Staying organised routines
Why does my home keep getting so disorganised and cluttered? Why can’t I keep it organised once I do tidy up?
Lets talk routines and how integrating some small organising tips can help you stay organised at home.
Some of you may have read my recent Instagram post on routines and my belief that we succeed most in those areas where we create and prioritise routines into daily life. As an example, I always wanted to incorporate yoga and some form of stretching into my daily life but at the same time, I never created achievable routines to fit in my day, so once my sons asleep I’d think ‘oh yeh I should do some yoga or stretches’ but I was too tired and would always choose TV or a bath. The trouble wasn’t really in how much time I had each day, but more in how I prioritise and make routines. (I now fit in 10 mins of pilates every morning after changing up my routine a bit.
So, how do you make routines to help keep your home (and life) more organised and simple? Well, there’s not one answer that fits all, as our lives and circumstances are all so different, and what works for me, doesn’t necessarily suit one of my clients or you.
But, the good news is, there are ways that you can start to make small changes, integrate some new routines to suit your schedule and stay more organised.
Have a place for everything. Sounds obvious enough, but if there’s no designated place to store post/ school homework/ keys and wallets, then as often as you tidy, new clutter piles will arrive and soon become disorganised piles of ‘random stuff’. I’m sure you all know what I mean. There are key hooks for hallways, wall baskets to hold post, file dividers to put kids books or homework straight into. Find the right solution for your ‘stuff with no place’, and start to create a routine of putting these items in their set place as soon as they enter the house!
Declutter. The first step has to be done initially, but once everything has a place, then be aware of these baskets or shelves or file holders becoming full. Make it a weekly/ monthly routine to just check in on the areas which become too cluttered and declutter them. If there’s a basket for toy cars, (great, they have their own place) but its starting to overflow, then no new toy cars can come in unless you and your child decide which ones to let go of. Every month or so, I go through toy baskets (not just if they are too full) to sort through and see what is no longer played with/ broken/ missing parts and let them go.
Check you have enough storage, or the right storage for your needs. If you are trying to stay organised and tidying up but things are still disorganised, then you may not have the best storage furniture for what you need. For example, a small set of drawers in the lounge houses some kids toys, tv remotes, random wires and batteries, and paperwork. Theoretically everything has a place and nothing is overflowing. But only half the toys that are played with downstairs fit in that drawer, and the other half are upstairs, making it harder to stay organised and creating more work for yourself going up and down stairs. The paperwork in a drawer, if loose, is really hard to keep organised as all gets piled on top of each other, and so on. This example isn’t the best use of storage. In the UK, many of us are working with small spaces, and you may think you can’t fit different furniture in, but there are so many storage solutions out there including many wall hung solutions, tall/ narrow/ wide units, baskets, and so on.
Try to understand your relationship with possessions. This is a big one. If we are harbouring too much stuff for the size of our home, then it’s never going to be easy to stay organised with everything at home. A lot of ‘excess stuff’ that clutters our homes are items we are very unlikely to use, or very rarely use. Why do we hang onto it? Because it’s useful? Everything is useful to some degree, but it’s not healthy to keep more than we need, for a ‘just in case’ or ‘it may be useful one day’. I bet keeping that charger for that phone you no longer have will never really be that needed. And if one day it was, then you can just buy or borrow another one. Outside of sentimental possessions (which is a slightly different category), try to implement a new routine of not hanging onto anything that isn’t needed or useful right now (or in the near future). Next time something enters your home that you think may be useful one day but really isn’t needed now, give it away, just let it go to charity or a friend who can make use of it immediately.
Schedule some routines into your week or month. Put it in your diary that once a month on a Saturday (edit to best time for you), you will go through and declutter that hallway drawer and kids toys. Don’t over schedule for too much in one go. Small and more often is much more achievable. I go through things like winter hats and gloves once a year when they first come back out. Kids clothes every few months or so as they grow out of items and socks get worn through. I schedule in a bigger declutter session before kids birthdays or Christmas.
Lastly, if you’re not already doing this, I highly recommend buying cleaning products in bulk and only buying the essential items. I buy a really large washing powder, a 5l bulk washing conditioner, a 5l tub of vinegar for making all my cleaning sprays, a large packet of bicarb of soda, multi packs of eco cleaning sponges, 2l liquid soaps. Keeping all my refills under the kitchen sink means that I am not overbuying products unnecessarily, I don’t have a cluttered cupboard of loads of cleaning products to sort through and importantly I save on the amount of plastic usage and rubbish I’m creating. Better for the planet, saving time for you and very easy routine to keep to, just topping up soap or washing liquid dispensers as they run low.
I really hope that some of these tips to create into routines are useful in staying organised at home. There are many many more ways, but start small, just implement one or two things and dont get overwhelmed trying to do it all at once.
I am here to help if it feels too much to do alone. I offer a completely non judgemental and practical approach to helping you live a more simplified and stylish life at home.
