with my mom. We know all is well in her world without it feeling like a “Hey, are you okay?” call. (Tip, if you’re looking for an easy way to check in on someone you love every day.)

If you haven’t played Strands, it’s a bit like a word search. In a traditional word search, the words run in straight lines (horizontal, vertical or diagonal), and you usually have a list of what you’re looking for. In Strands, you get a clue based on the puzzle’s theme, and the words bend all over the place. They don’t follow the straight-line rules, so they’re harder to find. There’s also a hidden “spangram,” a word or phrase that ties the whole theme together.

A few days ago, the theme was something like “Folk Tale Pairs.” I found beauty right away, so I went looking for beast. Then I found hare, so I knew tortoise was out there. Then I found frog, and my brain immediately decided I was looking for scorpion. The Scorpion and the Frog. Folk tale pair. Done.

Except I could not find scorpion. I saw S’s and P’s and C’s, and I tried so hard to carve those letters into the right shape. It was driving me nuts. I know that’s the pair. I know that’s what goes with frog!

Eventually I found the spangram, “once upon a time,” which used up a bunch of letters. That left me with only the letters for frog’s partner, since I’d found everything else. I stared and stared at that little jumble, and I could not turn it into a word to save my life, because I was still looking for scorpion.

So I used a hint. The word was princess.

The Frog and the Princess. Of course! Why couldn’t my brain get there? Because I’d already decided what the answer should be, and I was determined to make it work. I was missing the forest for the trees.

What This Has to Do With Your Home

This is exactly what I’d see when I walked into clients’ homes as an ADHD fish-brain organizer myself. Whether they knew it or not, many of my clients were ADHD-type people too.

They’d take me to a space and say, “I need this to work, and it’s not working. Here’s what’s frustrating me.”

One of the most common frustrations (see if this resonates) was toys. Toys strewn across the family room. Toys in the kitchen. “The kids never put anything away. We have this great playroom, and it’s always a mess.”

Now, obviously, the number one answer to almost every organizing problem is have less stuff. Declutter. Easier said than done, I know, and that’s a whole different post. But it’s 100% true.

But here’s the thing. Even if those kids had a decluttered, perfectly labeled, beautifully zoned, easy-to-put-away, minimal, lovely playroom…

I guarantee there would still be toys in the living room and the kitchen.

Because they were trying to force scorpion out of the letters for princess. They were solving the wrong problem.

The Real Problem Isn’t You

The problem is not that you aren’t disciplined enough to make your kids disciplined.

The problem is not that the toys don’t know where they belong.

The problem is not that you haven’t carved out time to be the militant soldier who sets a timer every single night, 10 minutes before bed. Without fail. No matter how exhausted everyone is, how filthy from practice, how many hours it’s been since you fed them before practice, or how cranky, tired, teething and under the weather everyone feels.

That’s not you failing as a mom. That’s trying to force a scorpion out of a princess.

The real problem? Your kid doesn’t want to play in the playroom. Your kid wants to be near you.

You’re in the kitchen fixing dinner. You’re in the living room trying to get things done, visit with your spouse, or decompress from the day. And they just want to be close. So they drag some toys in and try to stay out of your way while still being near you, chattering and existing alongside you.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes the important stuff isn’t what we think it is. Being a good mom isn’t only about teaching discipline, or tidying up, or having just the right amount of stuff, or raising an independent player. Sometimes they just want to be near you, and the important thing is that they’ve learned that’s okay.

Finding the Princess: The Toy Library

So what my clients really needed me to solve wasn’t the playroom. It was finding the princess.

What they needed was a toy library, a home base the toys can go back to when you’re tired of seeing them, when you need a break, or when you don’t want your living room to become the toy library.

Then we find spots in the living room and kitchen that:

• Limit how much gets dragged in
• Give you a quick, easy place to stash toys when you don’t want to see them
• Give you a simple signal that you’ve hit your limit, and it’s time to set a timer and work together to get everything back to the toy library before the whole process starts over again (because it will)

And you’re okay knowing that’s what it’s all about. It’s seeing what’s really happening instead of what you believe is happening, and fixing that, instead of chasing what you think the “right way” should be.

The Last Seven-Year-Old Hug

This reminds me of something I shared on the podcast once upon a time.

It’s so easy to feel like a failure of a mom when you scroll Pinterest and see birthday traditions: banners on the bedroom door the night before, balloons on the ceiling, a special birthday breakfast, a birthday hat. All of that is wonderful, and I’m not shaming any of it. But it’s also exhausting. And if you ever slip up, it can feel crushing.

One of the best things I ever did was so simple. The night before each of my kids’ birthdays, I’d say, “Oh my goodness, give me the last seven-year-old hug I’m ever going to get!” and give them a long, extended hug. Then the first thing the next morning: “My first-ever eight-year-old hug!” Another long one.

I didn’t realize what a big deal it was until it became the thing. If I ever got distracted, they’d be dragging their feet up to bed: “Don’t you want my last nine-year-old hug?” Of course I did!

It had nothing to do with elaborate prep, hours of work or planning my ADHD brain couldn’t stick to. When my daughter came home from college for a weekend, she was dragging her feet heading up to bed and said, “Well, I knew you’d want a hug since I’m here tonight. You don’t always get to hug me goodnight.”

It meant the world to me that it meant the world to her.

The little things are the important things.

Solve for the Right Thing

So please don’t get hung up on the things you think you’re failing at. You’re not failing. The important things aren’t always what you think they are.

If you’re looking around right now at a living room overflowing with toys, or tripping over toys in your kitchen, let that be your reminder: your kids want to be near you.

Instead of chasing a more colorful, better-binned, better-labeled, more disciplined playroom they still won’t want to play in, maybe all you need is this:

• A couple of big wicker baskets, one in a corner of the kitchen and one in a corner of the living room
• A quick reset when everyone’s tired: “Everybody grab your age!” If you’re 10, grab 10 items. If you’re eight, grab eight. If you’re five, grab five.
• Toss them in the baskets and head up to bed

It clears some clutter. It gives each kid a job that fits their age. And it reminds you that this season will pass. One day there won’t be toys everywhere, and you’ll actually miss them.

So go ahead and think outside the box. Use your wonderfully creative fish brain, peek around at what the real problem is, solve for the right thing, and embrace your joy.