Time to start fresh
This is a time of new beginnings and fresh starts. Don’t go into the new year burdened by the unwanted or unnecessary remnants of 2014. Start the new year off with a clean slate. Make a goal to clean one room or closet this month and give at least one box or bag of unwanted items to charity or a thrift store.
Clutter not only can impede your physical use of the room, but it’s also an emotional and mental impediment. Author Mikael Cho says, “physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs yourability to think creatively.” Often it is emotional or mental clutter that keeps us from organizing ourselves physically.
There are lots of tools to help you get a handle on the clutter in your life. I especially like this article that has links to printable worksheets and other organizing tools. Flylady is one of my all-time favorite sites to motivate and help me de-clutter and stay organized.
Don’t make this a big deal
This doesn’t have to be a huge, overwhelming project. Make it something manageable, completed in an hour or two. Pick a room or corner of a room that is just really bugging you. Perhaps this is a room where you can never find what you need, or one that you can’t use as you’d like because there is so much that’s in the way. Sort through everything in the room and divide into three piles: Keep, toss and donate. Keep only those things that you regularly use. Anything that hasn’t been used in a year should go. Donate all items that still have good use. “Good use” means something you would purchase at a thrift store or yard sale. If it’s not in good enough condition for others to get good use from it, then it goes into the toss pile.
Be generous in giving your unwanted items to charity. You are not only doing yourself a favor by clearing out clutter, but you can bless the lives of others. That’s a wonderful way to start off the new year.
Already on it… planning a year of decluttering starting next Monday. It’s more than past time to be out with the old, and all of the mental trauma that it carries, and make room for new blessings. Thanks for the encouragement. 🙂
May you have a happy and blessed New Year!