We’ve all been there. In fact, some of us actually just live in the chaos every day and never escape it. But what is a chaotic life? What does it actually look like? Well, it could look a bit like this:

• Messy home
• Overloaded brain
• Constant guilt
• Never feeling ‘caught up’
• Always feeling disorganised
• Always running late

Look, no matter what you may see online or what you may perceive from the people around you, not everyone has it all together, all the time. Some chaos is normal and can fluctuate based on life transitions. Like when work gets busy, relationships are going through a rough patch, or when your children are having a bit of a demanding phase. It’s all normal and part of the circle of life. But the good news is, no matter what you’re going through right now, you can start to grab the wheel. You’re not lazy, or broken, or bad at life. You just need some guidance. And that’s exactly what you’re going to get here.

And please understand, this is not a rigid structure with an aesthetic colour-coded system. This is about providing you with stability which is flexible enough to bend to your ever-changing life, not about changing it completely beyond recognition.

In this post, we will go through mental and physical chaos and how to manage your time and habits. We will do this through a six-step system:

1. Stabilising Your Mind
2. Shrinking the Problem
3. Creating External Systems
4. Resetting Your Time
5. Reducing the Load, Not Perfecting It
6. Building Maintenance Systems

Step One: Stabilising Your Mind First

As much as you may feel that you just need to get things done, you absolutely cannot do anything well while your mind is all over the place. 

Have you ever noticed that when you try to do an easy household task while you’re angry, upset, or moody, it just always goes wrong? You drop things, things don’t work, you forget steps… it never ends well. Think about when your mood is good, and you perform the same task. Somehow, you can sleepwalk through it without a hitch. 

The same goes here. You cannot expect to complete anything well whilst your mind isn’t in the right place. 

How Do You Stabilise Your Mind?

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional, qualified therapist, or psychiatrist. If you’re in need of deeper assistance, please seek the help of a qualified professional. 

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, chaotic, or unorganised, your brain may block decision-making because you’ve likely entered fight or flight in your mind. There’s a clear difference between being disorganised and overstimulated, so here are some simple grounding practices you can try:

Brain Dump 

Either using pen and paper, or even your good old trusty notes app on your phone, write down everything that is bothering you, making you stressed, or just floating around your head in general. Pay special attention and make a note of those things that feel heavy or loud in your head. They’re likely your priorities and the things you need to think about first.

Meditate or Go For a Walk 

You don’t need to put gong music on or sit cross-legged on the floor (I mean, you can if you want!), But the idea is to give yourself some clarity away from your disorganisation to think. This doesn’t have to be for long. 5-10 minutes with your eyes shut, or 15 minutes walking around the block, might give you that little bit of a breather that your brain needs.

Have a Reset 

Sometimes simply ‘starting the day again’ can be all it takes to put you in a better headspace. Take a shower, put on an outfit that is comfortable, but makes you feel good, do your hair and makeup if you wear it, and start the day again, even if it’s 8pm. This takes 15 minutes and can completely change your motivation levels and make you feel ready to take on your tasks. 

Step Two: Shrink the Problem (Stop Trying to Fix Everything)

Sometimes, chaos can feel overwhelming because the problems feel infinite. It’s like a never-ending series of things that need fixing.

If you are telling yourself you need to get everything organised, you’re making the problem too big and the solution too vague. So shrink the problem instead. 

There is power in choosing one ‘zone’ or one area of life to organise. This might be a physical room, a chore that needs automating, or a routine that needs rethinking. 

Focusing on your biggest win first might give you a huge boost, but it can also be really overwhelming to start. So instead, work on a small win. Is there a drawer in your kitchen that just frustrates you every time you open it? Start there. Small, quick wins build up the reward system in our brains much quicker and spur us on to achieve bigger goals. Once you’ve conquered the drawer, you might decide that your next problem to fix is your laundry, and then your living room, and so on. 

Treating these as individual zones and problems to fix means you can conquer them one at a time, rather than worrying about them all at once. And this momentum of completing one zone at a time will build your confidence. 

Step Three: Create External Systems (Not More Mental Load)

One reason why a lot of people’s organisation ‘systems’ fail is that they’re all kept in their heads. 

When you’re relying on memory or motivation, it can be very hard to remember every little thing you need to do. And when you don’t know what you need to do, or don’t know where to start, it can be very difficult to find the motivation for it. 

What you need to do instead is create a visible system that helps you keep notes of all the tasks, dates, and responsibilities you have. And, yes, the word ‘system’ is singular, not plural. You do not want to have multiple trackers, planners and to-do lists clouding your brain. 

That’s the big danger of too many planning tools. They could all work perfectly, and in fact, with a lot of planning tools and systems, it’s not the system that fails; it’s our ability to remember to use it. The best planning tool out there is not the fanciest one; it’s the one you’re going to stick to.

There are many different systems you could use, and I have plenty of guides and articles on this site explaining what they are and what they do, but ultimately, you just need to decide if it’s paper or digital that works best for you, create a basic system that works, keep it visible, and stick to it.

Enjoying this post? You might also like:

• How to Organise Your Entire Life Using Just One Notebook

Step Four: Reset Your Time (Without a Perfect Routine)

One of the key things that fuels chaos in your life is time chaos. And what I mean by this is not having a grip on what you need to do and when. 

One of the key reasons that a lot of people fail to get their lives in order is that they have no concept of time or how to stick to a schedule. 

The challenge here is that when people notice this failure in their lives, they try to get it in order by creating a strict routine for themselves. But this isn’t about a military schedule. It’s too difficult to stick to, and then you’ll likely just not stick to that routine either. Then you’re back to square one. This is about creating rhythms in your life, not routines. 

It’s also important that you have an understanding of how long the basic things in your life take to do. The things that you do every day. How long does getting ready in the morning take you? How long does making and eating breakfast take? How long typically does dinner take to make?

You can’t plan everything, but if you have a handle on genuinely how long the staple things in your life take to perform, you’ll have better control of your day.

Think of it this way: your days will look roughly the same. You’ll likely have a very similar morning routine Monday-Friday, and then the weekends could look a little different. 

Break your days into zones – morning zone, lunchtime zone, afternoon zone, evening zone, and set a priority or a little routine you need to perform in that time. No massive time constraints… we’re not saying at 7:05am exactly, you need to switch the kettle on. This is more about creating a rhythm to your time and not overloading specific ‘zones’. If you have 5 priorities for the day, by splitting your day into zones, you don’t have to cram all of your priorities into the morning zone. You can spread them out across morning, lunchtime, afternoon, and evening. Now the day feels less stressful, and you’re more likely to stick to your priorities because they’re not slipping through the day. They’re scheduled for different times. 

You can also use time blocking – I’ve written an article on that here. 

Step Five: Reduce the Load, Don’t Perfect It

When people want to improve their organisation, they typically add more to their plate to make themselves feel and look more put together. But the opposite usually happens. 

Instead of adding more tasks to track, start removing them. The less you have to manage, the less chaos there is. And this doesn’t just apply to mental tasks; these also include physical items and tasks. 

Often, clutter, both mental and physical, can create decision fatigue. You literally have too much stuff around you, or in your head, to allow you to make a quick decision. 

Emotional Clutter vs Physical Clutter

Physical clutter is made up of tangible things, like the mess around you, laundry or washing up that needs to be done. Emotional clutter is much different. It’s intangible baggage, such as unresolved feelings, unfinished tasks, negative beliefs or past arguments that cloud your mind, draining your energy and causing stress. Of course, physical clutter is visible, whilst emotional clutter builds up internally without anyone noticing. Both of these things hinder clear thinking. 

Reducing both your emotional clutter and your physical clutter is going to help you get organised when life feels chaotic. 

Letting Go of Your Fantasy Self

One way you could reduce physical clutter is by letting go of ‘fantasy self’ items. These are things you bought or created when you were trying to be someone different. They’re unfinished hobbies that never took off. Your fantasy self wanted to be a better cook, so you bought lots of cookbooks and fancy kitchen appliances that are all gathering dust. Or all the nail art stuff you bought because you wanted to learn how to do your own nails, but you still make trips to the nail bar every other week instead. 

If you know you’re not going to use something, and you never have, then it might be time to part ways with it. 

But bear in mind here, you don’t have to suddenly become a minimalist. This isn’t about getting rid of all of your stuff; it’s just about getting rid of stuff you don’t need. 

The less you have, the less there is to worry about. Your space will also feel tidier, and you know what they say, tidy space, tidy mind!

Step Six: Build Maintenance Systems Into Your Life

Being organised isn’t about doing something once, and then it staying the same forevermore. You will never be ‘done’ when it comes to organisation. Life happens, things fall apart (which is totally normal!), and things change. Being organised is about keeping the backbone of your life in some semblance of order so that when life does happen, you have the capacity to deal with it, without worrying that the laundry is building up!

Try to install some micro-resets into your life which help maintain the basics. 

Some good micro-resets to build into your week are:

• The 10-minute nightly ‘close down’ of the house
• The 15-minute post-dinner clean down of the kitchen
• The 90-minute weekly house clean
• The twice-per-week laundry run

Out of the 168 hours you have available in the week, these things take 5 hours total, (or on average, under 45 minutes per day), and they will ensure that the basics of your life are in order so that you can worry about dealing with life as it happens to you.

Common Mistakes That Keep You Stuck

We’re not sugarcoating things here. The main thing that is going to keep you exactly where you are is the lack of trust in yourself. You may be at a stage right now where you are starting again every week because your plans never stick. And because they never stick, you never believe they’ll stick, so they continue not sticking. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The reason you lose trust in yourself is because you go all in. You buy all the planners, but don’t end up using them because they feel too overwhelming, or you try to wait for motivation to take hold (spoiler, it never comes), or you go ‘all in’ trying to fix your problems, only for them to keep cropping up because you haven’t built a maintenance system. 

But the worst thing you can do is to shame yourself for slipping. This isn’t about beating yourself up; it’s just about finding a rhythm that works for you, fits with your life, and is easy for you to stick to.

What To Do When Life Gets Chaotic Again

Listen, chaos will return. Life is unpredictable, and even if you have the most perfect system in the world, there will come a time when something upsets it and throws you off balance. 

Learning the early warning signs is one of the key things you can do. You know yourself better than anyone, and you know what normal looks like. Is the laundry pile a few garments too high? Is the dining table starting to get stacked with bits and bobs that don’t belong there? Are you starting to find it a bit harder to fall asleep at night? Whatever doesn’t feel right to you means that things might be slipping. Knowing these signs is a great thing, because it means you can address them before they become full-blown chaos. 

Try to pre-empt these issues before they come by keeping a reset checklist in your phone notes app, or on your fridge. What needs to be in order for you to feel organised? What 5 quick tasks can you do right now which you know will calm the storm? Keeping something like this to hand will help you feel in control of your life, rather than letting life take hold of you. And remember, it’s normal for things to slip sometimes, so make sure you show yourself some compassion and care all the while. 

Conclusion: Organisation as Safety, Not Productivity

Getting organised when life feels chaotic isn’t about a tight schedule with no flexibility. It’s not about being productive all the time, either. It’s about feeling safe, calm and capable. It’s about allowing yourself headspace and encouraging progress over perfection. Starting small in this instance is genuinely the way to go and will likely ensure a better result over time, and something you’re able to stick to long-term, rather than a quick fix now. 

Bookmark this post any time you need to come back to some safe, calm advice.  

Want to feel even more organised? Check out this aesthetic, minimalist printable planner.