Home Organising Projects to Tackle This Autumn

In this episode of The Simple Joy Show, I discuss how to prepare your home for the cosy embrace of autumn with my top organising projects.

From wardrobe refreshes and pantry overhauls to setting up a crafty corner, this episode offers practical tips to declutter and reorganise. 

Dive in and discover how to make your space autumn-ready, ensuring functionality and warmth as the leaves begin to fall.

USEFUL LINKS:

How to Get Started Decluttering When Overwhelmed PDF: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/overwhelmed

30 Day Decluttering Challenge: https://hub.simplejoy.co.uk/challenge

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Transcript

Hayley Forster [00:00:00]:

Hello, and welcome back to the Simple Joy Show. I don’t know about you, but I’m really starting to feel the seasons change here in the UK. And when that starts to happen, the days get shorter, the leaves are starting to fall, I start to feel as though it’s a really good Time to prepare myself for those cosy seasons, all the festive activities that are coming up. So today, I’m gonna dive into some decluttering and organizing projects that you can get started with before the the pumpkin spice starts taking over.

Hayley Forster [00:02:34]:

One of the things that I have been focusing on over the past couple of weeks, is getting our home autumn ready. Getting areas of our house organized, things put away, bring some things out, and just get ourselves ready for the months ahead.

Hayley Forster [00:03:36]:

And that’s what I want to cover with you today. So I’m gonna go through some little mini decluttering challenges that you can focus on for the next few weeks to get yourself and your home prepped and ready for the months ahead. So the first one to dive into, and it’s probably one of my favorites to do because you usually hear some horror stories about things that have been found. But, it’s your fridge, your freezer, and your pantry area. And I don’t know about you, but when it comes to feeling organised and in control when I’m in my home. If I’ve got the food situation under control, I know what I’ve got. I know that I’ve got a good amount of meals in there for the family. I feel as though I’ve got some semblance of sanity, and that really helps towards just feeling really calm and contented.

Hayley Forster [00:04:28]:

So take the opportunity now to go through, purge anything out of your cupboards, your your freezer, your fridge that’s expired, And get all of your drawers tidy, your cabinets tidy, and just essentially see what food you’ve got on hand. As I say, get rid of all of the things that that are expired past the best, and you’ll be left with the things that you’re able to to use moving forward. And that will really help you find not only what you’re gonna need in the future more quickly, but you’re also not letting food go to waste. Since you know what you’ve got, you know what you need to use up before it goes bad, and that ultimately is gonna save you money as well. But this time of year is a great time to do this because I don’t know about you, but I’ve got young kids. They love baking.

Hayley Forster [00:05:31]:

Usually during the festive period, we end up, cooking a lot more. We’ve got a lot more food coming into the house. So it’s great just to be able to have clearer cupboards, especially the baking cupboard. As I say, my eldest daughter loves baking a cake. So having a good purge of the ingredients in that and and knowing what we’ve got, what we need to buy moving forward is a massive help. The months of October, November, December, January, February for us, there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of events. There’s a lot of birthdays as well.

Hayley Forster [00:06:03]:

So there’s gonna be a lot of influx of food items and just having those clear spaces makes it so much easier. So that’s a great area to start with. Even if you just pick 1 cupboard or just 1 shelf of your fridge to start with, it’s gonna make an impact. Another area you can look at is if you’ve got an office or a desk space at home, even if it’s a small area of the kitchen table, then you’re gonna know that this area of your home can really get out of control quite easily. So now is a great time for you to get a handle on the paperwork that’s built up, and start creating a more clean and simplified area that you’re able to work on. And that’s really gonna help you stay organised and be much more productive over these next few busy months. Another good little project is your wardrobe. So the sunny weather is fading if you are

Hayley Forster [00:07:03]:

anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. So now is a really good time for you to start thinking about maybe storing away some of your summer outfits, your summer shoes. So I’d really recommend sorting through your summer clothing. Decide what you’re going to keep in storage, things that you’re going to donate or anything that you’re going to discard. And then just refresh your wardrobe by pulling out any jumpers or warmer items that you’ve had stored away over the summer months and get those winter boots out as well. And it it’s not just about getting rid of things out of your wardrobe and putting things away. It’s also about pulling those things out as well, isn’t it? It’s about rediscovering your wardrobe in a way and finding all of those nice cozy items that you forgot you had. And I don’t know about you, but I love getting out my cozy pyjamas and my cozy jumpers and snuggle hoodies and things like that, and just getting under a blanket once it starts getting that little bit cooler.

Hayley Forster [00:08:05]:

So I love getting, my cosy items out again. Another item on the list is your craft supplies. We’ve got a little craft trolley at our house, and usually it starts to get used a lot more over the next few months. We spend more time indoors. The weather’s not so great. We might not be able to go out as much as we want with the dogs. So crafting actually becomes a really nice project for us to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon. So now is a great time for you to get out your craft supplies, to cut out what you no longer need, anything that’s dried up, Any paints or glues or things like that.

Hayley Forster [00:08:45]:

And it’s a great way to work out what you’ve got and perhaps what you might need to do some crafting projects over the festive period. My girls love making things over autumn and winter for gifts and things like that. So It’s good knowing what you’ve got, what you need, and being able to get everything ready in advance. And again, you can be prepared and organized and not be rushing around last minute thinking, “oh, I need to buy this. I forgot this. Oh, I thought I had this, but no, I don’t.” And yeah, it can get a little bit chaotic.

Hayley Forster [00:09:16]:

So just being prepared and organized, knowing what craft items you’ve got, what you need to get so you can get them well in advance makes a massive difference. And the last area I want to touch on is your outdoor wear. So your coats, your shoes, anything like that. So we’ve got a cupboard in our entryway, and in there we’ve got all of our coats. And it’s quite a small cupboard, so I choose them to be seasonal coats. So aummer coats go up in winter into the wardrobe upstairs and vice versa. We also keep our shoes and our hats, scarves, gloves, sunglasses, things like that. Again, depending on the seasons.

Hayley Forster [00:09:57]:

So wherever you store your outdoor items, it’s good to have a good look through there, good purge, remove any seasonal items, get those summer thinner jackets back in the wardrobes, make more space for those warmer, bulkier coats that we’re all gonna need over the next few months. Get your summer hats and your sunglasses out the way. Make some space for the woolly hats and the scarfs and the gloves, and any bigger footwear items as well, such as, wellies. All of these Winter outdoor items tend to be quite bulky. So anything that you can move out that is seasonal, that is from the summer, and to make way for these things is just gonna make it so much easier to maintain that cupboard space or racks or wherever you keep your items. So those are the decluttering tasks that you can do over the next few weeks to get yourself ready for the new season. I will just give you a little recap.

Hayley Forster [00:10:59]:

So the first one was your food items or things in your fridge, your freezer, your pantry. Get rid of anything that’s old, that’s expired, that you don’t use anymore and make space for all of the food items that are gonna be coming in as you’re baking up a storm over the festive period. The second 1 was your desk or office space. Just get yourself all organized with your paperwork. It’s coming up to a busy period, so being as organized and having a simplified workspace will really make a difference. The third one was transition your wardrobe. So put away those sundresses and flip flops and get out those big cozy jumpers and your slippers. The next one was create yourself a little craft station, get all your craft supplies out.

Hayley Forster [00:11:44]:

Eliminate all the ones that are no longer good, and get all that fresh stuff out so you’re ready to to craft up a storm over the festive period. And the last 1 is your winter outdoor wear. Again, same with the wardrobe. Do a bit of a transition and make way for those bigger, bulkier items. Now just give you one last little tip, whether you’ve got kids in school or not, autumn just really feels like a bit of a fresh start to me. A lot of people call it the 2nd new year, and it’s just a chance for you to really get back on track with with good habits and routines and and try to make the autumn and winter period much more calm and intentional. And one of my favorite ways to to reset, I suppose, is to just do a purge of everything that you no longer use or need. So just take a few extra minutes to just go through your drawers, your cupboards, and anything that’s been kind of niggling you over the past few months that you’ve been wanting to take to the charity shop. Grab them, put them in a bag, put them in a box, and take them.

Hayley Forster [00:12:49]:

Donate them or just sell them on Facebook, Ebay, anything like that, and that’s just gonna help you make you feel that little bit lighter, clear your mind a little bit more before going into the busier season. So if there’s any little tasks outstanding such as that, just get those ticked off your list. If you are wanting to do more of a bigger overhaul of your home before the festive period, I have just released my 30 day decluttering challenge. It is a free mini course that I’ve put together. It’s a collection of videos from a 30 day challenge and each and every single day, you get a 5-10 minute video that you can watch that will give you a decluttering challenge for that day. Each of the decluttering challenges are designed to be be small, be mini, and not overwhelming. So they’ll take you maybe about 15-20 minutes to do.

Hayley Forster [00:13:48]:

And by the end of 30 days, you really notice a massive difference in your home. It focuses on lots of different areas, including some of the ones that I’ve covered here today. So if you’re interested in signing up to that free course, I will drop the link in the show notes so you can sign up to that and get started immediately. And by the end of October, you’ll be ready and raring to go for those busy few months ahead. So that’s it for today’s episode. Organizing your home in preparation for autumn can really make the transition so much smoother and more enjoyable for you and the whole family. So these are the projects that I’ve given you today. You’re not just gonna declutter your space, but you are really setting the stage for a really cozy and organized season. And I don’t know about you, but I love a cozy and organized season at any time of the year, but during autumn and winter just makes it all the better.