Latest / More Organised Less Clutter / 232. Systems to organise your home to tidy faster and clean smarter
Transcript
- Narelle King: Welcome to More Organized, Less Clutter, a podcast to empower individuals and neurodivergent families with practical, realistic tools to create a more organized, sensory-friendly, clutter-free, and intentional home that works with your lifestyle and brain, not against it. I'm Narelle King, a professional organizer and neurodivergent mom who understands the unique challenges of family life. I help people just like you simplify your space build sustainable organisational systems and create more breathing room physically and mentally. Every fortnight, you'll hear solo episodes and guest conversations filled with practical strategies on decluttering, home organisation, routines for neurodivergent families, mindful living and how to build a home that feels safe, calm and functional. You'll walk away with actionable takeaways you can implement even if you only have 10 minutes to spare. change if everything had a home in your house? What if one touch rule became your default, not your goal? Every Sunday, I cleared the bench, the kitchen bench, and by Tuesday, it was back again, like a boomerang. I thought I had a surface problem. Turns out I had a system issue. No landing spot for paperwork, no rule for returning items, no home for some items. So once I added a roundabout to collect items on the bench, a magazine holder for paperwork. a five minute end of day reset for returning items and created a draw for those miscellaneous items like batteries, safety pins, scissors, sticky tape and whiteboard markers, the boomerang bench stopped. Today on More Organized, Clutter, I'm discussing the difference between organizing, tidying and cleaning and how systems can impact all three. Thanks for joining me for today's solar episode where I'll be discussing the difference between systems where things live and how they flow when tidying and surfaces, what you see and how you clean it. When using both systems and surfaces, it makes both the home easier to look after, especially if you're neurodivergent, ADHD and struggle with executive processing. A goal most families have is to set up a simple home system so tidying is faster and cleaning is easier. A system is when there is a home for all items. So your storage might be zoned, you might have labelled containers, you might even have a drop zone or an area where you actually keep specific things like, for example, it might be the swimming bag with all the swimming things, or it could be your paperwork when it comes into the home. Routines are things like your entry landing zone. Maybe it's about the routine of your laundry and how that flows. Or it could be about your dishes and the process that you do for that. And then the third part to a system is rules. So a thing like one touch rule. So you only pick up the item and put it straight away in one spot. without actually having to move anything else or touch anything else. So it goes straight to the spot it needs to go to. Putting like with like. So it could be your stationary things and putting all of those together. Maybe it's your tools. Maybe it's all your baking items that you use. And then setting a limit. What is your limit? Have you got a boundary, which could be a container? It could be a basket. It could be a shelf. Whatever that limit's going to be. that could work in with your system. Now, when it comes to surfaces, these are like your countertops, your tables, your floor, sinks, anything that is visible, that is flat, that you can place things on top of. We want to be able to wipe, clear, sweep, and reset the surfaces. It prevents clutter from piling up and also helps to reduce decisions because you know exactly where things are going or the steps that need to take place. Without systems, tidying just feels endless. So let's look at these three pillars, organize, tidy and clean. And there's a really distinct difference between all three. So organizing is where something is going to live. Whereas tidying is putting things back to where they live or their home. And cleaning is removing the dirt and any other buildup, mold, dust from parts of your home. Now, Organizing should be once and it's like then maintained or it might change, but it's still already organized. So the steps for this is you could do a declutter in micro bursts. like five and 10 minutes, or you could assign a home where the item's going to be used, or it could be make the home obvious. So you might then have a label and click a bin because maybe you don't have space where it's actually used. but you might find somewhere else that's nearby that could be then used as a place for it to be stored. Now tidying generally is a daily reset or could be a weekly reset or the start of a week reset. But this is when we put things back in its home and you could use a song, you could use a timer and this might help with the reset. And so one of the things to help you with that weekly rhythm or four-nightly rhythm might be keeping all your cleaning products together and ready in a caddy, for example, or it could even be having that cleaning product that you use in that particular room. So you might have intentional doubles because it stops you from actually going. And by the time you go back and get the caddy, you've then got distracted. So I know even for myself, I do have extra cleaning in my bathroom because then I'm more likely to do it. These five ADHD neurodivergent friendly systems I find usually stick. Number one is reducing steps. So for example, you could have an open bin, so there's no lid, or it could be hooks instead of a hanger, and it might be trays instead of a drawer. These steps, when you've reduced those steps, might then make it easier for the person to actually put it away. Making it visible is number two. Using clear containers, maybe having labels on a shelf. or even it could be a colour coding system. I also use a visual for some of my families I've worked with. I will take a ⁓ photo of the cupboard so that other people who are maybe using it can see where everything needs to go and put it back in the right spot. Number three is put it where you use it. So for example, tea and coffee items might be near your kettle or in a drawer that's close to the kettle. Chargers, if you use them on the couch or in your bedroom or in the kitchen, having charges nearby where you actually use it. Maybe you have your medicine after breakfast. So being able to have it in somewhere in your kitchen, up high out of little fingers reach, but it's where you actually have it is going to actually help you use it. Number four is setting limits. Like I said before, having a boundary is going to help you with saying, I'm only going to keep this many things. because this is the storage I've given myself. So it could be like one basket per category. For example, you could even have like, I'm only going to have two jackets that stay at the front door and that's like your rule for yourself. And number five is reducing friction. So things like intentional doubles, so duplicating essentials, for example, glasses or scissors, maybe a lint roller and phone chargers are things that you could have multiple of and have them in the spots where you're using them. Whereas if you just have them in the one spot, maybe then you wouldn't use them. They get lost, people move them. So I definitely find intentional doubles work. I know it might be a small price to outlay initially for some of the things, but it definitely seems to be that way of reducing friction. Another one is landing zones. So having like your entry, a bowl for keys or a little hook for your keys on having a magazine holder for any mail that comes in. So that way it is vertical and it means it's not being piled up and then you can't really see what it is. Whereas vertical, it's a lot easier to grab and see what the thing is that you want to get. Having a hook for your bag and your jacket at the landing zone is something else that is going to also help to reduce friction. Micro routine examples that you might use in your home. For example, a hotspot reset. So the hotspots I find in most homes are the entryway, a couch, kitchen bench, or just any surface that has space for people to put things on. So the entry, it might be shoes to the rack, keys to the bowl, magazine holder for mail. Then a reset for your couch might be blanket folded, remote in a tray or a place that is obvious for it to be kept. and mugs to the sink. In your kitchen, it might be empty the bins, dishwasher on, bench clean, ready for the morning. So your reset is at nighttime. And then your surfaces, it could be clean first and then wipes, meaning like put all the items away first and then wipe. Another micro routine that you could use is the five item rule. So this is when you pick any five things and you put them away. And if you have enough energy, you could then do a couple more, but just giving yourself that rule may actually help with the motivation to get started. Another micro routine example is the one touch habit. So only touching it once. So when you open the mail, you recycle it into the bin if it's junk. Otherwise you file it in actions in a magazine holder. Now, as we said before, cleaning. tidying and organising are three different categories. I did touch on it before about cleaning and the different ways that you can do it. These are a couple of examples of the rhythms that you could do. So it might be daily that you put your dishwasher on, you load it, run it, unload in the morning while you're having breakfast. You might do a bathroom wipe. So it might be the sink and the mirror while you're brushing your teeth. It could be then weekly. So it could be floors, or on one day, bathroom is another day, surfaces are the next day. And then you just keep it short, like a 20 or 30 minute cleanup each day instead of all at one time. Another rhythm of cleaning that you could do is carrying a caddy and cleaning by type. So for example, all the sinks and you clean all the sinks. And so it's not by room. ⁓ Especially if your brain prefers momentum, I find that one really works well and you stay on the same task. Then it's like, okay, mirrors are next and you go and do all the mirrors. So they're just a couple of examples of cleaning rhythms that you might find are motivating to use rather than just cleaning from top to toe, from one end of the house to the other, all in one go. Some of the common problems I see in people's homes are over-organizing with really complex systems. And so something that you can do to alleviate this is to reduce the steps and just choose easy home over a perfect one. Another problem I see is hiding everything in a colored black or opaque containers. We can't see what's in it and therefore they don't know what's in it either. And so getting clear containers or labeling it is definitely going to help with your visual memory. Another problem I see is just waiting for that motivation. Using timers, body doubling, or some of these rhythms I've mentioned, these are going to help you get started because the motivation may not come. And at least if you can start with those micro steps, you're going to get something done and maybe then build that momentum once you've started. Another problem I see is the all or nothing cleaning. Like I've shared those micro cleanings, one surface, one sink. One flaw is going to help you get started and just maybe changing it up and having a different rhythm is maybe going to be enough novelty for you to get started. I hope by sharing the difference between organising where it lives, tidying, putting it back and cleaning, removing the dirt helps you then to see where some problems are for you and what's the one system maybe you need to set up. for this week in your home. And think about a surface that drains your energy mode. Is it the kitchen sink? Is it the kitchen bench? Is it the laundry? Is it the kitchen table? And think about how you will set it daily. Thanks for listening to more organised less clutter. Sick of stepping on blocks at bedtime, hunting for doll shoes, puzzle pieces, and spending 20 minutes packing away the same pile of toys every night? Our toy organisation, Four Steps System, will help you cut down on toy clutter, set up zones that spark independent play, and create storage that kids can easily maintain. Let's create a calmer, more organised playroom that makes clean-ups quick and easy and under five minutes. head to simplyhappy.com.au and click on the resources tab to get instant access today. I'd like to acknowledge the Wathaurong people of the Kulin Nation on which this podcast is recorded as the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging.