Creating Lasting Order: A Behind-the-Scenes Look with Kristien from Organice

I happened to meet Kristien for the first time during a Rubicon information session on ADHD. She spoke about how she works with people in their own homes to help them organise their daily lives, and I immediately felt I wanted to learn more. This way of working could bring real relief to people living with ADHD or autism!

Join me as we take a closer look at Kristien's approach and why it works, providing both professionals and clients with practical inspiration for organising everyday life.

1. Dare to ask for help

There is often a deep sense of internalised shame when someone struggles with what are seen as “basic tasks,” especially among women. Household chores, going shopping, keeping up with administration; it is easy to fall into the mindset of “Don’t make such a fuss, you should be able to do this. Just try harder.” But it doesn’t work that way. Even well-meant advice during therapy sessions or self-help books on tidying and organising often fall short, precisely because neurodivergent people face difficulties not with understanding what to do, but with translating that knowledge into action and turning it into automatic habits.

Kristien shares:"Most of the clients I work with are exhausted. They live with chronic stress, and many have already been through several burnouts or episodes of depression. The fatigue is overwhelming. I also see this kind of tiredness in my own family. That’s why I believe it’s important to make things as easy as possible for yourself. Of course, this sometimes sparks criticism. People have told me that I was spoiling my children, for instance. But that’s not the case. By simplifying everyday tasks, everything actually runs more smoothly, and it frees up energy for other things."

2. Core mindset: empathetic, safe and informed

Empathy Kristien knows from personal experience how challenging it can be to stay organised. As a woman and mother of children with ADHD, it is often part of her daily reality. Of course, you don’t need to live it yourself to understand how heavy it can feel. What matters is being able to sense and acknowledge that clients are truly doing their best, that they are often completely exhausted, and that at times the situation can feel hopeless.

Safety: Gentleness and withholding judgment align best with the empathy you bring. When something proves difficult for a client, approach it with curiosity and genuine engagement, and work together to explore the underlying reasons.

Information:

Kristien combines expertise in practical organisation with in-depth knowledge of the world of ADHD and autism. She holds a degree in Social Educational Work (specialisation in Social Work) and has gained experience by working at the diagnostic and treatment centre Indigo in Mechelen as well as at emino, where she supported jobseekers and employees with health conditions and/or work-related disabilities. In addition, she has guest lectured at AP University College in the postgraduate Autism programme and contributed to the book “Levensloopmodel: Werken met autisme” (Life Course Model: Working with Autism).

This contributes to the cross-categorical expertise needed for an effective approach:

• Providing practical tools for planning and organisation

• Identifying an individual’s own capacities, while shaping the environment to be more supportive

• Building a bridge between “what should happen” and “what is possible” in task execution

• Encouraging empowerment by helping people learn to use their own strengths, rather than taking over

• Drawing on knowledge and experience with ADHD and autism
  

3. Working at "the Point of Performance"

A key element in Kristien’s work is providing support at the point of performance. She quite literally steps into the daily lives of her clients, right at the moments where things get stuck. The point of performance (1) refers to the exact moment and specific situation in which someone, in real life, fails to carry out what they actually already know needs to be done.

In ADHD, it has long been recognised that practice outside the therapy room is essential: evidence-based interventions view homework and real-life practice as core components (2). Research in autism shows similar findings: targeted practice in realistic contexts proves to be effective (3).

The effectivity of this approach helps underline that it's not a matter of misunderstanding, lack of motivation, or insufficient knowledge, but rather a disruption in turning intention into action.

4. Tailor strategies and the surrounding context to the areas where executive functioning to fails for the individual

Kristien offers support in the here and now, at the very moments when executive functions fall short. These can be categorised in various ways; personally, I prefer the following framework (4):

1. Self awareness

2. Inhibition

3. Nonverbal working memory

4. Verbal working memory

5. Emotion regulation

6. Self motivation

7. Planning/problem-solving

Everyone functions differently across these seven categories, so the support is always adapted to the individual. When clients encounter challenges, Kristien helps tailor the strategies to fit the situation. This step is essential: broader research in ADHD shows that generic, non-tailored strategies and support are often experienced as unhelpful, overwhelming, and at times even harmful to mental wellbeing (5).

The examples given below are drawn from Kristien’s client work, where solutions were developed collaboratively with the client. The tools and suggestions presented serve as examples. They are not exhaustive, and numerous other strategies exist and could be more effective for other clients.

Self awareness

• Teach clients to recognise and acknowledge the need to relax and recover from overstimulation, and encourage clients to plan for it during their day. A fully packed schedule is almost never realistic; adjusting our expectations accordingly proves far more effective for long-term functioning.

• Equally important is teaching clients to recognise and acknowledge one’s own boundaries. Planning to complete a task at a slower pace ultimately enables people to accomplish much more without burning out. This way, a process becomes sustainable, rather than one driven by anxiety such as last-minute panic cleaning.

Inhibition

Turn obstacles into advantages, for example:

• If you want to cut down on sweets, store them somewhere you can only reach by using a chair.

• If you want to spend less time on your phone in the evenings, charge it in another room.

Each extra step creates a small barrier, and that can be just enough to keep you from following through on the unwanted habit.

Working memory (Nonverbal and verbal)

• Out of sight is out of mind.

• When asking clients what they want or need, always provide concrete examples and explain what options already exist.

• Make things visual wherever possible.

• After a session, send a summary of what you worked on together.

• During the session, have the client write things down in their own words.

• Create an online overview organised by category (e.g., grocery shopping) and let the client review in the following weeks whether the strategies continue to work.

Emotion regulation

• Always act and communicate from a mindset of gentleness and non-judgment.

• Keep in mind that people may vary from day to day in how they feel and how much energy they have.

• When there is a clear need for additional support with emotion regulation, refer to appropriate services.

Self-motivation

• Support the client in taking a step back and gaining insight into the short- and long-term consequences of their decisions and actions. For example: Which choice creates the most stress? Lets write it out.

  Such exercises make motivation much more tangible on an emotional level, which is something that might otherwise remain absent if the idea of consequences remains vague.

Planning/problem-solving

This always addresses the specific, practical difficulty the client is facing, and will therefore vary greatly. Some examples:

• Try to reduce the number of steps involved in a task.

• Use the method that offers the least mental resistance.

• If things don’t work out, adjust the strategy, not the client.

• Make the context more accessible (e.g., ensuring a pan is easy to reach for cooking).

• Schedule more demanding activities at the time of day when the client functions best.

• Etc.

5. Some suggestions I offered Kristien (which she promptly implemented)

1. Offer a longer safety net by scheduling a check-in 4–6 months after the initial support. This allows for further adjustments to ensure the sustainability of learned strategies, especially in a subpopulation that is often better at starting things than at maintaining them.

2. Routinely think about the differences in strategies and workload on “green,” “orange,” and “red” days. Not every day comes with the same level of energy, so what is the minimum that needs to be done, and how can that be achieved?

We have also scheduled sessions in which I will review an evidence-based course on planning and organisation for ADHD with Kristien, based on a CBT programme developed by Prof. Dr. Mary V. Solanto (6). She already offers many effective strategies intuitively, as I laid out above, and this framework will allow her to further develop her theoretical foundation when working with clients.

Conclusion

The golden rule is to provide tailored support with gentleness. First, seek to understand what does not work and why, before building on someone’s strengths. Think of it as a process of ongoing learning: each setback offers a new opportunity for growth.

Would you like to learn more about Kristien and her work? Visit her website Organice.

When we keep searching for what works, surprising results and greater self-confidence often follow. Give it enough time, and a genuine sense of order may well follow!

References

1. Barkley, R. A. (n.d.). The important role of executive functioning and self‑regulation in ADHD [Fact sheet]. Retrieved June 21, 2025, from https://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets/ADHD_EF_and_SR.pdf

2. Kim, J. H., Kim, Y. A., Song, D.-Y., Cho, H. B., Lee, H. B., Park, J. H., Lim, J. I., Hong, M. H., Chae, P. K., & Yoo, H. J. (2021). An intervention program targeting daily adaptive skills through executive function training for adults with autism spectrum disorder: A pilot study. Psychiatry Investigation, 18(6), 513–522. https://doi.org/10.30773/pi.2020.0423

3. Knouse, L. E., Cooper‑Vince, C., Sprich, S., & Safren, S. A. (2008). Recent developments in the psychosocial treatment of adult ADHD. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 8(10), 1537–1548. https://doi.org/10.1586/14737175.8.10.1537

4. Barkley, R. A. (2020). Executive functions: What they are, how they work, and why they evolved (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.

5. William, V., Gudka, R., Partridge, K., Taylor, S., Asherson, P., & Young, S. (2024). Experience of CBT in adults with ADHD: A mixed methods study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, 1341624. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1341624

6. Solanto, M. V. (2011). Cognitive‑behavioral therapy for adult ADHD: Targeting executive dysfunction (Reprint ed.). Guilford Press.