Organise Your Life

There is little more disheartening than coming home after a long day to a home that is cluttered with too much stuff, with unwanted stuff, and with stuff that’s in the wrong place.

Clothes, shoes, magazines, old newspapers, ornaments, paperwork, books – whatever kind of possessions you have, if they’re in the wrong place or past their best they cease to be your pride and joy and become a nightmare of domestic chaos.

Hoarding

A recent survey estimated that Britons hoard £2.5bn of stuff that they neither need, want, nor use, and that an average home will have at least 46 items that are unused and are simply getting in the way. From my own experience, that’s a vast understatement!

Chores that are waiting to be done, broken appliances, and vital paperwork that can’t be found tend to be the next stage for a cluttered home and they just pile on the misery.

If you’ve ever spent the working week struggling with a cluttered and disorganised home, then spent the weekend unable to relax because you know you need to start tackling it, but just don’t have the energy for that big clearout, then I have some fast and effective methods that will put you back in control of your home.

Wake-up Call

In my twenties I had a pretty slapdash attitude to housework and organisation, and when my landlord refused to renew my lease one year unless I got my flat tidied up, it was a shocking wake-up call.

I could see his point – by then, I’d been there seven years and there were only a few square feet left clear in the living room, with the rest of the flat even worse. So, I had to do some serious planning to discover ways to get it tidied up – and most importantly, to keep it that way.

Getting Started

It was always making that decision to start, to do the first round of picking up, that was the hardest, and I came to realise that if I made small steps on a daily basis (instead of six-monthly frantic clearouts) I would be onto a winner.

Perfectionism and the bizarre notion that a home once tidied should stay tidy were to blame for that, and I’ve since discovered that the same ideas are to blame for many other people’s household disorder, whatever its scale.

Making a commitment to spend just ten or fifteen minutes each day tidying, putting things where they should be (either back in storage, or in the bin) will eat away at the clutter monster far quicker than if you wait for the right day, or the free weekend, or that Bank Holiday, to get started.

It’s tempting to wait until you’re in the mood to start, but let’s face it, if you were someone who regularly gets in the mood to do housework, you’d not be in this situation in the first place.

By doing a bit at a time, every day no matter how you feel, you’re both dealing with the present situation, and setting up a good habit of regular tidying that will help you keep clutter pared down once you’ve got everything sorted out.

Out With The Old

Most of the things that end up as clutter, be they old furniture, bike parts, clothes, souvenirs, shoes or books, started off with good intentions, and you had a reason to bring them home or get them out of storage.

The problem is, that plan never turned into action, and now you have a problem with the very objects that were meant to be making life better.

You need to be very realistic and assume that if something didn’t immediately hop to it and come in useful, it probably never will.

The world is not about to run out of bric-a-brac and letting go of existing collections will allow you to make the most of the truly useful and valuable things you own – and if you find you need something like it in future, you’ll have the space to actually put your plans into action.

Helping Hands

Most local councils in the UK, and many charity shops, will collect free or for a small fee and they’re the best first stop when it comes to getting rid of your clutter.

Charity shops can’t resell rubbish, so make sure that you save the good stuff for them and the tatty old gear can go to be recycled or binned.

Right now you’re better off focusing on getting your home cleared out and clutter free than on trying to save the world by recycling every last sock, and you will be able to turn your home into a lean green living machine after you’ve binned the clutter and had space to breathe.

You’re Not Alone

Once I began to recognise that I had a problem with disorganisation and clutter, I reached out to people around me and searched online and was amazed (and frankly, relieved) to discover that I was not alone in having trouble keeping my place tidy.

I was NOT the only woman who’d stopped inviting people over unless they already knew about my mess, and I was not the only person to have had problems because of her cluttering.

I even read about one woman in America who had been threatened with having her children taken away unless she got on top of her chaotic home!

Whatever your level of clutter, whether it’s a few drawers full of unwanted memories, or a full-scale mountain of the stuff, you can move forwards from it and have a home that is not only organised, but also a joy to live in and a great place to invite round your friends and colleagues.

Five Steps to Start Decluttering

1. Let go of the guilt

One of the reasons I find it relatively easy to help other people with their decluttering is that every grubby coffee mug or outdated magazine doesn’t scream at me and make me feel guilty.

If you’re going to commit to a large-scale and ongoing decluttering programme, beating yourself up and condemning yourself for letting it get this way is counter-productive and likely to put you off confronting the issue. In fact, guilt and harsh judgements about yourself need to be the very first things to go in the bin!

Detach from seeing it as a reason to feel bad about yourself and recognise that you’re never going to be motivated to undertake decluttering if you turn each session into an excuse to pile on the guilt and shame.

2. Make a small start right now

Commit to doing ten or fifteen minutes right now, or as soon as you get home tonight. Don’t wait until you’re in the mood arguably, no sane person is ever in the mood to declutter!

Just crack on with it in small steps and within a week (probably less) you’ll start to see enough progress that you’ll want to do more than a few minutes heck, you might even start feeling like it’s fun as you regain lost space and freedom in your home!

3. Start anywhere

It’s easy to look at clutter and not know where to start that’s fine, just start anywhere and if there’s an obvious or correct way, it’ll soon become obvious.

If not, no worries – at least you’ve made a start on it and not delayed any longer and put up with more clutter-induced misery. If you’re looking at a room full of clutter, for the sake of argument just pick a corner and work your way around the room from there.

Make a commitment to steam through it for your ten or fifteen minutes, and don’t get bogged down by over-thinking it or getting sidetracked by minor details.

4. Move it around

While you’re doing a big clear out you’re likely to come across important stuff you want to keep but which can’t just go straight to its correct home. Don’t be afraid to move stuff to several temporary locations before it finally gets squared away.

Don’t be afraid to move stuff to several temporary locations before it finally gets squirreled away.

For example you could try piling all your clothing in one corner to await sorting into its final destinations of ‘Keep’ ‘Bin’ and ‘Charity Shop’. Likewise, all paperwork could be placed together into an A4 box file (or two) until you’re ready to file it away properly.

Should you need something from that category in the meantime, at least it’s all in one place and that alone will probably make day-to-day life much simpler.

5. Don’t self-sabotage

Specifically, don’t think that you cannot begin to declutter until you have a scheme in place to recycle and re-use everything. You are not helping to save the planet by becoming an annexe for the local landfill.

In fact a cluttered home is a serious fire-hazard to you and your neighbours, attracts vermin (who are a health hazard and who the local council will eventually exterminate) and you have no hope of setting up a sensible eco-friendly home if you’re up to your ears in chaos.

So make with the binbags for now and concentrate on going green once you have room and space to plan properly.