How to organise your home ahead of the new school year

Most rooms will need a tidy-up after the summer. Sarah Reynolds of Organised Chaos gives us a steer on where to start

Sat, 20 Aug, 2022 - 18:12

Carol O’Callaghan

Remember the American naval officer who extolled the virtues of making your bed every morning? Admiral William H McCraven maintains it starts off your day with a sense of achievement, which will encourage you on to subsequent tasks. And if you have a bad day, you at least come home to a lovely bed.

Developing good habits does more than just keep homes in good order, it seems. They also improve your mindset and mood. But for many of us who reorganised and purged our personal spaces to perfection in lockdown, all the hard work and good moods have unravelled.

Key to being organised permanently according to Sarah Reynolds, professional organiser and founder of Organised Chaos, an Irish company helping households to get sorted once and for all, is time or lack of it.

Sarah Reynolds and her team tackle a messy kitchen. Here's the 'before' look with its untidy cabinets.

“We’re very busy where the kids are home from school or back at school,” she says. “Work, after-school activities, sick parents or a child needing extra attention, mean the house tends to take a hit, or if you’re moving, the house can become cluttered. Clients come to me then.”

But sometimes it’s not so much about clutter and having too much stuff, according to Sarah. “Sometimes it’s simply helping people with time management,” she says, “and creating new systems so when things get messy again, they have the tools and rules in place to sort it with ease.”

Getting started, though, can be the tricky bit, especially the feeling of being overwhelmed when you don’t know where or how to start.

“If we want to be organised, we have to commit to make it happen,” she says. “Write down what you want to do and how long are you going to do it. When we think of decluttering, we think of doing it on a Saturday morning, but what can we do every day?”

With the help of stands and a Lazy Susan, Sarah brings order to the kitchen.

Taking just 15 minutes per evening and having what she calls, “a whip around tidy up”, is her starting point.

“Get a notebook and make your to-do list; not random pieces of paper,” she says. “Every time you put something in it, allocate a time. Even if you don’t get to it, at least it creates an awareness.”

But in a family home it’s a little trickier to get everyone on board with the organisational mindset.

“You need rules and systems for everyone,” she says. “If there’s not a home for things, there’s no expectation of putting things away.”

While it’s well known that developing new habits takes time. Sarah’s advice is to take it easy, room by room.

Can't see what clothes you have in the wardrobe they're stuffed in so tightly? It's the bane of so many households as in this 'before' picture.

“Places will become messy again but the systems in place will make it easier to tackle,” she says. “It’s like starting a fitness programme; it’s hard at first but it gets easier.”

She stresses that initially there is effort required on the part of everyone in the house, but once things are in order the time commitment reduces drastically to maintenance levels.

When it comes to day-to-day organisation, she says, “To have a productive morning, start the night before. What can you do tonight? Get the uniforms ready, lunchboxes, busfares. Have everything lined up at the door.”

She also cites daily habits as key to success. “Make your bed, tidy your clothes, open the post regularly rather than let it stack up in a pile by the door.

This wardrobe 'after' picture shows how Sarah brings order using a colour system, a folding system and handy storage for smaller items.

“Make a game for children,” she adds. “Allocate a colour for storage for each child and have an evening routine so they get used to tidying up. So, if dinner is 7pm, tidying up is at 6.45pm. And when brushing teeth before going to school, make your bed beforehand so you’re incorporating a new habit around something else.”

Even for the messy teenager, Sarah’s sage advice might counter the stress of being locked in conflict. “Pick your battles,” she says. “Just close the door on their rooms during the week, but make it clear they clear up on, say, a Saturday.”

Overall, she says to be mindful of accumulating and storing, not just getting rid of things.

“Storage is just a quick fix when you don’t want to get rid of stuff,” she says. “It’s fun to buy storage, but only when you know exactly what it’s for and where it’s going to go, otherwise it’s just more clutter. The irony of it.”