The Brain Dump & Triage Kit

The system behind it

This template comes out of our ADHD systems guides. Read the system first — it works with or without the template.

• Activity advent calendar for kids, with 24 small plans instead of candy

  Write 24 small activities against the real December calendar, put one card in each pocket, and keep a few swap cards for sick days. Plan it in one sitting in November.

• At-home pedicure for winter, done in seven steps

  Soak, trim straight across, push back the cuticles, smooth rough skin with a pumice stone, moisturize and polish. A careful pedicure at home, with no razors.

• Christmas nail art for people without a steady hand

  Dotting tools, striping tape, stickers and stamping do the precise part, and one accent nail keeps it manageable. Holiday nail art done at the kitchen table.

• Family photo outfits that coordinate without matching

  Pick three colors and a neutral, let one person wear the pattern, lean on texture and lay every outfit out together first. The holiday card looks planned, not uniform.

• How to make tights last through a whole winter

  Buy the right size and weight, put them on from the toe up, wash them cold in a mesh bag and dry them on a rack. Good tights can last from November to March.

• How to remove pills from sweaters, skirts and coats

  Pills come from rubbing, so they gather at the elbows, under the arms and wherever a bag sits. Pick, comb or shave them off, then wash gently so fewer come back.

• How to take your own holiday family photo with a phone and a tripod

  Find soft light, put the phone on a tripod at chest height, use a remote and burst mode, and keep it to ten minutes. Everyone ends up in the picture.

• Winter break activities for kids, packed into rotating bins

  Six lidded bins, each with a theme, filled mostly from what you already own. One comes out at a time, and two weeks of winter break stop running on screens.

• The at-home manicure kit that lives in one caddy

  File, cuticle pusher, clippers, polish and remover in one caddy with a handle, so a manicure takes twenty minutes on the couch instead of a search through three rooms.

• Christmas crafts for kids that make gifts grandparents keep

  Clay handprint ornaments, clear ornaments filled with the year's drawings and one framed picture: three kid-made gifts worth wrapping, finished before the holidays.

• Holiday nails that last through a week of dishes and hosting

  Thin coats, a sealed tip, fresh top coat every few days and gloves at the sink. How to keep a holiday manicure from chipping before the party it was painted for.

• How to hang skirts and dresses so they're ready to wear

  Skirts hang by the waistband, dresses from the shoulders unless they stretch, and long pieces get the full-length side. A fix for the clothes that wrinkle most.

• How to plan a week of outfits on Sunday

  Check the calendar and the forecast, hang five outfits in order on one rack and steam them all at once. Weekday mornings start with the decision already made.

• The kids' craft station that rolls away before dinner

  A three-tier cart for supplies, a silicone mat for each child and one latched box for the small, sparkly things. Crafts happen at the table, and it's clear by six.

• Kids' hairstyles for busy mornings, done from one hair station

  A brush, a spray bottle and a box of elastics in one spot by the mirror. With a short list of styles, school-morning hair takes five minutes, picture day included.

• What to bring to the pumpkin patch, the orchard and the Christmas tree farm

  One kit, packed in October, covers the pumpkin patch, apple picking and the Christmas tree farm: clean hands, a dry place to sit, cold water and a way to haul it all.

• How to fix a hole in a sweater before it gets bigger

  A small hole in a knit grows a little every time you wear it. Twenty minutes with a darning mushroom and matching yarn closes it before it runs.

• How to keep houseplants alive while you travel for the holidays

  Most houseplants handle a week away if you set them up the day before. Longer trips need a slow-water method, a test run, and sometimes a friend with a key.

• How to pack sweaters for a holiday trip without the creases

  Sweaters fill half the suitcase and come out with a hard line across the chest. Pack fewer, roll them around tissue, and give them a short steam when you arrive.

• No-carve pumpkins that last until Thanksgiving

  Carving starts a pumpkin's clock. Paint it instead, keep it dry and out of the frost, and the same pumpkin can carry your porch from Halloween to Thanksgiving.

• Plant stands for a small bedroom, chosen by the space you have

  A small bedroom has three places for plants to go: up, into a corner, or onto wheels. The right stand for each adds green without crowding the floor.

• Bedroom plants for people who forget to water

  The plants that survive a busy life are the ones that forgive neglect. Choose from a short list of them, check the soil once a week, and let a timer handle the light.

• Faux plants that do not look fake

  A fake plant gives itself away with shine, dust and a plastic pot. Fix those three, put it where a real plant could live, and most people will never know.

• How to store sweaters so they keep their shape

  Most sweater damage happens while they wait for winter. Fold them, put them away clean, give them a little air, and they come back the way they went in.

• How to wash sweaters at home without shrinking them

  Wool shrinks from heat and rough handling while wet, not from water alone. With cool water, a gentle wash and a drying rack, many sweaters can skip the cleaner.

• Putting Halloween away in one evening

  On November 1, Halloween goes back in the bins in a single evening: photos first, batteries out, costumes clean, and a note for next year taped inside the lid.

• Late fees are an attention tax

  You know when the bills are due, in theory. The trouble is the envelope you have not opened and the subscription you forgot. Here are three layers that remember for you.

• The morning that starts on fumes

  Some mornings you wake up with a full tank, and some mornings you wake up on fumes. A plan built for only one of them will fail on the other.

• The weekly fifteen minutes that keeps it all standing

  Every system in the house slowly comes apart without a little upkeep. Fifteen minutes once a week, with a timer and a basket, is usually enough to keep it upright.

• The charging station that ends the nightly search

  It is ten at night, four phones are nearly dead, and the house has two working cables. One of them only charges if you hold it at an angle.

• The closet that only holds what fits

  The closet is full and you wear the same eight things. Most of the rest belongs to a different season, a different job or a different year.

• The doom pile has rules

  There is a pile on the dining chair, one on the dresser and one on the bottom stair. You know roughly what is in them. You would rather not know exactly.

• The shoe problem at the door

  There are eleven pairs of shoes on the floor by the door and four people in the house. Every morning, somebody is missing a left boot.

• The bag that is always packed

  It is eleven the night before a six o'clock flight, and you are standing at the bathroom counter deciding which half of your morning routine to take.

• The cleaning caddy that removes the excuse

  The bathroom sink needs three minutes. Finding the spray, a clean cloth and the brush takes ten, so the sink waits until Saturday.

• The junk drawer is fine, actually, if it has edges

  Batteries, tape, twist ties and a key nobody can identify. Every kitchen has the drawer. It is not the problem. It only needs edges.

• The return shelf, and the thirty-day rule

  The box has been by the front door for three weeks. Tonight you look up the return window, and it closed on Tuesday.

• The car that is ready for the week

  Monday morning, the phone is nearly dead, the charging cable is gone, last week's coffee cups are in the footwell and the shopping bags are at home again.

• Clear storage is not aesthetic, it is memory

  You are not buying the third bottle of the same thing because you are careless. The cupboard deleted the first two.

• The laundry system for people who cannot do laundry

  You can wash. The washing was never the problem. It falls apart somewhere between the dryer and the drawer.

• The second set of everything

  You went to get the scissors. You are now upstairs doing something else, and the parcel is still unopened.

• Time blindness, and the timers that make an hour visible

  You sat down at nine to do one thing. It is twenty past eleven and you could not say where the morning went.

• Why the list app never works

  There are sixty-one things in it. You have not opened it in nine days. The app is not the problem, and neither are you.

• The first cold morning, and nobody can find a glove

  It arrives without warning in October or November, and the winter kit is wherever somebody put it in March.

• The six weeks where everything lands at once

  Between mid-October and New Year the household's workload roughly doubles, and nobody ever decided it should.

• Where people actually sleep when family comes

  The beds are not the problem. Nobody has decided who goes where, so it gets decided at eleven at night with everyone standing in the hallway.

• Where twelve coats go when twelve people come over

  Hosting goes wrong at the door before it goes wrong anywhere else, and most houses have capacity for about two coats.

• The launch pad: five minutes at the door saves twenty every morning

  The scramble at the door is not a memory problem. It is a location problem, and one surface fixes it.

• Why you keep losing your keys, and the system that fixes it

  You lose your keys because your hands are full and your brain is mid-sentence, not because you are careless. The fix is architectural.