'How to House' Launch

Hello and welcome to my first blog post on my website. I tend to use social media for little updates but nothing beats a blog post for giving a bit more detail.

I want to share a bit of news with you... I am launching 'How to House' today. The idea and concept of How to House has been going around my head for years so I'm really pleased to now be sharing it with you. As an Occupational Therapist I have worked with people from all walks of life: children who require to learn skills; adults who have been unwell and require to relearn skills and children, young people and adults who need to find a bit more balance in their day to day activities. I hope that How to House will help with some of this.

Some people are naturally organised and some aren't. Some people have brains that work a bit differently in terms of learning and organisation. Over the last 22 years I have helped people to live their lives as fully as possible and in alignment with their values and personal goals. This process takes time but How to House is here to support you.

My hope is that How to House is the concept and tool that I wish I could have recommended to my patients in the past and that it works as a tool to support parents and carers who are teaching and sharing skills with their children (whatever their age).

How to House has autistic and ADHD people in mind. My son is an autistic young adult and I have supported him (alongside his support team) to build skills to live independently. I have been on this personal journey over the last 2 years and the introductory concepts of How to House are borne out of the work I did with my son to try to help him find some balance in his activities. He needed some ideas about what activities to prioritise and how to include the things he values and enjoys. See below the chart we drew around his kitchen table one day when he was feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the things he had to do living alone:

Is this chart perfect? No, but it was right for what was needed at the time. I could have typed it up, presented it digitally, used an app but that day we needed to start it together and discuss it. And if you're wondering, its stuck onto his kitchen door and he still refers to it today (although it's getting a bit faded in the sun!).

I hope How to House will also be helpful for people with ADHD. I see people with ADHD on social media asking for help with their organisation and saying that they feel like other people have managed to organise their lives better. With kind permission from Stacey Heale (@stacey_heale), I share her instagram story example below:

Stacey was diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood. I really hope that How to House will help neurodivergent people like Stacey.

The concept of 'Body Doubling' will feature as part of How to House. This is a way that people with ADHD, and other neurodivergent people, get support to complete tasks. They work with someone else (virtual or in person) in a planned way to motivate them to start a task and to see it through to completion. I will use body doubling by completing some of my daily routines and posting on social media to hopefully inspire and support others to start and do similar tasks.

In my experience, working on finding better balance in daily routines means that the enjoyable activities sometimes get pushed to the side in favour of the 'must do' activities. I always advocate for finding joy in your day to maintain good balance in your routines. You will see I have written 'joy' in the routine that I created with my son. This was to remind him to keep making time for what makes him happy. I will use the 'joy' concept as part of How to House social media posts to inspire others to find some joy in their day and to share their ideas with others.

If you are reading this thinking that you don't need help managing your day to day activities and organising yourself, then How to House isn't for you. If you think describing the sensory components of eating a green pea is not relevant then let me tell you that it is to the person looking to expand their ability to eat a variety of vegetables or colours of foods because this is a goal they want to work towards. If you think sharing my ideas for cleaning windows isn't relevant then know that it might be useful for someone who has never been shown, or never had someone to ask about how to do this.

How to House will be helpful for people who struggle to motivate themselves to get on with tasks or who find themselves unable to start a task. In my experience, some people DO want and need clear information, options, examples and ideas for how to structure their day to maintain both physical and mental health and wellbeing. I will be sharing very basic information and ideas. These will not be prescriptive and they are not intended to be 'social stories'. Where relevant I also want to provide some information about the sensory aspects of activities and ideas.

How to House will appear on my business social media pages (Coaching by Lizzy). I am so excited to share it with you. As a full time working mum myself, I am also trying to find balance in my daily routines so there may be gaps in How to House content but I will try to be as consistent as possible.

I'm going to start How to House content by breaking down the tasks in my son's daily routine planner and will share a 'how to' guide/checklist for each section. I hope that we can build a community of people sharing ideas to support each other. I have honestly loved the build up to this and I'm learning lots of new skills myself like using Canva and learning how to write a blog post on here! I hope you like it.