Organisation tips to take your home from chaos to order
“When I don’t do these, my life goes to absolute shambles.”
By organisation expert, Steph Pase
Despite what you may think, I didn’t exactly slide out of the womb full of home organisation tips. In fact, I was a hot mess and struggling with undiagnosed ADHD for years.
So, as you can imagine, the word ‘organisation’ wasn’t even in my vocabulary, let alone understanding the actual reality of what it meant to be organised!
To set the scene for you, when I was a kid, my parents hung a shower curtain over my toy shelf because it was such a s**t-show and they couldn’t stand the sight of it. When I was at school I was often caught looking out the window daydreaming, my school bag was a scary place you didn’t want to put your hand in and trying to concentrate on what the teacher was saying was like pulling teeth.
I learned to get organised
Fast forward to today, Ryan, my husband, says that if he stood still for too long, I’d be slapping a label on him and finding a functional place for his storage – I’m not even slightly ashamed to admit he’s right!
I’m not perfect by any means, ‘hot mess’ seems to be my factory setting, so my routines and systems absolutely save me. Without them, I can safely say that there would be many a shower curtain hanging in my home!
We all know that having a chaotic and cluttered house, is up there with one of the worst feelings. Without realising it, the stress of a messy home trickles down into all areas of your life, especially your mental clarity. I always say, cluttered space equals a cluttered mind and vice versa, an organised space equals an organised mind.
Close your eyes and imagine waking up to start a productive day. You leave your bedroom, walk out to the kitchen, step on a LEGO or four (If you know, YOU KNOW!), your dining table’s a dumping ground, piles of laundry resemble Mount Everest and a sink full of yesterday-year’s dishes?
Now ask yourself, how motivated do you feel about having a productive day…?
The answer for most of us, is nope, no, zero, not at all. If your motivation is high, then all power to you, that’s bloody amazing (also… can you teach your ways?!). If it were me, I’d be zombie-walking right back to bed, curling up into a ball and stress-sobbing myself back to sleep.
And it’s not just me! Turns out, science has my back! A study from 2009 by Darby Saxby and Reena Rapetti named Clutter & Cortisol found a correlation between clutter in the home environment and elevated cortisol levels, meaning that a cluttered home really can lead to heightened stress levels.
The fact of the matter is our brains count on order and routine, so working on your home organisation can really help. When things are out of order, we get anxious and flustered. That’s just science.
Now picture, the same kind of morning I mentioned before, but this time imagine a clean house, where beds are made, dishes are all put away, laundry is on the line and dinner is prepped in the fridge. You’re pumped and ready to tackle the day, right?
And I know you’re thinking ‘that’s all well and good for you, but I don’t have time to wash my hair once a week let alone keep the house spick and span!’ Well, we all have priorities, jobs, kids, things to do and I know, no one could possibly overhaul a house in a whole day. The good news is you don’t have to! I’ve been there and I’ve got tried and tested methods to help with the overwhelm of it all.
6 steps to a more organised home
1. Think small
Not all of us can afford Marie Kondo’s team to come in and flip our house upside down in a day. It’s not about tackling the whole house in day. The key to home organisation is breaking it down.
Take it one drawer, surface or corner of the house at a time. My favourite thing to do, is setting a calendar to plan out which section of the house I’m going to do each day. Be realistic with this too. If you have jam-packed weekdays and nights, then set yourself a goal to do this once a week on the weekend.
2. Cull, cull, cull
The more stuff you have, the easier it will be to create mess in your space and the more cleaning that creates for you. So, if you really want to do Future You a favour, you need to cull.
The thought of decluttering can seem overwhelming, but this is where we go back to Think Small, I want you to tackle one surface or small space every day.
Pull everything out and decide whether you really need everything. Can some things be donated, passed on to friends, recycled or even thrown away? Remember, less stuff equals less cleaning!
3. Categorise
Now it’s time for categorisation! Sort everything into categories, grouping any similar items together. So, say we’ve tackled the infamous kitchen Junk Drawer, categories may be stationary, coins, chargers, USBs, actual junk (aka to be thrown out or recycled!) and so on.
4. Store and contain
Once you’ve categorised, take stock of what you have and what kind of storage would suit. For your Junk Drawer, it may be a cutlery tray that suits this purpose. Make sure the storage solution you choose is accessible and functional, otherwise it will just end up making your life harder.
Routine and up-keep
I always say home organisation is like fitness. It’s a day-by-day, week-by-week situation. You can’t expect to go to the gym for a few months, feel fit and healthy and then stop working out and eating well while staying just as fit and feeling just as good.
One doesn’t come without the other. The same goes for organisation, you need to build little practices into your everyday routines in order to keep up the habit, which brings me to my next point…
AM and PM routine
My non-negotiables. My AM and PM routines. When I don’t do these, my life goes to absolute shambles.
As soon as we wake up, we are running on other people’s agendas; get the kids ready for school, make lunches, pack their bags, go to work, answer emails, shop for dinner. As soon as that sun is in the sky, the demands of the world now have you at its command. So, you need systems in place (that work for you!) to help stay on top of it all.
In the AM and PM, I generally set a timer for about 15 minutes to do the below.
- Whip-around so the mess doesn’t accumulate to unmanageable proportions over the day. This means picking up toys, decluttering tables and other surfaces where stuff accumulates, putting away clothes, shoes and bags, etc.
- Make beds (it really helps set the tone for the day, and it’s so nice getting into a fresh bed at night).
- Unpack/reload the dishwasher and wipe down benches (after breakfast and after dinner).
- A load of laundry (if I’m really on the ball I load the machine and set a timer the night before so it’s ready to be hung out/put in the dryer in the morning).
- Spot vacuum and/ or mop.
This process will eventually become a habit and, before you know it, your space (and mind!) will remain calm, serene and be a happier, more organised place to be!
For more life hacks, advice and inspiration, follow Steph Pase on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, listen to her podcast Stephing Up on Apple or Spotify, or visit justanothermummyblog.com.
