Category: Holiday

Reset for Autumn

As the seasons change your priorities change, so your home should too! Now that the holiday season is over, it’s time to reset for Autumn!

One minute you are digging out your summer wardrobe, having picnics in the park and looking forward to getting away from it all, the next thing, the children are back at school, everyone is back to work so days are full-on, mornings are pressured and you spend more time indoors trying to juggle everything (including hungry children, mounds of laundry and keeping up with tidying and cleaning!).

Before it all becomes too overwhelming, now is a great time to reset your home; to declutter the summer paraphernalia and organise key areas of your home so that daily life flows more easily.

In September, I shared tips with Sarah Julian at BBC Radio Nottingham and Kelly Hinch at BBC Radio Leicester. Read my reset tips below and grab my quick Checklist to reset for Autumn!

My Autumn Reset Tips

It’s time to get practical! Your home needs to work for you. Now is the time to remove the excess from your functional spaces and organise them so you can access what you need and keep things tidy with ease.

Go for impact!

Focus on the area(s) that will make a big difference to your day. You use these areas daily, your day will run smoothly if you can access everything you need easily, the state of this space can have a really positive impact on how your mood.

Complete one area before you move to another. It’s difficult to complete an area if you try to multitask (which isn’t a thing by the way – the brain can’t multitask, it just swaps between tasks which it’s not very good at doing). Work on one area, if you find things that need to live elsewhere put them to one side (or in a box) to take to other rooms once you’ve finished.

Reset your Hallway

The hallway is your launchpad. It’s the last place you spend time before you leave your home and the first space you see when you come home. When you create a welcoming and functional space that supports you it will have a big impact on the start and end of your day.

Ensure you have homes for the shoes, coats, bags, and items that you need daily. Hang as much as you can, allocate space for each item and use containers for small items such as keys, tissues, wallets, gloves, glasses etc.

Occasional wear, summer coats, and shoes you only wear every now and again should be packed away or live in wardrobes. This is not the place to leave things that aren’t helpful to your mission of leaving or entering the home smoothly each day.

Reset your Kitchen

The heart of the home, it’s also the place where paperwork, bits and bobs, toys, pet paraphernalia, bags, clothes and all manner of other clutter gravitates to.

You visit this room at least three times a day, and probably much more. You’ll likely want to prepare meals, make drinks, clean, do laundry and many other tasks as easily as possible. You spend a lot of time here. You may also eat family meals and spend time with guests, so you want it to feel inviting.

Your reset for this space will include returning items to their homes, recycling/shredding/filing paperwork, packing away picnic sets, decluttering things you no longer use,

Reset your Wardrobe

You wear clothes everyday. When you have a sea of clothes you no longer wear and seasonal items peppering your wardrobe it can make it so difficult to find what you need.

Imagine how much calmer your mornings would be if you could find what you need easily rather than having to spend time rummaging for items you know you have but can’t find.

Keep the floor-drobe at bay by making it super easy to put things away:

  • Pack up off-season clothes and remove anything no longer fits or doesn’t feel great.
  • Separate clothes into categories such as work, social and occasional items to make it easy to access those items you wear day to day.

Need help to work through your Autumn Reset?

Are you ready to do your Autumn Reset? Download my Quick Reset Checklist to tackle your kitchen, hallway or wardrobe today!

Download my Quick Reset Checklist here

Find out more about my Decluttering and Organising services 

Contact Laura to discuss your organising needs on +44 (0)7970 989955

My top tips for packing for your holiday!

Summer is well and truly here and children up and down the country have broken up for the summer holidays. Hurray I hear you shout!

If you’re going abroad this year, you’re probably thinking about packing very soon. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be trying to take way more than you actually need, because you never know what you’ll need!

Here are my top tips to help maximise your packing:

  1. have a small bag that is your power pack and assign this to someone to be responsible for the entire journey – pack passports, boarding passes, hotel booking print-outs, money, inhalers and essential medicines so that they are available whenever needed. This can be stashed in hand luggage if required as long as its secure
  2. make a list outlining the activities for each day that you are away – now plan outfits for each day (including changes and underwear)
  3. Ensure you have enough suitable outfits for each day and the day you travel home! Take tops and bottoms that you can mix and match and take Travel Wash to freshen them up between wears
  4. Use a roll-up compression bag to reduce the size of items that don’t crease – swim wear, underwear, bulky sweatshirts etc
  5. If you need to take shirts and other smart items in a small carry-on or rucksack – use Shirts Bag to ensure it all remains neat in your bag
  6. Get out the shoes you want to take – take shoes that can go with multiple outfits to avoid needing to take lots
  7. Take a quick drying sports towel for the beach as it takes up less space in your luggage and has the added benefit of drying quickly after each use (great for the last day when you need to pack after the pool!)
  8. Remember you can only take 1 litre of liquids in carry on and they must be in a small plastic bag. Take multi-purpose products if you can – all-in-one shampoo and conditioner or shampoo/bodywash are great examples
  9. Decant your face creams into smaller bottles or jars to fit them into your allocation
  10. Buy compressed deodorants and travel toothpaste as these are in smaller containers
  11. Get a multi-port charger so that you just need to take 1 plug and multiple cables to charge a number of devices
  12. Don’t forget a bag for dirty washing

Whilst we are talking about getting organised, don’t forget to:

  • Dig out EHICs and check they are in date if you are going to Europe
  • Find out your passports and make sure that they are all in date and crucially you can find them!
  • Check-in and print your boarding passes as soon as you can – there is nothing worse than coming to print them the day before to find you’ve run out of printer ink
  • email or save your insurance policy and contacts to your phone so that you have them for reference

About OrganisedWell

Would you like help getting organised?

Laura Williams, Founder and Professional OrganiserIf you need guidance, ideas and practical support to make more of your home, organise your possessions in a way that supports your best life or to get started with your decluttering project, then give me a call.

We provide tailored advice and practical support to clients looking to make changes, to create calm, ordered space and free up time and money to focus on the important things in life. We specialise in organising rooms, garages, wardrobes, paperwork and much more; see our services or get in touch.