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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!

Find out more about my Decluttering and Organising services

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

Laura’s Quick Guide to selling your decluttered things

Have you decluttered your home and put aside lots of items to sell, but just haven’t gotten around to putting them up for sale yet?

These things pile up in the corner, cluttering up your living space or filling your spare bedroom.

Wanting to sell items can become a barrier to removing them from your home and this type of clutter can be so annoying because you’re clear that you no longer want them, but haven’t been able to move them on.

Let’s get you started with my quick guide to selling your decluttered things.

Watch my video and get selling today!

I hope you loved this video! To join my email list where you’ll hear about future blogs, vlogs and updates click here to join for free!

Contact Laura to discuss your decluttering project on +44 (0)7970 989955

Find out more about my Decluttering and Organising services

Six things I learned from my ‘quick declutter’

A regular, quick declutter is the perfect way to keep on top of the clutter that can build up and make it difficult to find the things you need and feel relaxed in your home.

The process of taking a proper look around; acknowledging the things you love and us, and passing on the things you don’t, relieves your home of the weight of clutter.

I’m always learning about decluttering

I snatched a day during the Christmas holidays and roped my family into a ‘quick declutter’ to freshen-up the house. I’ve been doing this professionally for a while, but every day is a school day (as they say). I learned a thing or two and thought you’d like to learn from my own experience!

What did we do?

I planned in some family decluttering time for one of the days during the holidays and convinced my husband and daughter to join me. I put aside 1 hour to do a quick dash around to pick up things from surfaces, shelves, etc that we thought hadn’t been used/enjoyed in a while. Not only did we focused on our own things but also others family members too. (I try to regularly declutter so didn’t think we would find much)!

We put everything on the lounge rug and agreed to review it together to ensure that we were all happy to donate the items we’d gathered.

What was the result of our declutter?

We were really quite thorough and took twice as long to gather up items as we expected. However we found lots to review. I was surprised that we more than filled the lounge rug!

After a short review, it didn’t take long to fill bags and pop it all the car ready to drop off at a charity shop the following day. And a family movie night was a great reward for everyone involved!

What did we learn about decluttering?

Timeframe – We didn’t think it would take long to gather a few bits from about the house but in the end we went deeper. Our hunt included looking inside cupboards, under beds etc. Because we were on holiday, we were able to dedicate a little more time than initially planned. Use a timer or focus on one room to restrict your declutter activity, if you don’t have much time, are worried that you will get carried away or make a mess
Fresh pair of eyes – family members could spot items that they’d not seen the others use/enjoy for a while. This brought a new perspective which was really helpful. If you don’t have someone else available to help, imagine you are a visitor and ask when were items last used
Teamwork – our daughter was easily distracted when she went to look in rooms alone. Consider working as a team in the same room to help keep each focused on the task
Focus on what is enjoyed and used, release what is not. My daughter hadn’t used some things for a while but decided she still loved them. These provided a useful contrast to other items that she no longer needed. It can help you focus on what is important, and also what is not, and can therefore be released, when you take things out to really look at them
Engage everyone in what to do and why we are doing it. You can’t force others get involved, but you can engage them in the benefits they’ll enjoy; space to play or do activities; to store and find things they need; calm relaxing environment. Plan ahead, discuss the benefits, the plan of action and plan something nice as a reward for everyone
It was well worth it! – It was worth dedicating some time and energy. We took the time to check-in with ourselves regarding what was important; decluttered lots of items we no longer needed; supported a local charity shop and improved out home! Don’t put it off!

Are you ready for a quick declutter? Go on, give it a try!

If you’d like any help with decluttering and organising your home, I’m here for you.

Declutter your Towels with this Formula

They could be useful!

Have you experienced this?

You buy a new set intending to replace the old ones, but then end up keeping the old set too!

you might use them in the shed for mucky jobs (though you can’t remember when you last did!): or
in case friend’s children come over to play in the paddling pool in the summer (though they would more than likely bring their own): or perhaps
you can keep them to dry off for pets on rainy days (although you have two or three already); or
you might need towels for something one day

And of course you don’t want them to go to waste.

The problem is, you are keeping far more towels than you really need, they are taking up space in your home and are going to waste – in your cupboards!

Release them, to go on to another life, and free your home of the weight of these things that are no longer useful for you!

If you are struggling to decide what to keep and what should be released, there is a formula that will help you to decide what you really need:

1 hand towel for each person in the household (if they use them);
+ 1 bath towel for each person;
+ hand towels needed for each extra bathroom/cloakroom (if you these)
x 2 to allow for one set to be in the wash cycle while one set is being used
Add the number of guest towels you want to keep for when you have visitors

If you need some help with finding organisations to take your towels and other items you declutter, take a look at my FAQ pages.

Nine Quick Declutter Tasks to Improve Your Wellbeing

Have you ever noticed how a quick declutter feels so good?

I had the pleasure of speaking with Donna Alos on BBC Radio Derby yesterday morning. I shared some ideas to help you get started with some feel-good decluttering activities.

I was only on for a few minutes, so you may not have heard it, but I didn’t want you to miss out.

Whether you refer to it as clutter or not, most of us have a collection of things lying about in an untidy state somewhere in our home. We have an overabundance of possessions, that can create disorder and a chaotic environment.

Have you ever been bothered by clutter?

If you’ve been frustrated at not being able to find the things you need; distracted or unable to relax because the things around you; you’ll know how it can niggle and even cause you stress. It can affect your mood, and how you feel about yourself and your home.

Recent research by my follow APDO colleague, Caroline Rogers, has found that there is an association between clutter and wellbeing. Caroline says that clutter is subjective; how much we have isn’t important, it’s how we feel about it that is.

Declutter to improve your wellbeing Cutlery Drawer example, Before and After

Taking steps to address your clutter can feel great.

You don’t have to have a huge declutter to feel the benefits. Creating order, even a little, can make you feel fantastic and like a weight has been lifted.

Here are some examples of the small tasks to help you feel fabulous.

sort out your cutlery drawer
review your cook books
tidy your underwear drawer
sort the odd cables box
review your DVD collection
sort out your make-up
look through the bathroom cabinet
tidy up your bedside table
sort through desk drawer

And if you have larger tasks to do but they feel a bit overwhelming; break them down into smaller activities; race the boiling kettle; work in 25 minute chunks; sort a drawer, box or shelf at a time; or make a list of the tasks that need to be done and complete the first one.

Do a little each day and it will soon add up, I promise!

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