September is the Month to RESET

Growing up in the northern hemisphere, March signalled the beginning of new life. Daffodils and tulips started popping up in gardens, bunny rabbits could be spotted hopping about in the countryside, Easter eggs were just around the corner and there was a feeling of hope in the air.

Now, after living in the southern hemisphere for yonks, September gives me that same feeling. The smell of jasmine is wafting through our home, the days are getting longer and there’s a definite sense that spring has arrived.

This time of year does something else to us too. We start looking around our homes and thinking, I really need to get organised. Suddenly we notice the cupboard we’ve been avoiding, the paperwork piling up, the garage we can barely get into or the spare room that stopped being a spare room months ago.

There’s often a temptation to launch into the whole organising project and give the space a huge spring clean in an attempt to get it sorted once and for all… But before you start pulling everything out, buying storage or deciding you’re finally going to organise the entire house, I want you to do something else.

Work out what actually needs to change.

Getting organised isn't the same as tidying up

I’ve been a Professional Organiser for more than 20 years and one of the biggest misconceptions I see is that an organised home is simply a tidy home. It isn't.

You can make a room look beautiful and still have systems underneath it that don't work. You can clear the kitchen bench today and find it covered again by Friday. You can spend an entire weekend sorting the wardrobe and still struggle to get dressed every morning.

That’s because organisation is about much more than where things are kept. It’s about how your home supports the way you actually live. Sometimes a home that used to work perfectly well simply doesn't anymore.

Your life may have changed, but did your processes, systems at home change with it?

This is something we often don't notice. Families grow and shrink. Children get older. People start working from home. Parents begin caring for their own parents. Hobbies appear. Jobs change. Energy levels change. Life moves on, but the systems in our homes don't necessarily move with it.

You might still be storing things where they made sense ten years ago. You may have routines built around a version of your family that no longer exists. Or perhaps there was never really a system in the first place. You found somewhere to put something, life got busy and that temporary solution quietly became permanent.

None of this means you can't be organised.

Organisation is a skill, not a personality trait. Skills can be learned.

Start with the problem, not the stuff

If you want to reset your home this September, don't begin by asking:

What can I get rid of?

Instead ask:

What isn't working?

That question gives you somewhere useful to start. Perhaps mornings are chaotic because nobody can find what they need. Maybe paperwork enters the house but doesn't have anywhere to go. Perhaps laundry is constantly sitting in baskets because the problem isn't washing it, it's what happens afterwards. Maybe you have a cupboard full of perfectly useful things, but you can't actually see or reach any of them.

These are different problems, which means they need different solutions. Decluttering may be part of the answer, but it isn't automatically THE answer.

Look for the repeated frustration

One of the easiest ways to identify where your home needs a reset is to notice what repeatedly annoys you.

What are you constantly moving? What are you forever looking for? Where does clutter keep returning? What household task feels far more complicated than it needs to be? What are you relying on your memory to manage?

Repeated frustration is useful information. If the same problem keeps coming back, it doesn't necessarily mean you haven't tried hard enough. It may simply mean the system isn't working. This is a good thing because it means that it is something you can change.

Do not reset the whole house

This is where people can become overwhelmed.

Once you start noticing what isn't working, you may suddenly see twenty things you want to fix. Don't tackle all twenty. Choose one.

If your kitchen bench is driving you mad, start there. But don't simply clear it. Look at what keeps accumulating and work out why. If school bags, handbags and keys are always dumped there, perhaps those things need a better landing place. If paperwork accumulates there, you need a process for incoming paperwork. If items are waiting to be taken somewhere else, perhaps the issue is completing the final step of a task.

The clutter is often showing you where the system is breaking down. That is far more useful than simply making it disappear.

What does your home need from you now?

A reset doesn't mean starting again. It means looking at your home as it is today and making decisions for the life you are living today.

Not the life you had five years ago. Not the beautifully organised house you saw online.

Yours.

So this September, forget the pressure to transform everything. Pick one area of friction. Work out what is really happening. Decide what needs to change. Then take the next step.

Getting organised doesn't begin with having more time, more storage or more motivation.

It begins with understanding the problem you are actually trying to solve.

Sarah Cottman
Heavenly Order
Professional Organiser