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Sarah Reynolds is a professional organiser and founder of Organised Chaos. Helping people create calm in their homes is something that she loves, and in fact, was a dream since she was young.
“When I was fifteen years old,” Sarah explains, “I was watching the Oprah Winfrey Show with my mam. A professional organiser, Julie Morgenstern, came on the show. She had organised the Oprah offices and was launching her book. I loved organising things so as Oprah would say – I had my ‘ah ha’ moment and thought to myself, ‘I’d love to do that’. Fifteen years later, I took a career break and went to New York to train with Julie Morgenstern. I came home, launched the website and took my first client a few months later!”
Sarah has some favourite tips for the most common problem areas in our homes. For toy rooms, she likes to use open containers for toys, avoiding anything with a lid. “Kids will never put lids back on. With open containers, it’s easy to pop the toy back, thereby increasing the chances they’ll tidy up.”
For hallways and mudrooms, she advises against using hooks for coat storage. “Coats on hooks are often messy and thereby visually noisy. I’d much rather have a wardrobe or rail for coats and hang them up on good wooden hangers instead.”
To keep piles of paper and documents at bay, she recommends creating a “landing spot” near the entrance of your home. “As soon as paper comes in, if you can’t deal with it immediately, pop it into this basket. Keep the basket shallow so that when the paper reaches the top you’re forced to deal with it. In the meantime, whenever you need the documents, you know where they are.”
For wardrobes, she says slimline hangers are a must. “They allow you to keep more on the hanger – good if you find it hard to let go of clothes! But they’ll also grip your clothes well so they’re less likely to fall off the hangers and cause clutter on the wardrobe floor. If you want to instantly makeover your wardrobe, matching slim hangers is the way to go.”
When it comes to kitchen islands, Sarah says that the type of clutter that accumulates there is usually items you would find in a junk drawer. “You either need to create a junk drawer (an organised one!) so that these items have somewhere to go. Or if you already have one and that’s not working either, then declutter that drawer and island at the same time. Study what the usual culprits are that land there and make sure these items have homes. You will probably always have some degree of clutter on an island, so to help, have another landing zone – a pretty basket – and pop items in there. Then once a week give it a clear out.”
If the task seems overwhelming, remember that there are enormous benefits to having a clutter-free home. “The main one,” Sarah says, “is the sense of absolute relief you will feel. Your environment is an extension of yourself and so if you have a calmer outer environment, you will have a calmer inner self. You will also feel a little bit more in control of your life – very important if you’re going through a lot that you can’t control. You will have physical and mental space, and you will save time.”