New Year, New You: De-clutter your Life

New Year, New You: De-clutter your Life

At the start of each New Year most individuals make resolutions in an effort to insert change in their lives. Most popular are changes into a person’s eating habits and fitness routines. Often neglected are changes into ones environment, aka the home. Setting up your environment for success is just as important as an individual’s health and fitness goals. According to a recent article by Jura Koncius, Home Designer and writer for the Washington Post, de-cluttering your home “can be even tougher to begin and sustain than going paleo or vegan.” Below are a few tips recommended to help de-clutter your life, and set up your environment for success.

• Set Goals: Be as specific and intentional with the changes you want to make. Put them in writing and schedule them into your calendar. If you carve out the time to tackle these set goals, you have a way to keep yourself accountable.
• Make your Goals small and manageable: As with any resolution or goal (most noticeably with fitness), if you make a goal too grand, it can be unattainable. If you start small, say with tackling your junk drawer or clearing the kitchen counters, it will give you a sense of accomplishment that you checked one project off the list. Each small task completed is a victory and will lead to more confidence in tackling the next task.
• Sort as you go: From personal experience, this is where you need to be ruthless. Take four separate containers (trash bags, cardboard boxes, anything) and label them “Trash,” “Storage,” “Sell,” “Donate.”  Start in one area first (could be a closet, media unit, or your kitchen), and sort items from this area into their respective piles. When sorting through items, put items into each container that you haven’t used/worn/watched/read in 6 months to a year.  I know this is hard, but if it’s not being used, it’s taking up valuable space in your home or apartment. Make sure and schedule a charity pick up for items that can be donated, and sell, trash or store the remaining items as quickly as possible. You will feel better just being able to see the extra space in your home, as well as know you’ve cleared your home of items that don’t serve your current lifestyle.

At the end of the day, the important part is to remember your goals and objectives. Accomplishing something positive in one area of your life often breeds success in other areas of your life. Here’s to a Happy New Year and continued success in the future!