When it comes to cleaning, organising and decluttering, a lot of us make silly mistakes. That's not just coming from me – I’ve been chatting with professional organisers and they told me that time and time again they see their clients making the same wasteful mistakes and bad habits.
These pet peeves really get under the pros’ skin, in part because they waste so much space and make homes feel cluttered and chaotic, but also because these mistakes or habits are often avoidable.
From well-intentioned storage units to guilty clutter and the dreaded ‘unfinished list’, these are the pet peeves pro organisers have and the most effective ways to fix them.
Professional organisers’ biggest decluttering pet peeves
Moving clutter around rather than actually dealing with it
One of the most common things Emma Kenwrick-Meehan from Home Nip & Tuck sees when working with her clients, is how people will simply move things from one surface to another in hopes that it will make the room look tidier. ‘I regularly work with clients whose hallways have become a dumping ground,’ shares Emma, a clutter hot spot I'm sure many of us are guilty of. ‘Every time they tidied it, they would move the bags, post and miscellaneous items somewhere else in the house because none of them had a proper home.’
Her solution to this clutter musical chairs? Adjusting your intentions with a space. ‘We eventually stopped trying to make the hallway look tidy and worked out what needed to live there. Giving those everyday items a designated place made a much bigger difference than repeatedly clearing the space.’
Buying storage before deciding what actually needs to stay
‘It’s very easy to assume that the answer to a cluttered cupboard is another basket, box or organiser. But storage can simply make it easier to keep things you don’t actually need,’ says Emma. All too regularly, people seem to think ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is a great motto when it comes to decluttering, it’s not.
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‘I often see people trying to organise a cupboard by buying containers first, only to discover that they are carefully organising things they don’t use. I always recommend deciding what genuinely needs to stay before buying anything. Otherwise, you can end up spending money creating a more organised version of the same problem.’
Keeping gifts out of guilt
Jo Jacob, professional organiser behind Benella Home Organisation, and I share a decluttering pet peeve: keeping something cluttering your home purely out of guilt. ‘So many clients hang on to gifts they don't even like because they're worried the person who gave it will visit and notice it's gone,’ says Jo.
Jo recalls a time where she worked with a couple who had a hideous fruit bowl, an item that they both hated but was gifted by the husband's mother, so they felt they couldn't get rid of it. Instead, they stored it away and quickly put it out whenever she visited. Stressful, wasteful and distasteful.
‘My suggestion was to repurpose it, so it could earn its keep somewhere rather than sit there being resented – bird bath was the popular solution,’ said Jo. Repurposing and reusing items to find a way where they do fit into homes is a great way to keep all parties happy. Equally, honesty is the best policy. If a gift really does not belong in your home, it need not stay there.
Trying to declutter the whole house in one go
Sometimes, going in guns blazing with a list of jobs you want to tackle all in one day can be just as annoying and counterproductive to pro organisers as not decluttering at all.
‘A lot of people wait until they have a completely free weekend and then attempt a huge declutter. It sounds productive but it can quickly become overwhelming, particularly if you’re already exhausted by the state of your home.’
Instead, she suggests starting with one small, visible area as a much more effective approach. ‘Clearing one surface or one drawer gives you an immediate sense of progress without creating a house full of half-finished piles. Small changes are much easier to maintain than a huge reset that leaves you exhausted.’
Keeping mystery cables and chargers
No matter what kind of decluttering article I write, this category of clutter never fails to rear its ugly head, and Jo agrees. ‘Every home has one – the drawer of chargers for phones that no longer exist, cables nobody can identify and a box of keys with no idea what they open. All kept "just in case."’
Jo’s rule is simple. If you don't know what it's for, and you haven't used it in all the time you've lived in the house, recycle it or bin it.
Organising things according to where they ‘should’ live rather than where they are actually used
‘Another habit I see a lot is putting things away according to an ideal system rather than how the household actually functions,’ says Emma. ‘For example, something might technically belong in a cupboard across the room, but if it’s used several times a day, everyone will continue leaving it on the worktop.’
The solution, Emma suggests, isn’t always to become more disciplined. ‘Sometimes the system is simply creating too much friction. I encourage people to notice where things naturally get left and ask whether the home could accommodate that behaviour rather than constantly fighting it.’ Logic and practicality over aesthetics or expectations will always lead to a more organised and better flowing home.
Keeping unfinished jobs visible because they’re ‘on the list’
‘This is one of the biggest ones for me,’ says Emma. ‘People often leave things out as a reminder because they’re afraid they’ll forget about them. The problem is that the reminder then becomes part of the visual clutter they’re trying to escape.’
Emma says she has seen this be the case with everything from paperwork to broken appliances to DIY jobs that have been sitting around for months. ‘Instead of keeping the reminder physically visible, I suggest making a deliberate decision: do it if it’s genuinely a quick job, schedule it for a specific time or decide that it doesn’t need doing. The important thing is closing the loop rather than allowing it to sit there indefinitely.’
Storing adult children’s belongings in the attic
‘Here it's usually the parents who are sentimental, not the children,’ says Jo, ‘I regularly open up attics full of boxes belonging to grown-up children who, when asked, don't want any of it. School books are the big ones: 12 years' worth, for each child.’ That's a lot of space wasted.
‘If it stays up there for another few decades, it becomes something the children will have to sort out themselves one day. The irony being they didn't even want them in the first place,’ says Jo. Instead, she encourages parents to really thin it down. You can try photographing the items that hold memories rather than keeping the thing itself, and pass on anything others could enjoy. ‘For school books, keep one small box per child of the funny or genuinely meaningful ones, not every exercise book they ever filled. Recycle the rest and enjoy a much clearer attic.’
