My mom used to wake me up early on Saturday mornings by screaming at the top of her lungs that I was a slob and lazy and that I needed to clean the house. I spent the ten years after I left home waking up on Saturday mornings in an utter panic, scrambling to clean.

Her doing that might be a result of her own upbringing and undiagnosed ADHD but it doesn't change what harm she did to me. Nor the fact that I had to independently unlearn her abusive behaviour.

With our troubles with executive functioning, it makes things difficult. I'm highly likely to make a mess because of it. I've got crap all over the dining table and there are towels on the floor. (I don't want them to stink out the hamper!) But if you're in student housing, this is the best time to start because you only have to worry about one little space!

To unlearn what my mom taught me, I looked at what was important: what can attract bugs, what can spread germs. This stuff gets taken care of right away. Dishes, rubbish, food.

Two days a week are cleaning days in my house but you probably only need one. Wash your bed sheets and clothes, tidy your desk/papers, run the vacuum and make your area comfortable. And then honestly? I wouldn't do anymore than that until you're comfortable with that. If you do too much, you'll overwhelm yourself and not do any of it at all. Let it become a habit and then you can look at further organization, deeper cleaning and dusting.

The most important part of this is that if you skip a week for any reason, you have not failed. My two cleaning days are supposed Monday and Thursday. But they often aren't!