Chronic Disorganisation Counselling in Melbourne and Online

Chronic disorganisation can make everyday life increasingly difficult to manage. You may be dealing with paperwork that keeps accumulating, unfinished tasks, clutter, missed deadlines, difficulty making decisions, or the sense that ordinary responsibilities take far more effort than they should.

For some people, these difficulties have been present for many years. For others, they become more noticeable during grief, illness, caregiving, ageing, burnout or another major change in life.

I offer chronic disorganisation counselling online across Australia, as well as selected home-visit and walk-and-talk sessions in Melbourne.

What is Chronic Disorganisation?

Chronic disorganisation refers to persistent difficulty organising and managing everyday life. It can affect possessions, paperwork, routines, planning, time, decision-making and follow-through.

It is often associated with ADHD and executive functioning differences, but not always. Sometimes a person has managed reasonably well for years until circumstances change and the systems they relied on no longer work.

You do not need a particular diagnosis or label to seek support.

Explore Specific Areas of Support

Chronic disorganisation can show up in different ways. You may want to explore support that is more specific to what you are experiencing:

• ADHD and Chronic Disorganisation
• Hoarding and Severe Clutter
• Ageing and Changes in Capacity
• Time Management and Productivity Challenges

What It Can Look Like

You might be struggling to:

• keep up with paperwork, bills or administration
• start or finish everyday tasks
• make decisions about possessions
• maintain routines
• manage time or deadlines
• keep on top of household responsibilities
• work out where to begin when everything feels important

Chronic disorganisation can also carry a significant emotional burden. People may feel ashamed, frustrated, exhausted or critical of themselves, particularly after years of being told they simply need to “get organised”.

My Approach

My work brings together counselling and Relational Gestalt Psychotherapy with specialist training in chronic disorganisation.

Alongside my counselling and psychotherapy qualifications, I hold specialist certificates through the Institute for Challenging Disorganization in chronic disorganisation, ADHD, hoarding, ageing, and time management and productivity.

This training helps me look beyond the visible clutter or unfinished tasks and consider what may be affecting a person’s capacity to organise, decide, begin, continue or let go.

Sometimes the work is primarily emotional. We may explore grief, shame, avoidance, self-criticism, overwhelm or attachment to possessions.

Other times, we may look more directly at what is happening in daily life and develop practical ways to reduce the load. Usually, there is some combination of both.

This is Counselling, Not Professional Organising

I do not provide hands-on decluttering, sorting or home organisation through this counselling service.

A professional organiser may work directly with your possessions, systems or physical environment. My role as a counsellor is different. I work with what may be making those tasks difficult in the first place.

That can include emotions and past experiences, but also executive functioning, changing capacity, competing demands, grief, fatigue and the realities of your current life.

If you are looking for practical support to work on your own organising or decluttering projects, I also offer Virtual Professional Organising. This is a separate service provided via Zoom, where I can support you with sorting, decision-making, developing workable systems and progressing a particular organising project.

If you are working with a professional organiser, counselling can also sit alongside that practical support.

What Are We Working Towards?

There is no required standard of tidiness and no fixed program.

The aim is not to turn you into a highly organised person or to impose systems that do not suit you. We look at what is getting in the way, what actually matters to you and what might make everyday life more manageable.

That may mean developing a different way of approaching decisions, reducing shame, finding more workable routines, understanding why particular tasks become stuck, or adjusting expectations when your capacity has changed.

Chronic Disorganisation, ADHD and Hoarding

Chronic disorganisation can overlap with ADHD, executive functioning differences, clutter and hoarding behaviours, but these are not the same thing.

Some people struggle mainly with time, paperwork and follow-through. Others find decisions about possessions particularly difficult. Some experience substantial clutter or difficulty discarding.

We begin with your experience rather than trying to fit you into a category.

NDIS Support

Some NDIS participants may be able to use counselling in this area where chronic disorganisation is related to disability and relevant to their plan goals.

Whether counselling can be funded depends on the participant’s individual plan and plan-management arrangements.

More information is available on my NDIS Counselling page.