I just don't see it

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i don't know if this is autism or what. usually i never notice if something needs to be done unless if someone tells me. i'm not procrastinating or anything, i just honestly don't see it. like the left side of the kitchen sink will be full of dishes and i won't notice it until i try to put something in it. or i vacuum and to me i see no difference then before i do it. others say it looks much better, but i just don't see it. now i still live at home with my mom and if there is something she needs me to do then she leaves me a sticky note on the counter and i do it. this is a great system for me. but for some reason she complains about it from time to time. saying something like "i wish you would look around the house and do the things that need to be done without me needing to leave a note" which i don't under stand since this tends to be the only way i know what needs to be done and i say to her "if i saw something that needs to be done i would do it, but i just don't see it" i think atleast part of her wishes i was normal. oh well.




also i just wanted to say sorry for posting so many topics today. i swear i'm spamming. it is just this is my first day here and i have never really had anyone to talk to about this stuff who also deals with it. so i tend to have alot to say at the moment. if i wasn't restraining myself right now i probably would have made 10x as many topics by now.

I'd kill for sticky notes to help me out! lol.

I can see something that needs to be done, but as soon as I leave that room and something else catches my interest, it seems to disappear until I have to look at it again.

We just started a chart/routine thing for my kids, and one for myself. I haven't finished any of my chores, lol, because I keep getting sidetracked by things so easily. The kids are doing great with theirs, IMO, but my boyfriend comes over and will start making sure they pick up this and that, and I just don't find it important enough to need to be picked up. My mom walked in and started clapping her hands talking about how this place needs to be cleaned up.

I don't think it looks bad at all, in fact, I'm almost PROUD of how nice it looks so it's just really frustrating to feel like some people are just more nit-picky than others and exert it when they are in my house, lol.

They get the tasks that mainly involve their own things-the livingroom is generally their toys all over the place, or my son's homework/papers thrown about all over the floor, and their bedroom, cleaning up their own clothes, things like that. Things like dishes and laundry are up to me... can't see the kitchen from where I sit, or the room I'm in normally, so it doesn't register as to how bad it is at times. Laundry goes downstairs, so I tend to forget it altogether until I see us searching for clothes to wear, lol. At least it gets done eventually.

Those things just don't hit my mental priority list unless they are staring me in the face. I'm going to start exercising soon... I'm hoping that keeps me motivated enough to do something besides sit behind the computer all day... Then at least I would pass by something enough times in one day for it to bother me and become a priority.

I have the same problem with not noticing things that need to be done. My father calls it laziness, and he'll come home and start yelling because I was "too lazy" to do the dishes, when really I didn't even notice that there were dishes. I'm fine with doing things when I'm asked too, though, and, given enough time, I'll notice that things need doing.

Oh boy you all sound just like my son!!

He used to drive me insane because I would ask him to do things but in his world time has no meaning so things would take forever to be done. Cleaning is not his forte but if I set him two jobs to do each day and stated a time he had to have them done by then he would sometimes manage that.

He tries really hard but like you he doesnt "see" what is obvious to others. He has had to train himself to do these things.

But then he loves peeling the potatoes for me (and we usually had a houseful of overstayers - teenagers) so there were always lots of potatoes to be done. I think he found it calming or something and he would sit in his rocking chair with a bowl and a bucket to put the spuds in and peel away to his hearts content. We all thought it was really cute and after trying to get him to do it in the kitchen at the sink which was just a waste of time and vocals we gave up and left him to it.

He always had good intentions about doing jobs that I asked him to do but it was just that he got busy on the computer or reading or watching tv, or playing playstation so time slipped away from him.

And because he was like that his brother and sister thought that they should be exempt from doing chores for me as well!!

I am happy to announce that they are all living away from home now and funnily enough they all do the housework at their places!! Even Shea helps!!

Thankfully, I notice things; but I may simply not start doing them when I notice them, so I have to notice them half-a-dozen times before I get them done.

My solution has been to simply schedule everything instead of doing it when it needs to be done, strictly. If the bathroom gets cleaned every Saturday, even when it doesn't look dirty, that eliminates the risk of accidentally letting it go for three weeks and having it so dirty that my mood goes down every time I go in. Because my stress level goes up in a chaotic environment, a clean apartment is very important to me. I think I may have significantly increased my capabilities just by learning to keep an apartment clean!

That fact that you eventually see what you did not at first notice is a matter of attention, not vision. We generally see what we are looking for and we tend not to see what we are not looking for. In short, our effective vision is much more selective than our potential vision. We go around with blinders on.

ruveyn

I usually live in a state of partial chaos. I do a total clean of my place twice a month, and it looks feakin' fantastic, then slowly slides back to chaos after two weeks. If I waited any longer some times, my place would be a wreck just when I was a kid in my room. But I have learned this much about life: You cannot let your apartment go and also have a pet. Between the dog hair and mess it would be overwhelming if i didn't try so much. How I detest cleaning...

This has been my solution as well.

Lately, I've been mostly doing what the FLYLADY tells me to do..

I had to help out with cleaning at a place I was working for a while. They put a broom in my hand they told me that I looked like I had never used one before. But I could not see anything to sweep up. How do u clean if there is nothing to clean? I fine the whole process of tidying very difficult. I sort of just stand there and look around trying to find something to tidy when other people would find it obvious to know what to do and just get on a do it rather then stand there looking lost.

i could probably count the number of times i clean my room in a year on one hand. partly procrastinating, partly i don't care. i have been washing my sheets alot more this summer, but it probably will go back to "normal" once it starts getting cooler and i don't sweat as much. the part of my room i rarely clean though is my window. i have a sheet over my window to keep the light out. it is a pain puting it up and taking it down because of all the thumb tacs holding it up. but i probably clean it more because the last couple of times i cleaned it there was a ton of mold on there. and i will never own a plant or animal. combination of me forgetting to feed them and me incapable of cleaning up after then. i have a hard time with my own bodly waste, forget about someone elses.