In any clutter situation, there are many contributing factors. Your challenge may be caused by a combination of :

Personality Factors

• Being organised doesn't necessarily come naturally to you.
• You're quite capable of doing it once you get going, but you don't know where to start.
• You're someone who struggles to work alone. You work so much better when there's someone to talk to.
• You're a creative person who gets bored crazy by all the little details of life. Or you're just not a details person.

Life Changes

• There are just too many changes happening in your life right now, and they're coming too fast for you – or anyone – to handle.
• Your life has changed – again – and suddenly your rooms need to be used in quite different ways.
• A traumatic experience has derailed your life, and you've lost your way.
• Someone died and left you with an extra house-load of appliances, furniture, crockery and linen – and you don't know what to do with it all.

Work Challenges

• You're re-entering the workforce and you need to simplify and streamline your life.
• A new job is taking up all your time and energy, and bits & pieces have piled up everywhere.
• Too much work. You can barely keep up, let alone tidy up. And birthdays and Christmas feel like the last straw.

Family Changes

• You're expecting a baby – and working right up till the last minute.
• A new baby is taking up all your time and energy, and your house looks like a bomb-site.
• Your comparatively easy baby has suddenly become mobile, and you need to toddler-proof your house urgently.
• Your adult children have come back to live with you, and your home is bulging at the seams.
• Your adult children have left home but haven't taken their gear with them.
• Your mother-in-law's coming to stay. You need your junk-room transformed into a guest-room – fast. You need to appear competent and in control.

Moving House

• You're putting your house on the market, but you know it'd sell faster if it looked more spacious.
• You're moving house, and you don't want to take all that stuff to the new place.
• You're downsizing to a smaller home or retirement village, and you need to purge your possessions.
• You need help with the packing before you move.
• You need help with the unpacking after you've moved. You're struggling to find homes for all your things.
• You've just moved house, and gone straight back to work with no time to unpack.

Even for an organised person, just one of these events can be enough to throw your life out of kilter and overwhelm you for a while. And according to Murphy's Law, you may be experiencing several of them at once.